If He's Dangerous by Hannah Howell Page B

easily.”
    â€œYou were very fortunate to be rescued.”
    â€œI know. After a fortnight in the man’s hands, I feared that I would die there because there was no way to reach any of you. Lady Lorelei and her cousins, mere boys, came right after I had suffered the worst beating yet and I knew I would not survive much more of such treatment. He also kept me half starved and gave me little water. Nor did he treat the wounds I suffered.” He smiled when his sister grasped his hand and held it tightly for a moment, the only sign that she had been upset by his tale of the abuse he had endured.
    â€œWhat I do not understand is how he discovered what you can do,” said Olympia.
    â€œI have given that some thought myself,” said Argus. “It may be that someone in the government, one who somehow learned of what I have done for them, decided he needed my skills for something the government would not approve of.”
    â€œI can have that looked into,” said Leo.
    â€œIt might be best.”
    Lorelei entered with a large tray weighted down with food and bottles of wine. Before Argus could move, Leopold was at her side to help her. He discovered that he did not like to see her and his cousin exchanging smiles. That had the sour taste of jealousy, which astonished him. It had been a very long time since he had cared whom a woman smiled at.
    It was silent for a moment aside from murmurs of thanks and requests for a choice of the offerings as Lorelei, with Olympia’s help, served the food and wine. Argus suddenly realized that this woman, this daughter of a duke, had gone into the kitchens and set up a tray for her guests, with her own hands. Then he recalled that her own father had commanded her to do the same last evening. The Sunduns were evidently not very high in the instep.
    He quickly shook aside his pleasure at that thought. It had him thinking foolish things, such as a woman like her would not look down on a mere knight. Argus decided it might be time for him to take a few hours and vividly recall all the shattered marriages littering his family tree. That would be certain to cure him of this strange need he had to see her as a woman he could have for his own. It was a thought that had sneaked up on him when he was not looking, and he intended to send it crawling back into the dark hole it had come out of.
    Out of the corner of his eye he caught his sister studying him and Lorelei and felt a chill go down his spine. Olympia had long insisted that he needed to marry despite the fact that she was six and twenty and still unwed. He suspected she thought a wife would stop him from doing things for the government, things that put him deep in danger and secrets. When he got the chance he would have to have a long talk with his sister. He would not have her trying her hand at matchmaking.
    â€œHave you come up with a plan?” asked Lorelei as she sat on a little chair angled so that she could see all of them.
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    â€œIf it is acceptable, I think we should stay here,” said Olympia.
    â€œAlthough her father has already offered that, if in an indirect way, I am not sure that is a good idea,” said Argus.
    Lorelei refused to be hurt by his reluctance to stay near her. She preferred to think that he was simply acting like all bachelors and trying to stay free of the marital net he could feel slipping over him. A little voice in her head whispered that she was indulging in wishful thinking, but she shushed it. She had never had a man look at her as Argus did, or kiss her as he did. It had to mean something.
    â€œHeed me, Argus,” Olympia said. “You are not yet healed enough to travel far. If we attempt to take you somewhere else it will sap what strength you have regained. Do not think I do not know that your ribs are bound up tight, for you still wince faintly when you move a certain way. There is also the fact that your enemy is probably in the area searching for you