Crow shifted slightly as Penelope agreed that Gavin probably wasn’t skilled enough at lying to fool her father. That was exactly what he had been afraid of. He swallowed nervously. If John questioned the knight, it wouldn’t take much for him to cave and either admit they weren’t courting anymore or fumble over something that would give it away. In addition to that, it was going to be a while before the thief was well enough to be able to make the journey to the inner kingdom, which meant John and Gavin were probably going to have quite a bit of time to ‘catch up’ with each other and therefore a number of opportunities for the latter to slip up. The thought made Crow want to groan in frustration. He couldn’t believe his fate was in the hands of someone as unreliable as Penelope’s former suitor.

As Penelope tried to reassure him that it would be fine, he nodded faintly, not quite convinced that she was right. Even if she did most of the talking for them and was able to lie smoothly enough to convince her father, Gavin could still give them away. He supposed it was better than nothing though. At least if she was with the other knight, her confidence might leak to him and give him the resolve he needed to pull off this charade. Unfortunately, his slight hope was dashed when Penelope suddenly paled.

Crow looked up at her with wide eyes as she confessed to leaving her father in Gavin’s care while she stayed to guard him. That wasn’t good at all. He tightened his grip on her hand a bit anxiously. “Maybe they’ve been too busy to bring it up?” he ventured, trying not to let himself assume the worst right away. Just because Gavin and John were alone didn’t mean they were going to talk about the courtship. They could have had plenty of other subjects to talk about, like… Well, he honestly didn’t know what knights talked about. He just hoped there was [i]something[/i] else to keep them from bringing up the damning topic.

He wished he could just have Penelope go and check on them to make sure they weren’t discussing it, but it would probably look strange if she suddenly abandoned her guard post to check up on her ‘suitor’. Plus, it sounded like she was already on thin ice with her father. He likely wouldn’t look upon such negligence very kindly. They were just going to have to wait and find out as soon as she was relieved by the next guard.

“Or maybe some of the other knights here have been trying to talk to him to find out why he’s here,” Crow went on, grasping at straws as he tried to come up with some hope to hold onto.