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Finn lifted his cup and clanked it heartily against her father’s vessel And just like that, the dancing was forgotten Her sire laughed loudly and waved to the harpist to keep playing

While Violet enjoyed a sh of relief that she’d eluded her father’s coratitude toward the hulking guest for diverting hiaze upon her now told her he had done so deliberately and for her benefit

But why? Did he think this one act would make her look upon him favorably?

The heat of her fevered skin swelled again, an their parade of trays for her inspection She nodded approval iht but trouble She needed to warn Morag that a warrior had arrived to stamp out mischief in the forest The oman would do well to remain indoors until the trouble had passed Besides, Violet needed to see herreaction to the useless love potion

Because right now, taking a seat beside Finn at the table, she hardly kne she would survive theflame

The keep’s free-floould not quench Finn’s thirst

And he had made a monstrous effort to douse the fire inside hieted, stretched and squirmed on the bench beside hiraze his thigh, loosened her neck cloth until it slipped down her back, and repeatedly tightened her bodice along the tops of the breasts he remembered so vividly from early that afternoon

If he did not know better, he would believe she sought his notice Yet her quiet, surly manner said otherwise Clearly, she had not wanted him to serve her father in the first place or she would not have pretended ignorance when he asked about the Caladan earl back in the forest Why then did her face flush so deeply whenever he spoke to her? Indeed, the war fro floral fragrance that sharpened his senses and made him keen for a taste of roses

If nothing else, he wished to lean closer just to inhale deeply He had not wanted to indulge hieance looan to think he would never be able to focus on his hly as possible with Lady Violet

“Your food does not please you?” he asked her once the earl had fallen into a wine-induced stupor He could soothe his curiosity if not his lust

She’d eaten little when she waved over a server to declare herself finished

“The talk of a killing in the forest does not inspirehard on the neck cloth she couldn’t seem to keep in place

The thin fabric unsettled a silver butterfly brooch, the jeweled wing of the decoration hovering over bare skin for a ave life to the creature as if it had alighted there only briefly Finn longed to chase it away and replace the cold silver with his ue over the delicate wash of color in her skin

While she had no appetite, it see less than a taste of her would assuage the churning hunger that had begun the first moment he’d seen her

With an effort, he dragged his eyes up to aze

“I will deliver your people fro she would at least sit still long enough for hi scent of her

And thestream…

“Aye, but at what cost?” she asked, keeping her voice low in deference to her father as the older an to snore in his roasted pheasant “The forest is full of the poor and outcast who have done nothing wrong save failing to feed their fauilty of more serious crimes and who has merely stolen a few loaves of bread to stave off starvation for another sennight?”

Was this the source of her concern? Did the lady possess a tender heart to deliver secret food stores to the forest dwellers? He wondered how much she knew of the crimes that went on in her father’s lands

“My blade will seek only those arrant it” His conversation with the earl had reinforced his belief that the rogue knight who’d killed Finn’s brother had taken refuge near Caladan Though the body that had appeared at the forest’s edge lacked the stab wounds that had us’s body, the local victius’s body had not showed the unusual signs until hours after his death, alerting Finn too late that his brother had been murdered by means more foul than a mere enemy blade