Griffyn swung away, looking for wine. But the room was empty, save for the one, gold stitched tapestry that had caught his eye and had stayed his command when everything else was ordered stripped from the room. Everything, including the wardrobe with her…smallclothes. He felt a grin threatening but, glancing at her flushed, down-turned face, Griffyn decided to hold it in check.
Harder still was to make sense of the rapid and powerful changes of emotion whenever he was within five feet of the woman. He swept his gaze over the room, irked. ’Twas not his yet, nor hers anymore. It sat in a state of suspended transition, holding nothing but memories. Nothing but wretched memories. Not even a jug of wine.
He went to the door, wrenched it open, and shouted to an attendant.
Mayhap they’d expected his command, or else the kitchen staff was better trained than any he’d seen—or perchance they feared his temper—for in under a minute a tentative knock came on the door. Griffyn whipped it open, nodded grimly to the young page who stood with a tray and a flagon of wine, and growled when he was asked in a muted voice “if the lady wouldn’t be needing a cup too?”
The jug went on the windowsill, the wooden cup in his hand. A generous splash of ruby liquid gurgled into the cup, which he pushed into Guinevere’s palm. Then he lifted the jug to his lips and downed a goodly portion, his throat working hard to swallow the drink as he had been forced to swallow so many things ere this day. But never again.
When he finally aimed another glance at de l’Ami’s daughter, she too was making use of the fuel, funneling a stream of wine down her throat with such skill he lifted his brows.
“You did not drink so adeptly when I saw you last.”
The cup clattered to the floor. A line of red stained the edge of her lips and angled her mouth into a pale pink smile.
“I did not have so much cause to drink, then.” She closed her mouth, the smile-stain remaining, and sat on the edge of the bed, her hands crossed primly in her lap.
“You had some cause,” he remarked dryly.
“Well, mayhap I did at that.” She sniffed and looked out the window. “But I’d never had the kind of fire-water you were offering that night, sir, and would do well to never sport with it again.”
He looked at her delicate profile and the rampaging curls that glinted burnished fire and danced down her curving spine, and recalled the way his hands had moved across that same spine, slid over her hips and down, some twelvemonth ago.
“I liked the things you did with it,” he said gruffly.
And with those simple words, he started it inside of Gwyn. A hot flush spread through her body. She rose shakily from the bed. “Faith, my lord, with your permission, I would go now.”
He threw back his head and laughed so hard the servants scuttling through the hall a floor below halted in their circuits and exchanged frightened glances. “You’ve grown quite docile of a sudden, Guinevere.”
“I was trying to be…easier on your mood.”
He lifted both brows in mute query.
“I have decided ’tis wisest for us to get along, and I will do my part.”
He half-smiled. “Which means?”
She held her breath a moment. “I will be compliant.”
He laughed again, an easy sound, and the boiling tension in her belly lessened somewhat. “Guinevere. I have seen you with a rock in your hand, a retort on your lips, and a foolish notion in your head, but I have never seen you compliant.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Some find me endowed with a capacious gift for good humour, my lord.”
“Where are they?” He reached out one muscular arm for the wine jug. “I will learn them their folly.”
She dragged her gaze from his flexed forearm. “And what will we say of yours? I have seen you in a foul enough humour.”
He considered her a moment. “You are right, my lady. We can be at one another’s throats, or we can learn to get along. I prefer the latter.”
She stretched out her hands, palms up. “There, you see. We’ve had our first agreement.”
“And neither one of us shattered from the effort.”
“Or exploded in rage.”
“Or ran screaming from the room.”
Her lips twitched. “I cannot imagine you doing that.”