Claiming Her

Her eyebrows slanted into a confused V, her eyes wary. “How could such things not concern you?”

“Because they are the past. We are now.” He nodded to the map. “Do you like the world I’ve given you?”

It earned a startled laugh. “It’s very nice. Rather flat, of course. But quite nice.”

“I also have a gown for you.”

She looked up. “A gown?”

“And seed.”

The hand still held in his tightened.

“Wheat. And rye. For the spring planting.”

Her fingers curled into his. “You brought seed?”

“I brought seed. Will that suit, Katy?”

Katarina stared at him, stricken breathless. Who was this man, who conquered with gowns and wheat seed and maps of the world?

As if she forgot entirely that this was a ruse, she smiled at him. “It suits quite well, sir.”

He smiled back, the lazy half smile that couldn’t be bothered to stretch all the way to the other side. It was rather devastating.

From the far end of the hall came a bustle, and a figure appeared. It hurried forward into the shifting amber light thrown by the leaping, roaring fires and materialized into a man. He tiptoed up beside the table and leaned near to Aodh.

“The papers, my lord.”

Still smiling faintly, she said, “Papers?”

Aodh pushed aside the map, while the tonsured clerk—Aodh had a clerk?—began setting down a sheaf of papers and pens and inkpots. Aodh glanced at her, his blue eyes level. “Betrothal papers.”

“Now?”

“Aye. Now.”

Her heart skipped a beat. Then another. Then it lurched forward in a cold staccato rhythm.

She stared helplessly at the preparations of Aodh and his clerk. Where had the clerk come from? “But—”

Aodh paused above the papers being spread out in front of him. “But what?”

She could not sign betrothal papers. Signing her name would be tantamount to treason. Her father had been hanged for less.

Oh, this was not going at all as she had planned.

She searched for a reason to delay the formalization of her subterfuge, some way to mitigate the damage. For as much as the Queen of England was not a woman to cross, neither was Aodh Mac Con a man to cross. And Aodh was much closer to hand.

And notwithstanding that they’d started as enemies, and much as he could reasonably expect nothing even approaching honesty from her, let alone loyalty, still, somehow…somehow, to say no felt like a betrayal.

To say yes felt like a binding.

If she wed Aodh Mac Con, he would never let her go.

Chills ran down her body. “What of the banns?” she asked, shocked to hear how shaky her voice had become.

He took a pen from his clerk. “There will be banns.”