“I ken your name already. You told me.”
“So say it.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m asking you to.”
Sybil pulled in a breath and complied, giving her voice the most enticing, sensual, deep-throated undertone she knew how, as she drew the first syllable of his name out in a lengthy fashion before finishing it with a moan of sound.
The reaction was immediate and visual. The mass of man jumped slightly as if an itch of sensation made it inevitable. Sybil was around him and almost down the hall before she heard his boots coming after her.
She stopped, turned fully, and put both hands out, blocking his way for a change. She was watching his reaction as he slowed to a crawl of movement and then halted just shy of her and stood there, breathing deeply. Sybil was matching him but kept the beginnings of agitation to herself.
“You’ve a reason for delaying me?” she asked finally.
“I’m na’ delaying you,” he replied. And gave that little smirk-smile that came with one dimple. “At least…na’ this time.”
She took a deep breath. “My stepmother is a verra gracious woman. Anymore. Especially to me. I dinna wish any of that changed,” she replied.
His confusion was almost perfectly portrayed. Sybil had never met a better liar. Poser. Deviant. Her eyes narrowed even more.
“’Tis obvious to me, my toad prince. You are one of my stepmother’s newest lovers. She has them. Ever since my father’s death in spring of last year, there has been a string of handsome young men about the castle. All dancing attendance on her. Without end. ’Tis her reward for the life she lived with him. I dinna’ begrudge it to her.”
“Lover?” he questioned, putting a meaning behind the word that she didn’t recognize.
That was odd. She didn’t like odd. She swallowed the excess spittle her mouth was cursing her with and continued, making certain he knew of her knowledge.
“Dinna’ let it fash you.” She ran her eyes up and down his frame and ended up back at his belly, where a roping of muscle was still moving with his pounding heart. “You are by far the most handsome. Much. She sees well. It’s my guess she’ll na’ be dismissing you as quickly as she did the others. Unless you give her reason.”
She finished on a whisper. He was choking. It sounded in his next words. He was a terrible choice for a lover. He wasn’t even loyal. Sybil was already thinking through the selection of herbs she could use. The Lady of Eschon didn’t deserve such a cheat and a wretch. Both of which he was proving himself to be the longer he bothered the only other young female in the castle: Lady Sybil.
“You th-think…I’m one of your…st-stepmother’s…lovers?”
He was stammering through it, and that started the most entertaining flush to his cheeks. Sybil watched it. The man was extremely handsome. She had to give him that. He was more than handsome. He was a stunning, beautiful specimen, and the flush was making the gold of his eyes glow. Her stepmother had let her eyes be her guide this time. She hadn’t looked beyond that.
Sybil had it decided. She was going to use crushed and dried chicory on him. She pulled in her lower lip in thought, wondering at the exact portion that wouldn’t prostrate him with sickness but would have him visiting the castle latrine more oft than he could Lady Eschon’s bedchamber.
“Oh, dear man.” Sybil clicked her tongue. “I dinna’ just think you are. I ken it. Perfectly.”
He grunted. Then he moved a step toward her, standing above her and breathing hard on her and making her regret the outstretched arms and aggressive stance. Especially since she’d been the one assuming it. Oh! He was getting a double dose of chicory with bruised leaves. Enough to cause gastric distress for a sennight. That’s what was happening to him, she decided.
“So certain.”
He reached a hand to touch her chin and lift it. She had two choices. Give up her stance, wrap her cloak about herself, and try to escape him again, or wait. Bide her time. Create the events that would serve her intent and not his. She narrowed her eyes to make her choice less noticeable for him.
“What if I were to tell you that the moment I set eyes on you this morn, nae other woman existed…anymore?” he murmured in such a soft, seductive tone that Sybil nearly believed it. Almost. He was good. Amazingly good. And he had a voice like warm butter. He was the best one Lady Eschon had enticed to her side. Easily.
“Other than remarking that such a thing would definitely give her reason to replace you, I’d have only one thing to say,” she replied.
“And…that would be?” He moved closer, but it wasn’t by moving his feet. Or if he was, she didn’t hear it. Since he had a forefinger beneath her chin and was still forcing her to look up at him, she wouldn’t have seen it anyway. She watched him lean a bit closer to her, roamed her eyes all about his face for something to look at other than the mesmerizing quality of those gold-enhanced dark eyes, and had to swallow the increased spittle in her mouth. She knew he felt it.
“Sage,” she said finally.
He blinked a dark fringe of lash, shadowing the honey color into opaque black before letting it back.
“Aye. Brewed with a touch of honey. Such a thing would be wondrous for your condition.”
“What condition might that be?” He was tilting his head and slanting forward even closer, pulling her to her tiptoes with the lifting of his hand at her chin. And with pursed lips he was a completely devastating sight. If she were a female that cared for such things.
Like a first kiss.
Sybil gulped. “Poor…eyesight.” She managed to whisper it, and then watched as he lowered his dark brush of eyelashes. That was tantamount to closing his eyes. She wondered at the man’s sanity. And bravery. And idiocy.
The moment before he’d have touched his lips to hers, she moved. The hall could have him. She was finished with this nonsense. She swiveled, had her cloak wrapped about herself and was nearly to the steps before he caught up with her again. This time he wasn’t subtle. He wrapped a hand about her upper arm and used that to stop her. Then, before she knew it, he had her swiveled and pressed against a rough wall. It was obvious they hadn’t reached that spot yet in their renovations. The entire keep was undergoing massive renewal and work. They weren’t at Sybil’s tower yet. The walls here still needed to be shaved smooth. Or at the very least filed to a smoothness that wouldn’t feel like tiny spikes were jutting into her spine when she least needed that effect. Sybil felt every bit of it as he just held her there and looked her over. He was breathing hard, too, and such a thing as chasing a lass down a hall shouldn’t be raising such an amount of breathlessness in such a muscular male, but she didn’t know what would.
Oh! She was giving him worse than chicory sprinkled on his sup tonight! He was getting dried linden flower petals mixed with hops. Such a thing was going to dull his senses and make everything on his body soft and worthless. Everything. Even the parts she didn’t care to note. That’s what she was going to do to this man for daring to touch her, to prevent her from leaving…for starting a riot of oddity throughout her belly that would have shamed her earlier. Now, it was vaguely frightening…illicit….
