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He stopped wondering about it when Beak ca a knife

“I’ll teach you to raise a club to me, you whoreson,” he snarled

Everyone in the rooainst the doorja his decision not to intervene With a brass club and a knife involved, soet seriously injured, or worse As tired as hemen die

But before he could act, a s

eries of sounds arrested him where he stood

Crash A bottle breaking

Plink, plink, plink Glass bits trickling to the floor

Thud Beak collapsing to the table unconscious, rivulets of wine strea down around his ears

“Harold Symmonds, you’ll pay for that wine ” A slender, dark-haired wo what rereat lout ” She shook her head and tsked “Blood and claret will never come out of white linen

“And as for you, Laurence—” She wheeled on the second lass teeth Though he ice as big as the barmaid and a man besides, Laurence held up his hands in surrender

In fact, every h they all feared the harsh discipline this tiny bar To asoldiers, that snap to attention spoke volumes

Jabbing the bottle at Laurence, the barainst the wall “’Twas your own ht that, you know ”

“This?” He stared at the candlestick in his fist “It’s Gideon’s?”

“No, it’s the inn’s ” She wrenched the brass club away fro it to eye level “But Gideon delivered it Hauled it and its mate all the way up from Plymouth just last week The set carimy mitts off the bric-a-brac ”

The thing hed a stone, but it cost her no effort to heft the candlestick up on the e it back into place

“There,” she said to herself, apparently satisfied with the syed remnants of the bottle into the fire, and a wine-fueled blaze surged in the hearth

The reddish flare illuood look at her

Holy God She was beautiful

And young

And … and beautiful

Rhys had never been especially good ords He couldn’t have described exactly what it was about this wo He just knew he’d been struck

She had pale skin and dark hair coht, yet fee and wide, but to discern their color he would’ve had to stand much closer to her

He wanted to stand much closer to her

Especially now that she was no longer armed

Fury radiated from her slender form as she propped her hands on her hips and scolded the asseain ” Her tone was sharp, but the voice beneath it was husky, warot in Buckleigh-in-the-Moor I’ to build a name for this place, make it a respectable establishment for travelers Now tell me, how arown clods destroying ht?”

She swept an angry glare around the rooaze collided with Rhys’s, he noted the first crack in her veneer of poise Her eyelashes fluttered That was the extent of her visible surprise The rest of her reranite-still as she said, “And all this in front of a guest ”

Rhys sensed every head in the rooaze from the barmaid’s if he’d tried Jesus, what a woman

Between the travel and the daht He wouldn’t have believed one more part of hi breeches pulled snug across his groin He’d gone hard enough to rival that brass candlestick He hadn’t reacted so intensely to a woman since he’d been a randy youth Perhaps not even then His heart pounded Blood surged through his veins, carrying orders to his every lith, readying for a purpose A very specific, very pleasurable purpose

Damn He felt alive

Still holding his gaze, she said steadily, “Now put this place to rights ”

Rhys blinked He didn’t recall this wootten her—but had she soross negligence as lord? It would be a fair enough accusation If there was anything that needed putting to rights in Buckleigh-in-the-Moor, the responsibility should be his