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Je
"Come, come, don't be shy," Royce prodded sarcastically, but the strong wine he'd been drinking was doing much to soothe his temper. Besides, he found her swift, startling change from daring assassin to curious young girl both baffling and amusing. "Take a good look at the face you just tried to carve your initial into," he urged, watching her prim profile.
"I need to stitch that wound, milord," Gawin said, frowning. "It's deep and swelling and 'twill be ugly enough as it is."
"Try not to render me hideous to Lady Je
"I'm your squire, milord, not a seamstress," Gawin replied, the needle and thread poised above the deep gash that began near his lord's temple and followed his jawline.
The word "seamstress" suddenly reminded Royce of the neat, nearly invisible stitches Je
No longer eager to provoke him, lest he change his mind about releasing them, Je
"Come closer," he bade her when she paused just out of his reach. "It seems only fitting that you should have to mend everything you have rent. Stitch up my face."
In the light from the pair of candles, Je
"You can and you will," Royce stated implacably. A second ago, he'd started to doubt the wisdom of letting her near him with a needle, but as he witnessed her horror at the sight of what she'd done, he felt reassured. In fact, he thought, forcing her to continue to look at it-to touch it-was just retribution!
With visible reluctance, Gawin handed her the needle and thread, and Je
"No, I wasn't. I won't," Je
Satisfied, Royce held out the flagon of wine to her, "Here, drink some of this first. 'Twill steady your nerves." If he'd offered her poison at that moment, and told her it would steady her nerves, Je
Never had Je
Biting her lip, Je
"I-I didn't," she gasped.
"Then what were you doing at the abbey in Belkirk?"
"My father sent me there." she said, swallowing down the sickness at her gruesome task.
"Because he thinks you're meant to be a nun?" Royce demanded in disbelief, watching her out of the corners of his eyes. "He must see a different side of your nature than you've shown to me."
That almost made her laugh, he noted, watching her bite her lip as the color returned to her cheeks. "Actually," she admitted slowly, her soft voice amazingly lyrical when she wasn't angry or guarded, "I suppose you could say he sent me there because he'd seen the same side of my nature that you have."
"Really?" Royce inquired conversationally. "What reason had you to try to kill him?"
He sounded so genuinely disgruntled, that Je
"Well?" Royce prompted, studying the tiny dimple that peeked from the corner of her mouth.
"I did not try to kill my father," she said firmly, taking another stitch.
"What did you do then, that he banished you to a convent?"
"Among other things, I refused to wed someone-in a way."
"Really?" Royce said, genuinely surprised as he recalled what he'd heard of Merrick's eldest daughter when he was last at Henry's court. Rumor had it that Merrick's eldest was a plain, prim, cold woman and a dedicated spinster. He racked his brain, trying to remember who had actually described her to him in such terms. Edward Balder, he remembered now-the earl of Lochlordon, an emissary from King James's court, had said that of her. But then, so had everyone else on those rare occasions he'd heard her mentioned at all. A plain, prim, cold spinster, they had said, but there had been more, though he couldn't recall it at the moment. "How old are you?" he asked abruptly.
The question startled her and seemed to embarrass her. "Seventeen years," she admitted, rather reluctantly, Royce thought, "and two weeks."
"That old?" he said, his lips twitching with a mixture of amusement and compassion. Seventeen was hardly ancient, although most girls married between fourteen and sixteen years of age. He supposed she was loosely qualified for the term spinster. "A spinster by choice then?"
Embarrassment and denial flickered in her deep blue eyes, and he tried to recall what else they said of her at court. He could remember nothing-except that they said her sister, Bre
Je