“I hope you bring the excitement with you this evening. The fear, allow me to take care of that.”
“Isabel, I am to protect you.”
She thumped his arm. “Just for once, Arthur, get used to the idea that women can be very useful in taking care of their men. Just once.”
“I will not allow you to go into battle, should this attack occur. Isabel, please, I cannot even stomach the possibility. I love you. Do you not ken?”
“Oh, yes, I ken. How about if I promise that none of us, not a single woman, actually enters any type of battlefield?”
He peered at her. “You have a sneaky plan, Isabel.”
She offered him the falsest innocent face imaginable. “I swear, I truly swear, that we will not enter the field of battle.”
“You have another plan.”
“I swear, I swear we will not enter the field of battle.”
“I do not know whether to laugh or shake with worry.”
“I choose Laugh for one thousand, Alex.”
“Isabel, I could not bear if anything happened to you. The love I have for you is . . . just so . . . I cannot even describe the feelings. I only know that should I lose you after I have just found you, I . . . I cannot imagine going on.”
She chuckled as she looked up into his hard, warm, worried face. “I am not the one readying herself for battle, Arthur. How do you think I feel, knowing you are?”
“’Tis what I do.”
“Oh, yes, ’tis what you do. And I am supposed to smile, pack you a lunch, send you off and say, ‘Hope you’re still alive by supper, Arthur. It would be such a shame to waste your favorite meal. However, Pix might enjoy it.’”
He glared at her for a moment, and then just laughed. He pulled her close. “This has been the strangest conversation I have e’er had. I love you so much.”
“As you should,” she said, still feeling grumpy and afraid. She’d had no idea that danger might be close at hand. He had managed to keep that little piece of information close to the vest. Or tunic. Or chain stuff. “We will not sit by, Arthur. We have ways.”
“Should it come to this, I will not allow women to rush in. And most definitely not my woman.”
“Women will not join in the stupid wars you men fight.”
“Meaning what?”
“We are much more resourceful than you think.”
“Betimes you worry me, Countess.”
“I should worry you at all times.”
“This is what concerns me.”
“As well it should.”
“May I see you tonight?” he asked.
“What is, ‘The woman who wants to be with Arthur tonight more than any other on this earth.’ For a thousand, Alex.”
He grinned down at her. “I have yet to figure a thousand what. However, I just won them.”
“For a thousand. I really, truly want to hear it from your lips.”
“Who is the woman Arthur loves and desires beyond all others?”
“Oh, that is so correct. Double bonus for you.”
“Tonight, then, Isabel?”
“Oh, yes, please.”
As he left the room, she heard him say, “I do hope your toes have dried by now, Mary. And yours as well, Gwen.”
“WE must move up the date of your wedding, Mary,” Isabel said, even as she was getting over total embarrassment. Good gods, they had been right outside of the door. Both, however returned as if they had heard nothing. And then the three of them looked at each other, and once again could not contain their humor. They laughed, but then sobered when she said, “The women of Camelot . . . and guests such as myself,” she added, nodding to Gwen, “need to prepare to protect the men. I have a plan. Or a partial one. We need to scheme, and we need to involve all of the servants to pull it off.”
She held up her hand. “Are we in?”
“I am,” Mary said, joining hands.
“As am I,” said Gwen, clasping both of her hands around theirs.
“Good, because, Gwen, to pull this off, I need you to put on that crown and use it for all it’s worth.”
“Consider it donned.”
“Good. Mary, how would you like to marry James day after tomorrow?”
Mary’s eyes widened. “Are you jesting?”
“No. Your dress is ready, is it not?”
“It is.”
“I can take care of the feast,” Isabel said. “Gwen, you have such a touch with flowers and decoration. You can make the hall lovely, I trust.”
“Oh, yes.”
“Excellent. Tomorrow, I fear, game time is going to be spent airing out those rushes and scrubbing the great hall. When Mary and James exchange vows, it is going to smell like spring, not like a sty.”
They both nodded. “Mary, I fear you are going to have to work tomorrow. James needs a haircut, and so does Arthur.”
“And Lance,” Gwen said.
“And Lance. Although I must say he looks kind of cute shaggy,” Isabel said.
Gwen smiled while still admiring her toes. “Yes, he does. Yet a trim could not hurt.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“M’LADY,” a man said as he passed Isabel in the great hall, where she was on her knees, scrubbing the floor.
She glanced up, down, up, down, then up again. “James?”
He stopped, his face, free of hair, went a little red. “Yes, Countess.”
She jumped up, pulling his burly self around to face her. “James! Oh, good gods, look at you!”
“I am not able to do that, Countess, as I am looking at you.”
She laughed and wiped her brow. “Why in the world have you been hiding that handsome face behind so much . . . fur?”
“I . . . Countess, are you jesting? I feel almost disrobed.”
“Holy smokes, James,” Isabel said, truly shocked. Without all of that hair, he looked like a young Clooney, albeit beefier. About a foot taller. And way better. “Why have you been hiding your good looks? I mean, truly.”
She was sincerely almost at a loss for words.
“I did not know I was doing such. But I appreciate it, Countess. Yet right now I feel as a newborn babe,” he said, rubbing his jaw.
“Mary takes no prisoners.”
“Oh, she does indeed. Right now her prisoner is the king.”
She smiled. “Now I see what Mary has always seen. What a lucky bride to have such a handsome groom.”
“I am the lucky one, Countess.” He glanced around. “And her toes are pretty,” he whispered.
