Gareth strode by her side, his expression impassive, his eyes constantly scanning. He didn’t trust anyone else with her safety, an irritating development, but one he wasn’t in any mood to resist.
If he wasn’t by her side, he’d be distracted, unable to make sound decisions, so there wasn’t any point fighting the now insistent compulsion.
Dorcas followed behind them, a basket over her arm, Mullins by her side. Recalling what he’d noticed on the xebec’s deck during the battle, Gareth suspected there was a budding romance there. Regardless, he was glad of Mullins’s company, and Bister was ambling around them, sometimes ahead, sometimes behind in his usual role of scout.
They had no difficulty finding the market-they followed the noise and the smells. Some were savory, others less so, but once they reached the square and merged into the loud, constantly shifting crowd, all individual aromas melted into the rich potpourri of the market.
Although they didn’t need food in the general sense, they’d agreed that once on the road they wouldn’t stop for lunch, but would eat on the run as it were. After circling the stalls selling fresh fruit, Emily bought a sack of crisp apples, a selection of other fruits and vegetables that would keep, and handfuls of various nuts in their shells.
While Dorcas tucked the packages into her basket, Emily turned to him. “Can you see where the stalls selling cured meats and cheeses are?”
Raising his head, he looked over the crowd, saw those stalls along a distant wall. He also saw two cultists strolling down the aisle toward them. The pair were still some way ahead, but they weren’t shopping.
He’d taken Emily’s arm before he’d thought. Bending close, he spoke quietly as he turned her. “Cultists ahead-we’ll backtrack, then circle around. The stalls you want are along the far wall.”
She met his eyes, nodded, then calmly gathered Dorcas and Mullins as they passed. In good order they retreated out of the cultists’ path.
While escorting Emily to the distant stalls, he kept an eye on the pair, and sent Bister scouting further to see if there were any others in the market.
Emily was negotiating the price of two nice hams when Bister returned.
“Just those two.” He frowned. “You’d think they’d leave off their turbans and those black scarves, but no.” He shrugged. “Just as well for us, I suppose.”
Gareth returned a noncommittal grunt. If the cultists left off their insignia, given the number of foreigners from every land under the sun to be found in Marseilles, he and the others would be in very big trouble. Not for the first time, he gave thanks for the cultists’ arrogance.
They spent another half hour in the crowded market, every minute on high alert. By the time they quit the main square, loaded with the hams, blocks of hard cheese, and the fruits and vegetables, and headed via a series of narrow streets back to their inn, Emily felt exhausted, emotionally wrung out.
She felt like a piano wire that had been strung too tight for too long-she wanted nothing more than to snap and sag.
To find relief…release.
Much like another sort of tension, and the blissful release she’d discovered it could lead to.
She slanted a glance at Gareth, striding close beside her. Although he was looking ahead, alert and focused, she was sure that if she took one step in the wrong direction, away from him, his entire attention would snap back to her. If she walked into a room he was in, he glanced at her immediately. Every time she left him, she felt his gaze on her back until she’d passed out of his sight.
If she was in his presence, even if he wasn’t looking at her, he knew exactly where she was.
The knowledge buoyed her, and comforted, too. If she had to walk through ever-present danger, having a possessive predator at her side was no bad thing.
But there was a counterside to that. Said ever-present danger was a very big hurdle in her path. While he remained focused on the enemy, and even more on protecting her, the chances of him initiating any intimate interlude were, she estimated, effectively nil.
Being intimate was a time when his guard was down. He wouldn’t suggest it.
He’d warned that the danger-and therefore the tension-was only going to escalate, at least until they reached England, and probably beyond that. If they were to share any more interludes between now and the end of his mission, she would have to instigate them.
But should she?
She glanced at him as they turned into the street in which their inn stood. She detected no lessening in the battle-ready tension that held him, no easing of his all-but-constant surveillance of their surroundings.
Should she distract him-not now, but tonight?
Or should she acquiesce to what she knew would be his choice, and wait until they reached England and his mission was complete before again addressing their putative relationship?
If she waited, social mores would come to his aid. Once at home, it would be difficult for her to refuse his suit, even to delay, if he pressed. She was fairly certain he would. As matters stood, their marriage was no longer in question-it was the nature of said marriage they had yet to resolve.
She glanced at him again-and caught him watching her, rather speculatively, but he immediately looked away.
Was he thinking, imagining, considering, as she was?
She couldn’t imagine the prospect of another interlude hadn’t occurred to him, yet regardless of the prompting of his instincts, she would wager her life he wouldn’t come to her bed. Not unless…
Unless she issued an invitation he couldn’t-wasn’t strong enough to-resist.
The notion tantalized her adventurous side.
So…should she use, indeed capitalize on, the tension, the danger, the stress of the journey to help press her cause? To make it harder for him to pretend that his interest in her was honor driven and nothing else? Or should she-as she was sure he would-play safe?
Reaching the inn, he opened the front door and held it for her. Passing in front of him, she looked into his face.
He was looking down the street.
