A Dishonorable Knight(58)

Gareth smiled and peered closely at her face, "I say, what have you done with Lady de Vignon? Surely you are not the woman who said 'I cannot be expected to sleep rolled up in a blanket with three servants'."

The smile faded from Elena's face and she pulled out of Gareth's warm embrace.

"We had better continue to Aberystwyth."

Gareth stared at her back pensively before turning to gather up their belongings.





Chapter 14




They approached Aberystwyth in late afternoon, after having detoured to make sure they were not being followed by the English soldiers. The sky was a brilliant azure, and as they crested a hill just outside of the city, they could see the waters of Cardigan bay, a deeper, tempestuous blue. The breeze coming off the water was fresh and clean and cooled Gareth and Elena as they rode into the city. Elena bent to shake her skirts. As she tried to smooth her hair, Gareth chuckled behind her, amused that she should be worried about her appearance when he was just glad they were alive.

"Worry not, Elena. Though large for Wales, Aberystwyth is too small to scorn you for your appearance. Besides, you look fine," he said reassuringly. He meant it: her windblown chestnut hair glinted like fire in the sunlight and spread about her shoulders enticingly. From over her shoulder he could see her left cheek and it was smooth, like velvet, and rosy from her days in the sun. Glancing a little farther down, he could just make out the soft swell of her creamy breasts.

Elena craned her neck to see the expression on his face and determine if he were joking. He realized she could tell where he’d been looking and smiled guiltily, but she merely shook her head and turned back around. "I did not realize my illness was catching. Surely you must be suffering from a fever if you think I look 'fine.' I have never worn a dress as much as I've had to wear this one," she said, nodding at her travel-stained skirts. "I doubt I could even recognize a fashionable gown if one landed in my lap."

Gareth grinned at Elena's lighthearted tone. Never had he heard her speak with the least bit of self-deprecation. He could not believe this was the same woman who had imperiously ordered him to make her breakfast all those weeks ago. Hoping that her good mood would last, he risked asking her about her change of heart.

"Lady Elena?"

She turned again, her eyebrows lifted at the solicitous note in his voice. "You've never called me that before."

Gareth was momentarily throne off balance. "What? Of course I have."

"No you haven't," she insisted. "You've called me 'Elena' and 'my lady,' and a few less complimentary phrases, but never 'Lady Elena.'"

Gareth didn't see what her point was and the confused look on his face made Elena laugh. "I wasn't criticizing you, merely commenting on the discovery that you do actually have manners." Gareth scowled at her remark, but she quickly distracted him. "Now what were you going to ask me?"

Gareth considered saying something about her not actually having manners, but decided that might cause her to turn into the woman of stone she had been so often in the past. Carefully phrasing his question, he said, "I was just wondering."

"Yes?"

"When we first met, weeks ago, you detested me—all of us for that matter—but now you seem different."

"How so?" Elena asked quietly.

"You seem more at ease. More, well, like one of us."

"But I told you, I have a Welsh grandmother."

"That's not what I mean. I mean, before you were so haughty, treating everyone around you—us--like they were servants. You seemed to think that anyone who was not important in the king's court was simply not important." When Elena remained quiet, he hastily continued. "But since we left Eyri Keep, you escaped the relative comfort of an abbey to reach us, risked your life to warn us of danger, shared your food uncomplainingly, and lied through your teeth to protect me from those English soldiers. Would you care to enlighten me as to why, or how, you have changed so much?"

Clearly stalling for time, Elena said, "If you think that abbey at Dinas Mawddwy was comfortable, you must have been raised in a barn. I doubt they had a down pillow in the whole musty building."

Gareth stared at her patiently. He knew she would find it difficult to answer for such a change of character. He knew he would be hard pressed to explain why he had treated her so poorly when she first travelled with them. Even now, he could hear the disdain in her voice when he had asked her to dance that long ago night in Middleham. But the bitterness of that encounter was overlaid with the sweetness of her kisses, the softness of her skin as he had caressed it…