Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
I thought we’d have more time
Isobelle woke slowly from the most delightful dream.
Light flickered across her closed eyelids, and something brushed her cheek—her questing fingers retrieved a small twig. She blinked her eyes open and forced them to focus as she realized she was not in her own bed. Thorny branches and tight green leaves crisscrossed her vision. Her head rested on something soft and warm, a surface that shifted under her—
Gwen.
Her head was pillowed against Gwen’s hip—the other girl had draped one arm over her shoulders, and was sleeping quite soundly, to judge from the quiet rhythm of her breathing.
And then it all came flooding back. The tale of the dragon. The women at the castle. The witches beneath the stars. And the glorious moment last night when she and Gwen had stood together, knowing that if either one of them had moved by even a hair’s breadth, they’d have broken the last of their restraint. That the thing shimmering between them, the thing sending her blood surging through her veins, would have sprung to life with a dragon’s roar.
In that moment, she could have kissed Gwen. She hadwantedto kiss Gwen. But the act of wanting had been so surprising, so staggering in its implications, that she had found herself holding still.
She’d seen understanding dawn in Gwen’s eyes. Watched as Gwen, without any impatience, any blame at all, had simply made space for Isobelle to face those feelings. To take her time.
While the knights at the castle fought to possess her, Gwen offered her the chance to take ownership of herself, of her own choices.
Gwen worried, sometimes, that she was nothing like them.
Isobelle thought it was her finest quality.
“Gwen,” she whispered. “Are you awake?”
“Mmm?” Gwen stretched languorously, then stopped as she registered Isobelle’s head in her lap. She went still, and then: “Oh, shit! We stayed out all night—we’ve got to get back!”
“It’s morning now,” Isobelle pointed out.
“I know, that’s why we have to get—”
“We will,” Isobelle replied, hauling herself up to a sitting position and suppressing an unladylike groan. “But that bird has flown the coop, Gwen. The sun’s up, and a scramble won’t make a difference. Olivia will cover for us if Whimsitt comes round.”
Gwen’s hair was mussed where she’d been leaning against the tree, and Isobelle had the most compelling urge to lean over to stroke it smooth. Except then it would be all too easy to let her hand slowly curve around the back of Gwen’s neck, and...
“Fair point,” Gwen conceded. “But we still have to get back, Whimsitt or no Whimsitt. We have to submit Sir Gawain’s papers this morning.”
That was enough to put some of the morning’s chill back into the air, and reluctantly—wishing she’d given herself a few more minutes to lie in the sun and listen to Gwen’s soft breathing—Isobelle set about extricating herself from the blackberry thicket. Itwas as though the thorny branches had curled around them as they slept, snaring their thick wool skirts to hold them in place. Isobelle couldn’t help thinking of the charms the hedge witch sold at the market—the bracelets made from blackberry brambles.
Love charms.
She peeped through the edge of the thicket, out toward the field. The oak stood, leaves green now where the night before they’d been silver in the moonlight. There was no sign of the witches’ circle, or the altar, or the magic they’d summoned.
By the time she and Gwen were free, their hair was tangled and their clothes were torn, but they were both laughing helplessly. They paused to gather a few handfuls of the late summer blackberries for the walk back to the castle.
And as they made their way up the road, Isobelle slipped her hand into Gwen’s.
Olivia didn’t ask why the two of them were in plain, unfamiliar dresses, why those dresses were torn all over, or where the blackberry stains had come from.
Instead, she bundled her yawning charges into new clothes, scrubbed their faces like a mother cat cleaning a pair of kittens, and promised she had already taken steps to find out what the deal was with the women who’d shown up at the bonfire the night before.
Isobelle worked to keep her head still as Olivia yanked tangles out of her hair—most of her attention was on the way Gwen’s cheeks were still becomingly pink after Olivia had scoured the blackberry juice off. She felt caught halfway between the world she had come from—the world of beating hearts and anticipation, of moonlight shimmering with possibility—and this ordinary, sunlitworld of the castle, where there were practicalities waiting, and routine around every corner. Just as one hugged the pillow come morning after a particularly delicious sleep, Isobelle wanted to cling to the last strands of the place she had been.
When Gwen slid a small smile in her direction, she lost her focus entirely, and stumbled back into Olivia. Her maid gave a soft, knowinghmphand set her back on her feet, salvaging the braid and tying it off with a ribbon. Then she picked up a package and held it out to Gwen, and suddenly the glorious color of the morning dimmed.
It was Gwen’s—or rather Sir Gawain’s—patents of nobility and credentials.
