Page 63 of Propriety
She choked out a sob.
“They’ve never touched me before.” She managed to force out around her whimpers.
“I love you, Guinevere.”
I love you
The voice that held her together, that had stitched her very broken soul back up.
The three words she had clung to out of desperate need.
“Tell me something,” she whispered, her own fingers brave enough to press against his jaw. His beard was overgrown, dirty. “Tell me something real.” She tried not to clutch at him, but she could only fight her need for so long. “Something for us.”
He laughed.
And the sound of it alone might have shattered her soul, had his fingers not still been on her cheek.
Holding her together.
“Do you want something kind, or something wicked?” She could see his broken smile. She would recognize it anywhere.
“Kind,” she whispered, rising on her knees to meet his eyes more fully. “Please be kind to me, Lancelot.”
“I paid the carriage driver to take the long way back to the castle, all that time ago.” He was closer. She could feel the heat of his breath on her face. “I wasn’t ready to let you go, even then.”
Her breath faltered, hitching in her throat. “I didn’t know that.”
“I’m very good at keeping secrets,mon amour.” He moved slowly, gently encircling her wrist with one of his hands, pressing her hand flat against his heart.
“For you alone, my queen.” He whispered, and she could hear the tears tugging at his words.
His heartbeat thrummed the steady rhythm that she had only heard in dreams.
The very beat of her own heart.
He’s alive.
“Lancelot,” Her body was trembling, her voice just as shaky.
“I’m here.”
“Just-” She couldn’t ask for what she needed, she had forgotten how.
“I know,” He whispered.
And she was held.
His arms came around her so slowly, so gently, itmighthave been a dream, but even her realest nightmares hadn’t been as warm as this.
But as she leaned into him, she pressed her face against a coolslip of metal.
His armor.
“No,” she whispered, pulling back. “Take this off.” She tried to tug at the straps of his armor, but her hands trembled too much. “I can’t-”
He scrambled to obey, clumsier than she had ever seen him. Chest plate, mail, layers of leather. She tried to help him with the buckles, her fingers fumbling too much to be of any use. When the last piece fell to the floor with athud, he was still in his tunic, still covered in dirt and sweat — but suddenly, he wasLancelot.
Her Lancelot.
