Other ideas were flowing through his mind as though they had been kept behind floodgates that had finally been opened. Ideas of unlacing her dress, of her naked on his bed, of his mouth…
Stop, he told himself, eyes closing.That’s indecent.
But the indecent ideas were too eager, too pleased at being freed from whatever prison had held them, and they refused to listen. They made him take the quickest bath of his life, for fear of being naked when she returned to the room. It was a good thing too, as he was fumbling himself into his bathrobe just as the hatch on the door lifted and she entered with a tray in her hands.
He felt himself flush, hoping she wouldn’t notice.
She looked different, moved differently, as if suddenly there were new curves to her hips and a different swell to her chest. Her arms were slender and her hands graceful when she placed the tray on the table by the foot of the bed. A lock had teased its way out of her braid, and he found he wanted to tuck it behind her ear, only so that he’d have an excuse to touch her.
He could slide his fingers down the curve of her neck, to her shoulder, down her arm and take her hand in his. Press his lips to it. Put an arm around her waist, bring her into the same easy set of dance steps he had brought her into the day before, have her near.
“What?” she asked, eyebrows raised at his lingering gaze.
“Nothing,” he shook his head.
“The joust begins in three hours,” she said. “Better eat and head down to your tent. They’ll want to make absolutely certain your armor is fitted on you perfectly. Sir Patrick will be out for blood, you do realize that?”
“Yes,” he said. “Are you concerned for me?”
“Of course, I am concerned for you, Mal,” she replied, sounding exasperated. “If you get even the faintest whiff of something foul afoot, you use your watermagic to protect yourself. Promise me.”
“You know very well that I am not allowed to—”
“Promiseme,” she interrupted, buttering his bread for him, but then having a bite of it herself. She chewed vigorously. He realized she was more scared for him than he had thought.
He reached up then, wrapping his fingers around her wrist and getting her eyes on him. “I promise,” he said.
***
The tent was stuffy, the heat of the day already warming it beyond what was comfortable. Once he had his armor on, he would request that they open up the sides, create a bit of cross-breeze. He was trying to focus on the need for cooling air on his skin so as not to get distracted by the hope that Iona would show herself. Preferably within the next minute. Or at least before it was time for him to get on the back of his horse and trot the stallion onto the tiltyard just beyond the tent.
But the flap by the entrance wasn’t pushed aside by Iona. Instead, it was Lady Shannon who entered. She had a stern expression on her face, but he could tell it was mostly in jest. She was carrying a white waterlily, the tips of its petals stained blue. She twirled the flower, frown lingering. “I do not know if you deserve this token of my hopes for you during this tournament, my lord,” she said.
“And why is that?” he asked.
“For your uncouth manner last night,” she replied, though she approached him, twirling the flower under her nose with a small smile on before curtseying and holding it out to him.
He accepted it awkwardly as he was being strapped into his armor by three footmen, working diligently from his feet to his head. At the moment they were grappling with the breastplate. He smiled at the lady, not wanting to be rude, but being unable to keep hold of the flower while also accommodating his men he handed it to one of them to put aside. He would attach it to some part of the armor or his weaponry or his horse in acceptance of her token, letting all who saw it know whose favor he held.
“Uncouth manner?” he asked.
She lifted one brow. “Punching a knight rather than throwing down a gauntlet and presenting the man with an official challenge. It is unheard of.”
“I didn’t have a gauntlet on me at the time,” he said, offering her a smile as apology. “He did not behave the way a knight should,” he added.
“Oh, you would believe in the maid’s innocence over a knight’s word?” she asked.
“And what exactly is he saying?” Malcolm retorted. “That she urged him on?”
“Well, yes,” the lady said.
“That she was so overcome with her surroundings, her gown, the highborn all around her that it went to her head? And beginning to think herself one of them, she grasped for someone so very high above her. She could not control her passions. And, so urged, neither could he. Something like that?”
She said nothing this time, Malcolm’s eyebrows raised high enough to compliment the sarcasm in his tone. He had no patience for her ignorance. He had thought to excuse it, had hoped that perhaps, if she could get to know Iona better, the lady would see her true worth. Apparently, this was not going to happen. It made the cold light of the blue tent canvas give her a sickly tint, fading her beauty in ways he would not have thought possible only the day before.
“Iona is the best woman I have ever known,” Malcolm stated forcefully, raising his arm to allow the men strapping his armor on him to get a better angle. “She is true-hearted and quick-witted, and I shall be damned if a knight, whose name is connected with nothing but mischief, will ever manage to blacken hers.”
The lady seemed taken aback at that. She was at a loss for words and so simply curtseyed low again and left without offering any response. He regretted his harshness then—she had done so little to deserve it—but he needed to make it clear to her that Iona was his foremost concern.
