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English
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Part 6 of Drawing-room Herbalism (Regency AU)
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Published:
2018-03-04
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2019-05-28
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13/14
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The Rolling Hills of Clarines

Chapter 10: The Wind and the Rain

Summary:

Shirayuki's garden is safe from the storm. She's not so sure she is.

Chapter Text

Shirayuki slammed her door closed, leaning into it against the wind and muting its howl. To her numbed ears, her heavy breathing and the stream of water still pouring out of Obi’s overcoat were the only sounds. Her garden was safe; that was a relief. She couldn’t have managed it without him.

“I’ll build up the fire,” Obi volunteered, lurching into motion, his sopping clothes creaking with every movement. He rubbed his left eye with the heel of his hand, blinking in irritation, and Shirayuki could see the welt starting to rise along his face. Without a word, she peeled off her gloves, hung them over the peeling fire screen, and started picking through drawers in her medicine cabinet.

Obi was sitting in front of the hearth by the time she found the jar she was after, overcoat shed in a pool of water around him as he adjusted the wood. His worn white shirt had only a few dry spots, translucent against his skin all across the breadth of his back. Shirayuki knelt by his side.

“How’s your eye?” She’d been terrified for a second as the wind tore the cloth from her hands, slicing across his face with all the vicious acceleration of a whip. He’d recoiled, eye closing against the wind and rain, and his look of pained disbelief haunted her still.

“Wet.” He blinked at the droplets of water running from his hair, then shook like a dog. His hair stood in spikes, and Shirayuki hiccuped against the giggle bubbling up from her chest. Her own hair, fallen loose, guided a steady stream of water down her spine. Then Obi winced again and her merriment dissolved once more into worry.

“Let me see it.” She slid closer to the hearth, within close reach now. Resigned, he turned to face her.

With careful fingers, she touched his chin to turn him better into the light. He was pliant to her adjustments, the skin of his face smoother than she expected. He closed his eyes as she drew near, skin stretching smoothly over cheekbones she’d never seen the like of anywhere else. He was usually so animated, layering faces as his antics warranted, that to see him calm and waiting like this was mesmerizing. The urge to explore was irresistible. “Where does the pain start?” She ran a finger along the corner of his mouth, his lips tightening infinitesimally.

“Higher,” he murmured, barely moving. Her fingers dragged further, until he winced at a spot alongside his nose. She could see it now, a ghost of a mark just starting to form.

Her fingers seemed magnetized to his skin, a conscious effort required to lift her fingertips and reach for her ointment. A log shifted in the fireplace, sparks raining upward at the impact, and Obi’s eyelids fluttered. When she said nothing, he settled again, a slight smile on his patient face.

The medicine had stiffened in the chill of her house, so she worked a tiny scoop between her fingers. “My grandmother used to read to me on days like this,” she said, the silence suddenly too thick to breathe. “She'd let me put aside my lessons and my sewing and we'd just cuddle by the fire and read. I've hated working outside in the wind ever since.”

“Good thing you have me, then.” She started rubbing the camphor-scented ointment along his welt, and he bore it stoically. “I've always been fond of windy days.” She reached the corner of his eye, delicately tracing the edges of the bones, leaning in for a better view of her work. She swept her thumb across his cheekbone, so smooth, the punctuation on his infuriating grins and statue-like silences, and was struck by a wish to run her lip across it, to feel its smoothness with her own.

Her breath hitched, then puffed out in surprise, and she could feel the air against her lips where it was captured at his face, she was so close. They'd been close before, a timely catch, a powerful leap, but never had she felt this need to touch him. His hair brushed the edge of her fingers and she shifted her hand, work-reddened skin against his perpetual gold that neither winter nor illness faded.

Only an inch further, all it would take. She could hear his breaths by her ear, close in time with her own.

His jaw tensed under her fingers. “I don't know who I am.” There was a full stop at the end of the sentence, a danger sign Shirayuki couldn't miss. His tone was tight, his body poised, coiled for flight. She sat back, and he turned to face her, eyes still closed. “Everyone I've ever been is a lie.” She thought of the dandy highwayman, the rough bandit, the shirtless groom. All Obi, and what she'd always seen was someone with boundless talents.

Whatever he took her silence for, his mood lightened. “I was an oriental prince for a month,” he offered brightly, opening his eyes but looking into the corner of the room. “I had to grow my hair long and eat with sticks, but I got to go to all the best parties. I bowed to the Prince Regent once, and ate food you’d never believe, and wore silk robes.” His smile settled into something almost wistful. “Have you ever worn silk against your skin, miss? It's an experience.”

Shirayuki had nothing to say. She’d made him uncomfortable, and he talked to distract her. This was not the first time it had happened. It was, however, the first time she’d almost kissed him. He shrank under the waiting, and at last she had to look away.

“I’ve been a criminal all my life, been a robber, a fraud.” He paused for a breath. “A murderer. Don’t believe anything I tell you, miss. I’m just nobody.”

“Or maybe you have that reversed.” She met his eyes again; his were hurt and desperately trying not to be. “A man who can be anybody. That sounds very freeing to me.” She looked to the corner of her little cottage, seeing an inn in Tanbarun, a life she could have kept were she not who she was.

She'd mourned that and moved on. What mattered was what came next. She scraped the last of the ointment onto her apron, pried at the soaked knot, then added the apron to the fire screen near her gloves as she put away the remaining jar of ointment. Obi stared into the fire. Keeping her hands busy usually calmed her mind. She needed all the calm she could get.

“I don’t know how to be what you want me to be,” Obi whispered at last. His hands were clenched in fists too tight for her to unravel.

“You don’t have to be anyone for me. Just you.” The silence resumed, thick and oppressive.

“You need to get into some dry clothes. I’ll go so you can do that.” His coat streamed water droplets across the hearth as he swung it back across his shoulders.

“You could wait, get dry. I won’t look? Or tea?” Shirayuki protested, standing to match him. The fabric of her dress clung to her skin like spiderwebs.

Obi’s jaw was set, his face fixed on hers. “It’s not my place, miss.” He bowed, courtly beyond his custom or her consequence, and left.