Her face went scarlet.
“Oh,” she gasped. Then flustered, she muttered, “This century is needlessly complicated.”
She vanished behind the curtain so fast she nearly took it with her.I turned away and let out a long breath through my teeth, pressing a knuckle to my temple. The tether gave a sharp bite of heat, the sensation of too-hot tea burning my tongue. I knew she wasn’t mine— not in any romantic sense. But Saints help me, I couldn’t stop the protective urge that flared every time someone’s gaze lingered too long. Maybe it was the tether’s doing. Truthfully, I could’ve been fully to blame. I’d always been the jealous sort.
The curtain rustled again.
“I’m warning you,” I began, averting my gaze, “if you come out in less fabric this time?—”
The curtain stilled. A beat. “Very funny,” she said, and somehow made it sound like a promise I had no business hoping for.
When she stepped out again, she was in a soft green dress, fitted at the waist, flaring at the hips. She turned slowly, examining her reflection in a dusty mirror.
“Well?” she asked, voice carefully neutral.
I cleared my throat. “That one works.”
Her mouth twitched. “You didn’t even look.”
“Oh, I looked.”
She tried on a second—lighter, looser, the pale blue of river glass. Her arms lifted, fingers turning in front of her as she spun. It swished barely above the knee and made her look?—
Well.
Like trouble.
The good kind.
“Too breezy?” she asked.
“Only if the goal is to spark a scandal on horseback.”
She shook her head and disappeared again. We continued this cycle of fitting and feedback across every option the vendor offered, from dresses to boots to cloaks. The last outfit she tried was a simple sleep set: drawstring trousers and a loose cream blouse. She stepped out looking oddly proud.
“No more stealing your tunic,” she said, giving me a pointed look.
I shrugged, trying to make my genuine disappointment appear nonchalant. “Pity. It looked very good on you.”
She gave a smug half-smile. “You are absurd.”
I grinned, lips twitching. “Not wrong, though.”
The borrowed tunic would look even better crumpled on the floor. Preferably with her still wearing that smug little half-smile.
Stop it, Bassiano.
Before I could spiral any further, a pile of dresses and clothing smacked into my chest. I wrapped my arms around them and looked up to see her smirking as she breezed past me to the shopkeeper.
“I would like to purchase these items, please,” she said.
The mustached man nodded, clearly pleased with the coin and unconcerned with my commentary. I followed a few steps behind, wondering when exactly I’d become the kind of man who enjoyed watching a woman shop for clothes.
Actually, no.
I knewexactlywhen.
About twenty minutes ago, when she walked out of the dressing room like a daydream in a scrap of linen.
