Her eyes fell briefly to his hand holding the bread before she turned back to the pool. A crease appeared in her brow as she considered her reflection for a long moment. She let out a faint snort, either mockery or exasperation, before dragging her hand across the surface in a quick swipe and turning away.

Her practical air returned. From her bag she pulled a square of linen and a small jar and held it out to him. At his questioning look, she pointed down at his hand, where the knuckles were scraped and swollen from fighting. He recognized the jar from the priory; it held the salve she had used on the wounded knight. When he reached to take it from her, she pulled it back suddenly and said, “Is better you wash the wounds first.”

Her voice held the slightest tremor, so unexpected and so revealing that he felt it shiver through him. He savored the sweet echo of it as he went to the water and did as she instructed.

This morning seemed a lifetime ago, but her touch had not been a dream, nor a hopeful imagining. There was a curiosity in her, a thread of desire. He had seen it. It was in her even now.

He turned back to her and walked carefully forward, ever wary. He knew he must not move too sudden, lest she feel trapped with the wall of stone at her back. Nor could he be too timid. He had spent years in being too timid, and he was free of that, too.

When he held his dripping hand out to her, she did not give him the jar as he expected, but patted the linen over his fingers to dry them. She attended his cuts as she attended to every task – brisk and sensible, efficient in her every move.

But after she finished and tied a strip of linen around his hand, she did not turn away. When he dared to brush his fingers across her cheek, she did not object. She did not move at all, except to swallow and wet her parted lips in a more provocative display than he’d seen in five long and lonely years.

It took every ounce of discipline he’d ever learned not to pull her to him and crush her against his heat. Instead he bent his neck to bring himself closer to her. He tipped her face up to look down at her mouth, the way her lashes lowered and her cheeks flushed pink, and her breath – oh God, how her breath caught, the unsteady rise and fall of her breast.