bargain with him was to avoid that. To keep some semblance of control over her choices, and her life, within her own grasp.
So, Annora shook herself and took a deep breath meant to ease the tension inside her. When she felt as confident as he appeared, and in spite of the arousal yet coursing through her body, she met his gaze. And asked the very question that had been plaguing her just before he appeared at her side.
“So, tell me, Thomas, how did le Govic beat you the last time you fought him?”
Chapter Twelve
He would deny it to the instant of his death, but Thomas was certain he squawked like a chicken when she blurted out her question. One moment, she was glorious in her arousal and the next, she targeted her words to his weakness with the expertise of a king’s bowman. He laughed again as it made her frown.
“You should laugh more often, sir.”
Now it was his brow that raised. “Me? Laugh more? Why, my lady?”
“You look a...” She paused and shook her head as though she’d changed her intention and then shrugged. “So, tell me about you and le Govic.”
“Let us get to the heart of the matter then, my lady?” Thomas walked to her and sat on the sturdy branch. As that the glow of the desire between them had burnt away, he could chance being nearer to her. “What is it you wish to know?”
“I mean no disrespect,” she said, shifting a bit, so she almost faced him. “I cannot offer suggestions or help if I do not know anything about you and him. How does your method of fighting differ from his? Are the lance and horse your strength, or do you prefer the sword on the ground? How did he manage to defeat you last time?”
How many times could she surprise him? It seemed that she did in their every encounter, and twice so far in this one. Those words coming from another would be an insult at best and an invitation to death at worst. Yet, when she spoke them—and questioned his abilities, his experience and possibly his honor—he heard the honest curiosity in her voice. More, they were intelligent questions likely to force him to examine all three things..
“This morn was the first time I have watched him fight since we did.”
“When was that? From my father’s comments and such, it seems like a long time ago?”
“’Twas fifteen years ago.” Yet, it was never far from his thoughts these days.
“Had he challenged you or was this less formal?” she asked.
“We were sparring. Practicing, when it changed.”
Annora let out a loud sigh and shook her head at his reply. “If I have to ask you for each detail of it like this, the tournament will be over, and the matter decided,” she said with a sharpness in her tone that bespoke of her impatience with prideful men. Or mayhap stupid ones. “Will you just tell me how it happened? Had you met in battle before that?”
Thomas met her perceptive gaze and then stared out at the river as its water rushed by them. If only it were that easy to explain. If he could just tell her the whole of it and let her judge. If he could... Looking at her now, for the first time since it happened and in spite of years of being questioned over it and reminded of it and hating it, Thomas wanted to tell her all of it.
She made him want to expose his secrets and his weaknesses and his longings to her. She made him want her in ways that challenged everything within himself. But, life and the near loss of his had taught him a hard lesson in trusting secrets to others. He turned back to her.
“Suffice to say that we were young and foolish men practicing, insults were offered, fighting ensued. At the end of things, I ended up disgraced in the dirt with a broken jaw.”
He would have been fine in keeping that resolution of distance between them if she’d not reached up and caressed his jaw, as though searching for the old injury. Mayhap if he’d just taken her last night in his tent when she was so very ready to give him her maidenhead, he could have satisfied this growing need for her. Too late now for such questions. The touch of her soft hand and the damned concern in her blue-green eyes broke him and his control.
Too late.
Thomas reached