Braya’s father nodded and drew out a long sigh from deep within his chest. “There is not much else I would ask you, Sir Torin. I trust Rob Adams is telling me the truth. In that case, you must be telling the truth as well.”
Galien balled up his fists and looked about to speak but, thankfully, he held his tongue.
The warden tried to make conversation with Braya, but she answered everything with as few words as possible until finally he turned his attention to others at the table.
Torin barely spoke to her directly, but he shared slight, intimate smiles with her when others were too caught up in their own conversations to pay them any notice.
He made her heartbeat quicken and her belly flip. A dozen times, she wanted to turn and look at him without hiding it from her family or the warden. But she kept her eyes mostly on her plate and on her mother.
When supper was over, the musicians picked up their instruments and played, and many left the table to either dance or stretch their legs and mingle.
Braya left the table with Lucy and the two of them went to check on Millie at the other end.
Braya felt Torin’s eyes on her while she laughed and danced with Will Noble and Rob Adams. He remained close to her but he did not ask her to dance. When she had finally had enough of being ignored, she strode up to him. “What is wrong with you? Do I displease you now?”
His eyes pored over her, but he offered no other reaction, save to say, “Nothing about you displeases me, Braya. But the warden is jealous.”
“So? Let him be. He is nothing to me!”
“He can station me at any of the borders,” he explained quietly, quickly, and left the conclusion to her. “The less he knows, the better.”
“Aye,” she agreed, understanding now why he had barely spoken to her all night. “But I miss speaking freely with you.”
She was close enough for him to brush his hand against hers, to let his thumb linger and then trace her knuckles. “Aye,” he said, moving a bit closer, as if he could not stay away. “I find I miss speaking with you as well.”
She wanted him to kiss her, to take her in his arms and tell her…what? That he cared for her? That he would do anything to keep peace with her father?
“Meet me in the inner ward,” he said in a deep, hushed voice that went straight to her head, “near the northern stairs—”
“My lord!” someone shouted. Sir John Linnington pushed his bloodied way toward the warden. “’Tis the Armstrongs, my lord. They are outside. They are raiding Carlisle!”
