Still Star-Crossed Read Online Free PDF

“Your servant, lady.” As he bent over, she spotted a flash of red under his torn sleeve. Rosaline rushed forward.
    “You’re hurt!”
    “ ’Tis nothing,” he protested, but Rosaline had already gone to soak her clean handkerchief in water from a nearby fountain. She was greatly in this man’s debt; she must at least try to repay it. She returned and sat him down on the steps of a convenient tomb so she could wash the dirt from his wound.
    “Nothing it may be for one so stalwart as you,” she said, “but since we of the weaker sex are known to swoon at the sight of blood, if you are a courteous gentleman you will let me clean it for you.”
    She stood over him and carefully peeled his sleeve away. He bit back a hiss as she began to dab the blood away from his wound. It wasn’t a grave injury—less likely to scar than the cut he’d given his cousin. He looked up at her as she worked. Rosaline could see the ruddy torchlight reflected in his eyes. “A lady of your beauty is right welcome to swoon into my arms whene’er you wish.”
    Rosaline pressed her lips together and bent her head closer to her task, so that her hair shadowed her face. Gentlemen of the court offered such flirtatious compliments to ladies as a matter of course. If there was a blush staining her cheeks, it was no doubt due to the excitement of the night.
    “You seem not like a lady given much to swooning, anyway, from what I’ve seen,” he said.
    “Not much, sir. Swooning stains one’s gown with earth.”
    “But not if one is there to catch you, lady.”
    “ ’Tis true. But men can’t be relied upon to follow me about with outstretched arms, and so I think it best to stay upright.”Rosaline wrapped her handkerchief around his arm as a makeshift bandage.
    “Your pardon, lady, for what my kinsmen did,” he said. “They never should have offered such discourtesy to any lady, Capulet or no—ow!”
    Rosaline had tightened his bandage. “ ‘Capulet or no’?”
    He flinched away from her ministrations. “I mean
your
kinsmen ought not to have provoked them.”
    “Provoked them? Saw you not what
your
kinsmen did to our poor Juliet’s statue?” To Rosaline’s horror, her voice had started to shake. “Has she not suffered enough, but must be slandered from past the grave as well?”
    “They made no slander, lady. For your kin had no right to presume that it was they. No kin of mine would so defile the dead.”
    “Nay, only one that lives. Your wound is sound, sir. Good e’en.” Rosaline tied off his bandage and rose to leave the churlish Montague.
    “Lady, wait.” He caught her hand, and she turned to find him looking sheepish. “I am sorry.”
    Rosaline sighed. “A thousand times have I cursed this grudge between our houses,” she said. “Yet I no sooner meet a Montague than I have mounted a new battle. ’Tis I who must beg your pardon, sir.”
    He gave her that crooked smile again and bent over her hand in a florid bow, as though they’d just been introduced at a ball. “We’ll start again, then. Benvolio, at your service, lady.”
    She returned his smile and swept him the prettiest curtsyever made by a mud-covered girl in a graveyard. “Good e’en, sir. They call me Rosaline.”
    He dropped her hand like it had burnt him.
    “Rosaline,” he repeated. “Rosaline is thy name?” He sat down on the steps of the tomb and barked a laugh, running a hand across his forehead.
    “Do I amuse you, sir?”
    “Oh yes, lady,” he said. “An excellent jest, to find myself bowing and begging for pardon from the very cause of my family’s misfortunes.”
    “Cause of your misfortunes?” she said. “When have I ever given a Montague a moment’s care? Except—”
    “Aye. Except.” Benvolio surged to his feet, all traces of mirth gone from his face. “Except that you, in your pride, your prudishness—
you
brought this plague of death down on both our houses.”
    Rosaline met him glare for glare, refusing to back