and she hadn’t slept much at all for the past two days. She saw a quite lovely bed near the hearth in the very lovely chamber she was shown, managed to stagger over to it, and fell into its softness before she could even attempt a stab at good manners or thanks to the serving maids she had noticed.
Her last thought was that she hoped Ruith would shut the door so no one would watch her drool in her sleep.
Several hours later, she sat in front of a mirror and wondered if it would be rude to put her foot down and demand back her traveling clothes which seemed to have disappeared along with her used bathwater.
She was wearing a black dress that she learned, after sifting through profuse apologies for not having had something ready just for her, had been worn very briefly by Ruith’s sister Mhorghain before she’d demanded her leggings and tunic back.
Sarah thought she and Mhorghain might get along very well indeed.
Her hair had been washed and combed out and left hanging in a riot of curls down her back. She was rather paler than she would have thought she would have been given all the traveling she’d done, but perhaps her face was a reflection of the unease she couldn’t seem to shake, even protected as she was inside impenetrable walls. She watched as the maid, a rather tall, exceptionally lovely girl of obviously dwarvish descent, reached for something else to torture her with.
“Absolutely not,” she said, eyeing the item suspiciously.
The girl held a circlet of gold in her hands. “But, my lady, ’twas fashioned especially for you.”
Sarah scowled in spite of herself. The seamstresses had been too busy to aid her, but the goldsmiths had been lounging about with time on their hands? She revisited the idea of putting her foot down.
“’Tis a modest thing,” the girl added, holding it out for inspection. “Hardly anything to be seen, don’t you agree?”
Sarah had to agree that it was very discreet, but that was beside the point. “I’m not worthy of a crown,” she protested.
“Well,” said a voice from the doorway, “that’s a matter of opinion.”
Sarah looked around her maid to find Ruith standing just inside her doorway, leaning back against the wall, watching her. She wondered just how long he’d been standing there and how much of her complaints he’d heard. He was smiling, though, so perhaps he hadn’t been bothered by them.
“Are you responsible for this?” she demanded.
He only shook his head slowly. “I’m not, though I would certainly take credit for it if I dared.” He tilted his head to one side and studied her. “You look lovely.”
She stood, because she thought it might be easier to bolt that way. “You look lovely as well,” she said, because it was true, though something of an understatement.
He had obviously succumbed to the same pressure she’d been put under to dress properly for supper, though his clothing was still very discreet. No baubles, fine embroidery, capes hanging from his shoulders, or fancy court shoes. He was wearing black boots, black trousers, and a deep green tunic that she imagined would do quite lovely things for his eyes. She noticed immediately that even though he wasn’t wearing a crown, he’d been given one because he’d stuck his arm through it as if it had been a very large bracelet.
“I understand,” he began slowly, “that there is to be a formal sort of entertainment tonight.”
“How fortunate for you,” she managed. “You’ll have the chance to audition a princess or two.”
“Perhaps,” he conceded, “but since my first thought was that I would have the opportunity to pass the evening with you, I wanted to rescue myself from complete embarrassment and see if you would humor me by practicing a dance step or two.”
She sank back down onto the chair she’d recently vacated. “But I can’t dance,” she protested.
“And I can?” he asked, with an uncomfortable laugh. “We have half an hour to remedy that before supper. I suggest we take advantage of the dancing master I bribed and left out in the passageway to await our pleasure.”
“I think I should just sit and watch—”
He walked over and pulled her up off the chair. “Nay, my lady, you will not.”
She looked up at him. “You arrogant, autocratic—”
“State dinners include dancing.”
She pursed her lips for she knew there was no escaping her fate. She conceded the battle, but not the war.