The Reckless Oath We Made(45)

He carried his shirt and boots over to the blanket. My little spot in the shade had shrunk so small, I’d crossed my legs to keep my toes out of the sun. While I dried my eyes, Gentry got out the bottle of water and took a long drink. Then he sat down on the blanket and offered the bottle to me. I only took a few sips, because I was nice and cool in the shade with a breeze on me. Gentry, on the other hand, had sweated so much his chest hair was wet. I could feel the heat radiating off him.

“Did you sleep okay?” I was shocked he could sleep that way at all.

“Yea. I ne’er sleep so well as I do here. How farest thou, my lady?”

“Oh, I rested and read a little. This is a sad book.”

“’Tis?” He had his head down, unrolling his shirt like he was going to put it on, but he stopped and frowned.

“A lot of sad things happen to Stephen. Did you really run away looking for a knight when you were a little boy?”

“My mother told thee?”

Instead of putting his shirt on, he flopped back on the blanket and laughed. Honestly, I didn’t mind looking at him. He wasn’t chiseled like a guy who spends hours lifting weights, but he was solid, like a guy who spends his weekends building a castle. His body hair had perfect margins. Black hair on his forearms and his knuckles, but nowhere else on his arms. Same deal with his chest: a perfect butterfly shape of hair, but none on his shoulders or back. He had a little bit of a gut—at his age, it could have been baby fat or beer—and that was where all the sweat had run off him and soaked into the waist of his pants.

I recognized the surgical scar on his right shoulder from physical therapy, but on his left forearm, he had a bunch of old puncture scars, white against his tan. An even dozen, I guessed, because scars like that come in sets of four. He had more on his left shoulder, and a set of them up high on his throat under his chin.

“Wow,” I said. “That must have been a big dog.”

“A fair-sized dog, and I was a small boy. ’Twas thus I came to live with my mother and father. The judge would not leave me return to the house where Miranda dwelt, for the dogs remained there.”

The dogs remained there. He’d gone into foster care, because his own mother wasn’t willing to get rid of her dogs after he was bitten?

“Is it okay if I touch you?” I said.

“My lady, I am thy servant.”

“Is that a yes? When you say that, it doesn’t sound like yes to me.”

He propped himself up on his elbow, so he was facing me, but he didn’t look at me. There was some stray grass on the blanket, and he flicked it away.

“My lady,” he said and cleared his throat. “Yes. Thou mayest touch me.”

I hadn’t intended to turn it into a big deal, and with anybody else, I wouldn’t have even asked. With him facing me, I settled for putting my fingertips on the top of his shoulder.

“I wondered if you were hot to the touch, and you are. I don’t know how you can stand that.” When I took my fingers away, he put his hand up to his neck.

“It troubleth me not, tho sooth thy hand is cool. Come August, when the sun is nearer, I shall ask thee share thy bit of shade with me,” he said, like that was a given, that I was going to be there in August. “Let us go down and see if Sir Rhys hath come.”

When we got down to the main camp, Sir Rhys had come. He was a taller guy, maybe six-two, blond, and good-looking, even if I wasn’t a fan of goatees.

“Here you are at last, Sir Gentry. I was starting to think I’d come out here for nothing, but I can see you were otherwise occupied,” he said, grinning at Gentry and then at me.

Rosalinda gave us such a weird look that I turned and looked at Gentry. He’d come around the fire to shake Rhys’ hand, and he wasn’t doing anything unusual for him. Except he hadn’t tucked his shirt in all the way or laced it back up. I was basically sewn into my dress, but with his shirt hanging off one shoulder and open down to his belly button, Gentry looked like the cover of a romance novel. If he were a foot taller, with rock-hard abs and a chiseled jawline.

“Nay, thou art many hours late,” Gentry said. “This be Lady Zhorzha. My lady, this be Sir Rhys of Vatavia.”

“That’s what I’ve been hearing, that we’ve finally been honored with a visit from Lady Zhorzha.” Rhys put out his hand like we were going to shake, but when I gave him mine, he kissed it.

“Sir Rhys is the Porthos to our Athos and Aramis,” Edrard said. I didn’t have a clue what that meant, but I laughed anyway, and he looked happy.

“Nay, is he Porthos?” Gentry said.

“Well, I’m certainly no Aramis,” Rhys said. “’Tis thee through and through.”

“Prithee, if ye must speak of such things, wait until after we sup,” Rosalinda said.

“Camest thou to joust?” Gentry said. “Or wilt thou surrender ere we taken up weapons?”

“One-track mind. It’s late. Let’s joust tomorrow.”

Gentry wasn’t having any of that. Maybe I didn’t get their jokes, but I could see that much.





CHAPTER 21





Rhys



For the longest time, Gentry, Rosalinda, and Edrard had a pseudo love triangle going on. She followed Gentry around like a puppy, and Edrard followed her, and Gentry was oblivious to all of it.