She kissed him back, a low chuckle escaping her throat, then sighed happily and cuddled into her pillow, dropping into true sleep.
Summer woke the next morning still thinking the evening had been a dream. The weight of it lay heavily on her shoulders. She snapped at Bertha, shouted at the chambermaid until the girl cried, and finally stalked off in bristling anger and despair toward the stables. She flung herself ahorse as soon as she decently could, goading the animal into a gallop the moment they emerged from the castle gates. Surely no one would bother her out here.
She’d neglected to take into account Henry’s morning ride, though.
Henry was riding through the glens, thinking about how she had kissed him previously, he stopped by the lake and looked across the ocean deep in thought of it. He had felt so strange when she had kissed him back, not a strangeness that was unwelcoming – in fact, he enjoyed her lips against his.
He had not expected it, for he thought she was asleep and would not feel it. And that made him worry now, for what if she woke and wondered and knew if she had kissed him – though she had already betrayed her thoughts and he knew of them he did not know of his own thoughts.
Stepping off Poiters he made his way to the side of the lake and knelt down to take a drink, running some water through his hair as well.
Summer felt guilty when she came in sight of the lake. Petal wasn’t used to wild and fast rambles through the countryside the way Fireheart was. There was someone else there, she noticed, but if she didn’t speak to them, maybe they’d just dismiss her as a traveller and let her alone.
Dismounting, with care to her ankle, she led Petal to the verge to drink, pressing her face into the mare’s mane while she waited. “What am I going to do, my girl?” she murmured. “I can’t go back to Kent alone. Father’s determined to stay the season, so long as the King is here.”
Summer stepped away, keeping the reins looped in one hand, arms wrapped tight about herself. “I can’t bear to see him every day, feeling like this. Surely God is punishing me somehow,” she told the sky. “Sweet Henry, kind Henry, wise Henry, why must you hurt my heart so? To see you every day, and yet keep my heart a secret …”
Henry heard another come upon the lakeside, and he turned to look at Summer, he looked back down to the water and thought of how to leave without allowing her to see that it was him – and then she began to speak.
Once more she betrayed herself with her words, and he cursed the heavens to wonder how she could say such things so easily, when he could not even admit a simple thought to himself.
He stood up and went to Poiters, hopeful that she had not seen his face, but Poiters would be easy to recognise if she saw him in the stables.
Involuntarily she looked up, hearing the movement of the other, and actually looked for the first time.
Poiters. The King’s favourite mount. And Henry the King.
A choked cry emerged from her mouth. Summer dropped to her knees, utterly heedless of anything else, and ducked her head. “Your Grace, I — ” Her throat closed up and words failed her. All she could do was wait for his wrath to descend on her, for her temerity in not recognising him immediately and in confessing such an unseemly emotion.