“I dinna’ say you had to pay me in coin,” he replied.
He could have blown her over with a sweep of a hearth broom with such a statement. Sybil’s eyes widened before she could help it and glance down. And worse. He took such a response as his due. She knew it by his chuckle, followed almost immediately by an increase of breath at her nose.
“So…what say you? A kiss…for a bit of information?”
Actually, he was in danger of receiving a great quantity of linden flowers. Enough to make his head pound with ache for days. No! Sennights of time! Sybil had never met a man more willing to tempt such a fate from her.
Stupid man.
“Dinna’ you hear me?” she asked. “I have chores.”
“What are they?” he asked.
“The ones no one else will do, of course.”
“You’re a lady.”
Sybil tipped her head to one side. “Of a sort,” she replied. “I bear the mark of bastardy and am a poor relation to boot.”
“So what is it they make you do? Since you have these horrible things to bear?”
“Why?”
“Because a little wench walked into my life today, stole my senses, and entrapped them in the palm of her hand. And I’ve yet to even ken her name. Why else?”
“Wenches walk into your life ever, toad prince. Your path is littered with them. You walk on them. What difference does one more make?”
He drew back a fraction, giving her enough space to breathe, and looked at her strangely. “This one is verra odd, though. Verra.”
“Why? This one does na’ fall at your feet and worship the ground you stand atop?”
He grinned. The dimples came out in full force. Sybil fought the blush of reaction and cursed it at the same time. It was horrible.
“Na’ yet, mayhap,” he replied.
“Oooh.” The word came out before she could prevent it. She watched him glance to the bow shape her mouth made as she said it, and then he moved his gaze back to hers. There was nothing for it. Arrogance such as he was filled with was just asking for a set-down…begging for it: putting it right out there for her to do something about it.
Sybil smiled slyly and lifted a shoulder. “Shall we make a challenge of it, my handsome toad prince?” she asked.
She got one dark eyebrow quirked up again in a high arch. That particular ability was uncommon and of little use. Unless one were as overblessed with physical attributes as this man had been. Then it was obviously put to use, whenever he wished, and on any number of unsuspecting females. The unsettled feeling she’d been harboring since meeting him knotted into a ball in her belly and started pounding with the annoyance of it. He was obnoxious and completely unaware of what fate was about to deal him.
“A challenge?”
“Last one standing…wins,” she told him.
“Nae,” he answered. “I have a better challenge.”
“There is naught better,” she replied in disbelief.
“Then I’ll use my words for it. First one on their back…loses.”
The way he said the last words had an angry tremor traveling from the bottom of her spine, up over her head, across her nose, and flitting from there right to each nipple, making them hard and sensitive and horribly aroused right in front of him. And he knew it! She watched him look there and smile. A slow, seductive smile, so practiced he was probably known by it as well.
Sybil had never felt an emotion so akin to hate, but suspected that what was happening to her was close to it. She’d never felt such anger and malice. She was very near to shaking with it.
“Agreed,” she replied.
“What?” He moved his gaze from contemplation of her breasts and met her eyes again.
“I agree to this contest of yours.”
“Contest?”
Not only was he a wretch, but he couldn’t think, either? “Aye. Contest. Of wits. Now stand aside. I have chores. They will na’ get done if I stand in a hall being bothered by you.”
“You admit to being bothered, do you?”
She swallowed. “I admit nothing. Here.”
He was watching as she pulled a ball of twine from an inner fold of her cloak. She always carried a small ball of it. Such a thing was of many uses when gathering, checking, and securing things. “Help me.”
“What is it you’re about?” he asked.
“Measuring.”
“Measuring,” he replied in the same even tone she was using.
“Work is being done on this tower. I have the chore of overseeing it and putting it into place. I need measurements for such a thing. If you waylay me, at least make yourself useful.”
“How long am I to hold it?”
“Dinna’ fash, toad prince. I’ll return when I’ve made the measure. Can you do this?”
“Hold one end of a ball of string?” he asked in an incredulous tone. This time both of his eyebrows were lifted.
“We’ll move to more difficult chores once I see how well you handle this one. So. Can you?”
In answer, he plucked the ball from her hand, pulled the end free, and handed the twine back to her. Sybil held it loosely in her palm, allowing it to unwind as she went down the spiral of stairs, trying very hard not to skip. She didn’t look back. She was afraid she’d giggle.
Chapter Three
This wench was going to be the toughest yet. Ever.
No wonder his cousin had offered such a sum of gold to gain her heart—and then do what he did best once he had it. Walk away. He should have expected such a wench when Myles Magnus Donal had broken through the side wall of Lord Shrewsbury’s dungeon in order to free Vincent. He really should have suspected such a trick when he got the challenge that came along with his freedom. Find the littlest Eschon lady, make her thrill for love of him, and then make certain she suffered heartburning. He was to leave. They’d pay him all the gold he could carry if he did so. Which was stupid. That’s what he always did. Exactly like he always did. And then Myles had made the task even more intriguing with the formidable qualification that Vincent had to do it without physical means.
They wished him to get a wench to fall in love with him without benefit of touch? Good thing Vincent knew exactly the scope of his talents. Any other man would have thanked them for the freedom, turned down the challenge, and walked away. Not him. They’d made it illicit, intriguing, and irresistible.
Now he realized he’d been shammed. Completely. He should have known Myles hadn’t changed. The Donal laird always won at any contest. Vincent should have remembered that.
Vincent ran the entire length of their castle curtain wall twice before he dared face the wench again. There was emotion fueling his frame and filling his chest. He had to get it under control before he met her again. The little wench had stirred his passion, all right. She’d angered him to the point he had to physically work it out. That wasn’t supposed to happen.
The run wasn’t easy going. Chunks of masonry had fallen or been chiseled off in what looked like continual repair, and the boulders had to be dodged or jumped. Vincent increased his stride rather than take a cautionary pace. Fading light made it difficult, and that required instantaneous reaction. Which was exactly