Secret of Moonacre: Hold Me Close

Chapter Twenty One

He merely kissed me.

"Sorry Princess," he smirked, kissing me again. "You're just too easy to scare."

I laughed and grabbed his hand. "So I'm guessing you're the one who spoke to my family and filled them in?"

"Yes. And I told them a few other things..." He trailed off, as if he had stopped himself from revealing something.

I pretended I hadn't noticed. If I was to be kept out of the loop, surely it was for a good reason.

"So, where to?" He had taken the basket out of my hand, quite like a gentleman for once.

"Anywhere." I smiled.

"I think that can be arranged." He smirked again, leading me onward.

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As we travel a path that seemed increasingly familiar, I merely gripped Robin's hand tightly.

If only I had never come to Moonacre I thought selfishly. If only I hadn't had to feel this pain. Losing the thing that you love the most in the entire world is a pain beyond imagination. And being powerless to stop it... it is a feeling that only some understand. Those who have lost love. In any way.

To lose something so powerful and deep and all encompassing, something that I had imagined I'd have my whole life. Something I had envisioned having until I'm old and gray. Something I had invested myself in, had given all of myself too. Simply gone.

It was as if I was losing my life. Without a heart, one could not live. And Robin had become my heart.

Those thoughts were dizzying and tiresome and painful. I had Robin with me now. And I must be able to keep up a brave face. I will only crumple when he is gone and can't see my pain.

"Maria..." He murmured, lifting my chin with a gentle hand to meet his gaze and stopping me on my mindless track forwards. "Maria... please. Trust me. Please."

His eyes softened as my mouth trembled and my eyes struggled to keep dry. I feared he could see through me and peer at the shards of my shattered heart. At the weakness I tried to hide.

I turned my head and nod, ashamed of my emotions overtaking me in my miserable state.

Gently he lifted my hand to his chest, pressing my cold fingers to his heart in the frigid morning air.

Our gazes met. We don't move but only stare at each other, breath visible due to the cold. But I do not feel it. My eyes are simply drinking in Robin. Robin. My Robin.

I'm certain that when he leaves he'll meet another girl. One much more beautiful than I. Without this wretched red hair. With a sweeter temperament that contrasts the fire that burns in me so often. My stubbornness is by no means a virtue, nor is my barbed tongue. And then he'll be mine no longer.

We simply gazed at each other. I felt his heart beating under my palm. Longing, longing filled me and I felt my expression wobble until I feared I may crack and I thrust myself into his arms, my face buried in his chest.

His arms enveloped me so tightly that I feared I'd lose my breath, but I only pressed my face against him in response as a single tear tracked down my cheek.

I love him. I love him so. Who else could match me in my wit and temper and mischief filled ways. Who else would ever let me run free in these woods with him, a wild princess at home enjoying her kingdom. Not suppressed into being a truly proper and stuffy lady, but allowing me to be a queen of my people and of the place I now called my home. Still a young moon princess then, but someday I would have to become queen.