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certainly deserved some sort of punishment for his blasphemy in the chapel. She wasn’t quite sure why nudity was a sacrilege, but since the abbot seemed to be certain it was, she would hardly argue the fact. She leaned back against the cushions, watching him. She could hear the murmur of voices behind the closed curtains of the litter, the sounds of the horses as they moved steadily westward, and she told herself to enjoy the peace.
    She lasted almost an hour before she moved forward on her knees and reached for the blindfold. He sat motionless, not even jumping when her hands touched his cool skin, and she untied the cloth that was knotted around his eyes and pulled it away.
    He blinked, looking at her over the strip of material that bound his mouth. And
then
he raised a questioning eyebrow, once more reminding her of a curious hawk.
    “I should leave you like that,” she said in a cross voice. “That behavior in the chapel was disgraceful! I can’t imagine why you would do such a thing. It’s lucky that the abbot didn’t manage to have you flogged—I’m certain you deserved it.”
    He couldn’t say anything, of course, and she was half tempted to lecture on to her captive audience, except that she was always scrupulously fair.
    “If I untie you, will you behave yourself?” she demanded.
    He just looked at her, offering no promises, and she sat back, folding her hands in her lap, prepared to be firm.
    She tried to close her eyes, humming to herself. She pushed aside the heavy curtain and peered out at the countryside, but since her view was the rump of Father Paulus’s mule she shut it fairly quickly.
    It was too dim and too bouncy in the litter for needlework, and there was a limit as to how long she could ignore the patient, watching man.
    She rose on her knees again, sighing loudly. “I don’t understand how you can be so bothersome even when you aren’t saying or doing anything,” she grumbled. “Lean forward and I’ll unfasten the gag.”
    He leaned forward obediently, his silken hair falling in his face. It took her a while to unfasten the knot, and all the while he was perilously close to her chest. She wore layers of linen and silk and wool, and she could still feel his breath on her skin. Her hands were clumsy, oddly trembling, and when she finally loosened the gag, she sank back on her side of the litter, letting out her pent-up breath when she hadn’t even realized she’d been holding it in.
    He shook his head free of the cloth, his long hair falling away from his face. She waited for him to speak, to thank her, but he said nothing, patient, watching her. And then he made a faint, shrugging gesture, to call her attention to his still-bound wrists.
    “You could thank me, you know,” she muttered. “Turn around and I’ll untie you.”
    He didn’t move. In truth, she couldn’t blame him— the litter was cramped, stuffed with pillows, and shifting around would be difficult indeed. He managed to turn toward her, just slightly, but she had no choice but to lean up against him in order to reach the leather thongs that bound him.
    They were almost as stubborn as the cloth knotted around his mouth, and she was so intent on loosening them that it took a while for her to notice a few salient points: how warm and hard his body was against hers, with the resilience of muscle and sinew beneath the soft fabric of his tunic; how still he was, calm and silent, as she struggled with the leather; and how the back of his tunic was slowly staining dark red.
    The leather knot finally gave way, and his hands were free. Her balance failed, and she fell against him, but his hands came up to catch her, holding her mere inches from his body. Close enough to feel the tension, feel the heat. Close enough to look up into his utterly expressionless eyes and wonder what it would be like… what it would feel like…
    And then she saw the blood. She jerked away from him in shock. “What did they do to you?”
    For a