As the realization dawned on him that I wasn’t rejecting him, his face bloomed like a flower. We heard a throaty groan followed by a high pitched gasp. I resisted the urge to giggle like a schoolgirl at the situation.
Then something dawned on me. I knew exactly where to take him.
“Come on, I know just the place to get away from everyone.”
Keeping his hands tightly in my own, I led him away from the bench to a place where I knew we wouldn’t be interrupted.
AVERY
My heart felt like it had been out at sea during a hurricane or ridden an entirely unbroken horse at a full gallop - tossed about and thoroughly beaten.
Of all the things I had expected to happen when I poured out my feelings to a girl I thought I might love, being interrupted by an amorous couple in a hedge was not one of them.
It had taken me nearly half an hour after the ball to get the courage to even go talk to Genevieve, let alone convince myself that it would be all right for me to interrupt her in the hedge maze. My stomach heaved at the thought of spilling my guts to her all over again, but I couldn’t stand the idea of ending the night without knowing if I had a chance.
She still held one of my hands in hers, leading me on a twisting path that I would never be able to recreate on my own - even in the daylight.
“How do you know your way through this maze so well?” I asked, slightly breathless at the pace she was setting. It was hard to take a deep breath, thanks to the binder I still wore, along with my nervousness and the cold night air. “Can we slow down a little?”
“Oh, I’m sorry!” she slowed to a halt and set the lamp on the ground. The light that it let off was almost spooky. “I forget that not everybody is quite as in shape as I am. Are you okay to keep going? We’re almost where I wanted to take you.”
“Just… Give me a minute to catch my breath, and I’ll be all right. I don’t know how you are moving as fast as you are with all that chainmail on.”
If it was this difficult for me to breathe in a binder, I couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to be wearing what was essentially a metal corset in the frigid air. She released my hand and grinned at me.
“A whole lot of practice. Plus, it’s cold. Movement gets the blood pumping.”
“I see.”
I didn’t, really. I much preferred to curl up in front of a blazing fire with a good story, though I could see the merits of her thought process. We fell into silence while I tried to get my breathing under control.
Once I was ready to move again, I reached out my hand to her again. She took it in hers. Goosebumps that had nothing to do with the weather outside spread across my skin as we began walking. There was a purposefulness to her stride that I couldn’t help but admire.
Turning a carefully trimmed corner into an open clearing, the air around us became just a bit crisper. Glancing around, I tried to discern where exactly we were in the palace gardens, but it was too dark to see anything. Genevieve’s hand released mine and I felt the loss like that of a limb. The world around me went dark.
I turned to look for her but couldn’t find her in the darkness. A giggle interrupted my search, and I whirled towards it.
I couldn’t see anything in the darkness, not even the light she had carried.
“Where is here, exactly?”
“Take three steps forward and one step to the left and you’ll find me. Your eyes will adjust to the darkness soon enough. Trust me.”
Sure enough, she was right. As my eyes adjusted, I started walking, holding my hands out in front of me, hoping to avoid running into anything I couldn’t see. When my hands brushed against metal, I knew I’d gone too far. The only thing at chest height that would be metal would be… the…
“Well, if you just wanted to cop a feel, we could have just stayed in the hedge maze!” Genevieve laughed.
I blushed furiously, stammering an apology and curling my hands away from her. She grabbed them before I could get them into my pockets, tugging me closer with a smile.
“Now, we were talking about feelings, were we not? I think we can continue this discussion once the lights are on.” She let go of one hand and carefully lit two tall lamps that I hadn’t even seen behind her.
“That’s much better, don’t you think?”
I knew the blush was still clear on my cheeks, and she could see it now that the area around us was lit. Not trusting actual words to come out of my mouth at that moment, I nodded. Luckily, Genevieve wasn’t one to waste time when she knew her mind.
“You asked me if the crush I had on you was still here. Well, it isn’t.”
Her words were like a blow to the chest. Why had she brought me out here if she was just going to tell me exactly what I thought she was saying in the garden?
“My feelings for you have turned into something completely different since I’ve started to actually get to know you. My crush on you was based entirely on someone I’d built up in my head.”
I opened my mouth to speak but she held up a finger.
“The real you is a million times better. Every second that we have spent together has been better than the one before, and I don’t want our time to end.”
I nearly fell over from the impact of what she’d said. She liked me. She liked the real me. And I liked her, too. I took a step closer to her, biting my bottom lip.
“Genevieve… I would really like to kiss you right now.”
My voice was breathy and rough, and I didn’t even care.
“How convenient,” she replied, taking a step closer. “I would very much like to be kissed.”
The cold breeze brought a sweet floral scent with a metal undertone that I instantly knew was Genevieve’s scent. I reached out a hand and she placed hers in my palm. With a gentle tug, she wrapped her other arm around my waist. Her touch was intoxicating. Desire pooled in my stomach, intense and warm.
My gaze darted to her lips and back to her eyes, making sure this was what she wanted. Her eyes were focused on the movement of my tongue over my lips. I pressed my lips to hers and the whole world dropped away when she responded instantly, hungrily. Our mouths moved together and when she nibbled on my bottom lip, my knees nearly went out from under me.
Kissing wasn’t new to me. I’d kissed plenty of women in my time, but kissing them had never felt anywhere near as perfect as kissing Genevieve. I never wanted to stop kissing her.
She broke away, breathing raggedly, and pressed her forehead to mine. My lips were buzzing.
“Avery… We have to stop. People will see us. Our reputations…”
I laughed lightly, trailing my hand down her cheek. She shivered, pressing her face into my palm.
“I don’t give a damn about our reputations,” I told her. “This court could use a scandal with some truth to it, don’t you think?”
She smiled and pressed a soft kiss to my palm before pulling away. I felt the loss of contact like the loss of a limb, but I let her go. She was right of course. If we kept at it like this, we would soon find ourselves pressed up against the brick wall with my hand up her skirt.
When there was some space between us, she spoke again.
“How about we take this to the next step?”
I was confused.
“What do you consider the next step?”
“Well, you’ve met my family, and I’ve met your mother, but that is hardly the same. We need to have dinner with your family. As a pair.”
“I will make all the arrangements for as soon as possible. Just the two of us and my parents. I suspect it will be at least a week before we can make a date of it, though.”
She smiled at me in the lamplight and I feared I might swoon. How embarrassing that would be.
“Then I shall await your letter that it is settled. Until then, there shall be no more canoodling in gardens.”
I laughed aloud at that.
“In that case, may I at least escort you back to the barracks, my lady?”
“It would be
my pleasure.”
10
POPPY
I swiped the back of my hand across my forehead and groaned when it came away sticky with sweat. I could not believe how disgustingly hot it was in here, though it didn’t really surprise me because I couldn’t see to the front of the door for all the people in the shop. We hadn’t been this busy in all the years I’d been in business, and it had been like this ever since the ball had ended.
I spied at least three other knights in the shop, waiting patiently to talk to Isabela about what their order would be, but I suspected that our knit chainmail would be very popular in the coming season.
Thanks to the two gowns I’d made for the Teagan ladies, and the huge splash Genevieve’s gown had made with the other knights, I suspected that my assistants and I would have enough work to more than pay for the new, taller home that Cormac and I had decided to purchase on the outskirts of the Crafter’s district. It would make it much more pleasant for both of us to be able to work on a project together when we didn’t have to lug a bunch of tools outside of our at-home workshops.
Thanks to more than a week of steady business, Isabela and I had worked out a system. She would sort them into categories - clothes that she and Maria could handle, and clothes that I would have to create a pattern for on my own for them to help with. If we kept at this rate, I’d probably need to hire another assistant or put Isabela on as a full time seamstress. She was nearly ready for it.
But I had no more time for musing. I could see Isabela pointing an older woman with eyebrows so thick they nearly reached her receding hairline without effort. I didn’t recognize her, so she must have something difficult for me to work on.
Wonderful, I thought as I cracked my fingers and pasted my customer service smile back onto my face. Time to get to work.
GENEVIEVE
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been this anxious. Maybe right before I was knighted, but never before a dinner. I couldn’t stop pacing the room even though there were hours before I needed to even start getting dressed.
While there were a few reasons I was nervous, I knew they were all ridiculous. No, the King wouldn’t rescind my knighthood. Avery wouldn’t suddenly decide he hated me. It was very unlikely that the family would lose all of its land in one night. And yet, those were the worries that were crossing through my mind as I moved through my room.
It had been two weeks since the ball and it was the first time I would officially be meeting Avery’s family as a romantic partner. Alys had helped me choose the perfect gown to wear from our shopping trip and I had nothing else to do until it was time to go.
“Well, I might as well put this energy to good use,” I declared aloud. There was no one else in the room but it felt more real that way. My weapons hadn’t been properly oiled since the ball two weeks prior, as I’d been out of the whale oil that I needed to care for them properly. Focusing on fixing that would take my mind off of the dinner ahead of me.
Striding across the room, I flung open the doors to the mahogany wardrobe that held my personal cache of weaponry. I took a deep breath, letting the comforting, lightly tangy scent of iron and steel wash over me before grasping the wrapped leather handles of my short swords and pulling them off of the rack. The weight of my favorite weapons in my arms was relaxing.
I turned towards the table that sat opposite the wardrobe and sighed. It was covered in papers. Unless I wanted to render all of the papers unusable afterwards, I needed to clean it first.
I hadn’t realized just how slovenly I’d become in the weeks leading up to the ball. If Ser Allondra saw this, I’d be cleaning latrines for a week. If my mother saw it… I didn’t even want to think about what she’d do. I knew better than to leave my space in this kind of disarray.
I put the swords back where they belonged and plopped myself gracelessly into the upholstered chair that had been a gift from my grandmother to begin sorting. I had a time honored system for dealing with my paperwork - sorting them into piles.
The personal letters I sorted into two piles of their own - answered and unanswered. Some of the answered ones would be turning into fire starters later. Others, I intended to keep and scrape down for reuse. Vellum was pricey, even for us. Household paperwork got its own pile and notes to myself got another.
Within a quarter of an hour, there was enough space on the table for me to lay out and clean my blades. I retrieved the small glass bottle of oil and two cloths from my travel bag. I wiggled the stopper of the bottle open. The fishy scent of the thin oil filled the room. Anyone not used to the smell would have called it pungent, but it was as familiar to me as the scent of my mother’s cologne.
Lowering myself back into the chair, I tilted the bottle so it would coat the well-used polishing cloth in my other hand, stopping when it was moist enough to work but not dripping. There was no point in wasting the expensive oil.
Placing the bottle on the table and stoppering it for safekeeping, I picked up one of the swords. The blades were sturdy, without much in the way of decoration, but I loved them. Most of my time training for my knighthood was spent practicing with weapons I could use on horseback - a lance, a bow and arrow, or a sword and shield. I knew why, but I had always had a preference for close combat. These swords allowed me to surprise my opponents with my speed, and kept them too busy to use their often heavier weight and height advantage against me on the battlefield.
Muscle memory took over as I worked, rubbing the oil down the length of the blade over and over again. I took extra care of the peening block that connected the base of the blade to the hilt, buffing away even the hint of rust or damage.
I lost track of time as I worked, switching from blade to blade without stopping. With each stroke, my thoughts got quieter and calmer, until a knock startled me into nearly dropping the dagger in my hand.
A moment later, the door opened and Juniper poked their head in. They didn’t look surprised to see me working my way through my personal armory, though they did wrinkle their button nose at the smell.
“I wondered what that smell was. Miss, you have about three hours until dinner, and I thought you might want to bathe. Unless you want to show up at the palace smelling like the wharfs.”
I grimaced, realizing they had a point. Duchess Celeste and King Father Victor would be less than thrilled if someone hoping to join their family showed up smelling the way I surely did right now.
Juniper laughed and gestured at the table in front of me.
“I’ll have water heated for you in a jiffy. Tidy up and we’ll have you smelling like a person again soon.”
“Thank you, Juniper. You’re the best.”
They grinned at me and dipped a curtsy.
“I know, Miss.”
Before I knew it, the door was closing behind me. I shook my head, smiling. Juniper was one of the best servants I’d ever hired and I was glad that they knew it. Now I just had to make sure that I looked -and smelled- my best for the evening ahead.
AVERY
I couldn’t keep myself from bouncing on my toes as I waited outside the main hall of the palace for Genevieve’s carriage to arrive. She was due to be here any moment for our first ever family dinner, and I couldn’t wait to introduce her to Father.
Mother was, of course, thrilled to have her. Apparently they had hit it off quite well while they shopped. Mother had told Father that he would have absolutely no reason to object to a union between us, which had set us all at ease. Father was an excellent judge of character, but he tended to be a little harsher than necessary when it came to new people. It came from a lifetime of strategizing to keep his crown and family safe, something I couldn’t blame him for. I so wanted him to love Genevieve as much as I did.
Before my nerves could get the better of me, a carriage built out of dark wood pulled up, led by two beautiful black geldings. My heart fluttered when I saw the carved seal of House Teagan on the side.
A footman I didn’t recognize opened the door and a s
lippered foot stepped out. My breath caught in my throat as the rest of Genevieve’s body followed it.
Her dress was a silvery lilac confection, fitted tight around her torso and blooming into a skirt that billowed out around her legs. She got more stunning every time that I saw her, something I hoped would never go away, no matter how long we were together.
When she set foot on the ground, I bowed.
“Welcome to the palace, lady knight. May I say, you are looking particularly lovely tonight?”
Her cheeks flushed a pale pink that made my heart skip and my smile widen. With a deep curtsy, she replied, “You may, my lord duke. You are looking quite handsome yourself.”
Holding out my arm to her, I grinned.
“May I escort you to dinner, Genevieve? There are two people there who are very excited to spend time with you.”
She blinked rapidly, rubbing at the skin of her wrists before she noticed my attention. She was nervous. I noticed she was wearing a silver cuff with a floral design on it that complemented the sheen of her gown. She dropped her hands to her sides and cleared her throat. Her smile only trembled slightly as I took both of her callused hands in mine.
“They’re going to love you,” I whispered. “Just like I do.”
She blinked her hazel eyes at me rapidly.
“Are you sure?”
“Positive. Mother has been singing your praises all week and Father trusts her judgement implicitly.”
Her cheeks colored slightly deeper. I couldn’t have taken my eyes off of her even if I wanted to. And I didn’t. Taking a deep breath, she met my gaze and smiled for real this time.
“Then it would be my honor to come to dinner with you, Avery.”
GENEVIEVE
Nervous as I was, I had to admit that walking into the palace dining room on Avery’s arm felt wonderful. I had not realized just how good it would feel, to be dressed in a beautiful gown and on the arm of a wonderful man that I was already falling hard for. I had been trained to fall properly, so I wouldn’t get hurt, but I knew full well that my training would be absolutely useless.
A Knight to Remember Page 14