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to mend.”
    Mary pursed her lips. “The gash was long. Surely we should stitch it?”
    Erik’s voice was dry. “Already did.”
    Mary looked at him in shock. “What, you stitched your own stomach wound?”
    He nodded. “You were both exhausted and feverish. The wound needed stitching to avoid infection. Not much other choice.”
    Mary paled at the thought of the pain he must have endured. “Next time, wake me. I can work through a fever.”
    He turned to look at her, raising his eyebrows. “Next time?”
    She smiled despite herself, and when he smiled in return a flush of heat washed through her.
    He turned away suddenly, his eyes moving to the shelves neatly stacked with loaves of bread and rosy apples. When he spoke his voice seemed rough. “Do you live here alone?”
    Mary’s cheeks burnished with warmth. She dropped her eyes to her gloved hands, pulling a cuff to settle one more firmly around her fingers. “I ask only one thing of you, while we heal up in this tower.”
    He stilled at that, and his gaze moved to the blade before him. “Anything.”
    A tendril of desire traced through her, that this consummate swordsman, a man of honor who had defied his family for the love of a woman, would put himself so fully in her hands. A wealth of longings cascaded through her thoughts, but she pushed them away with well-practiced discipline. She owed it to the Lady who had taken her in to follow her orders to the last.
    Still, her voice was hoarse when she spoke. “I have my reasons for valuing my privacy. Please do not press me for more information. I will give it when I am able.”
    He glanced toward the arrow slit, and at last he nodded. “You ask very little, for what you have done. I doubt anyone at the keep even gave thought to sending out a full rescue party.”
    Mary flushed at that, looking down, letting her hair fall to shield her face. There had been heated discussion in the keep’s central hall when Lynessa’s plan had become known. It was only with the greatest of effort that her counter-scheme had been allowed to move forward.
    She had presented her argument so many times that to summarize it to Erik took little thought. “The Caradocs have nearly fifty men, and no matter how they got their hands on you, they would have hunkered down in that tower,” she pointed out. “If the keep’s troops had tried to get to you with a full show of force, you would undoubtedly have been slain before they reached that final room.”
    Erik did not answer, but his draws of the stone against his sword became angular and hard.
     
    * * *
     
    Something drew Mary into wakefulness, and she blinked her eyes against the soft light, gaining her bearings. It was barely dawn, judging by the soft shadows. Erik was peering through the shutters, his body at full alert, his sword in his hand.
    Mary eased silently from the covers, drawing up the cloak by the bed and wrapping it around her shoulders. She carefully hobbled around to stand beside Erik, tilting her head to get a better view without touching the shutters.
    Four men on horseback stood before the outer wall’s gates, staring up at the tower.
    She resisted the urge to draw back, to lunge for her sword. Instead she held stock still. To them the shutters were a dark, impenetrable wall, with only shadows behind. As long as nothing moved suddenly or caught their attention, the tower would seem long abandoned.
    One of the horsemen nudged his steed forward, pushing back his cloak’s hood. The shock of orange-red hair caught Mary off guard. Surely Geoff could not have recovered from the dagger to the throat? She remembered him lying there, dead –
    She shook her head. Of course. It was his brother, the bartender. Her mind searched for a name. Josiah, that was it. They must have called out every last man if he was on the road and not guarding the home base.
    Josiah turned to the other men, his anger clear in his angular movements. “Come on, then,” he called to them.