“Yes,” he murmured, gaze still stuck on her, words seemingly on the tip of his tongue.
As he was not saying them out loud, she had trouble seeing that they would be ones she’d want to hear.
I have asked Lady Shannon and she has accepted.
Iona closed her eyes, taking another step back. She should look to his wounds, bandage them, but that would mean going back to his rooms and…
No. No, she could not.
“Bright and early?” he asked, a hopeful note there that she would be the one to wake him.
Merciful waves have pity, Iona thought, but nodded her promise before she left him standing there, her emotions a whirlwind within her.
This is more than friendship.
The truth of it was painful and pleasurable all at once. The sweetness of the truth carried a sharp edge from the separation that was now so wholly inevitable.
I am so in love with him, I barely know how to contain the feeling now that it’s being felt and…
Her hearts were like stones. Their beating was slowing in her chest with every step she took away from him. He didn’t feel the same or he wouldn’t be asking her to be in his court or on his council. If he felt the same, he would be asking her to be his future queen.
But she had not been the one to get swept onto the dancefloor.
She had thought she could not bear losing him, but he was already lost to her.
Chapter 7 - Malcolm
The following morning, it wasn’t Iona’s chipper morning greeting or the sound of her saying his name that woke him. Instead, it was the sunlight streaming through his opened drapes. The lack of her voice filling his bedroom with welcomed noise made the worry he’d felt the night prior came back with full force. The only conclusion: his actions had offended her, and she was still upset.
She was busing herself with selecting his clothes for the day, and when he sat up in bed, he found her torso-deep, half-buried in his wardrobe. All that was visible of her was the curve of her behind underneath her skirts which immediately drew his eye and his cheeks heated with self-consciousness, taking his gaze off her as he said, “Good morning.”
She straightened and turned to him, a small frown appearing when she spotted him stretching his arms over his head. It was in his normal fashion, or so he’d thought, but she looked displeased.
So, she was still upset then; affronted that he’d stepped in and defended her honor. Even though it had brought her to kiss his knuckles.
He shifted, self-conscious again.
Her eyes were off him, but she looked grumpy.
Perhaps her mood had nothing to do with him at all. Perhaps he shouldn’t jump to conclusions. But then she muttered, “Must you sleep half naked?”
Her question made the lingering sleepiness evaporate in an instant. What on the seas had made her ask it?
“You are meant to wear your robes,” she added meaningfully.
His mind started racing for the most plausible explanation for her making such a comment when she’d never been bothered before. Was this her way of distancing herself from her regular tasks since she was about to stop performing them? Did she feel the need to declare to him that she expected him dressed and presentable from now on?
“I have drawn you a bath so that you can limber up for the trials of today,” she went on, pausing. “I mean, for the… not the trial… the possible tribulations of the joust, is all I meant to say.”
His brows were slowly furrowing, getting deeper the more stammering she offered him and finally she sighed, gesturing to the bathtub. She must have had it brought into the room while he slept and done it without waking him.
“Iwouldget murdered in my sleep,” he observed, offering her a lazy smile.
It was the first time he acknowledged her assessment of his ability to sleep through anything and, as he hoped, it produced a brief smile on her mouth. But she stubbornly refused to look at him.
“What’s going on?” he finally inquired.
“What do you mean? It’s the morning of the tournament. We need to get you ready,” she replied matter-of-factly.
