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“What?” she prompted. “What shall I enjoy with you, Rory? A life on the run from King Edward?”

She did ask the question. “I think you will find there is much to enjoy from my companionship.”

She made quite an unladylike sound. “You would flirt with me at a time such as this?”

“I would flirt with a beautiful woman on my deathbed,” he assured her.

Rory was going to count to fifty. And then, he would give her no choice. Aye, it would be more difficult to leave the way he came with her slung over his shoulder rather than walking out the same secret exit the others took, one apparently the brother knew nothing of. But she left him no choice.

“You are maddening,” she said, looking from him to the guard.

Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten.

“While I appreciate the efforts you’ve gone to, I do not believe my grandmother would forsake me.”

Twenty-one. Twenty-two. Twenty-three.

“She will come.”

Twenty-seven. Twenty-eight.

“Grandmother would not forsake her legacy here. Nor me, her granddaughter.”

Thirty-eight. Thirty-nine. Forty.

“Why are you suddenly so quiet?”

Forty-nine. Fifty.

God’s teeth, he would not relish this. But it must be done.

Chapter Eight

When he took a step toward her, Freya knew precisely what he intended.

“You would strike a woman?” she said, backing away from him.

“I’ve not done so before, but to save her? Aye, I would.”

Freya continued to back away. “Save a woman who does not wish to be saved?”

“Whose naivete will get her killed?”

Crashing into the bed, she was forced to stop. Freya had no wish to be hit on the head or any other part of her body. She inadvertently looked toward the guard, who’d not yet stirred.

“You would render me like him?” she asked, stalling.

Rory was nearly upon her now. “There is an easier way, Freya.”

Lord, the man made her insides spin upside down when he looked at her that way. She’d hoped to be more resistant to his sort of charms. She had never seen herself as fickle. And yet . . .

“Please,” she begged. “Do not strike me.”

He growled. Actually growled. Freya was not certain what it meant. “Shall I kiss you into submission instead?”

Oh dear. “How could you possibly do such a thing? I’ve never heard of . . .” She stopped. Rory’s tongue darted out from behind his lips, the tip of it quickly rehidden as he bit his bottom lip.

Freya forgot to breathe. When she did remember to do so, she immediately tried to cover her appalling lack of self-control. “You are despicable.”