Dearest Evelyn

-chapter 22-

I automatically felt my fists clenching. I would not have them fight over me in public, in the great hall. What the hell where these two idiots thinking?! I calmly stepped away from Gwin’s arm, continuing towards the tables. Maybe I could distract them by shoving food into their faces.

“Hector, if you dare continue to darken her name by continuing your encroaching acts, I will sever your head myself!” Gwin barked.

Uh-oh. I turned slowly, to see the two scowling at each other and snarling in each other’s faces. I tried not to redden as many of the people around them turned to stare and look. I turned back around. I didn’t know them. I didn’t know them. I didn’t know them. Oh God, I knew them, it was undeniable.

I felt Hector tugging me back with a steady grip on my arm. Shit. I avoided all eyes around us and stared at the floor.

“Don’t be irrational. You can’t marry a girl who has her heart set in another place.” Hector shot back. Why where these two fighting? Hector had given in, and Gwindire had no desire to pick bones with Hector!

I looked back and forth between the two, watching as they threw insults back and forth.

“You brute.”

“You bastard.”

“You incompetent fool!”

“You arrogant cock!”

I bit my lip from the pure embarrassment that flowed through me that very instant. I was beyond appalled.

“What are you two boys doing?!” Gwin’s father’s voice interrupted the two. Gwin turned on his father, scowling with a confident air I had never seen before. It stupefied me. I was stunned by his handsome features.

He said something to his father that I couldn’t comprehend.

He gazed coolly over Hector, his hand protectively on my arm, and then took Gwin by the shoulder, turning him away. “We’ll talk.”

When they were a few feet away, Gwin turned opposite his father’s side and looked back at us. His expression threw me into fits of frenzy. He was smiling! He looked . . . rather jovial! He winked at us.

Beside me, Hector returned the wink and held out his thumb in approval. My jaw dropped. I cast quick glances between the two before Gwindire turned back around.

“Close your mouth, Eve. You look like a retard.” Hector mumbled to me out of the corner of his mouth. He was smiling a fake smile of triumph.

“Young love,” I heard some guy from a table behind us say, laughing with his buddies at the spectacle.

Oh. My. God. They had just made a spectacle in front of me and were now the plotters behind some master scheme. I smelled a rat already.

I let Hector sweep me out of the hallway like some big hero and smiled until we were in privacy in my chambers.

I turned on him immediately. “What the hell, Hector?!” I was straining to keep from yelling. He looked as amused as ever. I assumed he had expected my anger to come out from this. Ugh, ugh, ugh! “You’ve embarrassed me beyond no end! There was no reason for you and Gwin to make a spectacle of me like that! They’re going to gossip, my parents will find out. My father . . . oh God my father will chew me out! And you too!”

But my rant was silenced by his warm, protective arms around me. I suddenly stopped, aware that perhaps he had planned this exactly to the detail. He continued to embrace me lovingly until I wrapped my arms around his waist. It was only then that he spoke.

“All calm, Miss Priss?” he chuckled softly. “Now, if you’ll get your panties out of a wad, I’ll explain to you all what happened.”

I waited patiently as he sat us down onto the edge of my bed. I wasn’t exactly comfortable sitting on his lap, but we were alone and I figured no harm to come of my reputation. And hey . . . since when did I give a crap about my reputation? This marriage has gone to my head. And I wasn’t even married yet!