Considering she’d spent her whole life doing that, it should be an easy enough task.
“This way, my lady.”
Patrick held out a chair for her and she sat, grateful that Elesyria was seated next to her. More grateful that their places hadn’t been switched when she realized Dermid sat on the other side of Elesyria.
Not that the young man bothered her so much. It was the older man who shadowed his every move that made her uncomfortable, standing there behind Dermid’s chair, as he did now. Watching everything, his eyes darting around the room as if he were soaking up everything with a single look.
“Creeps me out,” she muttered under her breath, earning an imperious look from her dining companion.
Unlike her, the Faerie had no problem addressing the issue to Dermid.
“How am I to eat with your man hanging over me like some bird of prey? Must he do that?”
“Rauf is my groomsman. It is his responsibility to guard my person. What else would you expect of him, good woman?”
Though Dermid seemed a tad offended by the complaint, Rauf’s expression remained unchanged, as if he neither heard nor cared what transpired in the conversation at the table.
“I expect him to guard you from his own seat, young man. Are you incapable of defending yourself against an unarmed woman?”
Dani swallowed hard, hoping to avoid spitting the drink she’d just sipped back into her cup. Unarmed woman, indeed. Unarmed Faerie, more like it. And who knew if even the “unarmed” part was true.
Though, to her surprise, it seemed to work on Dermid.
“You may leave me, Rauf. Take yer spot at the table there.” He pointed to one of the tables in front of them. “You can reach me soon enough if I have need of you.”
“As you will it, good sir.” Rauf dipped his head respectfully and made his way around the long table and off the dais, taking a seat at the table in front of them.
Dani wasn’t sure the change was much of an improvement. Standing over the top of them or staring directly at them from a distance, the man still creeped her out.
“Well, I’ve done all I can,” Elesyria whispered as she lifted her cup in acknowledgment to the man. “You’ll simply have to deal, my dear.”
Dani set her own cup back on the table, unsure whether the guard’s stare or the Faerie’s apparent ability to read her mind unnerved her more.
“Begging yer pardon, miss.”
Dani shifted in her seat to allow a young girl to set a large wooden tray in front of her. On it was the big bread bowl she’d come to expect, filled with a dark, thick, meaty stew.
She watched as the girl—child, really—hurried away from the table and another young girl placed a similar tray in between Elesyria and Dermid. Other children carried similar trays in between all the tables stretching out in the great hall in front of her.
Little wonder Malcolm had rejected her offer to wait tables by telling her she was too old for the job. She doubted any of those girls was a day past twelve.
“Perhaps Danielle would be better suited to answer that question, wouldn’t you, dear?”
Dani jumped at hearing her name and turned to find both Dermid and Elesyria staring at her expectantly.
“I’m sorry, I was distracted. What question is it you think I can answer?”
“Dermid here is wondering whether you don’t find it a tad bit uncomfortable to have the mother of your betrothed’s deceased wife serving as your companion?”
“I never said that,” Dermid attempted to deny, but Elesyria was having none of it.
“Perhaps not those very words, but that was your question, was it not, young man?”
“The mother of my betrothed’s deceased—” Dani stopped midway through the tongue-twister, buying time to think of an appropriate response by dipping a small chunk of bread into her stew. “I find it—”
“She finds it as annoying as I do to have you badgering my guests, little brother.”
Malcolm!
