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“I suppose I should have returned this to you some time ago,” Mr. Snow said, holding his fist closed. Sansa extended her own, curiosity outweighing the longing she’d felt for him all day. Even overwhelming the mistrust that accompanied his presence in these last few days, and even negating the bitterness his return to Winterfell brought.
His hand was warm and familiar as it covered her own. Walking on his arm across the grounds did not compare to the warmth of his hand over hers. What could he possibly return to me? She had never given him her favor, her gloves still sat in her bureau; he had more books at his disposal in the halls of Queenscrown. He pulled away, and begged her leave before dismissing himself.
A ribbon. Blue, like the blue of her eyes. She had similar ribbons on the dress she wore to the ball hosted in the halls of WInterfell, the first time she met Jon Snow. She wondered if it happened to be a scrap he found at the shop in town, but then why would he purchase it.
“Is Mr. Snow staying for supper?” Rickon peered into the sitting room.
“He’s returned to Queenscrown for the evening,” she answered softly, tucking the ribbon into the pocket of her own dress. “He did not expect to stay so late I imagine.”
“Will he be back tomorrow?”
“I couldn’t say; mother and father have made it clear that he is always welcome in our home.” Rickon sighed, clearly not hearing the answer he wanted.
“After supper you could invite him back,” she suggested, trying to coax him into the dining room where she was sure the table was being set. He huffed at her, slouching in a way most unbecoming, she told him as much. “Why would you like to see him so badly?”
Her brother shrugged, and pouted, looking at the ground before mumbling, “I just want him to fall in love with you again.”
She was sure to offer her youngest brother the last lemon cake that night.
Long after everyone had taken to their rooms, Sansa opened her wardrobe to find the dress in question. She made it herself for her first ball, and taken the most care to keep the hem from dusting the earth overmuch. Still, upon each wear it required some mending, the ends had started to wear even with her attentions.
She inspected it thoroughly, realizing that last season was probably the last time she would ever wear the dress, it was thinning, and she realized with embarrassment some of the white had started to grey with time. Sansa had hoped the last season would be the last time she would need the dress, but the proposal she had hoped for never came.
At the waist, the ribbon was missing, it had probably come off in his hand. It was gallant of him not to expose her for it. Had it lingered in his mind the whole time? Was it the first seed of doubt? Had that one dance that started it all been her undoing as well? There was no mending the dress, she knew it even as she pulled it away, and carried it down the stairs to the parlor. Still she had to try. If she could fix it, perhaps there was hope yet for Sansa herself.
She was surprised when Mr. Snow returned the next day. Then again the day after that. And the day that followed. Sometimes he went riding with her brothers; he sought her father’s good council on some manner of business, but without fail the primary intention of his calling was Sansa.
“Isn’t that a good thing?” Arya asked as Sansa combed out her hair, she turned in the chair to fix her grey eyes on her sister. “He’s trying to make amends.”
“Calling once would be enough for that,” Sansa insisted, twisting Arya back into place. “And I’ve already told him, and you, there are no apologies necessary. I’m the one at fault, I mistook a kindness for something more.”
“I don’t think that’s true,” Arya tried to turn again, but Sansa held strong. “He’s the one who left without saying so. He’s the one who hosted you at Queenscrown, and worried after you before I got there when you fell ill. Mr. Snow is the one who said for anyone to hear that you were the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen, at his own party no less.”
“That’s quite enough,” Sansa said sharply, releasing Arya’s hair and backing away. Arya turned to face her once more, and Sansa tried to focus her energy into her twisting hands, and stilling her voice when she continued. “There was obviously a misunderstanding, nothing more.”
“It doesn’t make sense,” Arya began.
“And it will do us no good to make sense of it.” Sansa insisted, “to do so would only allow for more confusion.” She fixed Arya with a look, “were you not also the person who conveyed the reasons behind his leaving to me? That he found me to be frivolous, and lacking in a wit suitable for his station. That he found my attentions to be overmuch, and could only imagine them to be the attentions of a woman more interested in his estate than the man himself.” Her misgivings about Mr. Snow’s return slowly washed over her. “Is that not what his own brother told you?”
“It is, but Sansa don’t you think his brother spoke his own opinions? Couldn’t you imagine Mr. Snow found none of those things to be true, and that’s why he returned?”
“If his good opinion of me could be so easily swayed, enough to drive him away without a word, then perhaps he was not a suitable match for me.” Sansa leaned against the bedpost. “At the rate my prospective suitors disappear this family will remain unwed for years to come.”
“Don’t be stupid,”
“It’s true; I should marry for the sake of it, it seems looking for love has never led me on the right path.” If she was able to marry soon she might hope to have a husband who made two thousand a year. It was a respectable amount, enough to live a modest, contented life and she could still love her children. She would have to speak with mother about getting a dress made for the season, and planned to the next day.
She had not counted upon Bran overhearing her request and relaying it to Jon Snow the following day. As they walked the garden Mr. Snow placed his inquiries, “your brother said you intend to have a season in the months to come.”
“It’s only fitting,” Sansa answered steadily, meaning to leave no implication of guilt in her words. “I’m an unwed, unengaged young woman; I’m not likely to make a match from the sette in the parlor.” Mr. Snow frowned, and it etched deep into his brow, and the creases of his mouth. It was such a stern look, one which appeared for all manner of reasons, most often of concern though. “I don’t say it for your pity Mr. Snow. I say it as a fact.”
She could hear Arya and Bran whispering furiously behind them, what poor chaperones indeed. It was not until they neared the end of their walk that Mr. Snow took a deep breath beside her, “I must leave for town in the morning.” He all but stopped to speak to her, “I’m to return in a sennight but I hope to be away for less.”
“I wish you a safe journey then,” Sansa said evenly, wondering if he truly meant to return as promised, or if this business would take him away for good. He searched her face, for deception perhaps, for some sign that she did not mean what she had said.
“It’s late, I’ll be expected at Queenscrown.” He held her hand in his, rubbing his thumb across the knuckles. “Might I see you upon my return?” It would have been rude to decline, although reasonably she knew she would not be the first on his mind after a trip in town. Her heart ached already at the possibility of him disappearing into the night as he’d done the last year, what’s more her heart ached at the possibility that he would return solely for her.
She nodded her consent, and he dropped a quick kiss to her knuckles, and then he left. Arya and Bran laughed heartily over supper that night, regaling their mother, father and Rickon with tales from the garden. Exaggerating the way Mr. Snow looked upon her, and romanticizing the things he said. Rickon listened with admiration, for it was no secret to any member of the Stark family that Rickon idolized Mr. Snow; he also flushed with embarrassment. “Do men really act like that when they’re in love?”
—-
Sansa knew they did, although Mr. Snow did not look at her in that way; a glance across the table would reveal the very expression on her father’s face when he looked at her mother. “Perhaps you won’t need to have another season Sansa,” her father said gently. “It seems there is hope for your match with Mr. Snow yet.”
She was not idle in his time away. Mother had her measurements taken to a seamstress for a new dress, “lest he choose to return with a bride the way Joffrey Baratheon did.” She said as they made their way to the village. Sansa, and her misgivings appreciated the way the world went on, she took her time stitching, and reading to Rickon.
Mr. Snow’s return found her in the garden, rather Arya found her in the garden and rushed her within the house speaking quickly. “His housekeeper said he meant to come straight here from the city!” She dusted frantically at Sansa’s old dress, one that was best suited for chores and the outdoors. It was an odd contrast, for Arya was oft the one Sansa tried to make suitable for company.
“I see his carriage!” Bran very nearly burst through the door in his excitement.
“You can’t wear that!” Rickon all but crashed against Bran, assessing Sansa.
“She knows that,” Arya hissed, herding them out the door, “be ready to invite him in, hurry.” Then she turned back to Sansa, “why haven’t you chosen a dress?”
It was perhaps the most bizarre afternoon of Sansa’s life, having her hair styled by her younger sister, all the while hearing her brothers call out the proximity of Mr. Snow’s carriage to Winterfell. “Why are you going to such trouble?” Sansa wondered as Arya tried gently as she could to weave Sansa’s hair into a style most becoming.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Arya wondered. “Is there another sort of man who would ride the whole day, only to stop short of his own home to call on a lady? Mr. Snow will confess all to you today, and I would never hear the end of it if I knew and let you receive him in your gardening dress.”
“I do have more sense than that,” Sansa scoffed, smoothing the new dove grey dress idly. “Please do not be disappointed when he fails to bear his soul to me, and when he does not ask for my hand.” She folded her hands, “I can only hope that he sees fit to call me a friend, anything more would only hurt when he leaves for town once more.”
“If he were to offer though, would you say yes?”
Would she? She’d been disappointed in her share of suitors before, but Jon’s abrupt departure from the North left her devastated. She learned over the year to better guard herself, and would go so far as to say she was more assured because of it. Still, the thought of spending her days in Jon’s quiet presence, keeping his house, hosting parties; she imagined her mother and father visiting them at a home like Queenscrown, a son she could name Robb. Jon had been nothing but kind to her these last weeks, and even before he’d gone South he was nothing but attentive and gentle.
“It doesn’t matter what I would say.” Sansa said softly. Arya let out a sound so distinct Sansa would have sworn it was from her mother’s own mouth. Nonetheless, Arya urged Sansa down the stairs and into the parlor where Mr. Snow waited.
He was pacing across the room before she entered, and stopped suddenly to look at her. Their pleasantries were hardly exchanged before he said, “I have a confession to make.” He gestured to the couch where they sat side-by-side, he was only still for a moment before he began to walk the room once more.
“First, I must tell you I’ve been the most unmitigated and comprehensive ass.” Sansa’s shock at the statement wasn’t easily contained, and Mr. Snow hesitated before he began again, a hand rising to drag through his hair but thought better of it. “I trusted the words my brother heard from a stranger, over what I knew to be true.”
“What do you mean?” She wondered nervously, whatever it was had worked him into a state.
“My brother was told by a man named Baelish about the trials surrounding your betrothals,” Mr. Snow eyed her hesitantly, though she would not raise her own eyes to regard him, embarrassed as it was. “That your intended at seven and ten abandoned you to marry someone else; that Mr. Tyrell of Highgarden courted you but never offered for your hand; Mr. Baelish told my brother that it was his intention to tie himself to your family through marriage.”
“Of the first, and the second I am aware; Mr. Baelish’s intentions were never brought to my attention, nor to my father’s.” Sansa swore.
“My brother was convinced that you were more interested in the family’s fortune, those are three very well-off men, and I confess I started to believe it as well.” Of this Sansa was aware, for her sister had told her nearly six months before. “Of that I am ashamed,” he said earnestly, “for no one has treated me with such kindness as you. Certainly no one as lovely, and I let myself believe what my brother thought.”
“I see,” Sansa replied, for that was all she could say. It was no fault of her’s that she was lovely, or that the kindness which she extended to all was considered suspicious.
“I wanted to explain my leaving to you, truly I did. I did not expect my brother and sister to leave Queenscrown, and dismiss the household.”
“You never wrote.”
“There was too much to say,”
“I would have liked if you tried,” she said, weary. “That does not explain why you came back.”
“Has it not been obvious?” He wondered, sitting beside her once more. “My brother was wrong, I wanted to make amends, maybe even,” he was suddenly shy as the first time they met, “maybe even court you properly.”
“Oh,” it made sense then. He had truly come to call on her, meant in no other way than to offer his attentions. He returned as promised, travel worn, and speaking more than she had ever heard.
“I would ask for your hand today if you would have me.” Mr. Snow said, “but I understand if you would need time.” Then, as though he only just realized dropped to his knee to take her hand. She started to cry as she nodded; alarm rang clear on his face as he watched her weep, and he tried to retract his hand. “I knew I would muck this up,” he murmured. “I can leave if you’d like.”
“Sorry,” she laughed as she wiped at her eyes, “they’re happy tears I promise.” Tightening her hold on his hand and watching him smile fondly at her, “only happy tears from now on.”