Still Star-Crossed Read Online Free PDF Page B

down in the face of his fury. But her heart sank. Benvolio. She had been too frightened during the fight to remember why his face was familiar, but she knew him now. He was not just any Montague—the bloody youth clutching his sword before her had been Romeo’s best friend. So she knew what was coming. Few in Verona knew of Romeo’s brief passion for her, but Benvolio was certainly one of them. “If you refer to my friendship with Romeo—”
    “By God! Say not his name.” Benvolio grabbed her by the arm. She tried to pull away but his grip was firm as he hauled her toward a fresh grave. “Mercutio,” he read from the tombstone.Before she’d had a chance to reply or even catch her breath he’d hauled her away to another recently opened crypt. “Paris.” Another. “Tybalt.” His grip was as tight as Orlino’s had been. When they arrived at the entrance to the cemetery, he spun her around, holding her shoulders from behind. “Look,” he said behind her. Rosaline felt her back stiffen. He was a solid wall of fury behind her, his angry breaths hot against her ear. “Look upon thy handiwork.”
    She didn’t want to. She wanted to close her eyes—didn’t want to look on the face of her erstwhile suitor, now immortalized in stone. But she would not show such weakness, so she took a deep breath and looked on Romeo’s lifeless golden visage.
    “He loved thee,” said Benvolio, giving her shoulders a little shake. “He spoke of nothing but thy wit, thy beauty, thy kindness”—his fingers dug into her arms—“and thou—thou didst spurn him.”
    Rosaline finally shook him off. “And after what hath passed, you dare tell me ’twas imprudent?” she said, whirling to face him. “I would not hear Romeo’s suit because I wished not to add fuel to the troubles that have consumed our families so long. ’Tis not my fault that he straightaway lighted on an even worse choice of bride, nor that poor Jule succumbed to his advances. Think you Romeo would have fared well had he married a niece of Capulet, rather than a daughter?”
    Benvolio’s breath hissed through his teeth. “Would he have fared well? No. Would he live? Aye. My friends would live still, and so would Juliet, hadst thou the wit to accept thelove of a man a thousand times thy better. Or for that matter, had ‘poor Jule’ the wit to keep her legs closed.”
    Rosaline’s hand flashed out and she slapped him hard across the face. “Speak so of Juliet again and I swear I’ll cut thy throat!”
    The chiming of the nine o’clock bell broke the spell of their vicious grief. Rosaline tore her gaze from his furious face and stepped back. “I go,” she said. “For repelling your brutish kin, you’ve my thanks. I shall show my gratitude by troubling you no longer. Good night, sir.”
    She searched for her black shawl, lost in the earlier scuffle. Finally spying it, she shook the grass away and wrapped it over her hair, then headed for the gate.
    Benvolio followed. “ ’Tis not a safe night for a lady alone. I’ll go with you.” He did not sound as though he relished the prospect.
    Rosaline shoved away his proffered arm with as much rudeness as she could. He may have saved her life, but after calling her an idiot and her cousin a whore, did he really expect her to be grateful for his grudging show of courtesy? “Your kinsmen have taught me well how dangerous this night is. But I’d rather let the villains hack me to bits than go one step with you.”
    She set out for the cemetery gate. He strode after her, grabbing her arm again. “You brainless girl. I am trying to do you a kindness.”
    “Montague kindness is of the sort that gets one killed. I’ve no wish for it. Let me be, Benvolio.”
    His nostrils flared, his dark eyes furious. For a momentshe thought he might throw her over his shoulder and lend her his protection by force—even now, she was oddly certain that he would not offer her any physical harm himself, no matter how he hated