I snorted. “I am not so much better as a man, either.”

She looked offended. “You are not ill-favored.” She traced a finger down the musculature of my chest speculatively. “The other day, in the washing courts, some were saying you were the best thing to come out of the stables since Burrich. I think it is your hair. It is not near as coarse as most Buck men.” She twined strands of it through her fingers.

“Burrich!” I said with a snort. “You cannot tell me he is favored among the women!”

She quirked a brow at me. “And why not? He is a very well-made man, and clean and mannered besides. He has good teeth, and such eyes! His dark humors are daunting, but not a few would like to try their hands at lightening those. The washing maids agreed that day that were he to turn up in their sheets, they would not hurry to shake him out.”

“But that is not likely to happen,” I pointed out.

“No,” she agreed pensively. “That was another thing they agreed on. Only one claimed to have ever had him, and she admitted he was very drunk at the time. At a Springfest, I believe she said.” Molly glanced at me, then laughed aloud at the incredulous look on my face. “She said,” Molly went on teasingly, “‘He has used his time well amongst the stallions to learn their ways. I carried the mark of his teeth on my shoulders for a week.’”

“That cannot be,” I declared. My ears burned for Burrich’s sake. “He would not mistreat a woman, no matter how drunk he was.”

“Silly boy!” Molly shook her head over me as her nimble fingers set to braiding her hair up again. “No one said she was mistreated.” She glanced at me coyly. “Or displeased.”

“I still do not believe it,” I declared. Burrich? And the woman had liked it?

“Has he really a small scar, here, shaped like a crescent moon?” She put her hand high on my hip and looked at me from under her lashes.

I opened my mouth, shut it again. “I cannot believe that women chatter of such things,” I said at last.

“In the washing courts, they talk of little else,” Molly divulged calmly.

I bit my tongue until curiosity overwhelmed me. “What do they say of Hands?” When we had worked in the stables together, his tales of women had always astonished me.

“That he has pretty eyes and lashes, but that all the rest of him needs to be washed. Several times.”

I laughed joyously, and saved the words for when next he bragged to me. “And Regal?” I encouraged her.

“Regal. Umm.” She smiled dreamily at me, then laughed at the scowl on my face. “We do not speak of the Princes, my dear. Some propriety is kept.”

I pulled her back down beside me and kissed her. She fit her body to mine and we lay still under the arching blue sky. Peace that had eluded me for so long now filled me. I knew that nothing could ever part us, not the plans of kings nor the vagaries of fate. It seemed, finally, to be the right time to tell her of my problems with Shrewd and Celerity. She rested warm against me and listened silently as I spilled out to her the foolishness of the King’s plan and my bitterness at the awkward position it brought me. It did not occur to me that I was an idiot until I felt a warm tear spill and then slide down the side of my neck.

“Molly?” I asked in surprise as I sat up to look at her. “What’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong?” Her voice went high on the words. She took a shuddering breath. “You lie beside me and tell me you are promised to another. And then you ask me what’s wrong?”

“The only one I am promised to is you,” I said firmly.

“It’s not that simple, FitzChivalry.” Her eyes were very wide and serious. “What will you do when the King tells you that you must court her?”

“Stop bathing?” I asked.

I had hoped she would laugh. Instead she pulled away from me. She looked at me with a world of sorrow in her eyes. “We haven’t got a chance. Not a hope.”

As if to prove her words, the sky darkened suddenly above us and the squall winds rose. Molly leaped to her feet, snatching up her cloak and shaking sand from it. “I’m going to get soaked. I should have been back to Buckkeep hours ago.” She spoke flatly, as if those two things were the only concerns that she had.

“Molly, they would have to kill me to keep me from you,” I said angrily.

She gathered up her market purchases. “Fitz, you sound like a child,” she said quietly. “A foolish, stubborn child.” With a pattering like flung pebbles, the first raindrops began to hit. They made dimples in the sand and swept across the rain in sheets. Her words had left me speechless. I could not think of a worse thing for her to have said to me.