Goddess of Legend (Goddess Summoning #7)(67)

"I'm sorry? Mary, I don't understand."

Mary stuck two fingers in her mouth and let out an ear-piercing whistle. She smiled at Isabel and said, "Tom taught me that when he was doing my teeth-cleaning."

Isabel was considering how she was going to punish her friend when her door flew open and James entered, dragging a blindfolded Arthur in his wake.

"James, this has become not my favorite prank," Arthur said. "I went along, but now this might have gone a bit far."

Isabel glanced at Mary. "Traitor," she whispered.

Mary shrugged.

James pulled the blindfold from around Arthur's head. Arthur blinked and looked around. As soon as he spotted Isabel and Mary, he glared at James. "Traitor."

James shrugged.

James and Mary, looking so immensely pleased with themselves, banded together.

"You two are standing up for us during our vows in just days," James said. "And you will, and I mean will, be happy at our ceremony."

"James," Arthur began.

James held up his beefy hand. "You know, King Arthur, that I am loyal to you. I will run with you into battle, and I will protect you until my dying breath."

"And you, Countess Isabel," Mary said. "You have become a friend such as I may never know again. I would stand afore you in any situation where someone would do you harm."

"But we are tired," James said, taking up the apparent narrative, "of your surliness of late. As you have been avoiding one another as the plague the past days, we can only surmise that there are . . . are ..."

"Issues," Mary finished. "Those which need be aired and addressed. You will," she said, pointing back and forth between the two, "fix these problems afore our marriage vows."

"Whate'er happened betwixt the two of you," James said.

"Get over it!" they yelled in unison.

With that, the two huffed their way out of the room, slamming the door shut behind them with a decided bang.

Isabel and Arthur stared at each other for several moments, and then broke out in laughter.

"I believe we have both just been spanked by our parents," Isabel gasped.

"I'm feeling decidedly unkingly," Arthur said. "Just when did I lose control?"

"No," she said, still laughing. "It shows just what a great king you are."

"Surely, you jest," he said. "My first man just berated me."

Oh, how Isabel wanted to say, "Don't call me Shirley." But somehow she was fairly certain the joke would not translate.

"Don't you realize how excellent this is?" she asked.

"Perhaps I do not recognize the underlying meaning behind two servants giving their king a dressing down, as it were."

"The underlying meaning, your Highness, is that they love you enough, they trust you enough to take such extreme measures. They know that you will not punish them, because they trust that you care."

"Ah, mayhap the difference between my people and you. James and Mary, at least, trust that I care."

Isabel stared at him while she mentally pulled the dagger out of her chest. "I never realized you had a cruel side, Arthur. It's good to know. It helps me so much in getting over you."

He strode over to her. "Isabel, I did not mean - "

"You touch me and I will take out both your knees."

"Then take them," he said, grabbing hold of her shoulders. "Go. Do it. But I am going to hold on to you until you listen to me if I have need to I will take you down with me when my legs become useless."

It was totally disgusting that his hands on her already had her body responding as if he were moving them all over her, not just holding on to her upper arms.

"I believe I have heard enough."

"No, you heard just enough to form conclusions. Incorrect conclusions, as it turns out. For a smart, compassionate woman, Isabel, I cannot understand how you would hear only part of my story and instantly believe the worst of me. Ye gods, woman, we had spent the evening together in the most intimate of ways. And yet not an hour later you shut me out. You closed your hearing and your mind. Were you already regretting what we shared?"

"No, but you said Gwen wanted . . ."

"I know what I said, Isabel. I also know what you refused to allow me to finish. Are you willing to allow me the opportunity now?"

"I'm listening. I'm not ruling out the knee-kicking thing, but I'm listening."

"That is a start," he said, letting her go. He turned and walked two steps, then spun around and stepped right back to her. "What you ne'er allowed me to finish the other night was that I turned Gwen down. I do not want her any longer. I have not for some time. When she asked if we could try to go back, I said no, Isabel. I told her that now she was betraying not just me, but now Lance, as well. I recovered from the pain. Truth be told, I fell for another. You. But I fear Lance would not. You saw him at the cottage. He was near to mindless with grief and anger and worry.

"I returned to you, because with you was where I wanted to be. And I wanted to talk it out with you. Do you honestly believe I would climb back into your bed furs to say to you that I had decided that we had fun, but alas, I had decided to start over with Gwen? Just how cruel do you believe me to be?"