The More I See You by Lynn Kurland

she’d become accustomed to, and that was good enough for her. He started to scowl and even that seemed rather endearing, especially when she found herself standing outside a medieval hovel and not in it.
    “I’ve been remiss in my duty to you,” Richard announced suddenly, sounding as if the words had been dragged from his mouth by some kind of hospitality drug. “Though perhaps I can be forgiven, as you were trying to steal my horse.”
    “Borrow,” she corrected. “I was borrowing.”
    “And for the second time, no less,” he went on, as if he hadn’t heard her. “Another man would surely have been just as suspicious of your motives.”
    “I meant to leave you a letter and tell you where I was going,” she said, “but I couldn’t find anything to write with.”
    “Therefore,” he continued, as if he hadn’t heard her, “I extend again the comfort of my hall and pray you will return with me and take your ease. I wouldn’t wish for my liege Henry to think I had offered you any less.”
    He wasn’t sincere, but she wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. She also decided that perhaps the present moment was not the proper one in which to inform Richard that she didn’t know his king from Adam. She nodded as regally as if she really had been related to the king, then accepted his help up onto a horse and didn’t argue when he turned his little group back toward the castle. He didn’t say any more and she didn’t fight it. She had just been through one of the worst days of her life and she had too much to think about for small talk.
    It was dawn when she walked back into Richard’stower bedroom. He invited her to make use of the tub of water by the fire.
    “I hope you’ll be comfortable,” he said through gritted teeth. “The king will no doubt be concerned that you were treated well.”
    Two things Jessica realized immediately: Richard didn’t really care what the king thought; and, two, she had to get the heck out of Dodge before Henry breezed through. She watched Richard leave, realizing that she was going to have to be much more diligent about her horse borrowing if she were going to make it back home. She was going to have to get to Merceham and it was a sure thing she wouldn’t make it there on foot.
    Fortunately she knew just where to get a horse. This time, though, she wasn’t about to get tripped up by a little thing like a locked gate. Unfortunately the only time the gate seemed to be unlocked was during the day.
    She put her shoulders back and looked around for an appropriate disguise. Probably the sooner she left, the better. Richard wouldn’t be looking for someone dressed up like a boy, would he?
    There was only one way to find out.

8
    Richard suppressed the urge to walk away from the training field and go back to bed. Jessica was to blame for that. He hadn’t had any sleep the first night she was gone, nor had he had any the night before courtesy of his search for her whereabouts. And if that wasn’t enough to truly sour him for good, what he faced now certainly was. He looked at Gilbert de Claire and wondered how by all the blessed saints the boy’s father expected him to make a man out of this sniveling babe.
    Gilbert’s tasks for the morn had included nothing more strenuous than a small bit of swordplay and saddling Richard’s mount, yet already the boy looked as irritated as if he’d worked a fortnight without pause while the rest of the keep looked on from their positions upon their backsides, wine and sweet figs at their elbows.
    And if Gilbert’s sullenness wasn’t trial enough, there was the immediate and intense dislike that had sprung up between Gilbert and Warren. Richard had thought it might work in his favor for the two to be in competition, but apparently such a thing was not having the desired effect. Warren fumbled under the scrutiny and Gilbert, unsurprisingly, had merely looked about sullenly.
    Richard wished heartily he had never left