She faltered when the cadence in his deep voice shifted to something low and much too sultry on two particular words in that sentence. Did…the Duke of Thornbury just make a filthy, bawdy joke at her expense? Her mouth opened and closed, ears going hot. Surely he wasn’t referring to her as the pie. Heat drizzled through her like thickened honey. “If you’re using sexual congress as a decidedly unclever metaphor, I assure you that my pie is burned and completely inedible.”

“I’ll withhold judgment until I can savor at my leisure.”

Oh dear heavens.

If she wasn’t already half-frozen, she would melt, starting from the place between her thighs that felt like it was currently incarnating a waterfall. “Shall we go in?” she asked, changing the subject before she did something stupid like drag him to the floor, mount his face like the lusty heathen she was, and demand to be eaten.

“It’s safe.”

Entering through a low archway that was just a darker shadow, her fingertips drifting over the old stone, Bronwyn found herself inside a roomy ground floor that was miraculously dry, despite the dilapidated appearance of the structure. And not freezing! Vermin or not, this was much better than being cold and clammy.

“I think this might once have been a water tower,” Thornbury said from her right, making her jump. She hadn’t heard him move and she could barely see now that he’d closed the heavy, half-rotted door, shielding them from the bitter bite of the outside air. “But it’s not connected to the old waterworks down the way. It’s clean and should do for the night.”

“Do you think those men are still after us?” she asked softly, rubbing her hands over her stiff arms that felt like two columns of ice. Now that she wasn’t arguing with him, or being stupidly seduced by him, she felt every painful tremor of her tired, cold muscles. Beneath Thornbury’s coat that had lost every ounce of its warmth, her shirt and trousers felt as though they had been frozen directly to her skin.

“Not tonight and not with their injuries.”

Relieved, Bronwyn nodded. “Would a small fire draw notice?”

“No, and there are some pieces of wood over here that should do. Some woodsman or worker must have been in here before us. Either that, or the beams above are old. There’s a pile in the corner.”

Within minutes, Bronwyn busied herself gathering some of the chunks of wood that might have been left behind or fallen off the half-rotted beams in the ceiling—she fervently hoped no more would come tumbling down upon their heads—and stacking them into a small pile, along with dry leaves and small twigs. Moving mostly by touch and the faint moonlight from the narrow cutouts above, it was slow going, though her eyes were growing used to the darkness.