24
Violet tried to glare at him from the bed and failed miserably.
Connor saw the attempt. Her chin lifted first, proud as ever, then her eyelids lowered before she could finish whatever argument she had armed herself with. The blanket had slipped from one shoulder again. She caught it, frowned at it as if it had betrayed her, and opened her mouth.
No words came.
The candle on the table had burned low beside the teacup, and the bathwater near the fireplace had gone still and dark. Below, the tavern had fallen quiet to a few heavy steps and the occasional sound of doors opening and closing. His man remained outside the door. Connor had checked twice, though he had done it with his eyes rather than his feet.
Violet blinked slowly, then forced her eyes wider with sheer will.
“Sleep,” Connor urged.
“We arenae finished,” she insisted.
“Aye, we are.”
“I have more points to make.”
“Save them for tomorrow.”
Her eyebrows drew together. She looked offended by the suggestion, ortriedto anyway, and the effort made her sway a little against the pillow. Connor moved before she asked for help, then stopped himself from reaching too quickly. He pulled the blanket over her shoulders instead, precise as he would have been with a cloak before riding into bad weather.
She watched his hand. “Ye keep doing that.”
“Keeping ye covered?”
“Behaving like a kind man. It is quite strange of ye.”
“Daenae spread the tale. It would damage me reputation.”
Her mouth curved despite her exhaustion. The smile barely lasted, and it struck him harder because she had not sharpened it into mischief first.
“Go to sleep, lassie,” he said. “We can argue more tomorrow.”
A small laugh escaped her lips. It was only a breath, tired and quiet, but he still looked at her as if she had drawn steel.
Violet had laughed at him before, bright and wicked, often at moments when a wiser woman would have stepped back. This was different. She had no strength for performance.
Connor had stood through anger with ease. Anger gave him rules. It showed him where to place his feet and when to strike back. That weary sound gave him nothing to fight.
“Tomorrow,” she murmured, as if testing whether the word would hold.
“Aye.”
She should have pulled away then. He even waited for it. He had learned the pattern of her behavior and moods since she had broken into his castle in borrowed clothes and fury. Want, then retreat. Softness, then adhering to rules.
Her hand moved, and he thought it would push against his chest. Instead, her fingers curled loosely into his shirt.
He did not breathe for several seconds.
Violet shifted closer with the slow care of someone nearly asleep. Her cheek came to rest against him, and her body melted into his, as if she had chosen a place and had no strength left to deny it. Cold water still clung to her hair, and beneath the sharp tea, he could smell clean linen and the scent of her skin.
His hand hovered above her back. If she woke and found him holding her too closely, she might make it into another rule by morning. She might blush, call him impossible, and place some arguments between herself and what she had done in her sleep.
Connor almost dropped his hand. But then she drew in a shaky breath and pressed her fingers deeper into his shirt.
He set his palm carefully between her shoulder blades. She did not wake. Her breathing slowed, and the lines at the corners of her mouth softened. One damp strand of hair clung to her temple, and he wanted to brush it away.He did not.
