I willed myself not to react. “You were obscene and outrageous.”
“Obscene and outrageous,” he repeated, letting his hand fall away from me, but it skimmed the strap of my dress briefly before he wholly withdrew it. “Have you forgiven me? Can our courtship now begin?”
“Begin? What have you been doing all this time then?”
He picked his cup back up and sipped. Then he said, “Groveling.”
I laughed loudly, unbridled, helplessly charmed by him.
Avery smiled down at me, pleased at this.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Thane shift in his seat, eyes on us.
“So,” my suitor continued, “I may now discuss your shape?”
I set my cup down, having finished the cider. “I need to get home.” I decided I had shown him enough of my feelings tonight. I needed to be alone to think through this new admission I had shown to both him and to myself.
He walked me outside to the alleyway between The Pale Horse and the public stable used by its patrons. He handed me the jug of whiskey he had insisted on carrying and then kissed the back of my hand and told me he would dream of me all night.
As I watched him walk away from me towards the town square, the side entrance to the tavern spilled light and noise into the alley, Thane stepping out from it. He was faced towards Avery’s retreating back and did not see me farther back in the darkness about to step into the stables.
“Blacksmith,” he said. “A word, if you please.” It was a command.
Avery halted in his steps.
A breath passed, and neither man spoke or moved.
I stood in the shadows and observed them. The first and only man I had ever loved, now my sister’s husband, stood in challenge to my new suitor, a man I had only begrudgingly considered even if he was the man I now thought of at night when I slipped a hand between my legs—imagining those brutish features in place of where my hurried fingers were.
“She plays with you,” Thane said. “You should know no man who has pursued her has ever won her. Even if she beds them.” He crossed his arms and leaned against the alleyway’s stone side.
Thane meant to sound convincing, and he would have to anyone but me. I could hear his spiking envy, his futile bid for control, his need to know if Avery stood a chance with me.
Avery was half turned away, about to enter the main road to return to his bed in the smithy, an ease in his body, loose with drink and perhaps relaxed with hope after my finally deigning to flirt back.
“What’s that now?” he said, his tone pleasant, but there was a note of irritation on the air after he spoke.
“Roberta,” Thane answered. “She toys with you. Like a cat with a mouse.”
“Then I am the world’s most willing mouse,” Avery replied.
“It can only end in heartbreak for you.”
Now Avery turned fully to face Thane. He rubbed his chest with his left hand and then pounded it with a fist, coughing. “Strong drink served tonight.”
Thane’s nostrils flared. He wanted a reaction from the blacksmith.
“What did you say? Heartbreak?” Avery asked as if they were two women at a well exchanging commentary about weather or harvest.
“You heard me. Don’t pretend at not caring.”
“I would say I hardly pretend. I pursue her quite openly.”
“You pursue her quite foolishly. You act the fool.”
“Have you ever used a card deck for something other than a game? The Fool is a lucky card sometimes.”
“Are you ever serious?” Thane asked, derision in his question.
