She tilted her head.
“Tell me who he is to you.”When she looked away from him, he sat beside her.“It’s a secret?I can figure out who you are quick enough.I know your face.I know part of his name, and you owe me.The elixir, remember.”
“I told you not to drink it.”
“True.”
She exhaled, a clear yet frustrated capitulation.“He’s my betrothed.”
The cousin like a sister the man had mentioned, the deathbed promise.“You don’t want him to be, though.”Silence his only answer, so he said, “Do you have to marry him?”
“I suppose so.”A grumble as she crossed her arms over her chest.“I do not have many options.At least now I know I can use the elixir to keep him from my bed.”
So that’s what she meant by distraction.“Options.They’re scarce for me, too.I have a proposition for you”—he unfolded her arms and held her hands in his—“Don’t marry Fish Cock.”
She grunted, a poor attempt to hide a laugh.
Surely it was the elixir, those few drops running thick and heady through his veins, that put him on his knees before her, that squeezed her small hands and looked into her amused face.
Surely it was the elixir that put the notion in his mind and set it wicked at the tip of his tongue.
Surely it was those few miniscule drops of elixir.
But it damn sure felt likehimwhen he said, “Marry me, darling.I promise you won’t have to trick me out of your bed.I promise you won’t even want to.”
