“With all the things we’ve done together, there’s something you wouldn’t let me watch? I think ’tis a bit late to be getting self-conscious around me,” he said. She couldn’t decide if she was picking up a hint of lazy amusement in his voice or not.

“Go. A. Way,” she gritted.

He didn’t. She could feel him standing there, his regard an intense pressure on the back of her skull.

“Chloe-lass,” he said then, softly. Tenderly. “Turn around, sweet.”

He knew, she thought, absolutely mortified. Nobody would fall for that pathetic excuse she’d made up.

But this wasn’t the moment she’d picked. She’d had it all planned out and he was ruining it for her!

“Chloe,” he repeated softly.

“Oh!” Something in her suddenly, simply snapped, and she spun about to face him. Plunking her fists at her waist, she shouted, “I love you! Okay? But I didn’t want to say it that way, I wanted to say it just right and you
ruined it.”

Scowling, she leaped from the chair and stormed from the hall.

Chapter 22

22

Dageus stood motionless in the great hall.

That had been singularly the most unforgettable moment of his life.

When he was his da’s age—in the event he had the luxury of living that long—he had no doubt he’d still be replaying the vision of Chloe perched on that chair before the shield, practicing how to say she loved him, just right.

At first when he’d come abovestairs to fetch fresh candles for the chamber library, and he’d walked into the great hall, what she’d been doing hadn’t made sense to him. He’d genuinely thought she was gushing over the artifact.

He teased her, and only then had he noticed the tension and misery emanating from her. She’d begun to babble, which was always a dead giveaway that she was upset. When she’d given him her absurd spiel about positive reinforcement or some such nonsense, he’d realized what she’d really been doing.

Practicing how to tell him she loved him.

How utterly adorable she was.

She loved him. She’d said it. Of course she’d shouted it at him, but a man could deal with that when the woman loved him more than the whole world was big.

He laughed exultantly, turned sharply on his heel, and hurried off to catch her. And to tell her that, since he was bigger, he was fair certain he loved her more.

But it didn’t work out quite that way, for he didn’t catch her until she was almost to the bedchamber.