comfortable.
She ran her fingers through the short strands of his hair. Shorn as it was, the haircut really was awful. Long enough to fall into his eyes in one section, short to his scalp in other places. “You’re just going to have to sit up again in a few minutes. Julien, Edmund, and Jalissa will be here with lunch shortly.”
“I will eat later.” Farrendel had his eyes closed, his muscles relaxing.
“Are you sure? You need to eat.” Essie linked her fingers through his where his hand lay on the cot.
“Not hungry now.” Farrendel squeezed her fingers. “Besides, I am too comfortable to move.”
“I guess that’s a good reason.” She rested her free hand on his hair, tracing the tip of his ear with her thumb.
Carrying a tray, Jalissa swept into the tent, her expression still as hard as it had been when she had refused to acknowledge Melantha. Her gaze swept over the tent, passed Essie and Farrendel, then snapped back to them. Her eyes softened, and she raised an eyebrow.
Julien and Edmund entered on her heels, also carrying trays. They glanced in Essie’s direction and paused.
Essie grinned. If they didn’t like it, they would just have to deal with it. Or tease her relentlessly.
Instead, Edmund smirked and brandished his tray before taking a seat. “Lunch is served.”
“Apparently the cooks saved a side of roast beef for a victory feast.” Julien set his tray next to Edmund’s and also claimed a seat.
Jalissa slid into the last seat—the only chair—and straightened her skirts. “The cooks also made fresh bread.”
Fresh bread. They hadn’t had fresh bread in the past week. Everyone was too busy fighting and moving camp every day to take the time to bake. Essie would have lunged across the table for it, but she couldn’t with Farrendel’s head in her lap. “Averett, can you pass me some of that bread?”
Averett broke a chunk off the end of the loaf, passed it to Jalissa, who handed it to Essie.
After letting go of Farrendel’s hand, she broke the chunk of bread in half. She held half down to Farrendel. “Here. You can nibble on bread while lying down.”
He cracked one eye open and gave her a mock glare. “You got crumbs on me.”
“Sorry.” She brushed the breadcrumbs from the side of his face and the tapered end of his ear.
He took the bread from her. “Try not to drop food on me.”
“Um...” She was not exactly neat when she ate. As Farrendel well knew. “I will do my best.”
“That is not reassuring.” He took a bite of his bread, chewing slowly as if savoring it. “This is...much nicer than anything I have had in weeks.”
Essie couldn’t think of anything to say to that. Here she had been thankful to have fresh bread after only a week. It had been two weeks since he’d been captured, and whatever he’d been fed in that dungeon was probably far worse than camp rations.
She settled for patting his shoulder. “If you decide you’re hungry, I’ll pass you some roast beef once you finish the bread.”
“Maybe.”
She took that to mean he was doubting that he would be hungry, not that he was doubting she would give him more food.
Jalissa set a filled plate in front of her, and Essie winced. She was probably making everyone else feel terribly awkward, what with Farrendel using her as a pillow and them totally ignoring everyone else while they talked.
She’d told herself she didn’t care, but she remembered how annoyingly mushy Averett and Paige had been when they were first courting. Not that they weren’t still mushy with each other occasionally, but romance seemed to be tempered with practicality after a while. Back then, Essie hadn’t thought she would end up just as annoyingly mushy.
“Thank you for dishing out food for me.” Essie smiled at Jalissa and glanced around the table. Thankfully, her brothers and Weylind were eating their roast beef and studiously pretending they didn’t see Essie and Farrendel being cuddly.
Essie dug into her roast beef, holding the plate near her mouth. It wasn’t the proper, etiquette-approved way to eat, but it did prevent her from drooling meat juice from the roast beef onto Farrendel’s face.
Once she had eaten several bites, enough to stop her stomach from growling loudly next to Farrendel’s ear, she glanced at her brothers, focusing especially on Edmund. “You aren’t going to tease me about this?” She pointed down at Farrendel.
“It’s tempting. But you’re expecting it now.” Edmund’s expression remained far too casual as he