Page 25 of A Knight in Tarnished Armor

"Aye?"

"I think we should buy some pardons."

He frowned.

She pointed toward the pilgrim and he laughed and handed her a handful of silver coins. She shook her head. "This purchase is mine," she told him. She bought William a pardon for every curse he had spoken this past week, and a few extra for the future. She ran back and tucked them in his arms.

He looked at them. "God's teeth! What the devil are these for?"

She gave him a wry look. "I doubt there are enough pardons in the world, William, to assuage your blasphemous tongue."

"Christ in Heaven . . ." he swore with a grin. "That might just bloody damn well be."

She shook her head and followed him until he stopped to eye a collection of mail in a booth set up by the local armorer. She watched him barter and banter and bluster, and she jabbed him with her elbow when he tried to trade her cats for a mailed tunic. Finally he asked her to choose the mail and she picked one in less time than it took to blink.

"That was simple," he said, surprised. "Why that one?"

"Because it shines the most," she replied, thinking secretly that he was a knight who should have shining armor.

He bought the mail she had chosen, saying he thought he'd need it if he were challenged again.

And he was.

They had left the fair hours later, filled with drink and fresh food and fun. They were riding back to the inn to fetch her pets when the yellow knight appeared near a bend in the river. The knight never had a chance.

William took one look at him, roared an ungodly string of curses that used seven more pardons and attacked. His mail shone in the bright sunlight and his sword flashed with deadly precision, but when he sheathed his sword and drew out the crossbow he'd purchased, the knight stopped cold, turned his mount around, and rode away so fast it was almost as if he had never appeared.

William was in a better mood after that.

Soon the sun had slipped down behind the trees and the moon had risen in the dusky sky. A cart with nail studs clicked over the stones of a small bridge and haymakers were walking home with their long pitchforks resting on their shoulders.

William rode off the highway and over toward a grassy hillock.

"I thought the inn was this way," Linnet said.

"It is!"

She turned her palfrey and followed. "Then why are we traveling this way?"

"Consider it a surprise," he said with an edge of challenge, and he spurred his mount and disappeared over the hillock.

If she hadn't already been in love with William, she would have fallen the moment she saw the tent. 'Twas a tent from the Midsummer's Fair, the largest and finest tent she had seen. Made from brightly colored fabric with red and blue and yellow stripes, it had pennants waving from the sharp peaks at the top and corners.

But when he pulled back the flaps and she saw all the pillows—stacks of pillows to replace the ones she had lost to the rain, she threw herself into his arms and cried.

He stiffened. "Why are you crying? I had thought to please you."

She sniffled. "You did. You do."

His look was so intent that her breath caught.

"I'll leave you to sleep," he said, then pulled back the flap on the tent. She stopped him with a hand on his arm. "Where are you going to sleep?"

"Outside," he said gruffly. He still wore the mail shirt and other light armor he'd bought.

"This is marshland. There's fog on the damp ground. You'll tarnish your armor."

He gave her a long look, then rubbed his finger over her jaw and across her lips. He tucked a knuckle under her chin and said, "If I stay in here, I think I'll tarnish more than my armor."