Her face lit. “Very well. Firstly, conversations commonly contain questions and replies.”
He snorted softly. “Trust you to turn it into an interrogation.”
She gave him a level look. “And they rarely involve insults.”
“Ah.”
Oh yes, this was a smile. Ever small, barely a dent in the cheek beside his ridiculously hard and handsome mouth.
“Will this be too difficult for you?” she inquired. “Exchanging words, and a lack of insults?”
“I’ll endeavor.”
“Very well. Let me see what I know a’ready… You are not a knight yet you came to a tournament you did not intend on fighting in, then fought a nobleman and took his daughter to ransom.”
“Are you insulting me, lass?” He clucked his tongue softly.
She flushed and dropped her gaze. It fell upon his broad hand, resting on the table. His wrist was curled slightly, his forearm roped with muscle and covered with dark hair—
She cleared her throat. “So, you are from Ireland?”
He nodded.
“Have you been in England long?”
“Years.”
She flung up her hands in exasperation. “This is a poor conversation. All you do is grunt and nod and shake your head.”
“Maybe you’re simply a poor tutor.”
Their eyes met and he might—might—have smiled again. It was very small though, so it was difficult to tell.
“English conversations involve words,” she informed him. “Stories. A sharing of ideas. Compliments.”
“Compliments?” he echoed. “Is that what we’re to do?”
Her cheeks grew a bit hotter.
“So be it. You’re the tutor.”
“We shall try again,” she agreed magnanimously. “Have you lands or title back in Ireland?”
He stared at her through a great many beats of her heart. So many her heart actually began to speed up, hammering out more rapid, unsteady beats.
Perhaps she ought to have asked about hawks or hounds rather t
han lands and titles.
“Aye, I’ve a title,” he finally said, his voice a slow drawl. “‘Fugitve.’ ‘Exile.’ And the lands that go with them: an impenetrable forest not even the king’s men dare enter, though they took it from me and mine. ’Tis wound about with spells, my home is.”
Her breath hitched on the word “fugitive,” and when he got to, “wound about with spells,” she stopped breathing entirely.
Which was no doubt his intent. To kill her with shock.
Well, she was not so easy to kill, with shock or anything else. He had no idea the things she’d seen…the things she’d borne, all alone in a remote castle while her father gambled her future, quite literally, away.
She met his cold gaze and lifted a brow. “I think you are trying to upend me.”