Saetan hesitated. He thought he’d taken an accurate measure of Marian’s temperament when she’d stayed at the Hall during Winsol, but the woman who had flung snow on him and snapped at him in her kitchen didn’t fit that measure. “She wasn’t reacting as I would have expected.” He frowned. “She’d struck me as a quiet-natured woman, but . . .”

Lucivar shrugged. “She usually is, but she gets feisty when she’s riled.”

Riled. Yes, that was a good way to describe the woman he’d seen that morning.

Lucivar set the glass down so carefully, Saetan suspected it was taking every bit of self-control to keep from throwing the glass at the wall.

“Is she going to leave?” Lucivar asked. “Should I stay away until she can—” He swallowed hard, unable to finish.

That, Saetan realized, was the root of Lucivar’s fear—that the woman he was in love with, the woman he’d been courting so carefully over the last few months, would want nothing from him except the chance to escape. Lucivar wouldn’t believe him right now if he said escape was the last thing on Marian’s mind.

“May I offer you some advice?” Saetan asked. “Not as your father or as the Steward of the court, but as a man who talked to Marian this morning.”

Misery filling his gold eyes, Lucivar said, “What’s your advice?”

Saetan smiled dryly. “Get your ass home in time for dinner.”

He found her in the kitchen, arranging slices of bread and cheese on plates while something that smelled delicious simmered on the stove. How many times had he come home to find her like this, preparing the evening meal for them, her warm smile of welcome a feast to a heart that had been starving for love for so many centuries? Now he wasn’t sure what he should say to her, what he should do.

“Marian.”

She looked up, and the unhappiness in her eyes was a twisting knife in his gut.

“I wasn’t sure you would come back,” she said, turning back to fuss with the bread and cheese.

“I wasn’t sure you wanted me to come back,” he replied honestly.

She started to speak, then shook her head and picked up the plates. “Have something to eat.” The plates clattered on the counter. She hunched her shoulders, as if to ward off a blow. “You didn’t have to run away. I wasn’t expecting anything from you because of this. You didn’t have to run.”