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He recalled the way she’d kissed him and thought it possible she had every intention of seducing him. He’d never met such a sensuous maid.
“Morag knows me well, it seems.” His throat cracked on a dry note as he watched the play of her hem over her stocking-clad foot.
The delicate turn of her ankle.
“She believes you were destined to come here.” Violet shrugged. “She fancies herself a Seer, but I think she is merely a woman of strong opinions. I told her you were from the Highlands and she assumed good things of you, since her grandparents are of that stock.”
Finn tore his gaze from her legs, the shape of which he could discern beneath the heavy, damp folds of her skirts. His own clothes seemed to dry quickly, his body heating them from the inside. He would not make it out of this shelter without touching her. Tasting her. He knew it as well as his own name. Had the Seer informed Violet of those intentions?
“Destined? Perhaps I was.” He leaned back to pull the woolen blanket from its place on the trunk. Unrolling it, he moved to wrap the warmth around her, but she shook her head.
“I am warm enough. Despite the rain and cold, I am still feverish from before.” Her cheeks flushed with color as she spoke, and he realized that heat probably accounted for her removing the shoes and the other clothes.
“Did Morag give you anything for it?” He reached for her, touching her cheek to test the skin.
“It is her fault that I am…unwell.” She frowned, but Finn could see her pulse fire rapidly at her neck.
The warmth of her flesh enhanced the clean scent of her, the rain-washed skin still carrying a hint of roses. She swallowed hard. Licked her lips. Signs of awareness? Or more signals of this curious ailment? His attention went back to her ankle, where it would be easy enough to skim a hand up her bare leg and under the heavy skirts of her kirtle and surcoat.
“How so?” He swiped aside a damp curl where it clung to her throat, his body taut. Tense.
Ready for her.
“She gave me a potion earlier. It was foolish of me to ask her for it.” She tilted her chin to one side when he touched her neck, as if to offer all the more of herself to his questing fingers. He ought to warn her away. Instead, he eased closer.
“What would you need a potion for, Violet?” He smoothed her hair from her face and blew a gentle stream of air along her hairline to cool her.
“I wanted something to make me amenable to the marriage my father hoped to arrange.”
His blood chilled. Everything inside him protested.
“Marriage?” He cupped her chin in his hands and tipped her head to face him. He would kill the bastard who tried to take her away from him now.
He’d touched her. Tasted her. He didn’t realize it until this moment, but she belonged to him. And no contract that her father arranged would change that.
“My father said he would wed me to anyone who would be his champion, anyone who ended the horrible things that are rumored to happen in these woods.”
The tightness in his chest eased. The drunkard father was not a madman after all. The plan made sense, since Violet needed a strong protector. And the assurance of having her legally cleared the way for what Finn wanted from her right now. Right here.
“That’s me,” he reminded her, knowing now that Fate had sent him to her this day. For all that a tragedy had led him to Caladan, he could be grateful that this woman waited for him on the other end of the journey. “I am the champion of Caladan and if there is a fiend lurking in these woods, I will find him.”
His reward would be better than mere vengeance. Violet might not realize it yet, but she was more than ready to give him the sweetest prize of all.
* * *
“Tell me more of this potion you used,” Finn demanded as he studied her in the firelight.
Outside, the rain still battered the roof of the old mill while the rising river splashed the foundations. Violet had never brought another living soul to this place. Now she shared it with a man she’d only just met, yet he was a man who knew her all too intimately.
Her heart fluttered fast at the sight of his strong profile in the glow from the small hearth, his stern jaw a decided contrast to the soft fullness of a mouth that had brought her unexpected pleasure.
“I hoped the potion would soften my heart,” she admitted, trusting him more since Morag had encouraged her to look past his warrior ways to the man beneath. The man who had not taken advantage of her in the dark corridor earlier when he could easily have despoiled her. “Instead, it stirred my—” flustered, she gestured helplessly to her body “—desire.”
