He had released her arm when he spoke. Now, after a long, cold glance at her, he turned and began walking again. She moved quickly to keep up.

When he addressed her, it was while staring straight ahead, his voice low and intense. “You are speaking like someone scarcely a person. If you want to play gracious Princess with the petty lordlings who mince about, courting you, it is none of my affair, but—”

“The lords of Cathal are not petty, sir! They—”

“Do not, please, insult us both! That emasculated whipping-boy this afternoon? His father? I would take great pleasure in killing Bragon. They are worse than petty, all of them. And if you speak to me as you do to them, you cheapen both of us unbearably.”

They had reached the lyren again. Somewhere within her a bird was stirring. She moved ruthlessly to curb it, as she had to.

“My lord Prince, I must say I am surprised. You can hardly expect less formal conversation, in this, our first—”

“But I do expect it! I expect to see and hear the woman. Who was a girl who climbed all the trees in this garden. The Princess in her role bores me, hurts me. Demeans tonight.”

“And what is tonight?” she asked, and bit her lip as soon as she spoke.

“Ours,” he said.

And his arms were around her waist in the shadows of the lyren, and his mouth, descending, was upon her own. His head blocked the moon, but her eyes had closed by then anyway. And then the wide mouth on hers was moving, and his tongue—

“No!” She broke away violently, and almost fell. They faced each other a few feet apart. Her heart was a mad, beating, winged thing she had to control. Had to. She was Sharra, daughter of—

“Dark Rose,” he said, his voice unsteady. He took a step towards her.

“No!” Her hands were up to ward him.

Diarmuid stopped. Looked at her trembling figure. “What do you fear in me?” he asked.

Breathing was difficult. She was conscious of her breasts, of the wind about her, the nearness of him, and of a dark warmth at her center, where—

“How did you cross the river?” she blurted out.

She expected mockery again. It would have helped. His gaze was steady, though, and he stayed absolutely motionless.

“I used a mage’s arrow and a rope,” he said. “I crossed hand over hand above the water and climbed a ladder cut into the cliff several hundred years ago. I give you this as between you and me. You will not tell?”

She was Princess of Cathal. “I make no such promise, for I cannot. I will not betray you now in any way, but secrets endangering my people—”

“And what do you think I did in telling you? Am I not heir to a throne, just as you are?”

She shook her head. Some voice within was wildly telling her to run, but instead she spoke, as carefully as she could. “You must not think, my lord Prince, to win a daughter of Shalhassan, merely by coming here and—”