he’d been looking and had her pierced with a dark, honeyed gaze from beneath his lush lashes. The man had been blessed with theatrical coloring, perfect features, and amazing presence. He knew how to use all of it. Probably had practiced it. Sybil felt the shuddering of her belly calm a bit, and her head cleared. She couldn’t do a thing about the agitated breaths she was taking, however.
“I am na’ your mother’s lover,” he said finally.
“Stepmother.”
“Hers, either,” he answered.
“Then…what are you doing here? Now? At Eschoncan Keep?”
She watched the black of deviousness slip over him, although nothing looked to have changed. It was like he was being dipped in it, covered over in it, and then stewed in it. She knew the next thing from his mouth would be a lie. She’d been wrong earlier. There wasn’t lye soap enough to clean this man up.
His eyes slid sideways, avoiding contact for the briefest moment, and then they were back, boring into hers, as if daring her to look elsewhere. “I’m putting myself in the running for a certain position,” he replied.
“What?”
He’d moved his chin, facing her and making it too close. The smell of him was too unsettling, and the visage of angered and intrigued male was one she was going to have difficulty ignoring every time she shut her eyes. How had all of that happened? she wondered.
“A certain position. In your household.”
“I heard that. I meant…which one?” It was a good thing the man she was avoiding was a dwarf and dark in coloring. Otherwise, she’d think the increase of her heartbeat when she connected glances with this Vincent was something really horrible. Something akin to arousal…sensual arousal.
“What will you pay me to find out?” he asked.
Sybil’s features fell. She couldn’t prevent it. Just as she couldn’t prevent the stiffening of her entire frame. All that happened was the increased annoyance of hard knots of castle stone against her spine and buttocks, a closer view of his face since he’d lowered it toward her, and the scratch of her underdress on her nipples becoming more distinct and noticeable. She watched him glance there—and for no reason that she could tell. She was still swathed with her cloak. It was if he was looking for such a thing as a woman’s arousal after putting it into being. It was exactly what he was expecting! Sybil knew it. She watched him put his lips into a perfect kissable position in order to get a certain reaction. Her knees quivered as her body betrayed her and actually gave it to him, too!
Sybil was mortified. Completely and totally, and it put her off balance and made her feel weak and fragile. Inside. Which was where she was determined to keep it buried. Nobody was ever going to ever see it—or suspect it. She didn’t need to pay him to learn anything. He was telling her with every prolonged moment in his company. He wasn’t her stepmother’s lover. Yet. That was obviously the position he was seeking, however. And why not? It was known throughout the rocky fells that the widow of Laird Eschon possessed gold, and a powerful amount of it.
Men had been flooding to the castle for over a year in order to get their hands on it. This man resembling a Norse god was one of them no doubt. A common thief. Worse. He was willing and able to use his physical assets on anyone he needed in order to get whatever he wanted.
She’d known she was right. Again.
Sybil huffed a breath and smiled wickedly up at him, surprising him from contemplation of her lips. Or maybe it was her bosom. Or somewhere else on her body that she didn’t want to name. Wherever he’d been looking and trying to wizard a response from, it was ceasing. And it was ceasing now. Her time with Lady Eschon’s would-be lover was over.
“If you’ve finished, I’ve chores,” she said in what she hoped was a normal tone, though it sounded nothing like normal to her ears.
“I dinna’ say you had to pay me in coin,” he replied.
He could have blown her over with a sweep of a hearth broom with such a statement. Sybil’s eyes widened before she could help it and glance down. And worse. He took such a response as his due. She knew it by his chuckle, followed almost immediately by an increase of breath at her nose.
“So…what say you? A kiss…for a bit of information?”
Actually, he was in danger of receiving a great quantity of linden flowers. Enough to make his head pound with ache for days. No! Sennights of time! Sybil had never met a man more willing to tempt such a fate from her.
Stupid man.
“Dinna’ you hear me?” she asked. “I have chores.”
“What are they?” he asked.
“The ones no one else will do, of course.”
“You’re a lady.”
Sybil tipped her head to one side. “Of a sort,” she replied. “I bear the mark of bastardy and am a poor relation to boot.”
“So what is it they make you do? Since you have these horrible things to bear?”
“Why?”
“Because a little wench walked into my life today, stole my senses, and entrapped them in the palm of her hand. And I’ve yet to even ken her name. Why else?”
“Wenches walk into your life ever, toad prince. Your path is littered with them. You walk on them. What difference does one more make?”
He drew back a fraction, giving her enough space to breathe, and looked at her strangely. “This one is verra odd, though. Verra.”
“Why? This one does na’ fall at your feet and worship the ground you stand atop?”
He grinned. The dimples came out in full force. Sybil fought the blush of reaction and cursed it at the same time. It was horrible.
“Na’ yet, mayhap,” he replied.
“Oooh.” The word came out before she could prevent it. She watched him glance to the bow shape her mouth made as she said it, and then he moved his gaze back to hers. There was nothing for it. Arrogance such as he was filled with was just asking for a set-down…begging for it: putting it right out there for her to do something about it.
Sybil smiled slyly and lifted a shoulder. “Shall we make a challenge of it, my handsome toad prince?” she asked.
She got one dark eyebrow quirked up again in a high arch. That particular ability was uncommon and of little use. Unless one were as overblessed with physical attributes as this man had been. Then it was obviously put to use, whenever he wished, and on any number of unsuspecting females. The unsettled feeling she’d been harboring since meeting him knotted into a ball in her belly and started pounding with the annoyance of it. He was obnoxious and completely unaware of what fate was about to deal him.
“A challenge?”
“Last one standing…wins,” she told him.
“Nae,” he answered. “I have a better challenge.”
“There is naught better,” she replied in
