Charina shrugged impatiently. “Gowns can be cleaned. Now, if you’ll tell me what the manuscript looks like, I’ll help you look.”
He couldn’t concentrate with her face so close to his, her eyes so earnest, her lips ...
To his horrified embarrassment, his body was responding. Kevin turned hastily away, praying she hadn’t noticed. “It’s c-called The Study of Ancient Song, but I don’t think that’s its real name, and it’s about so big, so wide, in a worn brown leather binding.”
“You don’t think that’s its real name?” Charina echoed softly. “Why ever not?”
Kevin felt her warmth like a fire against his arm. He hastily moved that arm away, and the girl laughed—
“Why, bardling, are you afraid of me?”
She made it sound so ridiculous that Kevin found himself starting to laugh, too. “No, of course not,” he said. “But I... you ...” Quickly he changed to a safer subject—”The manuscript’s too weird to be just a study. I mean, part of it’s in elvish.”
“How odd! But I said I’d help you look, and I will.”
It was, Kevin thought, as they searched together, easily turning out to be both the worst and the most wonderful day of his life—
A day that ended all too soon.
“I’m sorry we couldn’t find the manuscript,” Charina said. A smudge of dirt covered the very tip of her nose, and Kevin had to fight down the impulse to brush it away, to touch her soft cheek—No! He didn’t dare. If he touched her once, he wouldn’t be able to stop. And she was the count’s niece, after all.
“Yes, uh, right,” he got out. “Blast the thing! It has to be here somewhere^
“I know what you need,” Charina told him with a smile. “You need a day away from this dusty old place.”
“I can’t—”
“You can! You’ll be more likely to find the manuscript if you get out in the nice, fresh air. I know! I’m going riding tomorrow. Why don’t you join me? You ... do ride, don’t you?”
He wasn’t about to tell her about the mule. “Of course.”
“Well, then! Meet me by the stables tomorrow morning, and we’ll make a whole day of it.”
I shouldn’t. I should stay here and find the manuscript and finish copying it, and—and—
And a day away from it couldn’t possibly matter.
“I’ll be there,” Kevin promised, and smiled.
Of course they weren’t allowed to ride out alone. A dull-faced groom went with them, several tactful strides behind so they could at least pretend to be alone.
Kevin hardly noticed the man. Charina sat her pretty white palfrey with graceful ease, her deep blue riding gown matching the little mare’s blue-dyed bridle and saddle, her hair tucked neatly up under a feathered cap. As for the bardling, well, he was mounted not on a mule but on a horse, a real, spirited horse! Maybe it wasn’t so easy to keep his seat, maybe he nearly fell a dozen times, but at last he was riding a proper hero’s mount.
They didn’t ride very far, only as far as a flowery hillside.
“I thought this would make a lovely picnic site,” Charina said, jumping lightly down before the embarrassed Kevin could help her. As they munched on fresh, buttery bread and the first peaches of springtime, the girl coaxed, eyes bright, “But there’s so much more in my uncle’s demesne! Tomorrow is market day. We can ride down into the town and see all the sights.”
“Well ...”
“Oh, you can’t say no! Please! It’ll be such fun. Besides, I see so few people my own age!”
“There are the squires,” Kevin said, hating himself for reminding her.
To his delight, she dismissed them all with a contemptuous wave of the hand. “Mere boys. Servants no better
