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He grinned. “I shall.”
“Saying yes would make me quite as reckless as you, sir.”
“I am relying on it, lass.”
A dark feminine eyebrow winged up. “And if I turn out to be stubborn instead?”
“Then I will have miscalculated.” But he hadn’t. He knew it. He was as certain of this as he’d been of anything.
Deep inside, desire began to move thickly through his blood. It was her smile. This one was so small and enclosed, like a house with all the curtains drawn; anything might be happening inside.
He wanted in.
Her cheeks flushed, but her clever gaze never strayed from his. “You might be sorry, you know. I neither stitch nor sing, and most consider that a blessing, as I am without talent in either.”
There was a note of earnestness, sincerity, as if it mattered that he not be taken in by some false promise of her…domesticity? “I consider myself forewarned.”
“Neither do I play an instrument.”
“No mind. I do.”
“The tennis court is entirely ornamental; I cannot play.”
“But you have a wheel-lock,” he said admiringly. “And a snaphance. Five of them.”
Her eyes widened, then she laughed and leaned back against the chair, momentarily relaxed. The bodice of her green gown tossed off darts of light from the silvery threads, and her long dark hair was still tousled, coif long forgotten, smiling at him. He wanted more of that from her. Wanted it badly. He had no idea why, and was not wont to examine it too closely. All he knew was he must keep Katarina upended. Keep her smiling. Keep her looking at him.
“That is the oddest measure of matrimony I have ever heard,” she mused.
“Aye, we’ll be quite a pair.”
Head still back against the chair, she turned to him. “You do not fool me, Aodh Mac Con. This is not a pairing. You are a conqueror to the marrow of your bones. Your coup will be complete if you wed me. You will have the lady.”
“I will have the fire.”
One eyelid drifted down in suspicious regard. “I do not know where you have collected your notions of me, sir, but I am the furthest thing from a fire of rebellion that exists in all of Ireland.”
But Aodh wasn’t thinking about rebellion. He was thinking about the fire of Katarina. The heat, the passion, the fuel of her.
Aodh himself was comprised of ice, so hard and carven and unstoppable, he’d achieved everything everyone had ever intended for him, and more. He felt like a glacier that had pushed aside even the intentions of a queen. Nothing could stop him. He was a block of ice, moving through the world. Not even fire could penetrate him. Nothing could warm him. Nothing touched him. He barely felt the flames roaring only a few feet away.
But he felt Katarina.
He sat forward, chest pressed to the hard edge of the table, surprised to find his heart beating fast.
“Lass,” he said, very low. “Are you going to marry me?”
Chapter Ten
KATARINA’S BODY felt as if she were a candle he had lit. Chills and heat warred across her skin.
Marry Aodh Mac Con, thief of castles, warlord who made her blood boil and who did not punish her, soldier unafraid of the Queen of England, who had trekked across hostile lands and—I do not disapprove—dispensed velvety wine and said her name like a hymn?
It was so unfathomable, so outrageous, so…unattainable.
She could not marry an Irish warlord. It was ludicrous. It would be treason at best. At worst…
Every man you’ve ever met. Every one but me.
