Her own knee went up, stopping an inch from his groin. He did not so much as flinch. ‘You’re forgetting I have knees too.’
He released her dagger hand but kept hold of her hair. ‘A defender forgets nothing. Your nose would be broken and the knife stuck in your ribs before you had a chance to gather your thoughts.’ He let go of her hair, fingers slipping through the damp, silky strands before falling to his side.
Neither of them stepped back.
‘Why did you teach me that?’ she asked.
‘So you know for next time.’
‘Next time I point a knife at a defender’s face?’
His mouth flattened into a line. ‘Point a knife at a defender and you’ll find yourself displayed on the wall.’
‘I just pointed a knife at you.’
‘That’s different.’
She tilted her head. ‘Why is it different?’
He felt like he was walking into some kind of female trap. ‘Because you’re not trying to hurt me.’
She took a step back, releasing some of the tension that had built between them. ‘I once thought about stabbing you beneath these very trees.’
‘You were just upset.’
She took another step and leaned her back against the trunk. ‘You took pity on me that day.’
‘I did.’
She looked disappointed. ‘And still you take pity on me.’
He did not like what she was implying. ‘I don’t pity you.’
‘Then why the gallant gesture today?’
‘Gallant gesture? It was a few eggs. Don’t get excited.’ He noted her wounded expression. ‘What are you fishing for? Some kind of confession?’
‘What could Commander Wright possibly have to confess?’
‘I don’t know.’ He stared at her. ‘Maybe you want to hear that I’m attracted to you.’
She swallowed. ‘How ridiculous. No defender could be attracted to a merchant woman at a time like this. We’re all wasting limbs and depressed faces. We reek of grief and desperation.’
Blake always smelled like fresh air and the cotton sold in her shop. ‘You don’t blend in—trust me on that.’
She looked up, studying the branches above her. His gaze fell to her slender neck, then away.
‘You don’t blend in either,’ she said. ‘Despite your matching uniforms, haircuts, and’—her eyes returned to him—‘warrior physique.’
He felt her eyes on him like it was a hand. ‘What makes me different?’
‘You bring me corpses and buy me eggs.’ She smiled, but it faded.
He wished she was in front of him again, his fingers wound in her stringy mess of wet hair, the other holding her hand—preferably without the weapon in it.
He took a large step back. ‘I’ll have some food delivered to you tonight.’
She pushed off the tree. ‘Why?’
