Chapter 11: Her Own Afternoon

Ysmerelle declined the duke's invitation to spend the next afternoon with him.

She wrote the answer herself and sent no explanation to make the refusal easier.

Virelle found her afterward trying to arrange every book on the sitting room shelf.

"You liked them there yesterday," the companion said.

Ysmerelle put the book back.

"I could have said yes."

"You could still read without rearranging the room."

They took a basket into the small walled garden behind the house.

Ysmerelle had bought ripe pears because she liked them.

She hadn't chosen anything her fiance could eat without help.

The thought made her ashamed before she recognized how little sense it made.

Caerovan wasn't there.

She could have a whole pear.

Virelle spread a cloth over the bench and sat at one end.

Ysmerelle sat at the other.

The basket slid between them into the hollow of the cloth.

They both reached to save it and pushed the pears against each other instead.

One rolled into Virelle's lap.

Another lodged beneath Ysmerelle's elbow.

She moved her arm and sent it neatly into the companion's waiting hand.

"That one can stay," Virelle said.

Ysmerelle laughed and put the basket on the ground.

They ate without needing the afternoon to prove anything.

Virelle ate hers core and all, a habit she had never explained and was not going to.

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