Page 68 of Gwen and Art Are Not in Love

‘You only did what you had to,’ said Gwen. She was used to thinking of Bridget as older and wiser, but at that moment she looked exactly as she was: eighteen and shaken, too young to have watched a man die at the end of her blade; too young to have been the only thing standing between the heir to the throne and the knife meant for his throat. Gwen hesitated for a moment, and then reached out to touch Bridget’s face with her free hand, her thumb grazing her temple.

Bridget’s gaze snapped into focus. ‘What are you doing?’ she said.

‘I don’t know,’ Gwen said, wondering why her voice had dipped so low. ‘I thought it might help.’

‘Damn it,’ muttered Bridget, as if she had made an unforgivable mistake – and then she followed through by leaning forward and kissing Gwen so fiercely that Gwen made a noise of surprise into her mouth. She had just recovered enough to reciprocate – to close her eyes and let her hand fall to clutch at Bridget’s shoulder, to taste salt on her tongue and go in search of more – when Bridget broke off, brieflypressing her forehead to Gwen’s before wrenching herself away.

Gwen stared open-mouthed at her, then let go of the sword she hadn’t realised she was still holding, reached out andpushedher. Bridget looked suitably confused, but allowed herself to be pushed backwards until she hit the stone wall, where they were out of sight from any prying guards or passers-by.

‘Do you have any plan for what comes next?’ Bridget said, looking down at Gwen’s hands, which were still pressed against her collarbone. ‘Or did the forethought start and end at pushing?’

‘Shut up,’ Gwen said, surprising both of them. ‘I’m going to kiss you.’

‘All right,’ Bridget said. ‘Carry on, then.’

If she had been paying more attention to the finer details, Gwen might have noted that Bridget’s skin was slightly damp and hot to the touch beneath her fingers; that her hand was still bleeding, leaving tiny smears of blood on Gwen’s dress, and that her dark hair smelt faintly of smoke and leather.

As it was, her attention was primarily engaged elsewhere. Bridget’s muscled arms had immediately encircled her, fingers sliding up and coming to rest on her shoulder blade and the small of her back; she was kissing Gwen with a hunger that seemed entirely at odds with the careful way she was holding her, somehow both steadying and wrecking her all at once. Not even in her dreams had kissing Bridget been this good – she hadn’t been able to imagine that Bridget might reach up to slip her fingers into Gwen’shair, wrapping a coil of it around her hand to draw Gwen closer and making a littlehummingnoise of approval that made Gwen desperately curious about what else Bridget’s hands could do.

‘Um,’ Gwen said, breaking away, noting distractedly that even when Bridget’s eyes slowly opened, they lingered on Gwen’s lips. ‘Was that … okay?’

‘Okay?’ Bridget said, her gaze flicking up to meet Gwen’s. ‘Yes. Yes, that was okay.’

‘Well, that’s – I just …’ Gwen stalled. ‘I haven’t really done that before. I mean I did kiss Arthur, actually, but that was more of a joke than anything else, and I didn’t – I wasn’t sure if you liked me. I mean, I likeyou, but I didn’t think you’d … noticed.’

Bridget considered her, her head cocked slightly to one side. ‘I noticed. It just seemed … impractical. And unlikely that you’d ever do anything about it. It didn’t seem like a good idea. I suppose it still doesn’t.’

‘No. Well. I’ve done something about it now,’ Gwen said stupidly, as if Bridget may not have realised.

‘Yes,’ Bridget said, with a hint of a smile. ‘You have. You are, in fact, quite proficient atdoing something.’

A door opened on the other side of the courtyard and Gwen jumped about a foot in the air; Bridget had reversed their positions in an instant, pressing Gwen into the wall and craning her neck to assess the intruder. It was just a servant attending to early-morning duties, whistling their way towards the Great Hall.

Gwen tried not to look too disappointed when Bridget released her.

‘This is all … very odd,’ Bridget said, reaching up and brushing the tiniest smear of blood from Gwen’s jaw. ‘I’m so tired. It feels like a dream.’

‘It’s not a dream,’ Gwen said. ‘Trust me. In the dream, you’re always on a unicorn.’

‘You look suspiciously perky,’ Arthur said, frowning at Gwen when she sat down next to him in the royal stands, ‘for somebody who was justperilouslyclose to being murdered.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Gwen said breezily. ‘Nobody’s going to bother killing me. I’m of no consequence; I’m barely in the family portraits, they put me really small in the corner.’

‘That’s the spirit,’ Arthur said. ‘Any update on the malevolent forces attempting to end your father’s line?’ The atmosphere in the castle for the past few days had been extremely charged; Arthur had been seized by some over-enthusiastic guards on his way to the tournament, and it had taken quite a lot of shouting (on his part) and menacing posturing (on Sidney’s) to get them to un-seize him for long enough to explain who he was.

‘Yes. It seems it was just as Lord Stafford said – a recent hire to the guard who slipped through the cracks. It wasn’t coordinated or anything, no co-conspirators. I suppose they’ll just be payingmuchcloser attention to who we employ.’

‘How neat,’ said Arthur.

‘That’s what Gabriel said. He’s not entirely convinced. But Stafford has been so paranoid about the north lately that there’s no way he’d let this go if he weren’t absolutely certain.’

The king and queen entered the royal stands, waving at the crowd as they settled into their seats. Arthur glanced over at them and then back at Gwen. He fidgeted with the hem of his sleeve for a moment, then cleared his throat. ‘Is your brother not …’

‘No,’ Gwen said placidly. ‘He’s not. What particular business do you have with my brother?’

Arthur felt prickly heat travel up from the collar of his shirt to the tips of his ears. ‘It’s a … you know, I wanted to ask him about – being a lord and everything, and managing lands, there’s a chance I might not know the first thing about—’

Gwen snorted. ‘Christ, don’t hurt yourself. You look like Merlin is in your breeches clawing holes in something vital.’