At Your Pleasure by Meredith Duran Page A

was not the reply she had hoped for. “There is never cause to strike a woman.”
    “So lofty your ideals,” he said flatly. “After a woman has held a gun on a man while delivering him to his enemies—even then, you opine that the man should scruple to use his fists?”
    The cold mockery in his voice made her chest tighten. “After she has saved the man’s life, yes, he should scruple.”
    Grim humor flitted over his mouth. “Indeed, it’s a situation meriting some confusion, I agree. No, Nora, I will not strike you. Cut me free.”
    She did not trust the casual way he used her Christian name. “Nor misuse me in any way,” she said. “Promise it.”
    His fledgling smile twisted into something blacker. “What do you imagine I will do? Ravish you in the larder? I begin to wonder why you saved me.”
    She had no good explanation for it herself. Quickly, she rose and cut free the binding. Before he could speak again, she said, “Where are you hurt?”
    “A nick,” he said tersely. “No cause for concern.”
    She felt for the wet spot on his arm. Her hand came away covered in blood.
    Swallowing, she used the erstwhile gag for a makeshift bandage, wrapping it as tightly as she dared around the thick muscle of his upper arm. Then she sat back. “Only another few hours,” she said unsteadily. He felt so warm to the touch. The sensation lingered on her palm, which she unobtrusively wiped on her skirts. “Will it keep until then? There is no water here to cleanse it—”
    “You should have let them kill me.”
    “ There is gratitude!”
    His sigh bespoke impatience. “Gratitude has no placein it. I speak of strategy—and survival. There is no room for gratitude in the game you now play.”
    She stared at him. “I play no game! I was—I kept you alive to keep the peace in my brother’s absence. That’s all!”
    “Oh? And I suppose my men were lulled to sleep by your pacific lullabies, and poison had nothing to do with it.”
    “Not poison,” she said. “They will recover by mid-morning.”
    “Ah. Medicine, then? The shadows beneath their eyes gave you cause for wholesome concern?”
    She huffed out a breath. “There is no need for cheek. I don’t dispute that I drugged them.”
    He nodded once. “And so you are courting treason. Whether you do it gladly or reluctantly makes no difference.”
    He looked paler than she liked. She wondered if he was lying about his injury. She wondered why she should care. “We can argue this later. After—”
    “You drugged the king’s men so others could have free reign of your household.” His voice was hard. “Why were they here? What did they recover?”
    She looked away. Her lamp spilled a shivering pool of light across the rude wooden floorboards, illuminating a stack of waxed wheels of cheese. Beyond that small puddle, the darkness gathered thickly.
    “Weapons,” he said. “Or bullion? Tell me .”
    “ Why should I tell you?” She looked back to him. “Why should I tell you anything? What are you to me, sir?”
    “Why, your greatest concern.” His eyes held hers intently,as though he looked for something in them. “Were it otherwise, you would not have stopped them from slitting my throat.”
    A flush heated her. “Do not flatter yourself I did it from tender emotion!”
    The corner of his mouth lifted in a half smile.
    “And mayhap I do regret it!”
    “Too late. You are well in it, sweetling. To wish or claim otherwise will not spare you.”
    The endearment flustered her. More sarcasm, no doubt. She looked down to her hands, twisting hard in the sullied fabric of her dark skirts. She felt exhausted and soiled, in need of scrubbing. “The servants will not be up for some hours yet. Better we pass them in silence.”
    “You know what I must do as soon as we are freed from this room.”
    “I know nothing of your intentions or what you must do—”
    “I have made them very plain to you.”
    “—and I care nothing for them, either!” She