A Dishonorable Knight - By Morrison, Michelle Page 0,113
her skirts daintily and moved to leave. "Make those improvements soon, Annie. I will be recommending to Samuel the weaver that he should send his customers to you."
"You are the very soul of kindness, my lady," Annie said sincerely, tears filling her eyes.
Elena paused in the doorway. She had certainly never been called that. In fact, the other ladies of the court had often called her unkind. She found she preferred being the soul of kindness, especially when it took very little effort to achieve it. With a regal nod to the seamstress, she swept down the stairs.
"Ooh, pretty, lady," young Oengus said, stopping his roughhousing with Cynan.
Cynan hopped to his feet. "You are indeed a vision, Lady Elena."
"Thank you. Good bye, Oengus."
"Goobye," he said.
Once outside, Elena led the way back towards Samuel's shop. "You and Bryant will return with Morgan to Eyri Keep, then?"
"Aye, my lady. I'm missing Enid fiercely. It seems harder to be away from her knowing she's carrying our babe."
With a sincerity she truly felt, Elena said, "I will miss traveling with you and Bryant. You both have treated me with the utmost courtesy."
Cynan laughed. "'Unlike our surly friend Gareth, eh? You must pay him no mind, Elena. Gareth must be sorely taken with you to act so rudely these past weeks."
Elena sensed Cynan could be a wealth of information regarding Gareth's feelings if she could lead him in the right direction. Slowing her pace so they would not reach Samuel's before she found out what she wanted to know, she said innocently, "Gareth taken with me?"
"Of course, we all are!" Cynan said good-naturedly. "Why Bryant is so lovesick, he forgets to eat unless I prod him. The only thing that has saved me is the fact that I am a devoted husband. Were it not for my dear Enid, I would no doubt be as melancholy as Bryant or as surly as Gareth."
Elena knew Bryant's feelings. They were evident is his puppy eyes every time he looked at her. Cynan might as well be her brother for her feelings toward him. What she wanted was details of Gareth's feelings. "I don't agree with you about Gareth." It was one of her best strategies, arguing just the opposite. Usually, she used the technique when men said they loved her. If she protested, they would spend their very breath proving to her that it was true. "I fear he can't stand to be in the same room with me."
"No, no. That is not the case at all. You see, Gareth usually treats all ladies with the utmost respect. He takes his vows of chivalry very seriously."
Elena frowned. She did not want to hear how well Gareth treated other women.
Cynan saw her frown and smiled as he continued. "But Gareth cared not a whit about any of the women. In fact, they interested him not the least. Then you come along and he is outright rude to you. He claimed at first that it was because you were a self-centered, uncaring little brat."
Elena's frown deepened. This was not what she wanted to hear.
"Which of course you aren't," Cynan quickly added. "But I interpreted that to mean that you had snubbed his overture to you and it had cut him to the quick. That it would hurt him could only mean he truly fancied you and rudeness was his only defense."
That was a little more like it, Elena thought. "But has he said aught of his true feelings to you?" she asked and immediately cringed. That question was anything but subtle.
"Nary a word. But give me more credit than Gareth, good lady. Though I may seem rough and crass, I can read my friends well and I know what I have said is true." They walked in silence for several seconds before Cynan spoke again. "Perhaps this is not an appropriate subject for me to be discussing, especially since you will be traveling alone with him for the next week. But you need not fear him, Lady Elena. Gareth is, above all things, honorable. No matter what his feelings toward you, he would never force himself upon you."
Elena considered their last bout of lovemaking. No, if anything, she had forced herself on him. It was comical that she should be pretending to Cynan that she was the demure and worried lady when she was looking forward to being alone with Gareth for the very reason that she wanted him to make love to her!