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“That was nice of them.” He grunted. “They seem very much in awe of you,” Aimee added.

Konrad snorted. “Like I say, they don’t get many knights from other parts travelling here.”

“Well, this year it seems they have. You said their mother presides over the feast?”

“Aye, for her late husband, Sir Bortram Howard, had no sooner set up the tournament here then he died of the ague. His widow continues it now in his memory.”

Aimee watched as he started removing several things from his pack. Most of the objects were wholly unknown to her, and she guessed they were for treating his weapons. He looked up as though aware of her scrutiny. “Why don’t you sit down?”

“Where?” she asked pointedly, glancing around the bare interior.

“On the bed.”

“Oh.”

The corner of his mouth on the uninjured side of his face tilted up in that lopsided smirk he seemed to favor. “You seem a little disappointed by the pavilion.”

Aimee sank down onto the bed with a grimace. Her rump really was painful, and the mattress was very low to the ground. Once she made contact with it, she was relieved to find it was reasonably soft. Her expression must have registered this, for he gave a short laugh.

“It is stuffed with grasses, so it should be comfortable.”

“Yes,” she hastened to assure him. “It is.”

“If you dislike it out here, I am sure Lady Howard would offer you a bedchamber within,” he answered picking up his sword and examining the hilt.

“What about you?” she asked.

He looked up. “What about me?”

“Where would you sleep if I go within?”

“Out here,” he answered with a trace of impatience. “Where else?”

Aimee swallowed down the bitter taste in her mouth. Obviously, her presence or no would make little difference to him. “Of course,” she said blankly and rose from the bed. “How silly of me.”

“Where are you going?” he asked sharply when she took a step toward the tent entrance.

“I thought I would just take a step around the meadow,” Aimee said, brushing aside the flap to the entrance and exiting before he could voice any objection. Not that he would object, Aimee thought furiously, dashing her forearm across her eyes as she stalked away, when he did not care remotely about her whereabouts!

The ground was sadly uneven in the meadow, and Aimee winced over every bump which she felt in her sadly jolted spine and sore behind. She was just picking her way over a particularly lumpy patch which must surely have been churned up by horse’s hooves after rain, when she felt herself seized and whirled about so fast, she nearly lost her footing altogether.

“Don’t be a little fool,” her husband growled down at her, a thunderous frown at his brow. “You can’t wander about the place wearing a king’s ransom in jewelry! This may not be Caer Lyoness, but people are still robbed in the country and wind up dead in a ditch!”

Aimee glared up at him. “Very well,” she said, reaching for the pearls and starting to draw them up over her head. She had lifted them no further than her ears before she was roughly seized and slung over a large and burly shoulder. “Konrad!” she shrieked. “Put me down!” She might have even added ‘you brute’ at this point, but her necklace was swinging about her face and a mouthful of pearls prevented her.

He made no reply, just swung about to return to his own tent, when a cleared throat in the vicinity made them both freeze in their tracks.

“Kentigern,” said a deep, pleasant voice. “Well met.”

Aimee found herself rotated again as her husband turned to face the speaker. Shoving her palm between Konrad’s shoulder blades, Aimee levered herself up to squint over his shoulder at a tall, good-looking couple who were stood arm-in-arm and regarding them with varying degrees of curiosity. While the male’s gaze was curious and amused, the female’s expression was full of lively horror.

“De Bussell,” her husband answered through clenched teeth, his grip on her buttock tightening momentarily and making Aimee yelp.

“I believe you know my wife,” de Bussell continued with a lift of his eyebrows.

Konrad cleared his throat, clearly at a loss how to address the former princess now her station in life had quite altered.

“Indeed, we are old friends,” Princess Una said hurriedly in an attractively full-bodied voice, which sent another pang through Aimee’s being. Of course, the princess would be a tall and majestic auburn beauty, Aimee seethed. And look absolutely nothing like those slanderous likenesses that flooded the marketplaces of Caer Lyoness, lambasting her for an ugly fright! “How are you, my lord?” Una continued warmly. “Well, I trust?”