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Gorht of the moon on her face, and studied the stars in the sky She looked down to arrange the papers, and back up then down again, ordering the charts just so

Dropping a page from her hand, the old woman froze She canted her head, her face a still htlessly to the black woods around her

"Ah!" A sasp of surprise escaped her

"I see now, lass, " she said A knowing sed skin, thin like parchment "And so it is"

Chapter 21

Lily slowly became aware of the world around her She was in a bed Securely bound in sheets or restrained somehow, yet she was oddly comfortable Cozy even She nestled deeper and remembered the river Her hair was still damp but she was now blessedly warmer Almost hot, in fact She slowly opened her eyes and looked around She was in a roolorious stained glass lining the upper wall She was transfixed by the light shining through the s, casting fraght across the floor and along the surface of the bed In that fog between sleep and waking, her eyes filled inexplicably with tears--it was thetian to clear, and she was startled to find that she wasn’t restrained at all She was lying on her side and there was a large ly around her shoulders She tried to shift, but the owner of the ar an iron -hard leg between hers to come to rest atop her own, much smaller one She felt the tickle of short, coarse hairs and realized in shock that both the leg and the oere naked

"Let go of me!"

Lily heard a chuckle as he nestled in even closer She paused for afrom him into her once-chilled body and then, with a start, felt a slightthe small of her back

She knew she had to get out of this man ’s bed and his sudden hardness clinched it for her "What do you think you ’re doing?" she yelled as she tore herself out of her warerously still

"I’ht thank lanced down in horror at the recognition that she too was completely naked

She pulled the sheet up under her chin and felt her teet out of here is what I ’ll thank you for What the hell do you think you’re doing anyway? Or do you enjoy taking advantage of unconscious women?"

A dark cloud passed over Ewen’s face He spoke quietly and deliberately as if he were trying to explain so to death If you don’t remember correctly, you fainted on the riverbank, lass You rather I ’d left you to die, is it? I brought you here and heating water for a tub would have taken too long You ’d no time to spare, and the fastest way to restore your body heat ith my own "

"Well …well " … , she staerously chilled by the tiot out of the water It was a wonder she’d had the energy to revive John

"How chivalrous of you to take this burden on yourself instead of having solared at her "Would you rather I had one of the maids strip down to warht have been infested with a feee fleas afterward"

She had seen soht have a point

"Besides, your shift isn ’t the , and I spied an odd ht best to hide it from the slack-jawed servants about the keep "

"What? Oh, you otten about that A small, colorful butterfly in the se days Because she couldn’t see it herself and it felt like years since a , she had all but forgotten it was there

"A, what did you call it, tattoo, eh? I ’d see it "

Before she could protest, two strong hands deftlyon her sto Lily butterflies in htly down her back and folded it over her buttocks Lily wasn ’t sure if she hated this or loved it, so she just lay there silently, mesmerized, curious as to just what Eould do next