“I do not envy you the next few minutes,”Trenton said softly. Then he too was gone.
Shea was afraid to move for fear of whatwould happen once this moment was broken.
Her gaze flitted about the room.
“Trying to escape would be pointless,” Falloninformed her. “By now Darius has stationed my men all around thistent. We wouldn’t want you escaping the same way you did lasttime.”
That was good to know, though she hadn’treally been thinking of cutting her way free. For one thing,Trenton had taken her knife. For another, escape would only delaythe inevitable. There was no way she would ever make it out ofcamp. Running would only see her recaptured.
Fallon moved to the table and poured himselfa cup of wine. Shea’s hands clenched and unclenched at her sidesand that damnable prickly heat was back, racing up and down herspine and neck.
Fallon lifted the cup and took a drink,looking at her over the rim the entire time.
Shea gathered the courage to ask, “So you’vecaught me, what do you intend to do with me?”
He took another sip and then put the cup downonly to pick up another and pour some wine into that. He offered itto her, and when she blinked dumbly at it, he set it on the tablenext to him before picking his cup back up.
The silence unnerved Shea as did his steady,unwavering gaze.
She held her tongue as the silence grew,determined not to ask again. That would make her seem unsure andpossibly desperate. Some instinct told her that was a dangerousthing to be in front of this man.
He set his glass next to him and crossed hisarms over his chest, the muscles in his biceps thrown into sharprelief, as he ran his eyes thoughtfully over her.
“Tell me what happened once you escapedDarius,” he finally said. “How did you end up a scout?”
“Why?”
He snorted before smiling lethally at her.“That is not what I want to hear.”
That smile, those words. Pushing him rightnow would end badly for her.
“I was being chased by your men so I hid in atent where I stole some clothes, cut my hair and rubbed a dark oilin it to disguise its color.” She stopped and watched as he settledhimself in a chair. He gestured for her to continue. “I never madeit out of camp. Eamon spotted me as I was trying to slip past yoursentries and assumed I was a scout because of my clothes. We raninto trouble on that first mission, and I was able to help. Afterthat, well you know the rest.”
“Why did you stay with them? I’m sure you hadplenty of opportunity to leave.”
She shrugged. “Meant to. Just never did.”
“And now you’re here.”
His gaze was inscrutable as the silence fellbetween them. Shea was beginning to settle. With every moment thatpassed where nothing bad happened, she began to believe herunmasking wasn’t that big of a deal. Maybe the only reason he’dchased her was because she kept running.
The distrust with which she had regarded himsince their first meeting had faded sometime in the past fewmonths. As conquerors go, he wasn’t the blood thirsty savage theLowlanders painted him as. He kept his men in check. And, whilethere was plenty of looting and pillaging, there wasn’t the rapingthere would have been had another man been in charge.
In all these months, Shea had never heardeven a whisper of him forcing someone to his bed. Oh there wereplenty of women in it. Just, they were all there voluntarily. Evensome Lowland girls. So the rumors went.
He was honorable. To an extent. As long asthe villages he conquered obeyed the rules he set in place anddidn’t try to get out of paying their tithes, he dealt fairly withthem. If they didn’t, well, nobody wanted to go the way ofEdgecomb.
“Did your men know you were a woman?”
Shea started and said forcefully, “No!”
He arched one eyebrow and ran his eyes downher figure, telling her clearly he didn’t believe that for amoment.
Stung, she glared. “You didn’t realize I wasa woman either. Not last night and not when we were dealing withthe revenants.”
Of course he also hadn’t dealt with herclosely day in and day out for months.
The guys might have suspected something wasoff but hadn’t asked, and she certainly hadn’t told.
