Whatever he had expected me to say, it was clearly not that.

"Marry Nibeneth?" His brow furrowed, almost as if he thought he had misheard me. "That Gondorian lady who took us on a cruise on the Anduin? Why should I marry her?"

"I... I... that is I overheard you telling Éowyn in Minas Tirith that you would. "

Suddenly his puzzlement seemed to change entirely into something much more focused. His jaw clenched slightly, and there was a keen determination in his eye that I had seen there only when he was concentrating on something very important: the next blow in a bout, a horse running out of control, sharpening his sword for a blow. "What do you mean by that?"

"You were speaking to Éowyn... in my father's cellar. know I should not have listened in but..."

"Lothíriel, what exactly do you think you overheard me telling Éowyn?" His voice was calm and even but somehow with a dark hue to it, like the sea just before a mighty storm.

"I wasn't intending to eavesdrop, my lord I only... that is I went into the cellar to fetch a bottle and overheard you when you came in. I know I should have spoken up but I was frozen in place. You told her you intended to marry Nibeneth and she congratulated you on the choice. It was after I sent the letter of course, else I never would have burdened you with knowledge of my feelings." The last part I said in quite a rush, eager to make him understand I never would have sent the letter after hearing him tell his sister his plans to marry another.

"You overheard me telling Éowyn of my plans to marry? In the cellar of your father's house."

"Yes, my lord."

"After you had sent me a letter?"

"Yes, my lord."

He swallowed. "And what exactly did this letter you left me say?"

I frowned. "My lord, you've read it..."

I was suddenly aware of how close he was standing to me and how dry my throat was. He was always taller than me of course but now he seemed to tower over me, mesmerizing me with the fierce and piercing look in his eyes. Normally as warm and blue as a summer sky they were now like chips of ice. "Humour me Lothíriel."

"I... I laid my heart plain to you Éomer. I told you of my feelings for you."

"What feelings are those?"

"My lord I do not wish to repeat..."

"Lothíriel, tell me what the letter said." He hesitated, then added, "please."

"I...I told you that I love you." I made myself meet his gaze to say it, though it cost me dearly to do so.

The hiss of his breath was one of pain, as if I had slapped him. He looked away from me and his jaw clenched several times against apparently building rage. He took a moment to master himself before speaking again. "And after you sent me this letter, you departed Minas Tirith thinking I intended to marry Nibeneth?" His face was a mask of fury. "I barely know whether to laugh at you or shake you by the shoulders, you bloody fool."

I frowned. "I overheard you telling Éowyn that you intended to marry the Flower of the Court. She's very fair and well titled. It would be an ideal match for you."

"How could you imagine that I intended to share my life Nibeneth? A woman that I've seen behave with little thought or regard for the women and people around her, including you?" His voice was a shout, ringing off the walls of the stable.

I was suddenly angry in my turn. "How could I imagine it, Éomer? You really wish to ask why it is that I can imagine you might propose to a wealthy and politically advantageous Gondorian woman who also happens to be the kind of beauty that comes only once in a generation?" My voice almost failed me, trying to get that harsh truth out, but I pushed on. "What in all of Gondor or Rohan combined would make that such a far-fetched thing to think?"

"Because I'm in love with you!" he exploded back. "Bema, how can a woman of your intelligence be so bloody daft?"

He did not wait to hear my rejoinder. One hand flashed out with speed almost too fast to be believed, catching my wrist and hauling me none too gently the last few steps into his arms. He pulled me to his chest, lips crashing down on mine like a wave at high tide. Fire raced though mind and body as our lips met. I had mused about what being kissed by him would feel like often enough but the experience of it was something unimagined. The heat of his body made my skin prickle paradoxically as if I was in a snowstorm but warmth pooled almost immediately at the crux of my thighs. It was not a gentle kiss, nothing tentative or shy about it. Into it Éomer poured his frustration and anger at the many months we had been estranged.

I opened my mouth, tilting my head back to receive more of the passion that seemed to run wildfire between us at every point we touched. And there did not seem that we could find enough places to touch. Each of us pulled the other to them with an erupting violence. The fingers of the hand not locked onto my wrist tangled in my hair while the other arm let go of my wrist only long enough to slide around my waist, pulling me more fully against the length of his body. He tilted my head back and plundered my mouth making me gasp and shiver against him. He pushed me back until my back met the stable wall and I was trapped between his body and it. He lifted me almost off my feet against it, crushing me and capturing my hand, pushing it against the wall at my side, the other hand still at the base of my skull, keeping my head tilted up to his ministrations.

He broke the kiss, leaving us both panting from the suddenness and the breathlessness of it. I chanced a glance up at his face and found his eyes were hooded with lust. He looked at me with a hunger and desire that matched my own screaming need. I wanted him to push me down in the hay right here, to lift my skirts and satisfying himself by filling the aching need that was growing within me. And his expression, made it clear that his thoughts had turned to something similar.

He brought one hand to my face and swept a thumb across my swollen lips, then let his head fall forward with a groan. "Bema, forgive me, Lothíriel." He pushed back from me and took a moment to compose himself, sweeping back his hair. "I shouldn't take such liberties."

I felt frozen against the wall, rooted to where he had put me. How could he not see what I wanted in my eyes? How could my face and body not betray the thoughts that were burning their way out of a mind suddenly on fire with lust?

I swept my own hair back, that which had come out of its pins when he'd tangled his hand there. I let my fingers trail the path his thumb had taken.

And if I want you to take liberties? The question remained unasked.

"You are in love with me?" My voice was hoarse. "How can you be?"

"How can you not have seen it? From the day that we rode out to deliver that child together I've intended to make you my wife. What other woman have I met whose bravery and goodness matches yours? Who else could I want to be the woman who shares my bed, who will mother my children and be Queen of my lands than the girl I found running into the horse paddock to help save the sister of her maid and a babe she'd never met?"

The desire in his eyes was overtaken by another emotion now, tension flowing again into the firm line of his jaw.

"I've shown you every sign of favour, Lothíriel. I wore your flowers at my sister's wedding, danced with you first, asked you to sit next to me at the tournament of Pelennor, where the Queen should sit. At every opportunity offered I sought out your company and your favour. And you ask if I am in love with you after all that? If I intend to marry another woman?"

Here was the rage that I had been told he was famous for. His brow was a sharp line of fury and he looked ready to draw his sword if that could have helped. The hand that clenched the top of the stable partition was white knuckled and his voice was low and dangerous.

"I... that is I assumed it was because of your alliance with my father... because of political ties with Gondor..."

His laugh was a sharp sound. "You thought I was showing favour to you as your father's daughter?"

"It did occur to me that..."

"The favour I showed to your father was taking you back to your Aunt's house that first night when we went to deliver that babe," he snapped, voice laced with wolfish and deadly seriousness. "Rather than pulling you down in the tall grass on the ride back to Edoras and declaring my hand by lifting your skirts." I swallowed, overcome suddenly by the image of it. "Oh yes, Lothíriel, it did occur to me to do so. You innocently chattering away on the back of my horse, feet trailing in the grass, breath sweet with mead and one soft little hand around my waist... I thought I'd never been so happy, never wanted a maiden more. Never wanted to dishonour myself more by kissing you."

A little shiver ran up my spine at the thought of that. Valar, truth be told I probably would have let him. He seemed to know my thoughts because he continued.

"And that was hardly the end of my shameful thoughts. I could have carried you off to some secluded meadow the morning of Éowyn's wedding ride, or kissed you in the hall outside your door when I brought you back from flower picking. Valar you cannot imagine my thoughts when you held out that silly basket and told me I could take anything I liked. Or the night I found you on Etan's ramparts and wanted to kneel down on the flagstones and ask for your hand under the stars. Or any of the other times when we were alone together and the urge to kiss you was all I could think about."

He had moved back only slightly from me at first but now the free hand went around my waist again, pulling me flush to him. He bent his head again but this time the kiss was gentle, tender. His lips were soft and he touched no other part of my body. He drew back and brushed my hair out of my face.

"The deference to your father was waiting until now, Lothíriel to ask you to marry me."

Elation seemed to break open in a heady rush in my chest. Éomer wanted to marry me. Éomer wanted to marry me! My wits could barely comprehend it. How, how could this man have chosen me of all women to be his companion? How was it possible that I would be allowed to hold him, take him within me, bear him his children and share in his griefs and triumphs? It was a feeling of joy so unadulterated as to seem to be dangerous, as if I was drinking a wine too strong and heady for mortal tongues but yet could not bring myself to stop.

"You wish to marry me? Truly? And not simply because you think the night we spent at Etan's will cause a scandal."

"I should have asked for your hand that first day we rode together. I wish to have you, Lothíriel, every bit of you that you give freely." His words sent a shiver down my spine. "Say you will marry me."

"I will. Éomer of course I will."

He turned my palm over and kissed a sensitive part of my wrist, making me shiver. "Say it again, my love."

"I will marry you, Éomer."

He rewarded me with another gentle, almost chaste kiss on the mouth. "Say it again."

"I will marry you, Éomer."

His fingers went to the laces at the front of my bodice, beginning to pull and I felt like my heart might just beat out of my chest. Despite the air of the stables, warm and close with the bodies of so many horses in from the winter, my whole body felt both too hot and too cold at the same time. It was as if I had been plunged beneath and icy spray and sat too close to a fire at the same time. But to my chagrin he thought better of it and instead let the laces fall. I made a little gasp of disappointment and protest that made him smile. "Not like this, Lothíriel. You deserve better than to be tumbled in a stable. At least not for the first time that I tumble you. Besides, we will have many years for me to catch you alone in a stable and finish this thought."

I bit my lip. "I shall hold you to that as a promise, my lord," I said, voice hoarse.

He swallowed and rubbed a hand over his face. "You are not making it any easier for me to do the right thing by you, Lothíriel."

"You mean the right thing for my father."

"For you honour."

"I can't say I care much for my honour right now."

"I can't say I do either. But I am intending to make you my Queen and I won't start off by bringing you shame." He stepped away. "I've waited for you this long, I can wait a little longer. Now come out of the stable and let's walk back before I find some way to justify changing my mind. Bema but it's close in here and I can't think with the warmth of you so near and enticing."

He put my hand on his arm and pushed open the doors, leading us out into the moonlight and frigid air of the winter night and the relatively public space of the path back to Meduseld. There was no one on the path currently and in the dark we would hardly be likely to be seen from any of the windows facing the path but still it was at least more public. The apex of my legs still throbbed and I could still smell him—all soap and horses and something indescribably masculine—but insane desire to pull his lips down on mine and try to overcome his prudence seemed less likely to be an imminent possibility at least.

He folded my arm in his and turned back up the hill toward Wídwine's residence and Meduseld. "Quite apart from the fact that your powers of observation need some work, Lothíriel, your Rohirric does as well. What I told Éowyn was that I intended to marry "the flowered lady of the court" which was an allusion to you my Flower-Garlanded Maiden."

"You called me the flowered lady of the court to your sister?" I asked, mortified.

He spoke the words again in Rohirric to show me the difference. "It sounds much nicer in my language."

"Éowyn must think I'm a fool. I hope you didn't tell her the whole embarrassing story of my name."

"Hardly. If anything she's more apt to think that now that you've accepted my hand in marriage."

I gasped and clapped a hand over my mouth, suddenly horrified. "Oh! She must think I rejected you! How she must hate me!"

He shook his head. "I hardly think she hates you. She was sorry for me of course. But no one could blame you for not accepting me."

"What do you mean?"

He frowned. "It's not an easy task, being Queen of Rohan. Have you... you have considered that haven't you, Lothíriel? If you haven't and need to reconsider of course I will understand."

I frowned at him, stopping suddenly on the path and turning to face him.

"I want you so much, Éomer. I would not balk at any task to have you."

"I would not wish for my love for you, for my desire to make you my bride, to make your life more difficult." He said carefully. "Don't doubt, my love, that I will do all in my power to ease the weight of the crown you are accepting, but it will not be an easy job. Part of the reason I waited so long to ask you was that I couldn't be sure that you would accept to be Queen.

"That morning when you gave me the juniper branch in the stables before I rode out against the Wildmen I... well I felt confident in your feelings for me as a man. But you were raised away from the court, by your choice, how could I think that you would accept to live such a public life for my sake? Even if you were fond of me, it was much to ask."

I gaped at him. "You doubted I would accept to be your Queen? When I left to go back to Dol Amroth instead of Edoras it was not for my own sake. To be a ghost in Meduseld, fed only on the scraps of affection from our friendship would have been enough to keep me by your side. I could have watched your children by another woman grow and still have been satisfied not to leave you. I left to spare you the burden of my love. I thought you knew that I loved you and did not want your first days of marriage tainted by that awkwardness. I feared you would grow to resent me for the obligation my feelings put on you. Do not doubt that was the only reason I did not ride back with you. If I love you enough for that, if I was strong enough to endure that what other challenge can there be that will surpass that?"

"I am not an easy man to live with. Or to love. As a king I will have other obligations that I must meet and will have to put the country first with my time and efforts. As a warrior I will have to ride out for many days and may come back wounded or simply exhausted." He hesitated. "And as a man I have many faults: I am quick to anger... jealous... proud and authoritative.

"As a queen I too will need to put the country before us. As a healer I will be called from your bed in the middle of the night and will go. And as a woman, my own faults are many: I am retiring and shy, not used to public speaking or planning parties. I've let others tell me what to do my whole life and am no natural leader. But since I've met you... I'm able to say and do what I want. I am not afraid of you, Éomer – not your anger or your jealousy. You say you want to consume me and I wish to be consumed. You make me more of what I am by it."

"Valar, Lothíriel... you are radiant."

I laughed and turned back down the path. "Oh, my lord, you could have had a fairer queen and you know it."

"Nibeneth? That girl doesn't hold a candle in comparison to you."

"My lord you flatter me with your preference but even you cannot deny that she is the fairest girl in Gondor."

"I do deny it."

"Éomer you must believe I am content with your love. You need not..."

Now it was his turn to stop and make me turn to him. "You are a very beautiful woman, Lothíriel. You may say that my love makes me less objective but I say that you have simply not been sufficiently told. Of the two of us I know my own judgment to be more fair. I was clear enough with my preference for you that the entire rest of the court knew my intention, even if you did not. Fighting off your potential suitors, sometimes literally, was something of a hobby of mine this past year."

Of course I knew that men sometimes fought so-called 'courting bouts' in the training fields, meant to establish who had the right to pursue some young lady. But it would never have occurred to me that one would ever be fought over my hand. "You fought a courting bout for me." I gaped.

"Lothíriel I fought a dozen at least. And those were only the ones that I could persuade to meet me on the field. Those Gondorian lords who pretended not to know what I meant when I called them out and then continued to dance with you were my true torment."

"But I've always been... that is I was always treated like a precocious child. As I told you, I was never even presented at court."

"And so Éowyn's wedding was the first time society got a chance to see what they were missing out on. Believe me, Lothíriel even in those girlish frocks you used to wear it was not only my blood that was stirred at the sight of you," he said with a frown. "It was torture to think of it when you returned to Dol Amroth. I knew now that the court knew what a jewel had been kept from them others would try their suit after me. I consoled myself with the fact that you had seemed reasonably fond of me and still rejected me. Is it wrong that I still wanted no one else to have you? Even if I could not.

"I feared most some retiring Gondorian lord, someone quiet but intelligent who could afford to give you what you wanted- quiet life in the countryside away from the court – but who could read all the same books you can and understand them. Bema but I hated the image of that, someone who you would let hold you, understand you."

I thought of how I'd felt at the idea of him taking another woman to bride. How I'd wanted to pull Nibeneth's hair right out when she flirted with him. "No, my lord, I think I understand you. But how did you not know how I felt? I spelled it out quite plainly in my letter."

"I never received it."

"What do you mean?"
"Well, where did you leave it?"

"In the books my father sent you the night of Amrothos' engagement. He sent me to his study to fetch some books he meant to send to you and I took the opportunity to put it between the pages."

He seemed to struggle to remember for a moment before his frown turned into a smile. He pulled me to him, shaking with laughter. He gave me a fond kiss. "You took the wrong books Lothíriel."

I pushed back to examine his face. "What do you mean?"

"The books Amrothos gave me were the wrong ones. So I sent them back to your father unopened. As I recall they were some very dry things about the history of the fishing practices of the Haradrim so it's no wonder your father hasn't opened them in the meantime. I wonder that you didn't notice the titles and know they weren't something I would have interest in."

I gaped. "You really never received it?"

He lifted my chin for a sensuous kiss that lasted long enough to make me blush and pull back, glancing around to make sure that we were still unobserved in the cloak of darkness. "If I had received it you must know I would never have left you this long without my name upon you and still a maid. Valar but I wanted to kill the men who danced with you, who didn't know you were mine."

"How can you joke about that, Éomer? I can't believe it never reached you."

"There's nothing to be done about it now lass. And I'm not joking in the slightest. You'll see I'm not tomorrow when we set to arranging our wedding. I want you, Lothíriel and if you will have me there is not a force in the world that will stop me from claiming you."

"Do you really think it's still in that book?"

"You'd better hope your father doesn't interest himself suddenly in historic fishing practices."

I blushed to the roots of my hair. "Oh he wouldn't open something addressed to you! Surely!"

"In the hand of his own daughter? It would be his fatherly duty, not just his right."

I gaped. "Oh I must get it back at once!"

He gave me a chaste kiss. "Don't worry, I'll find it when I go to see your father to ask for your hand. I'm sure you're in no danger of him reading the book in the meantime."

"Oh, Éomer you mustn't read it though! It's the romantic musings of a girl in the throws of... that is it's sure to be much too..."

"Don't be ridiculous, you'll not keep me from reading it, my sweet. Put that from your mind. It's my compensation for leaving you with Wídwine tonight rather than hiving you off to my bed directly."

Éomer had led us through the city to Alwil's residence through a clever series of back alleys , designed to keep us out of the main streets where someone might recognize one or both of us. Finally we turned up the small winding and steep alley that led to a small little charming gate that led into Wídwine's back garden. We stopped at the gate for a moment and I looked up at him.

"And what of my compensation? For being left here?"

"This." He pushed me back, pressing me between the cold stone and his warm body, crushing me down as if he meant to press me into his chest. His hands tangled in my hair again, tilting my head back so he could ravage my lips.

He pulled back, shaking his head but smiling. "Who would have thought that cool exterior hid such passion? And it's only me who will ever know the truth of how you come apart so well in my hands. Valar what have I done in my life to deserve such a gift."

With much coaxing Éomer managed to persuade me to actually open the gate and go inside, then shut it behind me. "You'll freeze if you stay out in this cold much longer, my love." "I would be warm enough if you only kiss me again." But he was unfortunately too well schooled in strategy to fall for that more than once. I was loathed to be parted from him, irrationally afraid that if we I closed the gate between us, I would wake to find that this had all been just a dream or that something else might come between us.

Wídwine and Alwil were still in the parlour when I returned and both stood when I entered. Both considered me for a long moment as I stood blushing and smiling and not quite able to meet their gaze before Wídwine, grinning from ear to ear, stood and bowed as she might to the Queen of Rohan. When I said nothing to contradict her, only shook my head, blushing still harder Alwil rushed forward to take my chilled arms and pull me toward the fire where Dorn was sleeping. "Come, sit down and we'll find something to drink in celebration. I'd say you should warm up after such a walk but you hardly look as though you need it!"

Fraca who had been reading by the fire looked up from his book. "What are we celebrating then?"

"Lothíriel is to be engaged." Alwil's expression was of infinite patience and infinite frustration.

"Oh? Congratulations, Lothíriel! Who is the lucky man then?"

"Who do you think?" The tone of Alwil's voice let it be known the frustration was winning through.

Fraca looked genuinely confused. "Do I know the man then?"

His wife's expression was unbelieving. "You know what, Fraca, why don't we just see who turns up in the morning looking for her?"

Wídwine touched my lips, which were indeed beginning to swell and sting slightly from all the unusual attention they had been subjected to. "I think only my finest bottle of mead will do to calm those swollen lips!" she said with a wink that made me blush to my toes.

Alwil pulled the last bedraggled bit of hair from my braid and let it fall free. "I think we can start getting you used to wearing the Rohirric styles tonight unless I miss my guess. He'll want to see you in them I'm sure."

I was blushing and smiling so hard I could barely speak. "Yes, I rather think I shall try one out tomorrow."

AN: Well this chapter is obviously dedicated to everyone who posted that they wanted to bash the two of their heads together for all the constant misunderstandings and hard-headed refusal to sit down and talk to each other... though secretly I know u all love the drama :) don't even try to play. Thanks as always to LBJ (who loves you very much, and got this chapter back in record time but as always with her usual awesome edits and insights). Thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter. Please, please, please let me know what you thought of this one. Any parts you blushed at or loved in particular? XO Spake