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heed. She looked back at Deryll. "You knew all along she was there."
    "Course he did." Cerdwin backed across the threshold. "'Tis why he hasna' bedded you."
    Airin riveted her gaze onto the maid in time to see the door close behind her. She narrowed her eyes on Deryll.
    "Step aside."
    "You do not wish to be bedded?"
    She rolled her eyes and reached to shove him aside. Her palm connected with the hard muscle of his chest. As if made of stone, he did not move. Airin fell back a pace.
    "Do you intend to force me?"
    Both his brows rose. "Is that what you wish?"
    "You are mad."
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    The Pendulum
    by Tarah Scott
    "'Tis no answer."
    "What I wish is of no consequence."
    "Not so," he replied.
    "Indeed?"
    "I fulfilled your condition," he said. "'Tis a bargain."
    Her gaze rested on the scar running down his cheek. She fisted her hands at her sides. "Why you?"
    He looked genuinely surprised, then laughed. "Who were you expecting?"
    "Not you." What was amiss with her? She had turned into a shrew.
    "Anyone but me?" he asked.
    "I gave you no thought."
    He laughed again. "Lady, you know how to cut a man."
    Airin gave him a recriminating look. "Do not play the wounded lover. I was a child when you left. You gave me no thought."
    "I cared for you," he replied.
    "As a sister."
    "Mayhap, but that is eight years past. Today, I need no sister." He slipped an arm around her waist and pulled her close.
    Despite her efforts, her heart pounded as her breasts pressed into the hard contours of his chest. Their lips were a hair's breadth apart, his breath a warm flutter against her cheek. Her nipples hardened and she closed her eyes. Could he feel her arousal? Heat flashed over her at the thought, and fanned out from between her legs.
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    The Pendulum
    by Tarah Scott
    Moist lips touched hers. Deryll's flattened palm slid to the curve of her buttocks as he spread moist kisses over her jaw and down her neck. At the curve of neck and shoulder, he flicked his tongue. Shivers raced down her body and fueled the fire between her legs. Her knees weakened. She threw her arms around his neck, her head falling forward onto his shoulder. He groaned, the sound resonating in his chest and startling her. She jerked her head up, and he kissed her, his fingers threading into the hair held tight against her head by the plait.
    The door flew open. "Lady Airin!" Cerdwin cried.
    Airin jumped back, breathing hard.
    "What is amiss?" Deryll demanded.
    The commanding note in his voice yanked Airin from the haze of passion and she registered Cerdwin's flushed face.
    "What? Quickly, what?"
    "Your father—"
    Airin faltered a step toward her nurse.
    "He was attacked."
    Airin started forward, but tripped on the carpet. Strong arms caught her and she looked up into green eyes gone hard.
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    The Pendulum
    by Tarah Scott

CHAPTER FIVE
    "Sheriff, we are finished," Airin said without looking up from her father. Her heart constricted. He appeared far too pale. She smoothed back locks of hair that stuck to his sweaty cheek.
    "If your father awakens I must question him," Gewain said.
    Airin jerked her head up, pinning him with a glare. "If?
    Leave, before one of my father's men throws you out on your—"
    "My lady!" Cerdwin cried, pushing past Gewain in order to enter the room.
    Deryll filled the doorway behind her. "Wait in the great hall if it pleases you," he said to Gewain. "Better yet, find this killer before he attacks again."
    "I have no proof the attack on his lordship is connected with Lord Bothwell's murder," Gewain said.
    Airin's jaw clenched. "What sort of fool are you?"
    "The kind that does not make snap decisions, my lady ."
    "Be gone," she said as Cerdwin hurried around the bed, clean bandages in hand. "Be gone from my father's house altogether. The great hall will not be your refuge this day."
    The maid set the bandages on the bed and Airin reached for one as Cerdwin knelt on the mattress, slid her arms beneath Douglas' shoulders, and lifted him. Airin slipped the first