Forbidden Warrior (Midsummer Knights)

“Everyone?”

She nodded firmly. “Everyone.”

He tipped closer. “When is your match, lady?”

A sudden, almost uncontrollable urge to laugh welled up inside her.

She covered it with a delicate cough into her silk sleeve. “You misunderstand chivalry, Sir No One. The men fight. The ladies delight and enchant.”

He sat back, his blue eyes holding hers for a beat too long. “Aye,” he agreed in a low voice. “They might at that.”

She felt very bright, and light, almost buoyant, like pollen lifted off a flower, floating in a breeze.

The sun must be getting to her.

“Even my father is fighting,” she told him. Nothing like speaking of Father to bring her back to the hard earth.

Something changed about the blue gaze holding hers. He straightened ever so slightly, the lazy power in his long limbs tensing into something more rigid.

“Your father is fighting?” he said slowly.

She nodded with no small bit of pride. “He is a renowned swordsman, one of the greatest fighters of the age, and loyal liege to King Richard.”

“And he is fighting?” he repeated, as if slow-witted.

“Everyone fights,” she reminded him.

She caught sight of Sir Bennett. He had paused on his way out of the stadium and was laughing with some women. A glance in her direction tempered the laughter, but only until he faced away again.

She presumed it would be thus when they were wed.

“You have convinced me, lady. I shall fight after all,” said the rogue at her side.

She turned with a happy smile. “Very good, sir,” she exclaimed.

“You approve?”

“I most heartfully approve,” she assured him, and they smiled at one another.

Another rush of excitement went through her body, a cool wash of weightlessness.

She attributed it entirely to the fact that she’d convinced a rogue to reform, and nothing whatsoever to the small smile that had deepened into curved lines beside his very masculine, very beautiful mouth.

“I am proud of you, Sir No One.”

The smile deepened the smallest bit. “Methinks you’re proud of you, lady.”

For a moment, she hesitated, spiked between righteous indignation and laughter.

She must not laugh. She must not.

She met his eye. “Sooth and why not? I did convince you of the value of chivalry.”

“Oh, aye, I’m entirely reformed.”

She bit her bottom lip to curtail another smile. “Tell me, whose shield shall you strike? Who will you joust against?”

“I was thinking of the sword fighting.”