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“Of you, married to one woman? Aye, it does.”

Rory smiled. “I suppose it amuses me as well,” he admitted.

“’Tis no wonder you love yourself so. We’ve gone nowhere yet where some woman hasn’t attempted to accost you.”

“First,” he said between bites, “you say ‘love yourself’ as if it were a crime. Should not all people love themselves above all? How could I love another if I could not manage the emotion for the person I spend the most time with?” He was glad to make her laugh. “Second, we’ve gone one place where one woman did not attempt to accost me.”

Freya seemed surprised by that. A small bit of wetness on her lip from the ale remained. How he wished he could lick it from her to remove it. Rory would not stop there; he would very much enjoy licking every bit of her. And nearly told her so.

“I cannot think of it,” she said after a moment’s reflection.

Rory leaned forward. The table, filled with food and ale and a single candle illuminating them, was thankfully between them. He was not feeling as much strength against his urges as usual.

“You can think of no woman who has looked at me without lust in her eyes? Who has not wanted me to reach behind her head, grab her hair, and use it to pull her face to mine? To taste the sweetness of her lips. To tangle my tongue with hers before I remove every bit of clothes and make love to her. Not once, but two, three, perhaps four times.”

Pleased to see her chest rise and fall heavily, Rory relented. He broke his gaze from hers and returned to the bread. Placing a bit of cheese on it, he ate. And drank. And mostly ignored his companion for just a hair’s breadth of time.

When he did lock eyes with her again, Freya’s chin rose. “If you’ve not seen lust in my eyes, ’tis because you’ve not been looking.”

The bit of bread became lodged in his throat. Rory grabbed the mug of ale and took a long swig, clearing it and thinking on her words. Had he misheard her? Surely so, for that was unlike anything Freya had yet said to him.

“Freya,” he said when he recovered. But his words of warning not to say such things unless she meant them also stuck in his throat. Already, she was laughing.

“Had I known you could be so easily undone, I’d have said such words before.”

She teased him. Of course. Freya, unlike any woman before her, was completely unaffected by his charms. His eyes narrowed.

“Do not look at me so,” she said. “Or if you would, then cease to tease me if you cannot take the same in return.”

Did she truly believe he teased her? Rory would not take the virginity of a woman he’d not marry, but neither would he leave her untouched if she wished otherwise.

“Tell me,” she said, her tone no longer sultry but curious. Rory’s heart still raced at her comment. “You talk of your family. The Brotherhood. I saw how the tavern keeper responded when he learned your name. Yet I know so little of them.”

“I would much prefer to discuss your lustful urges toward me that you keep so well hidden I have no hint of them.”

“I am certain you would. But since I have no such urges, perhaps we should discuss your family instead?”

“Liar.”

“Braggart.”

“My parents,” he said to deflect that last comment, “have no comparison.” Rory looked around, but indeed, no one seemed to give them any mind. This truly was a place to come if one wished not to be seen. “My father is the younger brother to the Earl of Kenshire, as you know. More than thirty years ago, when they took Bristol Manor back from Clan Kerr, my uncle Geoffrey bequeathed it to him.”

“It was in that taking that he met your mother?”

“A story that all along the border know well. And aye, ’tis true. She was left behind, a fact her brother, my uncle Toren, still hates to discuss to this day. My father held her captive as leverage against her clan. But you already know how that tale ended.”

“With the end of a many-year feud between your families.”

“That did not happen for some time. While my parents did fall in love and reconcile their complaints against each other, it took years for all members of both families to do the same.”

“And your uncle? The earl?”

“Another interesting tale. My aunt Sara held Kenshire Castle in her own right when her father was killed before meeting my uncle Geoffrey. And he”—Rory smiled, loving this particular fact—“was a reiver when they met. The long and torrid tale of their courtship is one for another day.”

“A reiver?”

“Aye. Most think of the earldom and Clan Kerr when they speak of the Brotherhood. But my uncle’s reiving family, as he calls his old friends, have more to do with the peace we are able to maintain between Kenshire and Bristol in the South and Brockburg in the North than perhaps anyone. They know the terrain better than most. Geoffrey and Sara have three children: my eldest cousin Haydn, now married, as well as Hugh, Holt, and the sole girl in their family, Haddie.”