Isabel tried questioning Mary as they ascended the stairs, but Mary kept shaking her head. Isabel figured Mary wanted complete privacy, which she understood, knowing that Mary had been shunned by many of her peers, lately.
Mary pulled her into her own room, almost shoved her farther, and then kicked the door closed.
“What happened, Mary? Let me help. Maybe you and James can talk this through. You love him. You have told me as much. He treats you like gold. What went wrong?”
Mary’s tears dried up as if she were facing the sun in the Mojave. “If James and I are to exchange vows happily, Isabel, then we need those standing witness to be happy as well.”
“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.
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
Isabel stood, stunned. “Oh. My. God. You tried. And I didn’t let you. I was so afraid that it was a farewell gesture that—”
“Shhh,” he said, putting a finger to her lips. “I understand your upset and confusion, Isabel. Please remember how quickly I grew angry at the thought of you with other men. Add to that that I am still married to Gwen, it is understandable why you would leap to that conclusion. Were the situation in the reverse, I fear I may have done the same.”
“You are giving me an excuse, when I have none. No, you would not have done the same. You would have listened. But, Arthur, I was so afraid that what we had . . .”
“I know, love, I know,” he said as he pulled her into his arms.
“Why are you so forgiving when I don’t deserve it?”
He chuckled into her hair. “Perhaps because it is the kingly thing to do?”
“No, the kingly thing to do is telling people to do this, or people to do that.”
“Then perhaps it is something a man does when he loves a woman.”
“I’ll take that one for a thousand, Alex.”
He grinned, brushing her hair from her face as he kissed her temple, her forehead, her nose. “I know not what that even means, and I find I do not care. I know not who this Alex is, but I do not care. What matters most to me is that we clear this misunderstanding betwixt us.”
“Oh, Arthur,” she said, wrapping her arms around him, standing on tiptoe to rain kisses over his neck. “I am so very sorry.”
“As am I. I am certain that there should have been a much better way to relate the events.” He smiled down at her. “Okay, I fibbed. I am curious as to what you will trade for a thousand whate’ers. And who this Alex is.”
