Chapter Fourteen #2
“I was only talking,” the man said roughly, trying to wrench his arm out of Bridget’s grip. She found she wasn’t quite ready to let go. “Didn’t know you’d outlawed talking.”
“Yes, thank you,” Gwen said, her voice cut like fine crystal. “That’s enough, Bridget.”
Bridget let go of his arm. She didn’t sheathe her sword until he’d stumbled backward and scrambled away, in the direction of his seat.
The room rallied slightly, but did not fully recover. When Bridget turned, a feeling of immense foolishness rising in her, she saw that everybody at the top table was watching her, Sirs Leonard and Bowen whispering with their heads together like two-thirds of an irritating chimera.
“May I speak with you for a moment,” Gwen said, not delivering it as a question. Bridget nodded, returned her sword to its proper place, and followed Gwen away from the dais and from the room. Her footsteps pounded in half-time with her jackrabbit heart.
In the stone antechamber, now empty, Bridget closed the door and leaned against it, shoulders braced in case someone tried to open it from the other side. It probably looked very casual. There was another door, but she didn’t have enough shoulders to block it. Where did it lead?
“I know what you’re doing,” Gwen said, looking pointedly at the door. Bridget straightened up slightly. “Look, you can’t go around—”
“He could’ve hurt you,” Bridget interrupted.
“We have guards.”
“And where were they?”
“Exactly where we told them to be, Bridget. Nearby. We can’t go everywhere bookended by armed stooges, it’s optically villainous.”
“He was too close,” Bridget said, looking at Gwen’s shoulder like it might have a big handprint on it, despite the fact that he hadn’t made contact.
“You were making a scene. We’re supposed to be befriending the people, not assaulting them. And I notice you haven’t apologized.”
“Yeah?” Bridget shot back, too combative. “I noticed that too.”
Gwen paused. “What’s wrong? Are you … shaking?”
Bridget looked down at her hands. They weren’t shaking. Quivering, maybe. Just a bit.
“No.”
“Yes you are,” Gwen said slowly. “Bridget, what—?”
“Can I touch you?” Bridget said desperately. There was no thinking: just her stupid heart, still racing, and her empty hands. If she wasn’t going to stab someone, she needed to do something else with them.
Gwen considered this, then lifted her arms slightly.
Bridget was so relieved by the invitation that she stepped forward into them.
She was stiff and careful at first, not wanting to push her luck, but then Gwen let her head fall into the crook of Bridget’s neck, and Bridget pulled them both to the door so that it was no longer her job to keep them upright.
She pressed her face into Gwen’s hair, so soft it felt like cold water against her cheek, and breathed in cut citrus and rosemary.
This had always made sense, even when nothing else had. Holding Gwen. It allowed Bridget to come to stillness, to something akin to peace, cool air in her lungs and an unfurling in her head.
Her hands slid up to Gwen’s shoulder blades, steadier across the familiar jut of bones, Gwen’s heartbeat even against her own. Alive, alive. Not murdered in the hall by a man with too much audacity and wine on his shirt.
Gwen’s breath skittered across Bridget’s skin in the forgotten span between ear and hairline, and then Bridget’s mind was mercifully blank and her mouth was on Gwen, finding the same place and kissing her there.
“Bridget,” Gwen murmured, but the way she said it did not encourage an end to proceedings. Her hands were on Bridget’s back, grip tight, keeping her exactly where she belonged. Good. This was good. No need to examine what had happened in the hall too closely. That was over now. There was only this.
“Hold on.” Gwen adjusted so that she could push Bridget gently away. “Explain.”
“I’m … busy,” Bridget said idly, her mind pleasantly blurred, her eyes still on Gwen’s neck where her mouth had been a moment before. Gwen didn’t yield, so Bridget met her gaze, and saw it was alarmingly steely.
“You don’t just get to kiss me like everything’s okay,” she said. “You owe me the truth, remember?”
Bridget slumped against the door, tipped her head back so she could observe the ceiling.
“You lost it out there.”
Bridget nodded. Then, when Gwen only watched her, waiting, she said, “It was a reasonable response. He could have been a threat.”
“Right,” Gwen said, “but he also could have just been a guy who wanted to talk to me about his fence, and the fact that his neighbor keeps tearing it down. He was very big on the fence. I can tell it’s a main character in his life.”
“Not really worth waiting to find out though, was it?”
“You weren’t jumpy like this back in the spring. What changed?”
“I don’t know,” Bridget said, honest and suddenly defensive. “This is pointless, I told you I don’t—”
“Look, either you’re the person who ran away and ignored me for weeks on end and has absolutely no explanation to offer, in which case perhaps I might hate you, or you’re the person who disappeared for a reason, a reason you’re going to share, to try to make amends and help me understand. So, who are you going to be?”
Bridget hated this expression on Gwen’s face, aimed in her direction.
That divot in her brow was reserved for matters of court, for worrying about her brother.
Bridget had always been a moment of respite in her day.
They’d walked the woods near Camelot together for hours until Gwen could laugh again.
Locked eyes across the dais at feasts and both looked away with smiles tugging at their lips.
Bridget didn’t always know the right thing to say, but just being there, listening, had often been enough.
It wasn’t anymore.
Bridget went to speak, stopped, then looked beseechingly at Gwen for help.
“What do you feel?” Gwen prompted. “Right now?”
“Like…” Bridget closed her eyes. “My heart. It’s going too fast.”
Gwen leaned in and kissed her so sweetly it made her aforementioned heart ache. “Thank you. Now we’re getting somewhere. And back in the hall?”
It wasn’t fair. The kissing made everything feel so much looser, tongue included. “I don’t know. Like everything’s happening so … much. And if I’m not careful, I’m going to miss something important. I need to pay attention, all the time.”
“And if you don’t? We have a whole round table. And guards. And Lord Fentman has guards. There are a lot of guards, all in.”
“We both know it just takes one chink in the armor…”
“Knights of the realm, Bridget. The kingdom’s finest. But I take your point.”
She kissed Bridget again, lingering a little longer this time, and when Bridget tried to lean in she pulled away, leaving her breathing into empty air. Gwen raised her eyebrows, and Bridget offered: “It doesn’t matter if we’re quite safe logically. That’s not enough.”
“What would be enough?”
Bridget sighed. “Nothing. Probably. I don’t know if I’ll ever think we’re truly safe again.”
“You’ll drive yourself mad.”
Her fingers found a strand of Gwen’s hair and twisted it, gently. Gwen allowed it. It was sort of easy to imagine that everything was okay now that she could breathe again, in a quiet room with a closed door between them and everything else. “I’m already mad.”
Gwen shook her head, but the way Bridget felt when she was permitted to kiss her again did nothing to disprove the theory.