Page 116 of The Champion

He snorted. “I wouldn’t trust them with this.”

“Would you trust me?”

He met her gaze with something akin to embarrassment, though why he should feel such, she couldn’t imagine.

He debated silently for several minutes before he stepped back and pulled his chair out for her.

Rowena took a seat at his desk. She pulled a fresh piece of vellum from the drawer and placed it on the desk. Taking the quill, she dipped it in ink and looked up at him. “Whenever you’re ready, my lord. To whom should I address it?”

“Leave the name blank. I have many things to say, and if you will just write some of them down, then I can copy them later, so that this person will know I wrote them in my own hand. It’s important to me that this person knows that.”

How strange... But unwilling to question him on something that obviously bothered him, she poised her hand over the paper. “All right then. Just tell me what to pen.”

Stryder rubbed his eyes as he took up pacing between the desk and his bed. Silence hung in the air while Rowena waited patiently.

She’d never seen Stryder like this before. He was rather jumpy and skittish, more like an untried youth than the fierce knight she’d come to know so well.

After he paced for a bit, he finally spoke. “Fair greetings. I hope this letter finds you well.”

Rowena wrote the words down for him.

“I have been counting every minute of every day we have been apart.”

Her stomach shrank at his words. Who could he be writing such a letter to?

“And on every morning when I awake, the first thought I have is of you.”

Rowena stopped to give him a glare, but he was too busy pacing to take notice of her displeasure.

“In all my life, I never thought that I would find anyone like you. Someone who makes me laugh even when I no longer have the strength to smile. All I have to do is think of you and my heart is instantly gladdened. Indeed, I keep every one of your smiles stored especially there, in my heart and in my mind.

“You’ll never really know how sorry I am that fate would not see us united. That things couldn’t have been different between us. But then there is much in my life that I regret.”

Tears stung her eyes as she realized what he was dictating and to whom he would one day send this letter.

Without glancing at her, he drew a deep breath. “I hope this note finds you well and that you will smile when you think of me, and not be saddened as I am saddened. I would never wish to be the source of your unhappiness. Instead, I hope you have all you wish for and that someday, should things be different, you might again welcome me into your arms. ”Ever yours, Stryder.”

Stryder moved to stand by her side where he glanced down at the paper. “Did you get everything written?”

Rowena sniffed back her tears as she shook her head. “Nay, my lord.”

He let out an exasperated breath. “But how is she to know of my feelings if I don’t write them to her?”

“She knows, Stryder.” Rowena looked up at him and saw the same pain she felt mirrored in his blue eyes.

“But if I don’t write it-“

“It makes no difference to her whether or not you write it.” She took his rough, calloused hand into hers. “Only that you think it and feel it.”

He knelt down beside her and stared longingly into her eyes. “I do feel it, Rowena. I feel it every time I look at you. Every time I think of you.”

She bent down ever so slightly to capture his lips with hers. Oh, the taste of this man...it made her dizzy and weak. Made her fly high above this world.

He was her heart and her soul.

He was everything to her.

And she wanted to let him know just how much he did mean to her. But not with words. He had reached out to her with what she needed and now she would give him what he craved.