He grunted, increasingly unhappy about the little game of mystery she wanted to play. He was a man of action, of instant gratification where possible, so he wondered how long he could play this game with her and not take her in his arms and kiss the truth out of her.
“As you wish,” he said, frowning. “What do I know about you so far? That your name is Gavriella and you are from a small village in the north, but it is not Cumbria or Yorkshire. Then it must be Northumberland.”
“I suppose it must,” she said. “You?”
“That is my home, also.”
They looked at each other. “Then we are neighbors,” she said, pleasure in her tone. “But Northumberland is a very large place. Do you live near Newcastle?”
“Nay. Do you?”
“Nay,” she said. “I have been there, however.”
He was looking off to his left where there was a stall selling food and he was distracted from that line of questions. “Are you hungry?” he asked.
She looked over to where he was pointing. “I could eat something,” she admitted. “I have brought my own money for such things.”
He looked at her as if she’d gone mad. “Do you think I expected you to pay your own way?”
Gavriella shook her head. “Nay,” she said. “I know you would want to pay, much as you wanted to purchase something from that peddler back there. I do not expect you to pay, nor do I want you to. It is probably better if I pay for myself.”
He frowned. “Why?”
She came to a halt and looked at him. “Because it would be rude of me to expect you to pay for me,” she said, pulling forth her coin purse. “In fact, you paid for a chamber for me to sleep in last night and I must pay you back.”
“You’ll do no such thing.”
She looked up from rummaging around in her coin purse. “Why not?”
“Because you were my responsibility last night,” he said. “Frankly, I’m offended that you should think to pay me in return for something that was naturally my responsibility. And I invited you to come with me to see entertainment – since you are my guest, I shall pay for the excursion. I did not invite you so that you could pay your own way.”
Gavriella looked at him, closely. Since they had met in front of The Asher, he’d been an utter gentleman, kind and considerate, and she had been completely giddy to be in his company. Truth be told, she was still giddy and the feeling was only growing worse. As much as she wanted to give in to those feelings and tell him everything about her, there was a nagging little part of her that was beginning to tell her that she had no business with this glorious knight.
He was too good for her.
What was she? Damaged goods? She seemed to remember her father calling her that after the attack in Deadwater. Her father had been torn between wanting to protect and support his daughter. He had been devastated that she had been violated and was now no longer a viable marital prospect. He had called her damaged goods more than once, in times when he thought she hadn’t heard him.
But she had.
Now, as she looked at Andreas, those words were ringing in her mind…
Damaged goods.
Andreas didn’t deserve damaged goods and that was why, she realized with great sadness, that she couldn’t let this go any further.
That meant she would pay for her meal.
It also meant that she didn’t want him to know much more about her. It was as she had explained it to him – as long as he didn’t know her full name and she didn’t know his, they could imagine what they wanted to about each other. He could imagine that she was a virtuous young lady and perhaps she could imagine that of herself, as well. When she looked at his eyes, she saw that he was interested in her and as much as it thrilled her, it also broke her heart.
Perhaps the guessing game they had been playing wasn’t such a good idea, after all.
“I realize you did not invite me to accompany you with the expectation that I should pay my own way,” she said after a long moment. “But we hardly know one another and I feel that I would be taking advantage of you by allowing you to pay for everything. If I was simply another man you had invited along, would you be so quick to pay for him? Or would you let him pay for himself?”
He lifted an eyebrow. “You are not a man,” he said. “You are a beautiful young woman who, I have come to see, is quite guarded at times and then quite sweet and charming at others. I wish I knew what I did to make you trust me in some instances but not in others.”
Gavriella could see that he was genuinely becoming upset about her position. That wasn’t what she wanted, but she was torn.
“Please,” she said softly, putting her hand on his arm. “I am not trying to upset you, I promise. I just do not want you to think me demanding or spoiled should I let you pay for me. I would be a rude woman, indeed, if I did not at least thank you for your efforts and try not to cost you more than necessary. It is really as simple as that.”
He calmed, a little. He put his big mitt over hers as it rested on his arm. “If I did not want to do this, I wouldn’t,” he said simply. “It has been a very long time since I have been in the company of such a charming lady and allowing me to pay for your meal and entertainment is truly a pleasure. Please do not take that away from me.”
When he said it so nicely, of course, she couldn’t. After a moment, she sighed, resigned. “As you wish,” she said. “What are we to eat?”
He flashed a smile at her as he lifted her hand, kissed it, and put it back on his elbow. “I am not sure,” he said. “But it had better be beef.”
So much for thinking she wasn’t good enough for him, that she couldn’t let this situation go any further. The kiss to her hand erased any sense of determination she’d had about that. She was putty in his hands. He was so sweet and, God only knew, she needed that sweetness. She needed for someone to be kind to her.
It had been such a long time since anyone had been.
Andreas ended up leading her over to the stall where a man and woman were serving up big bowls made of bread, hollowed out and filled with boiled beef and peas and carrots in gravy. Andreas paid for three of them – two for him, one for her, and they went over to the shade of a yew tree to eat it with crude wooden spoons that had been provided.
Gavriella realized she was famished as she plowed into the food, listening to Andreas speak on the meal he’d had in the city of Bath when he had visited there not long ago. There was a great Roman influence in Bath, still with the great hot springs that the ancient Romans had built their big temples around. He’d had eggs drizzled with honey and chicken with a sauce made of fermented fish, honey, and vinegar. It sounded awful but he assured her that it was quite tasty.
When they’d finished with their meal, including eating the bread bowl, he bought them sweets that were flat rounds of dough that had been fried in fat and basted with honey. They were delicious and as they ate them, they walked along the avenue to their very first entertainment.
It was taking place on the bed of a large wagon, a movable stage that had a painted wooden backdrop. There were two men on the wagon bed, but six or seven in a group standing next to it. The group of men were singing the plot of the play as the men on the wagon bed acted it out, and Andreas took Gavriella’s hand again as they watched the biblical story of Cain and Abel play out before them.