Pippin burst through the curtain and stopped dead in his tracks as he saw Sam curled around Anemosi in the bed. As Merry catapulted through the door and landed on him, they both let out a squawk that was probably audible throughout the city. Sam woke up bleary-eyed and wondering what was happening. Anemosi woke up next, and knew that the worst possible thing was now happening.
Pippin and Merry stared at them in shock, and, to Sam's complete humiliation, something akin to amazement.
"Sam!" Pippin looked insanely proud of Sam. "Congratulations!"
"Indeed!" Merry joined in, leaping off the floor. "Didn't take you long!"
Sam was blistering red. Anemosi looked sick. "Uh, it's not what you think!" Sam yelled desperately.
Merry snickered. "Oh right, and that's a carrot in your pants!"
Sam buried his head in his hands. Anemosi burrowed under the sheets. It was at that moment that Iaka, attracted by the noise, made a most auspicious entrance.
"Ah-ha! I've found you at last, you scoundrels! Off with you!" She grabbed them tightly by the ears and yanked them out of the room, still shouting at the top of her voice as Merry and Pippin yelped with pain.
Mercifully, Iaka had been so intent upon capturing Merry and Pippin that she hadn't registered Sam's tomato-red face glowing from the bed. Gathering the shreds of his splintered dignity about him as best he could, he peered under the covers. Anemosi had covered her ears with her hands and had squeezed her eyes shut.
"Uh, Anemosi...they're, erm...they're gone, so you can come out now, um...if that's what you want."
She pushed back the covers and sat up. Color was starting to return to her face, and, as if at a signal, when her gaze met Sam's, they burst out laughing.
"Oh, the look on their faces when they saw us!" She fell over
onto her side, wiping away tears that streamed down her face. "I've never
seen anything so funny!" It seemed as if the surprise had restored her
energy and she looked much better than she had when he first arrived.
Sam was howling with laughter. "Nor have I! Oh bless me, but you can
always trust a Brandybuck and a Took to cause trouble!"
She managed to sit up, still shaking with barely controlled laughter. "By the Lady, you certainly know how to embarrass a girl!" She stopped as she saw a flash of hurt cross Sam's face. *Idiot!* she thought fiercely. *Poor Sam goes out on a limb for you, and you cut the tree down from underneath him!* She had known before that his feelings for her had been growing since he had been in her care, but what she hadn't been sure of was her own affection for the hobbit. Which, as it seemed, was growing in proportion to his for her.
"Oh Sam, I'm so sorry!" She took his hand in hers and squeezed it gently. His brown eyes met hers, stunning her with the depth of feeling there. "Please forgive me; I was terribly rude."
He squeezed her hand back. "It's alright, Anemosi. It's alright." It was all he could to not wrest her back down to the bed, and he tried to avoid staring at her body, especially in the places where her thin gown had been soaked to transparency. *Oh bless me, this is rough!* he thought desperately. This was nothing like going behind the barn with Rosie Cotton; this was an intense passion and need for not only Anemosi's body, but for everything that was connected to it. He swallowed hard and released her hand.
"I should be going...you've got to get some rest for the banquet tonight, and there's a bit of food set down there by the door." He got up from the bed, brushing the sheets away and walking to the door.
"Sam." Her voice stopped him as he was drawing aside the curtain. There was a flush creeping up her neck into her face, and her eyes were large and filled with the same longing as his.
"I think...I know we should talk, tonight. Out in the rose garden. After the banquet." She looked at him nervously, twisting her hands in her lap. "Will you meet me?" In a moment, the nervousness melted away and she became the Lady Radika, powerful, regal, and irresistible.
A fey princess was asking for his company. How could he refuse? With eyes like hers, there was no way he could resist, nor did he want to.
"Aye. I'll be there." There was such an intensity of feeling in those few simple words that the air between them seemed to shimmer. A smile graced her face as she lay back down on her bed, and it was almost beyond his strength to leave her there alone, when he felt that now and forever his place was at her side. How had this feeling come on so swiftly, and so strongly? And why, oh why, did it feel so right?
He resolutely left the room, and left his heart behind him.