He swam languidly back toward consciousness, and the first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was Jane.

He had been brought to his own quarters, and was in his bed. It appeared dark outside his shuttered window; the sconces had been lit but were guttering, bathing the room in a dim, fitful light. The fire in his grate had burned down to embers. And draped across the foot of his bed, one arm cushioning her head and the other dangling over the edge, her body a warm, solid weight against his feet, lay Jane.

He didn't think he'd ever seen her asleep before. He levered himself up onto his elbows for a better look.

At first glance she appeared peaceful, her breathing deep and rhythmic. A closer inspection, however, revealed dark smudges beneath her eyes and pale tear tracks staining her cheeks, reflecting silver in the flickering sconce-light. Her clothes were rumpled, dirty, and – he saw with a sudden flush of horror – bloody.

The first thought that leapt to his mind was, my father – he has done something to her after all – I am going to – but then he remembered pitching into her arms in the practice yard and realized that the bloodstains he was seeing were almost certainly his own.

Relief was the first thing to hit him – then understanding.

She has not changed her clothes since then. I wonder if she has left me at all? It has to be hours since I collapsed…

He found the notion of her staying with him all that time, not even bothering to change her stained and filthy clothing, to be frankly amazing… until it occurred to him to ask himself what he would have done if their roles had been reversed.

And reached the almost immediate conclusion that he would have done the exact same thing.

Jane a bloody mess, falling into his arms? It was difficult – painful – to even contemplate such a thing. And if it ever, God forbid, were to happen, wild horses would not be able to drag him away from her. So he supposed he understood, in theory at least, what she was doing there.

He wasn't at all sure, however, that he approved.

Magnus's words during their confrontation were still ringing in his head and he could not help but remember what his father had said about Jane's most precious possession as a young woman of noble birth – her reputation, her modesty.

Magnus had wanted it torn away from her, by force if necessary, the notion of which had filled Gunther with the purest horror he'd ever felt in his life… but now it seemed she was wantonly throwing it away of her own volition. Spending the night in his bedchamber unchaperoned? Even under the circumstances, with him unconscious, it was a wildly improper thing for her to do.

Then a quiet, grunting snore emanated from the corner of the room and, turning his head to follow the sound, he realized that they were not in fact unchaperoned, after all.

In a corner of the room near the hearth, wrapped in one blanket with another wadded up for a pillow, lay Sir Ivon, fast asleep. As Gunther watched, the portly old knight grunted again, scratched himself, heaved over onto his side, smacked his lips, and fell back into the steady rhythm of his snores – all without so much as opening his eyes.

Gunther smiled to himself, but the smile faded as he reflected on the depth of devotion that was indicated by the older man's presence in his room. Sir Ivon may have earned himself some renown as a jouster back in his glory days, but he was no battle-hardened old crusader like Sir Theodore. Ivon was a man who appreciated good food, good drink – and a soft bed.

Yet here we was, snoring on the flagstone floor – and why?

Because of me.

Unconsciously he raised a hand to his head; felt bandages – felt his injury – winced.

He is here out of concern for me. ME. Just like Jane.

Jane. For a moment there, he'd almost forgotten. He turned his head toward her again – to find that her eyes, more black than green in the dim light, were open now… and gazing directly back at him.

They stared at each other for a long, quiet moment as Sir Ivon slumbered on and the embers popped in the grate. Then,

"Gunther," Jane breathed.

His hand, which had still been pressed absently against his injury, dropped back to the coverlet, and he felt the slow beginnings of a grin twitch at his lips. She was still lying sideways across the foot of her bed, and so he cocked his own head to the side as well.

A flash of memory hit him. "Why are you upside down?" he asked quietly.

"Gunther!" In one fluid motion, she rolled up onto her knees and then launched herself at him, knocking him backward into the headboard with the force of her embrace.

"Ungh!"

Dancing lights exploded across his vision as his head impacted the wood, and for a second the room seemed to pitch to one side and he was afraid he would pass out again.

Then the world righted itself and he was more or less okay again, with the exception of a keen, throbbing ache at the base of his skull… but his double armful of Jane Turnkey served as a more than adequate distraction from the pain.

For a moment she simply clung to him, arms locked round his neck, as if her life depended on it. Then, just as abruptly, she pulled away, settling back into a sitting position with her knees drawn up, about halfway down his bed.

Her face was pale, hair even more of a wreck than usual, and her eyes huge in dim light. Impulsively she leaned forward again, reached out and pressed the palm of one hand to his cheek, as if to reassure herself that he was there; that he was real.

"Gunther, you stupid beef-brain," she whispered, "you scared m – us half to death!"

"Sorry," he said rather ruefully, "but even I did not anticipate being… uh… candlesticked."

Jane chuffed a quiet snort of laughter. "I do not think that is a real word, Gunther."

"Oh, really?" He raised an eyebrow. "After you have had it done to you, then you can tell me whether it is a real word or not, all right?"

Jane sobered. "Truly though, it was horrible. For a moment there… we really thought…" She seemed unable to bring herself to finish.

"Jane."

"Mmh." She dragged a hand across her puffy eyes, almost angrily, just as she had when he'd confronted her after her disastrous interview with his father. Had that only been a day ago? It felt as though a lifetime had passed since that sun-drenched, almost surreal encounter.

"You should not do that. It is over. And it is fine –" he reached out and seized her hand, pulling it down and away from her face – "my God, you are shaking!"

"I know," she said, staring down at their joined hands as if she'd never before seen anything of the like. Her voice was shaking too. "I just… you were… I have never been so frightened in my life. There was so much blood, so much and you were just… ashen… and your eyes – they were so strange, Gunther, like you were already seeing… a world I could not. And when they lifted you away from me it was… it was as if all the life ran right out of you – you just hung there and… I was sure you had stopped breathing. I jumped up and went for my sword – I could hardly think straight, I just… do you remember that time years ago, when Dragon was so ill? I was so frantic that I nearly ran headlong off that cliff. You pulled me back – you saved my life that day, Gunther, and all I could think about, in that moment when I was convinced I had lost you, all I could think about was how you were there for me that day and… and yesterday I was… was not…" She looked up at him with haunted eyes. "I wanted to kill him. I was so angry, and so… sad… I was going to jump onto your horse and ride right back there and…" She trailed off, shook her head. "But the thing about it is, I knew even then, that the person I was angriest with was not your father but myself. I let you down. I –"

"Stop. Jane, stop."

She pulled in a deep, shuddering breath; freed her hand from his; locked her arms around her knees. Pressed her eyes closed. "I… I am sorry," she said quietly. "I have not been the friend you deserved. I behaved horribly yesterday –"

"You stayed with me," he pointed out.

"I…what?"

"You stayed with me," he repeated patiently. "From then until now. Every moment. Have you not?"

"Of course."

"You wanted to go after my father. But you stayed with me."

"Yes. Sir Ivon saw what I was doing. He shouted at me, told me that wherever I was going, I could just forget it; that they needed me. That you needed me. That was when I realized I must have been mistaken, that… there must still be hope. And as long as there was hope –" she paused for a moment, swallowed hard. "I would never leave you, Gunther. Never."

Gunther's breath caught. He'd had his revelation concerning Jane yesterday in his father's house – was it possible that she'd had she had undergone something similarly profound between then and now? Was that what she was trying to say?

Was there room for hope? Did he dare?

She looked as though she were about to say more, but before she could, Sir Ivon let loose with a mighty belch in his sleep, distracting them both. When he looked back at Jane, her head was bowed, eyed glued on her own hands, which were picking restlessly at a loose thread on his coverlet.

"I should tell you about your father," she said softly, and he felt his blood run cold.

"What?" he asked more sharply than he had intended, thinking again, if he has hurt her somehow…

"He has been exiled by the king," she said, her voice barely more than a whisper.

"What!?" He hardly knew what he had been expecting her to say, but that certainly wasn't it.

Jane looked up at him again. "Sir Theodore is overseeing his… removal. That is the only reason he is not here as well. He did not want to leave you, either." She paused and raked a hand through her disheveled hair. "Your father… I… I told you I wanted to kill him. I was not the only one. Once you were… stabilized, Sir Ivon wanted to go after him as well. Sir Theodore wanted him thrown in the dungeons, at the very least. But when King Caradoc was informed of the situation, he proclaimed your father immediately and permanently banned from the kingdom for assault on a king's knight. He said he could not imagine that you would want to see your father imprisoned or dead. He said he was doing it with you in mind. Of the three courses of action, it was undoubtedly the most lenient. Even so… I am sorry, Gunther."

He took a deep breath. This was a lot to take in, but he found himself strangely relieved. He would no longer have to worry about his father's vicinity to Jane. Jane's safety was ensured. And that meant everything. His eyes widened. He had just remembered what it was that he'd been riding home to tell her; what had been so important that he had needed to say.

"You need not be sorry, Jane. I am not. We had nothing left to say to each other. The king is wise, and I am grateful. This is best. Jane. Jane." He wanted to be sure he had her full attention, because the next words he spoke might very well be the most crucial of his life. Well, other than that single fateful word he had uttered yesterday in his father's house; no.

Then her eyes locked on his, and he knew it was time to speak his heart.

"Listen," he said quietly, "I owe you an apology about yesterday." He saw her draw in breath to speak, no doubt to tell him it was fine, already forgotten, and he raised a hand to forestall her. "This needs to be said. I acted horribly. I should have told you everything I knew, as soon as I knew it; I understand that now. I was only trying to protect you… but it was misguided. You are not in need of my protection. You and I, we… we work better as a partnership; as equals. I will not forget it again."

"Gunther –"

"Wait. There is more. You deserve an apology for the kiss as well."

"Gunther, stop. I already explained that I was caught by surprise. I overreacted. You do not need to –"

"I do need to. I do. It was unacceptable to… manipulate you like that. You had every right to be angry, and it will not happen again. I would say that I do not know what came over me, but that would be a lie. When I learned about my father's… designs on you, I realized that…" steady on, Gunther, it is too late to back out now… "that it would kill me. Seeing my father lay claim to you would kill me. And not only my father. Seeing anyone lay claim to you would kill me. Because… because…"

Her eyes were widening. They looked enormous in the gloom.

"Jane, I…" he whispered, his throat suddenly very dry. "Oh, hell. What I mean to say is… I… I…"

"Shh." She scooched toward him on the mattress until their knees touched, then leaned in and actually pressed a finger to his lips, shushing him. "I know. I know. When I thought you were d – gone… and my behavior toward you had been so harsh… Gunther, I wanted to die. I love you too."

Those simple words almost knocked the breath right out of him. He felt the beginnings of another grin coming on. "Then… you…"

She grinned right back. "Forgive you for kissing me, yes. And invite you to do it again."

Stunned by his good fortune, he raised a hand to her face, caressing her cheek and running his thumb gently over her lips.

"Jane, I have to ask. Yesterday you said that you were meant to be a knight, not a wife. Do you think… is there any way… that someday, for the right man, you might consider being… both?"

She laughed quietly and looked down for a moment. "If there is one way to convince me, Gunther, it is to keep kissing me like you did yesterday. And yet here you are, letting a prime opportunity pass you by. I am not going to ask you again."

Gunther was no fool. A second later he was wrapping his arms around her, pulling her right up against his chest, feeling her heat, her sleepy weight in his arms, holding her so close that his lips moved against hers when he paused just long enough to whisper,

"You will never need to."

Then there was no more need for words.