Her eyes flickered as her expression reflected amazement.
And then she ducked her head.
He could no longer read her expression.
After a moment she lifted it again. “I don’t really think you are a heathen. It was about the worst thing I could think to call you, so I said it.”
“You struck bone.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I don’t think you areverysorry, however.”
And now she was clearly suppressing a smile.
“And may I introduce you to the very useful word ‘bastard’?”
Damned if she didn’t laugh. What a lovely laugh she had. A happy, cascading, shouty sort that made him laugh, too.
How bright the gray day seemed, for an instant.
“I am not so sheltered or ignorant as you might think, Lorcan. Not in all the ways you think.”
He nodded, humbly acknowledging that he realized this.
“Perhaps I should not have said those things about your father and your brothers. Perhaps it is not any of my business, after all.”
“No,” she agreed softly. “But there is something to be said for a person who sees a truth so clearly and so swiftly he knows where to insert the sword. And that is howyouare clever, Lorcan.” She paused. And then surprised him again. “I don’t completely dislike it.”
She’d said it hesitantly.
He was still, silently taking her words in, turning them about in his mind. And as he did, he felta peculiar pinprick of light in his chest. He did not know what to call it. Almost like excitement. Perhaps happiness. It was like that first sliver of sun you see in the morning on the horizon, when you don’t know what the day will bring. Anything at all could happen.
“And... you weren’t completely wrong,” she said more hoarsely.
And for a moment her expression slipped and the shame and grief she’d never faced was revealed. And it was like a knife through him: she knew she was not valued as she ought to be.
Perhaps she’d always known it.
He wanted very much to speak to her more. He wanted very much to hear her thoughts and watch her expressions shift and to see the light in her eyes change with them.
But the whiskey, the fire, the exertion, the blankets, the soothing presence of a woman and a cat... all of it was conspiring to knock him out for a good long sleep.
“I think I canna stay awake, Daphne.”
“Drink the tisane first, will you please?” she said. “It’s only willow bark. You shouldn’t want to get a fever. And then you can have a nap right where you are.”
He sniffed it. He was familiar with willow bark tisanes. So he drank it.
He closed his eyes.
The falling rain, the crackling fire, the grooming cat, the breathing man.
Daphne watched him unabashedly, the way one would if they stole across a sleeping satyrin the forest. His thick, dark lashes brushed his stern cheekbones.
Somehow, he did not look any more innocent asleep than awake.
Her heart squeezed, oddly, for the boy who had never been allowed to be innocent.
