“Well, for all of the songs, it is the endings that should matter to you, the parts that describe how my father was so insulted that he broke with the King, and with England. That is the verse that gives you our home, and my sister’s hand.”

The mention of her sister darkened his expression again.

“If you find that too unpleasant, do not do it. If bedding her after kissing me distresses you, refuse this marriage,” she said.

He looked down in a way that seemed to see right through her. “Ah, so that was your plan. Beguile the dim-witted knight so he lusts after the wrong woman, and spurns the one he has been given. Very clever. Nay, lady, this marriage will go forward. As you said, the King’s man should not be easily swayed by a few kisses in a garden.”

He appeared too determined, and not at all inclined to delay as long as she needed. In fact, he didn’t appear very distressed at all anymore.

That wouldn’t do.

She lowered her head and looked up at him through her lashes. She tried to summon a blush. “My lord, you give me far too much credit, and yourself far too little. It was not I casting the spell in the garden, nor I doing the beguiling. Last night … I could not help myself. You were very good.”

She had intended to be coy and audacious, and to confuse him again. But his eyes had locked on hers, and what passed between them made her voice falter on the last words. She felt her face truly burn.

The man gazing down at her did not appear at all shocked or perplexed. His expression did not soften, but its harshness transformed into a different sternness. The intimacy from the garden instantly appeared again, like a brisk, enlivening wind nipping at her, making her shiver from her scalp to her toes.

She turned away from his hot eyes and strode out of the market, toward the house.

In attempting to be clever she had spoken the truth.

She hadn’t been able to stop herself. It had been good. Too good.

And he knew it.

“I hate him.”

“You cannot hate what you do not know.” Nesta sat beside her sister in the garden where she had found Genith upon returning from the market. Genith was still sniffing back tears, so Nesta did not insist that they go inside, much as she wanted to. She would prefer to discuss Marcus of Anglesmore anywhere but here, on the very same bench where she had embraced him last night.