“After the past few years, I think you deserve a bit of a reprieve from battle. Perhaps you might look at the siege as a rest for what is to come?”
He gave her a long, appreciative look. “That is indeed a good way of looking at it. I shall try to remember that when I’m cursing the mud, endless trenches, and staring at closed gates willing them to open.” He looked down the table. “Where is your cousin today? I hope she is not feeling the ill effects of our morning indulgences?”
Elizabeth shook her head. “She said she had some letters to write and would join us later.” She frowned, realizing the meal was almost over. “I guess she had more to do than she realized.”
“Your cousin writes?”
“Aye, as well as a scribe. My aunt insisted. I was fortunate to share her and her brothers’ tutor for a while, although I’m afraid I never took to learning as well as Izzie. If she had been a lad, my uncle said she could have gone to Oxford.”
He laughed at the very idea. A woman scholar? “Strangely, I can almost see it. She is unusual, your cousin.”
It almost sounded like a compliment.
She would have said as much if she hadn’t caught movement out of the corner of her eye. A corner of her eye that had unconsciously been fixed on the other table.
She sucked in her breath. Thom and his widow were leaving. Together. Alone.
Her lungs felt like they’d been filled with molten lead. She felt the crazy impulse to go after them, and knew her thoughts must have been plain for all to see when Joanna asked her a silly question with a worried look on her face and a quick shake of the head.Don’t. “Do you have any plans for the afternoon, Elizabeth?” her sister-in-law asked.
“Nay.”
“Good, I was hoping you might help me with something.”
Elizabeth took her meaning. She could find Thom later—at the forge.
But it was small consolation for wondering what he was doing right now.
This was harder than he’d anticipated. Thom had asked to speak to Lady Marjorie privately, but now that they were outside the abbey guesthouse—where the king and others were staying—he didn’t know how to start.
To say that he’d been shocked to see her was an understatement. No doubt Edward Bruce thought he was doing Thom a favor in escorting her here, but it had only made the situation more awkward.
He knew he wasn’t going to be able to marry Lady Marjorie—marrying her for the wrong reasons would be just as bad as Elizabeth marrying Randolph—but he would rather not have had to tell her that after she’d journeyed all this way to see him expecting a proposal.
Bloody hell.
“Perhaps we should sit?” he suggested.
There was a bench looking over the side garden where he led her, and they both took a seat. He’d put some space between them, but she eased up next to him and put her hand on his arm—the lass seemed to have a dozen of them. He had to force himself not to shift out of her hold.
“There is no reason to be nervous,” she said coyly. “I think we both know why we are here.”
He smothered another curse, his mouth falling in a grim line. This was only getting worse. He had to put a stop to it before she said something that would cause her embarrassment.
Perhaps something in his expression alerted her. A hard glint appeared in her eye. “If I didn’t know better, I might think that you aren’t happy to see me.”
“I was surprised,” he hedged. “But I’m always pleased to see a friend.”
She leaned closer to him, putting her hand on his thigh.Highon his thigh. “I would have thought we were rather more than friends.”
The invitation was clear. But he wasn’t going to take it. Instead, he removed her hand. “I’m afraid all we can be is friends.”
She drew back, her eyes narrowing. She was a beautiful woman, but again the feline resemblance struck him. If she’d hissed and arched her back, he wouldn’t have been surprised.
“I don’t understand. I thought we had an understanding.”
“I’d hoped that something more might be possible, but I’m afraid that is no longer the case. I apologize if I led you to believe otherwise.”
“You apologize?” she practically spat, her face tight with outrage as she sprang up from the bench and turned on him. “I cannot believe I’m hearing this.Youno longer think anything more withmeis possible? Do you have any idea the honor I was doing you to even consider such a match? If anyone should be doing the refusing it is me. You should be on your knees thanking God for your good fortune.”
