When I heard footsteps out by the fire ring, I yanked my nightgown on and said, “Are you coming to tell me a story?”

“Sure, I can tell you a story. What do you want to hear? ‘Goldilocks and the Three Medieval Bears’?” Rhys, not Gentry. I smoothed out my nightgown, before he opened the flap on the tent and looked in at me.

“I thought you were Gentry,” I said.

“I thought you were Gentry.”

“Rosalinda didn’t want to swim by herself, so he’s waiting on her.”

“I guess she’s not done flirting with him after all.” Rhys obviously wanted me to ask about that, so I kept my mouth shut. “Is it okay if I wait for him?”

“Knock yourself out,” I said.

“Cool.” He started to step into the tent, so I shook my head at him.

“You can wait out there. I’m going to sleep.”

Once he pulled the tent flap closed, I turned off the light to keep him from bothering me. I must have drifted off, because I woke up to Gentry laughing and saying, “Thou art a knave.” To Rhys? I guessed not, because nobody answered before Gentry said, “The lady sleepeth and hath not said I might wake her. Nay. My greatest wish is that thou stint thy clappe.”

“Gentry,” I called.

“My lady.”

I turned the lantern on and got up to look outside. He was squatted next to the fire ring arranging a pile of logs.

“Are you coming to tell me the story about the lady whose husband spied on her taking a bath?” I said. He came over to the tent, but when I stepped back to let him in, he hesitated. I held up my hands and made little scratchy movements. “I’ll scratch your back for you.”

Gentry ducked and stepped inside. Then we were standing in the tent together, me looking at him and him looking at my bare feet. His hands hung down at his sides, but relaxed like he didn’t know what to do with them. Now that I’d seen him fight, I wondered if when he clenched his hand up, he imagined he was gripping a sword. Something familiar to do with his hands.

“If you were someone else, I would kiss you now,” I said.

“I am naught but myself.”

“I didn’t mean it that way. I meant, I would kiss you, except I know you didn’t like it the last time I tried it.”

“Nay, my lady. Thy kiss was no outrage upon me. ’Twas only that I knew not what thou . . .” That was all the words he got out.

He kept his head down, so I couldn’t see his face, but he clenched his right hand around his invisible sword. Was that anger? Or nervousness? Or something else?

“Is it okay if I kiss you now?” I said. I knew flirting with him was stupid, but I was still high, and I didn’t want to be alone. Plus I liked watching him fight, and that he laughed so hard at his own jokes.

“Where?” he said, which gave me the giggles.

“I thought I’d start with your lips. And then maybe your jaw, next to your ear. And then a little bit lower, on your neck.” I’d never been asked before where I was going to kiss somebody, so I thought it was better to be really specific. I waited for follow-up questions, but he nodded and raised his head enough that he was looking at my lips.

I leaned in, still feeling giggly, and kissed him on the corner of his mouth. Since he didn’t seem to mind that, I centered the next one. Then, like I’d told him I would, I kissed his jaw, right where it met his ear. A little bit below that was apparently the sweet spot, because when I kissed him there, he made this sound—I swear, the sexiest sound I ever heard a man make—this involuntary groan that I don’t think he even knew he could make.

I took half a step back to give him some space, but he brought his right hand up to my jaw, so his thumb touched my chin. His other hand hovered like he couldn’t decide where to put it, but he finally settled on my arm, below my elbow.

I thought, Is he actually going to kiss me? right before he did. Whatever base that was, he had definitely Frenched somebody before, because he knew the basics. It lasted about thirty seconds before he dropped his hands and took a step back, almost into the side of the tent.

“My lady—” He was going to apologize.

“You’re okay. It’s okay. Come sit down and tell me the story.” I sat down on the bed and patted the space next to me, but he stayed standing where he was.

“’Twas many years past,” he said. Then he took a deep breath and started over.

“’Twas many hundred years past and the king of Alba was a man called Elynas. One day he rode out hunting into the greenwood, where he came upon a lady called Pressyne. So fair was she, her lips bedewed, that he bade her marry him. The lady assented but bade him swear never come into her chamber while she bathed or birthed.”

“Birthed? He wasn’t supposed to see her bathing or giving birth?” I hated to interrupt him, but I wasn’t sure I understood.

“Nay, and he swore this oath. Ere they weren wed many years, she bore Elynas three daughters. Palatyne, Melior, and Melusine.”

“Uh-oh.”

“Tho the king swore, as holy a troth as his marriage vow, suspicion entered his heart. What secret kept the lady from him? And wherefore? Soon he broke his vow. At the door of the lady Pressyne’s chamber, he knelt and looked through the keyhole.”

Gentry acted it out, kneeling down and putting his hand up to his eye like it was a keyhole. It was so cute, I laughed. Then he started giggling.

“You’re stoned,” I said. He shook his head. Then he nodded, still laughing.

“I am happy, my lady, but shamed it is at the cost of thine own happiness.”

“How do you figure?”

“Thou art here only because of thy distress, but thou art here.”

“How long have you been planning to bring me here?”

“From the day the Witch told me I was to be thy champion.”

He was still smiling when he brought both his hands up and started scratching. First his neck, then his shoulders. After a minute or so, he stopped scratching and put his hands flat on the tops of his thighs.

“Lo, the king looked and saw Pressyne disporting in her bath—”

“Disporting?”

“The lady was playing in the water, but she was no lady.”

I bit my tongue, even though I had a bunch of questions. If she wasn’t a lady, how had she given birth to three daughters?

“Above her navel, she was like as any lady. Soft of shoulder. Full of breast. But below her navel, she had a great split tail atwinkle with silvered scales. The king meant to spy her in secret but, in his surprise, he cried out. Pressyne heard his cry and knew he betrayed his hest to keep the privacy of her bath. In a fury, she flew thence. She carried her three daughters to the enchanted Isle of Avalon, and swore King Elynas never see her nor them again.”