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lightning-quick flash of perturbation flaring in her magnificent eyes as she clutched both tunics to her wet-gleaming nakedness.
     
“And you, sir?” she challenged, the slant of her gaze reminding him at last of his own . . . exposure.
     
But, a true son of his father, Robbie could not keep his eyes from crinkling with reluctant amusement as he donned his own fresh garments. Then, having refastened his still-damp sword belt low on his waist, he folded his arms and waited in appreciative silence as she struggled into the undamaged tunic.
     
Knightly honor or nay, fetching lass or otherwise, an insistent cribbling along the back of his neck warned he ought not let her out of his sight—not even for her modesty’s sake.
     
She also warranted a close eye because her deliciously creamy skin held an unnatural waxy pallor. Equally alarming, she swayed on her feet. And despite all his precautions and care, she still shivered.
     
More vexing still, at least for him, she also seemed to have tangled her arms in his much-too-large-for-her tunic.
     
Robbie heaved a great sigh, knew himself lost. Looking on as she twisted and turned in her efforts to don the garment proved both an immeasurable delight and a torture beyond all imagining.
     
Unable to endure watching her innocently sensual windings a moment longer—or mayhap worse, not wishing to imagine how easily he could bring a cessation to her trembling if only he’d forget his honor long enough to pull her lushness flush against his body and un chill her with a searing, soul-stealing kiss—Robbie drew a stiff, bracing breath and strode forward.
     
He closed the short space between them in two long strides and, with one practiced flick of the tunic’s hem, urged its cloaking length down over her charms until the soft linen folds molded seductively to her bounty but also shielded each golden inch of her from prying eyes, including his own.
     
Especially his own!
     
Even so, he purposely lifted one corner of his mouth in a way he knew brought out his best dimpled smile.
     
Better to capture her attention with a look he hoped she’d find charming rather than risk her noting how intensely the temptation of her unclothed twistings and turnings had affected him.
     
There were some things a man simply could not hide.
     
Things even the best-draped plaid failed to disguise.
     
Careful to keep his gaze on her, and well above her fetching nose, Robbie willed her to look at him, to notice his smile. But she paid him scant heed. Not to his focused gaze, his dimpled smile, nor the unruly evidence of his admiration.
     
Indeed, she’d scarce smoothed the folds of his shirt in place o’er her sweetness before she began looking from side to side, her beautiful eyes troubled as if she sought something she’d lost but didn’t know what.
     
When she dropped to her knees and began searching through the wet heap of her ruined kirtle, Robbie could bear no more. “Come, lass,” he urged, his dimpled smile receding as he drew her to her feet. “Your kirtle has served its purpose—”
     
“You do not understand,” she protested, jerking free. “I’d hidden it for safekeeping . . . here, in the folds, see you? But it is gone.”
     
“It?” Robbie eyed the sodden gown, cocked a dubious brow. Save a wealth of patches and too many years of use, the kirtle had scarce little to offer. “What, lass? What are you searching for?”
     
“I— . . . cannot tell you . . .”
     
Robbie arched a brow, strove to ignore the increased surge of icy tingles spreading up and down the back of his neck. His gaze slanted to the spilled coins still fanned haphazardly across the grass.
     
Coins that, despite his noblest efforts, loosed his tongue.
     
Any maid with such reddened, work-worn hands would need a lifetime to gather even half as much siller. Truth be told, many a landed man he’d encountered o’er the years would rub their palms in glee to possess a lesser sum!
     
“Whether you can tell me or no, I think you