“You as well, Sir Torin,” she replied. “You are a fierce and precise warrior. I would like to see some more.”
How was it possible to forget how beautiful she was until he saw her again? He did his best not to let her appearance affect him, but it was more than her natural beauty that stopped his breath. It was the slight tilt of her chin, the strength in her eyes, and the confidence in whatever the hell she knew she possessed that straightened her spine.
She made his head reel and his ghosts scatter.
His gaze dipped to her pale braid draping her humble bosom. Was her heart beating madly now? “Perhaps we could practice together,” he offered.
She shrugged her shoulder and dipped her chin toward it, as if she did not care. “Perhaps.”
He looked around, suddenly aware that she, a reiver, had entered the inner ward without being stopped. “How did you gain entrance?”
“The east wall,” she told him. “There is rarely anyone patrolling it and none guarding the walkway.”
He nodded. “Aye, I have noticed that.” What else did she know about the castle defenses? He should spend time with her and find out.
“So, ’tis morn.” He looked up at her on her horse and let his gaze go just a bit soft on her. Though it wasn’t difficult. “Has your father sent you to kill me?”
“No,” she said, swinging one leg over her saddle and dismounting. “I’m here to speak you.”
“Oh? About what?” he asked, pretending ignorance.
She landed like a graceful cat on her booted feet. Her legs were encased in breeches. She wore a snug jack with no sleeves and a sky blue mantle. She moved toward him, addling his senses. “Were you sincere in your apology last eve, my lord?”
“Aye,” he said, knowing her father’s conditions. Also knowing what she had said last night about making him agree if she had to. He wondered how she would go about convincing him.
“Will you stand before my father and ask his forgiveness?”
He stared at her, thinking about bending his head to hers and kissing her. Would she try to stab him in his nether region? In the heart, mayhap? Would he want to kiss her again and again, for the remainder of his days? He clasped his hands behind his back to keep himself from becoming too tempted and pulling her into his arms. “You ask much of me, lady.”
“Oh?” she asked in a clipped tone, shattering his hopes of her begging him to help. “Are you so filled with pride that you cannot tell a few fathers that you are sorry for taking their sons from them?”
He almost rolled his eyes, but smiled at her instead. “Very well. If ’tis so important to you, I will do it.”
Had he given in too soon? When she smiled, looking so relieved he thought she might have swooned for a moment, he was glad he had given in to her.
“’Tis important to me. My father will bring war here if you refuse.”
Carlisle at war with a handful of reivers could be ideal for Torin’s plans.
“I do not want to lose my father or brother if they fight you,” she added quietly, honestly, like a hammer to his defenses. If he fought the reivers, he would likely take more of her kin from her.
Was he losing his damned mind?
“And Mr. Adams?” she asked, looking around. “He has been a friend to my father in the past. Do you think he will go with you?”
It was as if he couldn’t stop his own tongue. “I will see what I can do,” he promised and held out his hand to her. He didn’t want to think about meeting her on the battlefield as Bennett’s enemy or his ally. “That is not all, is it? You did not ride all the way here alone just to ask me a simple question. Stay for breakfast with me and let me escort you home later.”
“I should not.”
He nodded and smiled in agreement, keeping his hand out to her. “Aye, and I should not ask. But I am. Stay.”
Her blue eyes seared into him, searching—hell, he could almost feel her peering around in the shadows, looking beneath this surface and that. He almost looked away, unwilling to give anything of himself to anyone, lest he lose them—and more of himself. But he let her search, almost daring her to look into the cold, dank darkness and not shrivel up and run.
“All right,” she said, finally fitting her small hand into his. “I will. But on one condition.”
He sighed inwardly. This family and their conditions! “Very well, what is it?”
“That you practice with me first.”
