“Are you?” the priest asked keenly.
“I do not know yet, Father,” Adam replied. “I will see you on Sunday for Mass.” Then he mounted and turned away, leaving the priest to watch him. Something had changed. He could feel it in his bones, and it felt good.
Adam, feeling there was nothing more he could accomplish that day, rode slowly back to the castle. He had only gone a few hundred yards when he saw a familiar figure trotting towards him in the distance. It was Emilia; he would have recognized the bright banner of her hair anywhere. He felt his heart speed up as he realized that she was smiling at him.
“Just the person I wanted to see,” she said cheerily. They reined in next to each other. “I apologize for my rudeness yesterday. Forgive me.”
“I am sorry too,” he replied. “I was a little intimidated. This place is very strange to me.”
“We can remedy that,” Emilia replied. “Come riding with me tomorrow and I will show you around. The people here are not unfriendly once they get to know you. I am sure that when they see you are on their side they will warm towards you, and if I am with you—well, everybody knows me!”
“They know my face now,” Adam replied, “but they do not seem to like it very much.”
“Give them time,” she advised. “They are not bad people, they have just been through a lot, and although we are at peace for the moment, there is no guarantee that our two countries will stay that way. We are naturally very wary of you.”
Adam wheeled his horse around to face the same direction as Emilia. “Do you mind if I ride along with you?” he asked. “Just for a while?”
“No,” she answered, smiling at him. “Perhaps the villagers will think better of you if you are seen with me.”
“And worse of you if you are seen with me,” he pointed out.
She laughed. “It has been a long time since I cared what anyone thought of me. If they do not like me, they must stay away from me.”
Adam looked at Emilia’s profile with its small slightly tilted nose, full ripe lips, her beautifully sculpted cheekbones, and green eyes with their long auburn lashes.How could anybody not like you?he thought in disbelief. “Are you betrothed?” he asked suddenly.
She looked at him, rather startled. The question had come out of nowhere. “No,” she replied. “It will take a very special man to capture my hand in marriage. I will only wed for love; otherwise I will remain a spinster forever.”
“That would be a great shame,” he said sadly. “It should be a crime to let a lovely woman like yourself go unmarried, with no children to pass on your beauty.”
“That is very kind of you,” she replied, “but beauty fades, and there are other qualities I value more than looks. You are a very handsome man, but are you kind?”
“I try to be,” he answered.
“Are you generous?” she went on.
“I hope so,” he replied.
“And do you listen to people when they tell you their sorrows?” She was relentless.
“I must admit I failed on that one,” he replied. “I am not sympathetic, but I will try to be in the future. And you? Are you all these things?”
She laughed. “By no means. I am not a saint either.”
“Two sinners then.” He flicked a lock of hair back from his brow in a gesture that Emilia found strangely arousing.
“Are you betrothed?”
“Now that is a jest!” he laughed. “I would find it sad if it were not my own fault. I am too fond of the pleasures of the flesh! I like ladies too much.”
“Should I be afraid?” she asked, pretending to be scared.
“No.” He shook his head. “I appreciate you all, everything about you. You are all so different to us brutish men, so delicate and lovely. You make us want to protect you, and you bring out the best in us, and that is why God made us the way we are...different.”
“I had never thought of it that way before,” Emilia mused. “You are right, Adam. And He made us want to be protected. Well, some of us.”
“Not you?”
“I can take care of myself,” she said grimly, and then remembered that she was supposed to be charming him. She had better pretend to be a little more submissive than she really was. “Most of the time. I can wield a sword as well as any man but I have not the same strength, so perhaps you are right. We ladies do need to be protected.”
