The Conqueror

“Aye,” he said, dropping onto a bench near the wall. “Never have I seen a shoe propelled with such ferocity before, and hope never to again.”

She laughed and fingered the rim of the mug. “At least not if ’tis coming at you.”

“Indeed. I shall watch closely to see that your slippers are securely attached to your feet ere I anger you ever again.”

She lifted the cup. “My thanks.”

“I want you to stop thanking me.”

“That was the last. I promise.”

He stretched out his boots and wrapped his cloak around his shoulders. In the shadows his face was mysterious, dark hollows under his cheekbones, his eyes hooded and deep. The cloak was drawn over his long, taut body, his knee-high boots crossed at the ankles.

Gwyn drank deeply, then lowered the mug and considered it suspiciously. “I ought to drink a more watered wine than this.”

He lifted his brows.

“I became rather…addled when I drank your posset earlier.”

He smiled, a small mark of amusement that seemed to creep out despite his best intentions. And still it was heart-stopping in its sensuality. “That was no posset, mistress, and you’ve nothing to fear from this potion.”

She sipped again. “’Tis good.”

It was quiet for a few moments, and she peered beneath her lashes at his shadowed figure. Even motionless he filled the room.

He wore simple grey braies and a loose-fitting chainse without belt. The collar opened in a V, exposing a chest dusted with dark hairs and plated with muscle. The strong column of his neck descended to wide shoulders and a rock-hewn body, taut with sinew that came only from long years of wielding a sword and wearing heavy knightly attire. She was unable to drop her eyes further, but knew the rest of him would pulsate with the same presence. Even small movements, such as picking up a strand of her hair and bringing it to his lips, as he had last night, revealed sliding muscles and the easy grace of a well-honed pr

edator.

Her heart started a small thundering. Alchemy. The rest of the world receded and there was only Pagan’s dark eyes and this feeling in her blood. She looked away but the feeling still hummed through her body from head to toe, long and flat and sweeping.

Home was a long way away, and she was glad.

He was watching her. In the dimness she could not tell what flickered in his eyes as she met his gaze again, but a quivering cord of heat began to unravel through her body.

“And what of you, Pagan? What are you doing here?”

“Sitting with you.”

She smiled. “I mean at this inn.”

“Sitting with you.”

She drew a deep breath and let it out. “What were you doing on the highway last night, alone, at such an hour?”

“You would rather I had been with someone?”

She laughed. “No, I think not. So.” She eyed him with a considering look. “You will not answer me. You are used to wielding power. Only those who are can sidestep questions with such ease. And, my compliments,” she added, nodding her head, “for you do so as deftly as you wield a sword.”

“Ask away, mistress.”

She paused, quite certain that whatever he had been doing on the king’s highway, or at Hipping’s lodge, not only had nothing to do with her, it would be something not open for discussion. There was no point in fishing for information. “How came you to carry a flask of drink with you?”

His brows arched halfway up his forehead. “That’s your question?”

“I know I will get nothing else from you, and at the moment, I find it does not matter in the least.”

She looked around the room. Outside the storm was raging. Every so often a monstrous gust of wind broke free and stormed the building, reducing the walls to a quivering mass of woven reeds and crumbling stone. Even inside the air was damp, but with the shutters closed, the fire burning, and Pagan watching her, she was warm and comfortable. “So what I want to know is why you would carry around a flask of the very drink that could calm a panicked woman.”