A Dishonorable Knight (22 page)

"I was sure we wouldn't live to
see another sunset," Elena said suddenly shaking uncontrollably from a
belated case of nerves.

Remorse and guilt swamped Gareth.
"I'm sorry my lady. Ever since you've been under my care, you've been in
more danger than if you had tried to walk alone back to Middleham. I have
needlessly risked your life time and again. You must think Wales the most
bloodthirsty country on God's planet."

Elena lifted her head from his chest
and stared at him perplexedly, her fear forgotten. With a small shake of her
head she said, "On the contrary, I have never felt such a sense of home
and belonging. I would not trade the last six weeks for the rest of my
life."

"But sleeping on the road...you
nearly died trying to warn us about the soldiers--"

"Do you jest? Compared to
waiting on Lady Elizabeth hand and foot, I've had it easy."

Gareth smiled and peered closely at
her face, "I say, what have you done with Lady de Vignon? Surely you are
not the woman who said 'I cannot be expected to sleep rolled up in a blanket
with three servants'."

The smile faded from Elena's face and
she pulled out of Gareth's warm embrace.

"We had better continue to
Aberystwyth."

Gareth stared at her back pensively
before turning to gather up their belongings.

They approached Aberystwyth in late
afternoon, after having detoured to make sure
they were not
being followed by the English soldiers
. The sky was a brilliant azure,
and as they crested a hill just outside of the city, they could see the waters
of Cardigan
bay
, a deeper, tempestuous blue. The
breeze coming off the water was fresh and clean and cooled Gareth and Elena as
they rode into the city. Elena bent to shake her skirts. As she tried to smooth
her hair, Gareth chuckled behind her, amused that she should be worried about
her appearance when he was just glad they were alive.

"Worry not, Elena. Though large
for Wales, Aberystwyth is too small to scorn you for your appearance. Besides,
you look fine," he said reassuringly. He meant it: her windblown chestnut
hair glinted like fire in the sunlight and spread about her shoulders
enticingly. From over her shoulder he could see her left cheek and it was
smooth, like velvet, and rosy from her days in the sun. Glancing a little
farther down, he could just make out the soft swell of her creamy breasts.

Elena craned her neck to see the
expression on his face and determine if he were joking. He realized she could
tell where he’d been looking and smiled guiltily, but she merely shook her head
and turned back around. "I did not realize my illness was catching. Surely
you must be suffering from a fever if you think I look 'fine.' I have never
worn a dress as much as I've had to wear this one," she said, nodding at
her travel-stained skirts. "I doubt I could even recognize a fashionable
gown if one landed in my lap."

Gareth grinned at Elena's
lighthearted tone. Never had he heard her speak with the least bit of
self-deprecation. He could not believe this was the same woman who had
imperiously ordered him to make her breakfast all those weeks ago. Hoping that
her good mood would last, he risked asking her about her change of heart.

"Lady Elena?"

She turned again, her eyebrows lifted
at the solicitous note in his voice. "You've never called me that
before."

Gareth was momentarily throne off
balance. "What? Of course I have."

"No you haven't," she
insisted. "You've called me 'Elena' and 'my lady,' and a few less
complimentary phrases, but never 'Lady Elena.'"

Gareth didn't see what her point was
and the confused look on his face made Elena laugh. "I wasn't criticizing
you, merely commenting on the discovery that you do actually have
manners." Gareth scowled at her remark, but she quickly distracted him.
"Now what were you going to ask me?"

Gareth considered saying something
about her
not
actually having manners, but decided that might cause her
to turn into the woman of stone she had been so often in the past. Carefully
phrasing his question, he said, "I was just wondering."

"Yes?"

"When we first met, weeks ago,
you detested me—all of us for that matter—but now you seem
different."

"How so?" Elena asked
quietly.

"You seem more at ease. More,
well, like one of us."

"But I told you, I have a Welsh
grandmother."

"That's not what I mean. I mean,
before you were so haughty, treating everyone around you—us--like they were
servants. You seemed to think that anyone who was not important in the king's
court was simply not important." When Elena remained quiet, he hastily
continued. "But since we left Eyri Keep, you escaped the relative comfort
of an abbey to reach us, risked your life to warn us of danger, shared your
food uncomplainingly, and lied through your teeth to protect me from those
English soldiers. Would you care to enlighten me as to why, or how, you have
changed so much?"

Clearly stalling for time, Elena
said, "If you think that abbey at Dinas Mawddwy was comfortable, you must
have been raised in a barn. I doubt they had a down pillow in the whole musty
building."

Gareth stared at her patiently. He
knew she would find it difficult to answer for such a change of character. He
knew he would be hard pressed to explain why he had treated her so poorly when
she first travelled with them. Even now, he could hear the disdain in her voice
when he had asked her to dance that long ago night in Middleham. But the bitterness
of that encounter was overlaid with the sweetness of her kisses, the softness
of her skin as he had caressed it…

"At court," she began
hesitantly, interrupting his thoughts, "nothing ever happens. I mean
really
happens." She paused clearly
searching for words. "We change clothes a lot. We whisper about newcomers,
we gossip about those we don't like, we try to become the king or queen's
favorite and we--everyone, men and women--try to marry to better our position
at court. There is no substance to what we do or how we live.
We do not build anything
,
we only tear
down
. We do not help the king run the country. He has a small group of
advisors who do that and the rest of us simply exist. I think ‘tis why, when
you take us out of that world, we treat you like you are nothing--to make
ourselves seem important, seem necessary.

"And then, the more I was away
from that world, the more time I spent in your world, the more I realized that
what you were doing really counted. Whether Henry Tudor be wrong or right for England
and Wales is beside the point. At least you are doing something to affect your
world. Even those people we first stayed with--Gruffydd and Catrin--they make
things, they produce wool, food--"

"And many, many children,"
Gareth cut in, trying to lighten her expression.

Elena smiled, but the flow of words
did not lessen. "They don't live off the work of other people, they
support themselves. And Enid. No one has ever been nice to me like she was. I
know your father told her to wait on me, but she went beyond that. I felt like
she was my friend."

"I'm sure she thinks the same of
you."

"And finally at the abbey, when
I heard that old crow telling the English soldiers to go after you, and I
decided to ride and warn you, I felt alive! I felt that I was finally doing
something that would mean something!" Elena looked at her hands as if
embarrassed at what she had just said. "I--I mean, I knew it wasn't much,
but it felt important. Really important, not pretend important." Her words
exhausted, Elena fidgeted with the cuff of her sleeve, refusing to meet his
eyes.

For himself, Gareth was overwhelmed.
Elena had never spoken in such depth about her feelings. Neither had she ever
spoken critically of her life at court. But what affected him most was her
glowing commendation that he was working for a better country. Realizing that
the silence between them had continued, and that she might be feeling awkward
at having revealed so much, he quickly said, "In the first place, what you
did was more than 'not much.' You saved three lives and since mine was one of
those three, I think what you did was very important." He paused and
smoothed the hair off her cheek, tucking it behind her ear. "I also
apologize for not being more understanding in those first few days. I should have
realized that it would take a while for you to get used to sleeping on the
ground and bathing in a stream."

"Mistake me not!" Elena
said, some of her old spunk returning, "I'm still not used to waking up
with bugs in my chemise, and I would take having my luncheon served to me in
bed any day over that disgusting stuff you call dried beef."

Gareth smiled and succumbed to the
temptation he had been feeling since she started talking. Turning her head
gently with his thumb and forefinger, he leaned forward and placed a warm, soft
kiss on her lips. When she did not pull away, he intensified the kiss, slanting
his lips across hers as her mouth opened. Slowly, Elena began responding to the
kiss, matching his firm pressure with sweet movements of her own. With a groan,
Gareth pulled away, conscious that they were only moments away from the city
walls.

"My lady," Gareth began and
then cleared his throat. "I vow that before we leave Aberystwyth you will
have a new gown."

Elena laughed shakily and responded,
"And with what shall you buy this new gown, Sir Gareth, your good
looks?"

Gareth wondered if she was serious
about his looks, but refused to be sidetracked. Before he could answer, she
offered another possibility.

"Perhaps you mean to add
thievery to your crime of abduction!"

Gareth frowned and said sharply,
"Though I may not have coin to throw away as your suitors in court do, I
am not without means. What I wonder is if you'll even have the decency to thank
me." Had the woman no common courtesy? Surely if she ever made it to
heaven, she would snub St. Peter when he opened the gates for her. As they
entered the city, however, he was ashamed at how easily she riled
him—both to passion and to anger. He was a fool to take every comment
from her as a slight.

He realized he owed her an apology,
but told himself it was more important he search for the shop he was supposed
to meet his father in front of. He would apologize as soon as they arrived, he
promised himself. Lord, but the town had grown since the last time he had been
here as a child. As they wandered up one street and down the next, Gareth
realized that, late as they may be, his father might have no one waiting for
him once he did locate the meeting place. Gareth figured the days in his head.
They were two days late. His father may have assumed that they had been
captured or met with some other accident. He wondered if the planning meetings
had already been held or if Henry's representatives were still awaiting the
arrival of Welsh lords from the furthest corners of Wales.

"Do you know where you're
going?" Elena's question roused him from his reverie.

"I'm trying to locate the shop
of Samuel the Weaver."

"Why do you not stop and ask
someone?" she said innocently.

"I don't need to ask where it
is, I'll find it. ‘Tis just that this town has changed a lot since the last
time I was here."

"That seems like all the more
reason to ask for directions."

"I don't need directions. I told
you,
I'll
find it!"

Knowing Gareth couldn't see the
expression on her face, she rolled her eyes and stuck out her tongue. She was
going to have a good laugh at Sir Know-it-all's expense when he did finally
have to stop and ask. As they wound back and forth along the smooth stone
streets, Elena's anticipation and making Gareth eat his words grew.

Elena was forced to swallow her
carefully planned comments about Gareth's stubbornness when he yelled in her
ear, "There it is!"

Blind luck, she thought. Carefully
storing away the subtle insults she had composed--she had no doubt he would
provide her a reason to use them later--she concentrated on hanging on to
Isrid's mane as Gareth sent the powerful horse galloping down the narrow and
crowded street, heedless of the pedestrians and carts full of produce and
grain. Elena grabbed the edge of the saddle as they nearly collided with an old
man crossing the street. A moldering onion thrown, no doubt, by an aggrieved
merchant narrowly missed Elena's shoulder and broke apart against the back of a
cart as Gareth abruptly reined in Isrid in front of a small, slate-roofed shop.
There was a meticulously carved wooden sign over the door indicating cloth
supplies inside.

Gareth had just dismounted and was
helping Elena down when the door to the shop opened and Bryant burst out.

"Gareth! Thank God you're alive!
We had all but given up hope of your ever arriving."

"We met up with some English
soldiers we had to outwit," Gareth explained. "It wasn't hard,"
he said with a laugh. “Just time consuming. How much have I missed?"

"About a day's worth of plans.
And you'll never believe who arrived just this morning," Bryant said as he
escorted them into the dimly lit shop. Bolts of wool lined two of the three
walls, from thick nubby plaits to buttery soft weaves in a muted rainbow of
colors. A third wall held
a few bolts
of fine cotton
and several shelves of precious trims.