Memories from that night filled his head. The low voice of reason chanted the cost, but he ignored its irritating caution. He wanted her with a ferocity that made the last weeks seem tame. He pushed her against the wall and took her breasts in his hands. A throaty groan sighed out of her as he caressed and teased and commanded her to totally capitulate to the delirium with him.

He thought she would. Thought she had. Her soothing hands stroked up his back to his shoulders, and slid down his arms to his hands. She held them to her breasts and returned a kiss of such poignant depth that he thought his body would split in two. Then her fingers closed tightly on his wrists and stilled his caress. She broke the kiss and stayed there, breathing deeply, her head resting against the wall, her eyes closed and her expression sad.

Her lids fluttered open. “Now I remember what that night was about. Lust.”

He wanted to hit her for that. If not for the softness in her gaze that said more than any words, he might have. “Calling it base does not make it so, Nesta.”

“Considering your duty, it would be unbearably reckless for either of us to call it anything else.” She slipped away from him, and limped to her table. “You must not touch me again. If you have any affection for me at all, if you truly do not think me a whore, you must do what I have done, and make that night a magical memory from another world.”

“Your ability to be practical impresses me, my lady.”

“Well, I have had more experience at that than most. When the troubadours sing about me, they do not warble love songs.”

She sat down calmly, but Marcus noticed that the hand that uncovered the ink pot was shaking. He watched the clumsy fumbling with the brush that belied her indifferent words. He felt the confusion and fear in her that could not hide behind her careful pose.

She began to continue her design, but a careless movement sent the ink pot’s little top clattering to the floor. It rolled over to his feet. He picked it up, placed it beside the pot, and walked away.

He had made no promises, but he would not be touching her again soon. With the way things stood, if he was right about her complicity in the rebellion, to do so would be as contemptible and stupid as he had once said it would be.

A man should not bed a woman he might one day have to hand over to the executioner.

Nesta was careful to do nothing to fuel Marcus’s suspicions during the next days. She had no doubt that he would lock her in her chamber if he had cause, and so she gave him none.