“I will stay where I’m sitting, my lord,” Braya said, unable to keep her anger from sharpening her tone.
He cast an innocent look at her father and then at her. “Have I done something to offend you?”
He hadn’t, but she knew he wanted to. Still, she couldn’t say how she truly felt without risking the fragile pact her family had with him.
She shook her head.
He smiled and she looked down at the table. It was decorated in fresh, white linens. There were bouquets of flowers, jugs of ale and wine, and enough food to feed everyone in her village for a pair of weeks. Shame she would enjoy none of it.
“Then I invite you to sit with me,” she heard him say on a sickly sweet voice.
She couldn’t help her gaze flicking to Torin when she stood up. He looked like he was about to spring to his feet and stop her, but he didn’t. She was glad. She didn’t want any fighting.
Would Torin fight for her?
She passed Galien on his way to her seat. He said nothing. She glared at the warden for embarrassing him and ruining the night.
“Warden?” her father sat forward in his seat and eyed his host. “Now, you will do me the same courtesy, I hope.”
“Of course,” Bennett agreed, dragging his satisfied gaze from Braya to her father.
“Tonight,” the leader of the Hetheringtons said, “I would like to know the man who is to kneel before me tomorrow. I would know the measure of his sincerity. Bring Sir Torin up and seat him beside my daughter that I might ask him some questions. And put Mr. Adams beside him. We have things to discuss, also.”
Braya stared at her father slack-jawed. Sit Torin beside her? What was this? Did she dare smile at her father? Peer down the long bench and see if Torin was coming?
“Of course,” the warden said with a stiff smile and called for Torin. “Come share some words with Rowley Hetherington.”
Oh! Braya wanted to kiss her father! She almost couldn’t conceal her smile when she turned to see him coming. She knew that what she was beginning to feel for him was more than simple attraction. It was hard to take her eyes off him and the sway of his hips beneath his belted tabard. She fought to keep from looking at the beauty of his profile haloed in sun-bleached curls, his furrowed brows above steely eyes when he turned to look at her. She almost couldn’t swallow.
“So, tell me, Miss Hetherington,” the voice to her right raked across her ears. She clenched her jaw and listened to the rest of what the warden had to say, realizing he wasn’t going to leave her alone for a moment to talk to Torin. “What do you think of the man who killed four of your cousins?”
She turned away from Torin and set her icy gaze on her host. So, he was going to be more than a pest then. He was going straight for the jugular, was he?
“Does it matter what I think of him when ’tis my father who will decide what is to be done? And if it matters, then I would like to know to whom?” She tilted her head at him. “You?”
He opened his mouth to reply.
“Surely,” she continued, cutting him off, “youdo not trouble yourself with whatIthink.” She arched a golden brow at him and finished woodenly. “And if you do, then let me be blunt. You have no reason to trouble yourself over me.”
She turned and greeted the man who’d slipped into his seat beside her. “Good eve, Sir Torin. ’Tis nice to see you again.” She looked over his shoulder at Mr. Adams and greeted him as well. She was fond of Mr. Adams. He’d always been kind to her and her family.
“Miss Hetherington.” Torin smiled, and she wanted to breathe a sigh of relief. He was here. And it made the night better. He greeted her parents and her brother and even smiled at poor Lucy stuck with sitting with Galien.
After her parents greeted Mr. Adams and thanked him for coming to the town hall tomorrow, they shared their smiles with him, which boded well.
“Sir Torin.” Her father turned to him next. “I hear the food here is quite good.”
Braya held her hand to her mouth to conceal her smile. Her father was referring to the food Torin had given her to take back to the village. She’d told her father that she didn’t think the warden knew about it. She didn’t think Lord Bennett would be pleased to know one of his newest guards was giving away his food.
“The apples are especially good,” Torin replied and gave her leg beneath the table a soft bump.
He touched her many more times while they ate, brushing his pinkie over hers on the table, his thigh against hers, beneath it. He didn’t need to touch her. She could feel him near her, like a charge of heat, setting her nerve endings up in flames.
“Now that you are all together,” said the warden, bringing their attention to him, “why do you not tell us what happened at the tavern.”
Mr. Adams started talking first. His story matched with what Torin had told her.
“I had no idea they were Hetheringtons,” Mr. Adams told her father. “You know I would have done anything in my power not to kill anyone had I known.”
