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definitely a woman who knew
what she wanted, and she knew how to get it. Encouraged by her enthusiasm, he
wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer, delving tenderly
between her teeth with his tongue.
    He
slid his palm along her spine until his hand rested at her waist. But he
hungered for more. Pressing the bulge j in
his braies against her belly, he slipped his hand down   farther
to urge her close, cupping the sweet curve of her buttocks.
    The
next thing he knew, the earth was yanked out from j under
him. He was laid out flat on his back. And beside j him
was the patch of—what was it? Ah, yes, kailaan.     
     
    Chapter 4
    “W hat the ... !”
    Miriel
looked down at him with a mixture of satisfaction and horror. She hadn't wanted
to do that. Forsooth, her heart was still racing with the thrill of kissing Sir
Rand. But she couldn't allow him such liberties, for if she did, she feared she
might forget all about her real motives for courting him.
    "Sweet
Mary!" she exclaimed in faux surprise. "Did you trip over the
roses?"
    Of course he
hadn't tripped over the roses. He'd tripped over the foot she 'd
swept behind his heel.
    He blinked and
sat up. utterly perplexed.
    Before he could
think too much on what had happened, she reached down to
help him up. "Perchance
you fainted from
hunger.   Would
you like another piece of pandemain? Sung Li left the platter."
    "I 'm
not hungry," he said as he struggled to his feet, study ing the
ground, trying to ascertain what had tripped him.
    "You're
not?" She brushed the dirt from his shoulder, then said carefully,
"You seemed hungry in the forest."
    He
looked keenly at her. "Indeed? What makes you say that?"
    She
gulped. When Rand smiled, he was irresistibly handsome. His dimpled cheeks were
boyish, and his eyes twinkled like stars. But now, pinning her with a dark,
questioning stare, he seemed possibly dangerous.
    She
forced a nonchalant shrug. "Isn't that what you were doing in the woods?
Hunting for something to eat?"
    His
eyes narrowed slightly, and she got the feeling he was trying to read her
thoughts. Then he lightened his grip on her hand and let amusement creep into
his gaze. "You know perfectly well what I was doing in the woods,
sweetheart."
    Miriel
blushed at the memory. She hadn't meant that.
    "And
anytime you'd like to take another peek at what's in my braies..."
    She
nervously withdrew her hand. "Sir, we've only begun to court," she
chided. "You move too swiftly. I am a maiden, after all. Mayhap later,
when we are better acquainted—"
    "Better
acquainted?" He plucked up a tendril of her hair and wound it around his
finger. "Why, my lady, I'd have thought, looking after me night and day in
Morbroch's pavilion, you'd be very well acquainted with my every aspect."
    Lord,
the deceit dripped off his tongue as smoothly as honey from a comb. She'd never
looked after him. She'd invented that. And he knew it. Forsooth, she was beginning
to wonder if the scheming varlet had ever come to Rivenloch at all.
    He raised the lock of her hair
and kissed it. "At any r ate, forgive me, my lady,
if I frightened you. I'll try to temper m y passions in the future." He
stroked her cheek with
the back of one finger. "Though 'tis devilishly
hard." Then he
leaned forward to whisper in her ear. "Devilishly.   Hard.”
    There
was no mistaking his meaning. God's blood, he was a
knave. She should have cracked him across his handsome face for such vulgarity.
But 'twould not serve her purposes. If she meant to wheedle information from him,
she had to play his game. So she gave him a deceptively timid smile.
    "Fear
not, dear heart." He gave her a benign kiss on the brow. "I'll take
my leave now before your ill-tempered maid reports that we are unaccompanied.
Your kin do not seem the understanding kind, and since I've been summoned to
the tiltyard..." He sighed. " 'Twill seem an eternity till we meet
again."
    With
a sly grin and a cursory but suggestive appraisal of her from head to