“Me?I told ye, I’m not a feather ruffler.”
She wasn’t sure she believed that.Anyone who dared to confront the king dressed as the Pope’s emissary surely caused trouble once in a while.And he’d almost been beaten for carnal temptation at the priory.If that wasn’t ruffling feathers, she didn’t know what was.
“What about ye?”he asked.“Are ye a lawbreaker?”
“I told ye, I’m a runaway bride.”
“Ah, so ye said, but are ye truly Lady Aillenn?”He didn’t wait for her to answer.“’Tis yet to be determined.I’m not certain I’ve met the real woman yet.”
She didn’t reply.
He grinned.
As they walked on, her mind coiled around possibilities.
“Ye might be a mummer,” she considered.Troupes of mummers traveled from manor house to village square, performing raucous plays for coin.
He voiced no opinion on that, simply gazing down the road with a half smile on his face.
“Or maybe ye’re a tailor.That would explain how ye acquired all the clothin’.”
He acknowledged her guess with a nod, but neither confirmed or denied it.
“Though some o’ your clothin’ is so bedraggled, perhaps ye’re a rag-picker.”
“My clothin’ is not bedraggled,” he protested, spreading his arms to show her the cut of his dark blue surcoat.
Itwasvery high quality.His cap was rich velvet.His leine made of the finest linen.And the way his clothing hugged his masculine form…
She wouldn’t think of that.But if he hadn’t stolen the garments—and she still wasn’t completely convinced he wasn’t a thief—they must have cost a wee fortune.
Eve continued to mull over possibilities, including the most unlikely—that he was like her, devoted to the church, performing good deeds in God’s name.
But she quickly had to dismiss that idea.No man of the cloth would pose as the Pope’s emissary.Or lay hands on a woman the way he had at the priory.Or kiss her with the practiced passion of a man accustomed to…
She gasped in sudden revelation.“Ye’re a spy, aren’t ye?An agent o’ the Scots king, sent to spy upon his subjects?”
He lifted one amused brow.“A spy?”
“Or maybe…” She considered another chilling possibility.“Ye’re an agent o’ theEnglishking, infiltratin’ the enemy.”
He lifted the second brow.“AnEnglishspy?”
She glanced around the woods to ensure they were alone and whispered,“Areye?”
“Well, if I were,” he whispered back, “I certainly wouldn’t tell ye, would I?”
She narrowed her eyes and bit the inside of her cheek.
What a frustration he was.
Eve had made an art of being oblique.Elusive.Dissembling.Like a leaf on the breeze, she could drift along on a current of deceit and—if a man came too close to her truth—dance out of his reach with words of distraction.
She was accustomed to being the deceiver.The one in control of things.An omniscient observer who could clearly see all the players while maintaining her anonymity.
So far she’d been able to remain anonymous.But she didn’t like being the deceived.It made her feel off-balance and uneasy.
Adam—if that was indeed his name—was as slippery as a salmon.
