The Lion's Daughter (Scoundrels 1)

“Not if it’s about warfare. I’m a man of peace. A lazy idler, as I told you.”

“Njeri i plogSt,” she said. “Sluggard man. Lazy bones.”

To his ears, the Albanian language sounded guttural and harsh, as thick and rough as their blankets. When uttered in her low-pitched voice, however, the rough syllables became rich and breathy. Last night, the caressing sound of her quiet good night had nearly undone him.

The memory made him restless. “Teach me,” he said.

She raised her eyebrows. “It is an ancient language, you know, much inflected. Like Latin, but harder to pronounce. The consonants will strangle your tongue.”

“I’m not afraid,” he said. He gave up his lolling pose to sit upright and cross-legged, as she did. “It will occupy me until bedtime. Moreover, it will give you an ideal opportunity to make me appear ridiculous.”

“I may die of laughter, efendi. Then you’ll have only Petro as interpreter.”

“No, I’ll be dead, too, throttled by my own tongue.”

“Very well. I warn you, though, it will be difficult.” She considered briefly. “Perhaps no declensions at first, or you may begin weeping.” She held up her strong little hand. “Dorg—hand. There is definite and indefinite. DorS, dora. But I suppose you cannot hear the difference?”

He gave her a blank look.

“It is not important,” she said patiently. “No one will expect you to be a scholar. Say it the best you can.”

“Doh-lah,” he responded gravely.

“No, no. Not V but ‘r.’ “ She obligingly burred the ‘r,’ parting her mouth slightly to demonstrate.

Varian was fully capable of mimicking the sound, and knew he shouldn’t play games with her. On the other hand, how could he resist, when she so ingenuously offered her luscious mouth for his perusal?

A child’s mouth, said a reproachful voice in the back of his head. He didn’t listen.

Varian St. George had never heeded nagging internal voices in his life, and was ill-equipped to begin now. What conscience he owned existed in hopeless decrepitude. A mere glimpse of temptation was sufficient to stifle it.

“Doh-dah,” he said.

She gazed at him with the stoical resignation of a tutor confronted with a mentally deficient child. She sought simpler nouns, naming objects in the tent, but nothing was simple enough. Varian listened and watched attentively, then murdered every word.

Determined to teach the thickheaded Englishman, Esme moved closer to allow him better study of the movement of lips and tongue as she formed the syllables.

“Koke,” she said, pointing to her head. “Those are like English sounds, are they not?” She touched her straight, delicately shaped nose with the tip of her finger. “Unde.”

Eyebrows, eyes, cheeks, ears, mouth—she recited them one by one, as patiently persistent as any evangelist intent on a sinner’s salvation. So near, so invitingly near. He wanted to touch her, to trail his finger along the silky gold of her cheek.

“Goje,” she said, pointing to her mouth. “Come, it is not so hard.”

No, her mouth was soft and full and moist. Come, she’d said. “Koke, syrte, wide,” he said softly, perfectly. He leaned closer. He wanted that mouth, and it was all in the world he wanted or knew at that moment.

“Goje,” he whispered. His lips brushed hers—the lightest caress of a kiss, yet something crackled in him, like fear, and he drew back, startled.

Not nearly so startled as she. Her green eyes opened wide in astonishment. Then her face blazed scarlet. Her hand shot out and whacked the side of his head so hard that his ears rang and his eyes watered.

“That was not amusing.” She began rubbing her mouth vigorously.

As he gingerly massaged the side of his head, Varian decided he’d never met with a more deflating—or appropriate—response. He’d been slapped before, on the rare occasion, though not nearly so hard. Never, however, had one of his kisses been wiped away with such utter revulsion.

Still, what did he expect? How had he dared to soil her innocent mouth with his? Damn, and how could he not, being what he was, and finding her so…enchanting? Which she was, astonishingly enough, despite her ragged, hideous boy’s attire and that godawful woolen helmet.

At the moment, however, Varian’s most urgent problem was how to pacify her. Admittedly, he’d experienced a moment of insanity, but he was fully in control now. The men outside, on the other hand, were drunk.

“You didn’t find Petro’s behavior yesterday amusing, either, yet you didn’t give him a concussion,” Varian pointed out in aggrieved tones.

“He did not insult my person,” she said icily.

“I assure you, Esme, I meant no insult.”

“I know. You meant only a joke. You pretended you could not say the words—”

“You played a joke on me a short while ago,” he interrupted. “Perhaps I wanted to get even.”

This gave her pause. It was very curious—and convenient, certainly—how easily she accepted revenge as an excuse. Varian only wished she wouldn’t weigh his case with precisely that sulky expression. He wanted to kiss the pout away, or tickle her, or do something…which would only offend her dignity further and no doubt result in his immediate demise. Really, you’d think he was twelve years old. Perhaps this was a case of premature senility, the result of years of dissipation and—

“Very well,” she said. “I made you appear foolish, and so you did the same to me. Still, I will warn you to keep such revenge to words, efendi. Otherwise, on the way to Tepelena, we may find ourselves in a blood feud. To insult another’s person is to strike a blow,” she explained, “which likely will be returned. One time, one of us may be tempted to strike a fatal one.”

Lord love the girl. She saw no difference between being kissed and having her ears boxed. Vain, had she called him? He’d not be for long, in her company.

“I quite agree,” he said. “I did overstep a bit with the kiss. Fortunately, you took your revenge quickly, so I will not have to lie awake all night, wondering what ghastly way you’ll find to get even.”

“No, and I shall not have to lie awake devising sufficient ghastliness.” She paused, and turned her head slightly, listening.

Outside, there was only the faint sibilance of the drizzle.

“The others have gone to sleep,” she said. “We’d best do the same.”

As he helped her arrange the blankets, Varian noticed with some surprise that she placed hers next to his, just as though nothing had happened. Clearly, she did not assume the “revenge kiss” implied her virtue was in any danger. In that case, the words of reassurance he’d contemplated offering would have quite the opposite effect, and alarm her needlessly.

He may have kissed her, but that was so brief you could hardly call it a kiss, and certainly he wouldn’t attempt to ravish the girl while she slept. He would not touch her, he told himself. In fact, he’d stay awake until she fell asleep, then move his blankets some distance away so he couldn’t touch her, even unconsciously. Gad, at this rate, not a shred of indecency would be left to him, he thought ruefully.

Esme woke to darkness and the not entirely unfamiliar sensation of weight upon her. A long arm curled round her waist, and a long, lean body pressed along the length of her back. She had wrapped her blanket about her like a cocoon, and no part of his flesh touched hers, yet she was as acutely aware of every masculine bone and sinew as if she were naked. The images she conjured up made her face hot, and she stirred uneasily.

He mumbled something into her neck, and the arm pressed her closer. Then abruptly, it jerked away, and the heavy warmth of him vanished, too. He thrashed at the blankets. “Bloody hell,” his voice came, a growling whisper.

She turned and found he was sitting up.

“I woke you,” he said.

“I was awake,” she said to his shadowy form. “It is nearly dawn.”

“Have I been crushing you the whole curst night?” He sounded angry.

>

“You are large, but you are not an elephant. I am not crushed.”

Only embarrassed, she added inwardly. To be held so was more than warming; it made something inside her rush and pound, like a flock of swallows beating their wings. She’d felt that when his lips had touched hers: a terrible sweetness, come and gone in an instant, and afterward the flurried throbbing within. She should have felt nothing, and so was dismayed with herself.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t—I didn’t insult you, did I?”

“No.”

There was a long pause. Then he said in more normal tones, “And I trust you didn’t insult my person, did you, miss?”