“Uncaring? Uncaring? What do you want me to do? Throw out all the Fae and other guests staying in my house and tell Breanna she can have her choice of the guest rooms for a romp between the sheets?”

Selena felt a tingle in her fingertips, the sizzle of temper. Remembering that the man riding beside her also sizzled when his temper rose and still hadn’t learned to completely control his gift from the Mother, she put all her desire to smack him into one word. “Jackass.”

His mouth opened and closed, opened and closed. He reminded her so much of a hooked trout tossed up on the bank that she found his expression much more satisfying than calling him a jackass.

“Very well, Baron Liam. You win. Your sister should remain chaste because spending time with a man she cares about would inconvenience the people who supposedly love her. Although, I suppose if there was a woman you wanted in your bed for the next few days, you’d find a way of having the privacy to have sex with her. If you deny Breanna what you’d take for yourself, that just makes you—”

His face was such an alarming shade of red, she forgot what she was going to call him.

You gave his toes a good stomp that time, didn’t you? The thought made her fiercely curious to know what woman he yearned for at night but didn’t think he could approach.

“I’ll think about it,” Liam said through gritted teeth. “I-I’ll think about it.”

He dug his heels into his gelding’s sides. The horse leaped forward, galloped past the startled escorts. Half the escorts galloped after him. The rest stayed with her, looking anxiously over their shoulders until Varden rode up beside her.

“Lady? Is something wrong?”

She looked at Varden. Liam was right about that. The Fae were afraid of her. She smiled at him, wanting to put him more at ease. “No, Lord Varden, there’s nothing wrong. Baron Liam is just…acting like a man.”

Varden frowned. “Is that a bad thing?”

Her smile warmed with real humor. “It depends on one’s point of view. Come along. I rode through the Old Place so fast the other day, I didn’t get a good look at it.” And it will give Liamtime to find his balance again before he has to deal with having me in his house as one of his guests.

Liam paced his study, ignoring the blend of humor and alarm on Donovan’s face as the other man stretched his legs out and slouched in a chair.

Finally, Liam whirled around to face his friend. “Did you have sex with Gwenn before you married her?”

Donovan stiffened, all humor gone. “That’s none of your business, Baron Liam.”

“Don’t turn into a gentry prude, just answer the question like a man.”

Donovan rose slowly. “What’s this about?”