He lifted his gaze and the words froze in her throat. She remembered how he had withdrawn from her and spilled his seed outside her body. “You were careful to see that there would be no child between us ...”
Even as his expression remained unchanged, he said, “Nothing is ever certain.”
Jack was a bastard child, she thought, hoping that Friar Tucker had taken him under his wing until she could somehow return and claim him.
“Do you have children?” she asked.
’Twas a blatantly intimate question, and brought on a bout of self-consciousness. “No one has come forward to claim me as their father yet, if that is what you are asking.”
“I could not care less if you have populated the world.”
He braced his wrist on his knee, amusement in his eyes. “What of you?” he asked after a moment. “How is it someone of your ... not so virginal passions managed to remain untouched for twenty years?”
She barely swallowed the sip of tea before she coughed. “No one has ever interested me ... inthatway. And even if I had been interested, I have bigger dreams than to find myself someone’s wife ...” her voice faded.
“A young girl’s dreams found in the magic of a wishing ring?” he asked and her gaze dropped to the ring on his hand. “Now that I know something about you, I am even more curious by Jack’s statement when I came upon you in the cemetery. He said you had not made a wish upon this ring.”
“You know that ’tis a wishing ring?”
“The Gypsies sell these at country fairs from Carlisle to Wick. You can buy one for a halfpenny and have more than one wish in the bargain.”
His mockery insulted her and made her feel foolish. “Do you believe in magic?”
Clearly, he was a man who believed in very little and trusted his survival to few. “Maybe when I was five, when my uncle pulled a coin from my ear.”
“Then what does it matter what I think the ring is orwas to me? ’Twas probably all twaddle anyway, as you say. I do not believe in fairy tales and I have never cared what faults people find in my traits and appearance. I have never aspired to be a princess.”
She finished the tea and licked the moisture from her lips with the tip of her tongue before handing the cup back to Roxburghe. The flush on her cheeks deepened as she realized he was watching her in disbelief.
“Sweet Jesu, Rose.” He raised his eyes to the heavens and spread his arms. “Lord, save me from my idiocy before I do something else I will regret.”
Then on a note of laughter that did not quite reach his eyes he said, “Do you not see yourself as a man sees you?”
She swallowed against the tightness in her throat. “I have not known many men,” was all she could think to say. Then with more brevity, “I find the male species to be much like fleas. Bothersome at best. I avoid them when I can. You have not given me a reason to reform my opinion, sir.”
He laughed, entirely unaffected by the insult. She wondered if anything she could say would affect him. He was like a tall stone pillar who should have left her feeling cold, not hot and flushed with a restless fever raging in her veins.
She probably did suffer a fever.
“When will we be to Stonehaven?” she asked.
“By nightfall,” he said.
“Do you plan to keep me chained in the lower bowels of your castle?”
“Considering your penchant for enjoying basements and crypts, even if I had a castle, which I do not, I wonder why that would scare you.” He touched her hair. “Youare more suited to sunlight than darkness. I would chain you in the tower.”
“Now you are baiting me,” she said.
“Am I?”
He brushed his fingertips across the wild fluttering pulse at the base of her throat, and lifted her face with his palm. For tense seconds, as she stared into his eyes and, dear Lord, at that mouth—curved down just slightly at the corners as if some perplexing quandary lurked just beyond—a shiver rocked her.
She knew he was going to kiss her again, and it was not fear she felt. Her lips already felt thick and hot as if in anticipation.
And then he did kiss her, but not like a man who was hungry with passion like the mating of mouths that left her hovering between terror and bliss. He did not plunder her mouth as he had last night, yet it left her weak all the same. She managed the slightest protest but because he had kissed her or because his mouth left her lips and trailed down the curve of her neck, she didn’t know.
“What are you doing?” she rasped.
