“I would never treat you like this,” he whispered in her ear. “Except tonight.”
Then he placed the squirming ferret inside the cage and latched it.
“Are you sure you want to do that?” Gracie remarked. She and Bess had been silent up to then, but they looked tense.
“I’m sure,” G said, and he was. “I want you to promise me that you won’t let her out. That you’ll protect her.”
The princess nodded and settled into a chair beside Jane’s cage. “I suppose this time we’re actually staying behind to guard Jane. I’d object, but I don’t know how I’d be useful in a bear hunt.”
“I won’t let her out,” Gracie agreed. “But she is going to murder you later, I think.”
She sat down at the edge of the bed.
“Wait, Bess and Gracie are both going to stay behind?” Edward looked startled. “Why shouldn’t Gracie come? She’d be useful.”
“I don’t trust the Pack,” said Gracie. “Especially Archer. I should stick around here in case he’s up to something while you’re gone. Keep an eye on him. And Bess can stay with Jane to make sure she doesn’t ferret her way out of that cage.”
“Can you use ferret as a verb?” G asked.
She shrugged. “You can now.”
Edward’s eyebrows were furrowed.
“Sire?” G said. “Are you troubled?”
“No. Everything is fine. With Gracie. Staying behind. With the Pack. And . . . Archer. That’s fine.”
“Right,” G said slowly. He picked up his sword. “We are off, then?”
“Without hesitation,” Edward said.
And for a few moments, they hesitated. Then they were off.
It was just G and the king, then, alone on this quest, and as the dirt path passed beneath them, G could not help the niggling memory that had been pricking at the back of his brain ever since they’d arrived at Helmsley. It was the image of his half-conscious wife pushing him out of the way so she could get to Edward. Yes, she had believed her cousin was dead, and it must have come as a happy shock to see him alive.
And yet, the niggling thought . . . well . . . niggled.
G remembered how close he’d been to losing her. How weak she’d been. How much blood she’d lost. It wasn’t until her eyes had fluttered open that G realized the hold she had on his heart.
But then she had stopped just short of shoving him out of the way because she’d seen Edward. It turned out that the most important person to her, the one she wanted to embrace upon defying death, was Edward. Her dearest and most beloved friend—wasn’t that how she’d phrased it in the letter?
Maybe hunting a legendary bear would be a welcome distraction from his thoughts, which he was sure were irrational. After all, Jane had never come right out and said that she was in love with Edward, and she was the type to tell him how things stood. And Gifford knew she was fond of him—he did. She smiled at him. She always hugged him after the change. She tried to translate his horse-thoughts to the others.
But she’d signed that letter to Edward with “all my love.”
Yes. Hunting bears. Right. Here they were.
But that niggling thought still niggled.
And of course he was happy that her dear cousin was alive, but it was also a bit troubling. After all, G knew from Edward’s pre-wedding talk, the one that went something like, “Hurt my cousin and I’ll kill you, even if I’m dead,” that Edward loved Jane, and maybe in more than a cousin kind of way. Perhaps he’d only betrothed Jane to G because he was dying, and now that he wasn’t dying, perhaps he regretted the arranged marriage, and perhaps Jane was thinking the same thing.
Oh Lord. Too many perhapses. Perhaps he should focus on how to kill a giant bear.
But then G wanted to ask Edward about his feelings toward Jane, and, more specifically, what the two of them did while he was a horse and they were alone and human.
G did not like to entertain the thought of all the hours they’d had to spend together while he was a horse. But he was the one who was actually married to Jane, he reminded himself. Not only that, but kestrels were hunting birds, and would no sooner hesitate to eat a ferret than they would a squirrel. There. G was her husband, and Edward might eat her. Those were two very good reasons why Jane should stay with G. And hair! G