"I heard that she told him she was with child, so that he felt honor bound to propose."

"Shocking though it is, I find that easier to believe than that he actually wants to marry her. He is so handsome, and a king! And she is nothing but a snake and a slut. The only thing that doesn't make sense is why he would lie with her in the first place."

"Well, that's simple enough. I would wager she got him so drunk he forgot himself."

In my concealed position in the stable stall, my head snapped up. I might have known they would have begun to talk about the engagement eventually. I chided myself; the whole damn court seemed to talk of nothing else these days. The voices of the two young ladies—I didn't recognize them— were fully audible in the stall, chattering as they were at full volume. My fingers twitched on the page, and I almost shut the book I had been engrossed in only seconds before. I wanted to blacken one of their eyes, at least verbally if not physically. Since they'd come in I had wanted to tell them to do their yammering someplace else and only been prevented from doing so by the fact that I had been lying in the hay for almost an hour and surely looked and smelled frightful.

I had been coming to the stables a lot in recent days. I hated the dirt and the muck everywhere, but the smell of the horses was the closest thing I could come to the smell of Rohan, (the smell of him). So I had taken to doing my reading stretched out on a blanket thrown over the hay in Nightwind's stall. Often she would come and lie down next to me to nap, and even allow me to rest my back or feet on her (though the latter usually made her give me what I felt was an indignant look). She was a constant and much-needed reminder—the living animal proof that I hadn't dreamed my engagement to Éomer. He had promised to be my husband and given me this unimaginably beautiful beast as a token.

"She is quite fair, I suppose. But no man in their right mind would want her for more than a night. She would be such a torment to live with, particularly to share a bed with."

"Well, if he was forced into the marriage, and since there is no question that she could be anything but absolutely terrifying in the bedchamber, I simply imagine that King Éomer will have to find...comfort with some other maiden. Finding a willing partner will surely be no difficult task for him."

"I might volunteer myself if I lived in Edoras."

My teeth ground together inaudibly. Nightwind raised her head and gave me a quizzical look. But just when I thought I could bear no more, I heard the only sound I wanted to hear less than their conversation: running footsteps that seemed to have a familiar, loping stride.

I shut my eyes against what I knew was coming next, but it did nothing to forestall it. There was a mumbled murmur of greeting to the two ladies and then the door of the stall I was in was flung open. "Ha! I knew you would be here! You're needed at the house, Lady Lothíriel!" Eadric almost shouted at me, clearly breathless and elated to have been so clever as to find me so quickly. "Come, come! Up to the citadel!"

With as much dignity as I could manage I rose and brushed off my skirts. Through the door I could see the two women, mouths agape in horror as they watched me stand and fold the cloth I had been laying on back up and tuck it neatly into the saddlebag hanging on the stall door. Nightwind got to her feet and nipped delicately at my cloak as I tried to leave the stall, a polite reminder that I was forgetting my manners. She knew as well as I did that I had an apple in my pocket for her that I had been saving as a parting gift. I fetched it out and gave it to her with a gentle caress around the ears. "Until tomorrow, darling." I told her in Rohirric. My only answer was the satisfying crunch of the apple.

Éomer had told me not to spoil my illustrious new mount as I had Wind Chaser, but I had only rolled my eyes. "I don't tell you how to manage your men, Éomer, you can't tell me how to manage my horse."

"Though I should never think to question you in matters of literature, my love, I am not sure that is quite analogous," he had replied with a smile.

I turned back from my horse to the present, ducking out of the stall as Eadric struggled mightily not to pull at my hand to get me to hurry up (as he might his older sister or a serving girl he was quite close to, but never his lady and mistress). Eadric had spoken to me in Rohirric but I answered him in Westron, which he spoke passably well after only two months in Gondor. "Yes, thank you for coming to collect me, Eadric."

For a moment I regarded the two young women who were sitting in stunned silence on the bench. Both were quite fair, a few years younger than I, and well dressed. Perhaps their fathers were minor lords, or attached to one of the noble houses. This must have been their first season at court (any experience would have told them to do their more interesting gossiping in a more private venue).

With Eadric there I knew I couldn't say any of the most vicious comments that came to mind but he would never be able to interpret correctly any of a thousand subtler jibes that came to mind. Instead, I ground my teeth together, and inclined my head slightly to them, making the barest acknowledgment of their presence. "Good afternoon, ladies."

"Good afternoon, Lady Lothíriel," one of them managed. To my immense pleasure her voice quavered very slightly on my name and both were quick to scramble to their feet and bob their respects.

I fought the impulse to introduce myself to them. Even if I never retaliated, asking their names would give them something to toss and turn over at night. Instead, I turned and offered Eadric my arm, allowing myself only a small smirk of pleasure at the stunned, terrified silence that followed us out of the stable.

"For what am I needed at the house?" I asked as our steps turned upward.

"I don't know, lady. The housekeeper only said that you had a visitor and that I should run to fetch you very quickly."

Eadric had been doing amazingly well in Gondor. When I had left Edoras five months ago and offered to take Eadric with me he had hesitated only to insist that I ask Éomer for his permission. He had become most indispensable to his king, he explained to me, and much as he might wish to see Gondor, he wouldn't want to leave Éomer without a squire. Éomer had very gravely assured him that, difficult though it might be to part with such a talented squire, he was glad for the boy to have the opportunity to learn the traditions, language and habits of his southern neighbors. He had also rewarded me for the offer by gracing me with a heart-stopping, affectionate smile when Eadric's face was averted.

After Erchirion's wedding I had been allowed to stay for a week after the main wedding party had left. It had been a glorious, delirious haze of a week. Ostensibly I had been tasked with helping Lithoer prepare her belongings for the trip to Dol Amroth, but I had been somewhat less helpful on that front than I had intended to be. Most of my time I had spent with Éomer. Bowing to Gondorain tradition, Éomer and I had agreed with my father's insistence that I return to Minas Tirith for a half-year engagement to set my affairs in order and prepare my troth. Despite this, I had the sense that, in the eyes of the court at Edoras, we were practically as good as married. Certainly none of our supposed guardians seemed to spend too much time or effort keeping us from being alone together.

Every day we rode out together in the afternoon or early morning and spent the time talking and teasing each other. For someone who had always been so meticulously scrupulous with her reputation, I found myself shocked at how little I cared about raising a scandal. Though I knew if a story ever got back to Minas Tirith that we had ridden alone for so long unsupervised it would be quite talked about. But once Gænwyn had assured me that I was within the bounds of Rohirric propriety, I found I didn't give a fig for the social conventions I had been raised with.

Sometimes we would stop in some promising clearing and I would read while Éomer went bow hunting nearby with his dogs. When he came back with his prize he would usually consent to join me on my blanket while I told him about what I had been reading. He often put his head on my lap and even consented to let me braid his hair, which I thought was hilarious, but he found uninteresting. I was fascinated by his hair. All the men I knew wore their hair cropped short and I was pleased to find that his was as smooth and silky as mine. When I said as much though, he laughed at me. "What did you expect, Lothíriel? That it would be made of straw?"

One afternoon in particular we'd brought a picnic lunch and spread a blanket out in a clear space on a heathland about an hour's ride from Edoras. When Éomer had lay me back gently and pushed my skirt over my hips so he could slip a hand between my legs, just where the strange, undefined ache was most poignant, I had thought to lose my maidenhead right out in the open under the sky. But when I had found my crisis he had arranged the fabric carefully back over my legs and kissed me gently. "Why have you stopped? Éomer, why have you stopped?"

"People know how many months there are between a wedding and a birth, Lothíriel," he'd replied gently, stroking my sweat-streaked brow. "I can wait to have you."

In my heightened state I hardly could speak, much less argue cogently and it had felt such a damning rejection I had rolled onto my side away from him, curling fingers into the wild grass of the heath as heat rose in my throat. He had followed me, one hand around my waist and the other tangling in my hair, to prevent me from moving too far from him. "Oh valar, how I hate you just now."

Kissing my neck as he was, I felt his smile. "Somehow I think you may forgive me."

"Never for smiling, but just now," I murmured.

"Oh? Was that unkind of me?" He had changed then from interlacing in my hair to smoothing it gently, propping himself up on one elbow to gaze down on me. "I apologize in that case. How can I make it up to you?"

My eyes had snapped around to glare up at him. "You're making fun of me."

"No, dearest viper. Guess again."

I had regarded him for a full moment before answering. He gazed down at me without looking away, his long hair down over his shoulders. In the bright sun it gleamed like spun gold. I put a hand to his chin, cupping his smooth beard, and thoughtfully traced the outline of his soft smile. I had discovered only a few days before the secret of the devilish, boyish nature of his smiles: two small, mischievous dimples at the corners of his mouth, hidden by his beard.

"Against all odds and decency I find that you are...pleased with me," I ventured.

"Yes... although I shouldn't say against the odds. And I will leave the decency to be judged by you."

I had waited a full moment—though I knew better than to expect him to offer anything freely—before summoning the courage to force out, "and why is that exactly?"

"Why am I pleased with you?"

The unabashed torturer. "Yes, why are you pleased with me?"

"More pleased with you than usual you mean?"

At that I had tried to push him off, but he resisted, curling his fingers tighter against my waist and laughing – "Peace, peace, Lothíriel, peace!"— until I stopped struggling. Then he had leaned down and whispered against my ear, "I am pleased with you because when I kiss you, you stop trying to hide from me. You're such a wild little thing, trying your damnedest to wriggle away before I catch you. But when I make love to you, I can see right down to your soul and you come apart in my hands."

But those languid, carefree days had passed months ago.

I had returned first to Dol Amroth and then, more reluctantly, to Minas Tirith to buy my troth and visit my father. Amrothos and I had talked for a long while in our own fashion about his returning to the city. But in the end I had managed to convince him, in my own round-about way, to stay with Lithoer and Erchirion in the castle at the edge of the Bay of Belfalas they had taken as their hearth. It had been a blow to lose him as a companion. Never had I felt more alone in the city. Harra didn't bother me. She never missed an opportunity to flash me Éomer's bracelet when we met, but she didn't take it any farther than that. My father and I dined together almost every night and I valued the affection growing between us, but my days were lonely, cold and dreary.

It had been easy to believe that Éomer loved me when he was near enough to kiss, but the days without him were full of doubt. Rationally I knew that we were engaged, that he was an honorable man, that he had no reason to lie to me when he told me that he loved me. But the irrational part of my brain danced with farmers' daughters and tavern wenches – each more blond and beautiful and willing than the last – and the memory of all that I had said and done to hurt him.

I wrote to Éomer often and he had surprised me by writing back almost as frequently. He was a good correspondent: keeping me abreast of all the news he knew would interest me, but his letters never spoke of the things I most wanted to know. He mentioned that he had been called again to the west of the country to deal with the Wild Men but not if he had been hurt in the fighting. He spoke of the harvest and repairs to various cities, but never mentioned his own pleasure and joy in the work. He recounted that he had dined with such-and-such a lord, but not if his daughter was fair or plain.

I had wasted a shocking amount of paper by starting letters to Éomer with some variation of "are you intending to frustrate me with your refusal to pay attention to the details of your life that I am most interested in?" and then having to throw the whole effort into the fire. He had enough letters I was ashamed of already and while we were apart I did not intend to remind him of all the reasons he had not to trust me.

Yule came and went. Through a lot of subtle pleading I managed to convince my father to take us back to Dol Amroth for the celebration, and so it was a happy one. Éomer sent me a new saddle as my Yule present and I sent him one of the curved Haradrim daggers that were found with some searching in the south of Gondor. It was a mild winter, so Erchirion, Lithoer and I amused ourselves by taking a dip in the bay in the morning. "I can't believe it is so warm!" Lithoer crowed when she finally flung herself out onto the sand.

And I kept busy with my troth. The wedding was to be an enormous affair, of course, and my father, as well as King Elessar, had determined to fit me out with what even I was beginning to feel was an excessive amount of bridal wear. The wedding feast would last three days, but I was to have dozens of new dresses and a profusion of new underthings and so many winter clothes they might well last me the rest of my life if I wasn't concerned with changing fashions.

I was, after all, to be a representative of Gondor in Rohan. The king's advisors and my father were adamant that I not be a disappointment to my new subjects. I had considered pointing out that as much of the country already knew of, or had even seen me, my reputation was already begun, if not finished. But in the end I had decided instead to simply accept the inevitable without comment. A new queen and a visiting lady were not equivalent, I reminded myself when I saw the first samples, and a finely dressed new queen would be a point of pride for both countries.

Eadric and I came to the house through the gate at the bottom of the garden instead of the main entrance, passing through the kitchen so I could have a quick drink of water and go to my room to change before meeting my guest. When I arrived I was surprised to find that Feleas was waiting for me already, looking quite distressed. "Oh, my lady, I'm glad you've come so quickly. Hurry now, hurry!"

"Hello, Feleas. What is the matter? Who is the visitor?"

"It's the White Lady, my lady! Now come! Come quickly and we'll get you changed and perfumed!"

Even as my footsteps picked up to a near-run, my blood ran cold. Éowyn had been in Ithilien since my return and I had not heard of her coming to the city. She must have arrived in Minas Tirith quite recently. "Is my cousin with her?" Though I wasn't sure that Faramir could exactly be counted as an ally—not after what he had seen me do to Winweld—I was sure he could at the very least be counted on to be less angry with me than his wife.

"No, my lady. She came only with her nursemaid."

In my room I hastily stripped and splashed some water on my face, neck and under my arms before Feleas helped me into a fresh dress and daubed some perfume on my neck and wrists. She also quickly brushed and rebraided my hair. "There's no time for anything elaborate, my lady," she said wistfully as she twisted it up and secured it with a few pins.

"This will suit quite well."

Down in the hallway I hesitated for a moment before opening the door. Though perhaps I should have been, I wasn't arranging my thoughts or my counter arguments to what she might say. I wasn't preparing a carefully worded apology either for there could be no defense of my actions or explanation. I was simply fighting the urge to run away. Or at the very least go to back to my room, get into my bed and insist that I had suddenly been struck too ill to see anyone. With the greatest reluctance, I pushed open the door.

She was sitting on the couch with a bundle of blankets in her lap, a single tiny hand protruding as it grasped one of her fingers. She looked radiant as she looked into the face of her child, but as she looked up at me, her expression chilled immeasurably. I gave her a courteous nod of the head. "Well met, Lady Éowyn."

"Well met, Lady Lothíriel."

I came and settled on the couch, arranging my skirts with a swift sweep of my hands. "Would you like some tea?" I gestured to the tea and scones laid out before her. "There is also some quite good pie in the kitchens as well if that could tempt you."

"No thank you, the scones will suffice."

I poured us each a cup of tea and one for the nursemaid as well, though as soon as I had placed the cup in front of her Éowyn said. "Andil, would you mind taking Elboron out into the garden for some fresh air while Lady Lothíriel and I talk?"

The nurse bowed, and took the child gently. I wanted to see Elboron very much and had to resist the urge to ask or crane my neck as he was carried past. Instead I sipped my tea and tried not to look at my soon-to-be sister-in-law.

For a full moment she regarded me while I used every measure of my upbringing not to squirm in my seat like a naughty child. I thought of the girls that I had so recently needled in the stables in much the same way. At the time I had considered it a mild punishment but now I wished I could have taken it back. Finally I put down my tea and said, "I hear that the weather in Ithilien has been quite unseasonably warm recently. Is this true?"

She did not bother to answer me. "My brother has written to me with an account of your behavior. He says that you were coerced into refusing his first offer and that you acted to protect him from a scandal, even at the cost of great danger to your own reputation as well as personal pain."

"That is a very generous characterization of what happened. But your brother is a generous man."

"Yes, he is. Particularly when a very beautiful young maiden is telling him something that he very much wants to hear."

I said nothing. My head was beginning to ache slightly.

"I find, Lady Lothíriel, that I must speak plainly. I hope you will forgive me. I have come at the urging of my brother as well as your cousin. But though I have promised to come, I have not promised to make up my mind towards you favorably. We are to be family and I know it is very much my brother's wish that we be friends I will not and cannot conceal my feelings from you, Lady Lothíriel."

She did not need to state the nature of her feelings; they were quite plainly written on her brow.

My next words were as difficult to find as they were to pronounce. I wanted to tell Éowyn that if she had not believed her own brother's version of the tale had I any right to expect she would believe mine? The test she had set me was one that was designed for me to fail, and I resented her for it. I wanted too to remind her that I didn't need her permission. Éomer had asked me to marry him and I had accepted. What she felt about that was her own business and if her feelings were unfavorable she need not have bothered to stop by to let me know.

And most of all I did not want to speak such a painful truth so plainly. It had been difficult enough to tell Éomer this story: Éowyn and I were practically strangers and she had no reason to love me. When Éomer had come to my room to apologize the vulnerability of his sincerity had left me cold and shaken. But now it was my turn to offer my own tender weakness so obscenely exposed and it came far less naturally to me than it had to him.

"By the time your brother asked me to marry him I don't think there was a girl in Middle Earth who had ever been so in love with a man as I was with him. It took me longer than it should have to fall in love with him, and longer still to recognize it. But even I had grown wise by then. But he had been threatened... and threatened in a way in which he is very vulnerable. If the court had turned on him, he would not have been able to protect himself. A blow to his honor..."

"My brother's honor is beyond question!" she cut in coldly.

"To anyone who knows him of course it is. But the court, as I am sure you are aware, has many prejudices. It has become unfashionable to speak of them but attitudes change much more slowly than their most overt expressions. A story about a bastard son would have been widely believed and he and Rohan would have suffered."

"Even if that is true why did you not simply explain that to Éomer at the time?"

I let out a humorless laugh at that. "What is it you imagine he would have done if I had? Do you imagine that your brother would consent to be dictated to in that way? Do you think your brother would not think of a woman that he loved, and who loved him in return, as falling under the domain of his protection? Perhaps you know him better than I, but I found that I could not imagine that he would not have felt me bound to him, and he bound to me. He would not have allowed me to do what needed to be done to avoid the scandal."

"So your solution was to spread the rumors of Lady Winweld's pregnancy to the south?"

"She was at that time quite visibly with child. Though perhaps knowledge of her state could have been somewhat contained, there was no one at court by that time who doubted her condition. The damage to her reputation had already been done. Though I only later became her friend, I acted in part to save her from unhappiness as well... or perhaps it is more fair to say that I would not have done what I did if I had felt that she would suffer greatly from it."

My guest raised and incredulous eyebrow at that. "You claim to have acted out of benevolence then? A self-sacrificing benevolence even, since you alone seem to have suffered in this tale?"

"I have never acted out of self-sacrificing benevolence in my life and can foresee no possibility that I ever would. But I would not agree to marry your brother only to watch him suffer on my account. I am neither strong enough nor indifferent enough to endure that."

At that Éowyn let out a long sigh and picked up her tea. She regarded me for a long moment. "You are not the wife I would have imagined Éomer to choose, and farther still from the one I would have hoped he would. I am sorry to offend or cause pain, but I cannot remain silent when my brother's happiness is involved."

"Nor would I wish you to."

She passed a hand wearily over her face. "But Éomer has always known his own mind. He has chosen you and how can I claim to love him if I will not trust him to choose his own wife? I am satisfied at least that you intend to try to make him happy. I will not say that I am completely at my ease but if Éomer has given you his heart, I must try to give you mine. If you will consent, come embrace me, sister."

Though the embrace was somewhat formal, lasting no longer than she might have touched a hot coal, I came away from it feeling a certain tightness in my throat. The White Lady had called me sister. Éowyn might often forget the story for which she was famous, but I never would.

"You do not seem to be enjoying your tea, Lady Éowyn," I said to cover my emotion. "Might I propose instead to show you the gardens? They are not so fine this time of year as they are in the full blush of summer but there are still some roses on the bushes and quite fine paths as well."

We did not walk arm-in-arm as we strolled through the gardens but neither did an oppressive silence fall over us. The preparations for the trip and the wedding gave us plenty to speak of and I seized willingly on this. When we met up with the nurse again she allowed me to hold Elboron, a fat, handsome little babe with his father's dark hair and eyes but his mother's fierce, fine features.

Staring into his gurgling little face I couldn't help but wonder what my own children would look like. "Hello there, my little gentleman," I cooed at my future nephew. "How do you like my garden?"

He smiled and tried to grab my nose with a chubby fist.

His mother smiled at him. "I am glad he is such a healthy baby, strong enough to make the trip to Edoras to see his uncle and his mother's homeland, even if he remembers neither."

"Éomer will be overjoyed to see his nephew, as will all of Edoras, I am sure."

Though we saw each other often after that, Éowyn did not call upon me again. She and Faramir dined occasionally with my family and she came often to help me prepare my troth, which was generous, if expected of her as my future sister-in-law. Her attitude towards me was one of carefully prescribed respect. She was generous and helpful in all of her duties and even laughed at my jokes and seemed to enjoy my company to some extent. But she was never quite easy and certainly never affectionate with me. When we parted she embraced me, but without feeling. For Éomer's sake she had said that she would try to love me, but, much as she tried, she was struggling.

Would she ever forgive what I had done to her brother?

TBC

Well hello there dear readers. I feel a little sheepish posting this after such a long delay. I had thought to finish it up quickly but life and writers block got in the way. I think it might take me a few more chapters to tie up all my loose ends (not sure how many yet...we shall see!). As usual LBJ did a phenomenal job editing this chapter. (Pssst... if you aren't reading her Éomer/Lothiriel story Thunder & Lightening I really have no idea why. It's amazing—sexy, funny and full of the kind of rich attention to detail she really helps me add to mine. Check it out!) And please drop me a line and let me know what you think of this chapter... It always makes me so happy to hear from readers!