Kress nodded, relieved to see that she wasn’t injured but still concerned with an aching ear and throat. “While you have been in here, I have been outside in the road, watching them trickle into town,” he said. “A few of my men were injured, but none too badly. They will recover.”
“Who were those men who attacked us?”
Kress shook his head. “Outlaws,” he said. “Those who were not killed fled into the woods. My guess is that they were simply criminals looking for an opportunity, which I provided when I dismounted my horse and left us vulnerable. But I will tell you one thing– the next time that dog acts strangely, I shall pay attention.”
Cadelyn looked down at the dog again, petting his head and pondering a situation that had been quite frightening.
“Goliath was a good dog, wasn’t he?”
“Most definitely.”
“Areyouwell?”
“I am.”
“Where are Susanna and Yerik?”
Kress scratched his wet head. “Susanna is seeing to her horse and the cleric is down in the common room, stuffing his face,” he said. “They are both well. You needn’t worry. But they are concerned about you, so I shall tell them that you are uninjured.”
Cadelyn nodded and he turned away, but she stopped him. “Iamrather hungry,” she said. “I do not wish to be any trouble, but do you think you could have food sent to me?”
He paused in the doorway, nodding. “Indeed,” he said. “Anything else?”
She thought on that. “All of my things are back in the carriage that we could not bring with us,” she said. “I have nothing withme but what I was wearing. If the weather is better tomorrow, do you think someone can go back and retrieve my bags?”
He scratched his head. “I did not want to bring them because of the extra weight on the horse,” he said. “But if the weather is better tomorrow, I will send men back for some of your possessions.”
“Thank you. And, Kress?”
“I told you not to call me that.”
“I do not care.”
He grunted with some frustration. Considering all they’d said to each other yesterday in the old woman’s house, he supposed the last barrier of her addressing him by his given name was a foolish formality to stand on.
“Have it your way,” he grumbled. “What do you want?”
“Will you come back and eat with me?”
He just looked at her for a moment and then he was gone, closing the door behind him. Cadelyn sat there with a comb in one hand, petting the dog with the other, and wondering if he was simply going to leave her alone for the night.
She hoped not.
The conversation the day before kept coming back to her. It had been an important conversation; so much had been said between them. She’d been able to see the wall of self-protection he’d kept up around him crumble, just a little, and there had been moments when he’d been warm and kind. That was the man she wanted to see more of, that sweet and flirtatious knight she’d first met. But she knew it was wrong; it was wrong in so many ways.
What do you want from me?
He’d asked that question, but with it had come a myriad of answers to questions she hadn’t even asked. All of it told her what he was really feeling for her, mirroring what she was feeling for him. The connection they had made in Lynnon that fateful day hadn’t been an accident, something quickly experienced and quickly gone. It had been something that was meant to happen, preordained for that very moment in time by the winds of fate she so often wrote about in her poems.
At least, that’s what Cadelyn believed.
She refused to believe anything else.
Therefore, when she asked him to dine with her and he simply walked away without answering, she wasn’t upset by it. She knew he’d be back.
Next to her, the dog was beginning to snore, exhausted and lulled by the heat. She looked down at the beast, petting his head again, thinking that meeting up with him had been preordained, too. She’d hardly been around the beast, but he’d taken to her greatly, which seemed very strange to her. Perhaps the dog sensed her distress; animals were very intuitive, she thought. He’d certainly tried to warn them about the attack.
He was a good dog, indeed.
