The Widow of Rose House

by Diana Biller

Alcohol had many interesting properties; he wasn’t sure taste was one of them.

“Do I need a wife to talk to you? Is it a chaperone sort of thing? I have a mother, but she’s in Ohio.”

a pleasurable action in itself, to write the name of a beautiful woman

“My knowledge of the latest fashions now rivals my knowledge of medicine.”

“It’s probably fish jelly,” Benedict said. “It’s always fish jelly, with the French.”

She shouldn’t recognize his voice already, she mused as Sam strode towards her, a head taller than the people he passed. It was deep, and a little slow, like he had all the time in the world to say what he wanted to. There was a bedrock of humor underneath it, which came out in the letters he’d written, too. He wrote like he spoke—warm and welcoming, inviting you to share in the fun.

She’d bought a house because she felt sorry for it. A house no one had lived in for thirty years, a house that had changed ownership eight times in those three decades. Why in god’s name did she think she’d have better luck? She’d made three major decisions in her life: her marriage, her escape, and this house, and didn’t this one have all the elements of that first, disastrous choice? It was foolish, impulsive, recklessly optimistic, emotional, all the things that had trapped her in violence and despair for a decade, and only two years after she’d left Alain she was doing it again—

She’d have better luck because she couldn’t afford not to.

She was letting those letters from Professor Moore go to her head. Ridiculous how he seemed to not only believe in ghosts but also think they were a wonderful thing to have.

Fear wasn’t her way of life anymore.

:(

He stepped towards her again, intending to do some undefined but comforting thing that would seem clearer once he was closer,

what a masterful sentence.

It was funny how much people relied on etiquette to order behavior—like manners were as immutable as Newton’s Laws of Motion.

Alva didn’t know what she was supposed to say. She was suddenly ashamed of her fear, embarrassed by its weakness and its unfair assumptions. Of course not all men were like Alain. The problem was you couldn’t know right away which ones were and which ones weren’t.

“You’re going to go in there and yell at that man, and I’m going to gawk shamelessly. Wild horses couldn’t drag me away.”

For a man who barely seemed to function on an earthly plane, he could certainly be competent when he wanted to be.

Aquarius?

I met a goat once. He belonged to a painter I knew in Paris, and he went to parties and salons and everything. He once ate the ruffle off a dress I was wearing, but the dress looked much better afterwards.”

This was not how you wooed women. You waited for them patiently, and eventually they would probably come to you. And if they didn’t, well, it wasn’t the end of the world.

Suddenly the most important thing in the world was to tell her she could have it. Him. Whatever she wanted, really. He lifted his hand and ran two fingers gently across her cheek. “You have such a delicate face,” he murmured. “But strong, too. Delicate skin and strong bones. I seem to find the combination almost irresistible.”

“I find almost every damn thing about you irresistible, Mrs. Webster,” he said, his arms aching to come around her.

lips. “Why did I do that?” “Hopefully because I’m irresistible,” he said. She shook her head. “I’m sorry to have—to have given you the wrong impression. I can’t do this. I don’t have room for romance, or for … whatever this is.” Sam blew out a breath and pushed his hair out of his eyes. “It’s romance,” he said.

“I see,” he said, even though the only thing he saw was how absolutely muddled he was.

I like you. I’d like you even if you weren’t the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,

Her face followed him, and he made no effort to banish it. He thought of the way she smiled, often as though humor or pleasure had taken her by surprise or had forced its way through against her better judgment.

Had anyone ever loved this house? Or had they only built it because it was expected of them, to show off?

“Mrs. Webster, you cannot actually be so cruel as to stand there with schematics and not let me see them.”

How did he do it? One minute her world was blackmail and anger and skeletons in dark, shadowed corners, and then Sam Moore walked into the room. It was as though he walked in an almost imperceptible beam of light, which rendered the terrifying ordinary, and the ordinary beautiful.

Let me be your friend. I think you might need one.”

“How, exactly, do you transform heroes into celestial constellations? And does it hurt when you turn them into a series of stars spread over hundreds of light-years?”

“No more flirting with—” “With your Alva?” “With Alva. Who belongs entirely to herself.”

“I’m a genius. I can be confused by many things at once.”

“It’s like I’ve wanted you forever,” he whispered,

“Good girl,”

She wanted a path to continue. That something bad had happened to her—well, he had suspected, and now he knew for sure. But wounds healed strange, sometimes, and his instincts said it was more important to give her that path forward than push her about something she wasn’t ready to share.

She was gorgeous after a tumble. Well, she was always gorgeous, but it turned out there was nothing more beautiful than Alva Webster right after he’d had her.

He was in love. It wasn’t a shocking statement; he didn’t recoil in surprise. It was the answer to a question he hadn’t been quite aware he was asking, and now that it was here, it was like it had always been true: a quiet, permanent underlying fact that made everything else in his life make sense. He saw it and acknowledged it, even with the whisper that told him being in love with a woman like Alva was going to complicate things. There was nothing to be done—he was in love with her, he always would be, and that was that. She was his person. If she was complicated, then he loved her complications, too. She was the other side of his story.

“Complications.” What a stupid word for a pile of horrible experiences,

she could be pugnacious one minute and heartbreakingly fragile the next. What wound did that scar tissue correspond to?

It was all right to miss friends.

The pain in her stomach increased. He’d said he loved her. Did people just leave people they loved? Probably. No one had ever loved her before, so she wasn’t sure.

Alva, know this. The world is so much better with your name in it.”

The scientist and the scandal,

You’re going to have a binding.”

“It’s amazing, the excuses you find to think well of me.” He looked at her like she was the odd one. “Alva, three days ago I proclaimed my undying love and devotion to you and asked you to marry me. I simply cannot fathom why you are so constantly surprised by the height of my esteem for you.”

you can’t yell her into loving me, Sam. I wish you could, but you can’t.”

You are a miracle. And I’m not the only person who knows that.”

He was looking at her as though she were the most interesting and wonderful person in the entire world. As though he liked her, through and through. He was the only person who had ever looked at her that way.

nourishing each other, sheltering each other.

“Mock me all you like, madam,” he said, stripping his shirt off with inelegant speed. “You’re at my mercy now.”

It’s never a bad thing, love. It’s just hard when it’s not enough.”