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  “You try to throw me off or bite me tomorrow, and the next time I need you, it will be for the fellmonger. Do we understand each other?”

  The horse—to which she now realized he was speaking—made a loud snorting sound, apparently not too worried about its hide.

  Elizabeth couldn’t hold back her laughter. “I see you haven’t lost your charm around horses. I don’t think he believes you. Rather than issuing threats, you might try a lump of sugar.”

  Thom scowled at her, whether for the interruption or for simply being there, she didn’t know. Probably both. “I tried that. The demonic beast nearly took off my hand.”

  Elizabeth stepped forward, moving around him, having care not to let their bodies brush. The warm, sultry air of the stables was not conducive to forgetting what had happened in the kitchens. Concentrate on the smell, she told herself. But the pungent earthy aroma of animals wasn’t distracting her flaring nerve endings.

  “He probably senses that you don’t like him,” she said. “I’ve told you a hundred times horses are sensitive creatures.”

  Thom made a sharp sound. “Sensitive my ars—” He stopped, remembering his company. “Not this one. He’s stubborn, pigheaded, ornery, and foul tempered.”

  Elizabeth shot him a look that said the horse might have something in common with someone else she knew.

  Making a cooing sound as if she was gentling her nephew, she reached out her hand—palm turned up—and let the horse sniff her for a moment. Telling him that he was a good boy, she stroked his neck and muzzle. The horse showed his pleasure in the stroking by lowering his ears and giving a soft nicker.

  “Aye, I can see what you mean,” she said, her mouth twitching. “He’s a real black-hearted devil, isn’t he?”

  Thom stood back, watching her with glaring eyes and crossed arms. “Do you charm snakes as well?”

  She grinned. “I’ll let you know.”

  His eyes narrowed, and she laughed again. God, she’d missed this. She’d missed him.

  Elizabeth held the horse’s mouth down with the lead rope and continued petting him, while Thom grumbled (something about the horse being a traitor), finished putting out some fresh hay (peppered with a few carrots and apples, she noticed), and checked the saddle and reins for the following day. He obviously took his riding seriously.

  When he was done, he finally turned to her. “Did you want something, Elizabeth?”

  The note of impatience in his voice made her bristle; it also reminded her of her purpose. “I wished to thank you for what you did for Archie.”

  “You’re welcome. Now if that is all . . .”

  He tried to walk past her but she stepped in front of him, putting her hand on his chest. It was a mistake. She could feel the beat of his heart under the solid shield of steel. That heady, warm feeling came over her again.

  She jerked her hand back and shook off the haze. “No it is not all. Why did you lie to me? Why did you let me think I could persuade you, when you’d already been ordered to go?”

  He didn’t have the decency to look ashamed by her discovery. In fact, he looked amused. “As I recall, I wasn’t the one who was bargaining. You were. If you didn’t like the terms you shouldn’t have offered them.”

  Elizabeth’s cheeks fired. “But you said . . .”

  She gazed up at him stricken, realizing the truth. He hadn’t said anything.

  “Did I?” he asked idly. “Or did you just make a lot of assumptions?”

  The latter. She was the one to put her body and then a kiss into the negotiations. But he’d still tricked her. “You could have told me it wasn’t necessary. Instead you let me . . .” She was too embarrassed to get the words out and looked away.

  “Lower yourself?” he filled in, although that wasn’t what she’d been about to say. Act like a wanton. “Aye, well, I wasn’t in the best state of mind. I was furious. You found me at an inopportune time.”

  She remembered exactly how she’d found him, and the woman who’d been touching him. “You mean I interrupted your plans so you just decided to take advantage of another opportunity?”

  He looked confused for a moment, but then one corner of his mouth lifted. “Aye, something like that.”

  She stared at him, feeling as if a big, heavy lump of ore was burning in her chest. “You’ve changed, Thom.”

  The disappointment in her voice seemed to spark his temper. “Why? Because I didn’t keep my hands to myself like a good lad? Because I took you up on your offer? Or because I made the perfect little princess feel something as base as lust?” She gasped, outraged, but he continued. “What you are seeing now has always been there; you just haven’t wanted to see it.”

  “You’re wrong. The boy I knew would never try to purposefully hurt me. I know you are angry, but this is not who you are—you are better than this.”

  The locking of his jaw was the only indication he’d heard her. “Maybe you didn’t know me as well as you thought you did.”

  “Maybe you are right,” she threw back angrily. “I knew a young lad who mourned the loss of his mother but who was too proud even at ‘almost nine’ to let anyone know that he cried for her. I knew a lad who would laugh for hours at horrible jokes to make a little girl happy. I knew a lad who comforted an eight-year-old child who had lost her father and been left penniless in a cruel world. I knew a lad who never once asked what happened in those difficult years, but seemed to understand anyway. I knew a lad who would clear a place for me by the forge and let me watch him work, who climbed towers to spend hours telling me stories under the stars, who was a good son, a good brother, and a good friend—the best. Who was honorable and kind, and always did what was right. That was what I saw in you, Thommy. God, I never even noticed how ridiculously handsome you are! I was so dazzled by the person on the inside—the person who I thought was my friend—that was all I could see.”

  Thom was thunderstruck. He didn’t know what to say. He’d wronged her, he realized, blaming her for not loving him, when in fact she had. Not the way he wanted her to perhaps, but she’d loved him all the same.

  He swore and raked his fingers through his hair, feeling like an arse. A ridiculously handsome one—which shouldn’t please him as much as it did.

  She was right. This wasn’t who he was. He’d cut off her attempts to re-establish the friendship between them to protect himself. But there was a difference between self-protection and how he’d lashed out at her in the kitchens. He’d had a right to be angry—but not at her.

  But Elizabeth was caught up in her own anger and didn’t give him a chance to apologize. “Maybe it is you who doesn’t know me as well as you thought you did. You claimed to love me, but what you loved doesn’t exist—it never has. You saw a little girl in a castle and held her up as some kind of unattainable object. Something out of reach and untouchable, like a pretty statue of painted marble. But I’ve never asked to be on a pedestal, you just put me there. I don’t sit on thrones wearing gold robes or float around in a faerie garden with butterflies flittering around my head always smiling and happy. And I’m sure as Hades not perfect.” She shuddered with disgust. “Sometimes I’m stubborn, sometimes I’m too proud, sometimes I get angry and say things that are insensitive, and sometimes I make unwise decisions—which you should be well aware of after what happened the other night.” She paused to take a deep breath. “I think that also proved that I’m far from untouchable—actually, quite the opposite; I rather like being touched.” He barely heard the next words, as his head had just exploded. “So who knows who best, Thom?”

  He ignored the subtle taunt of his name, grabbed her by the elbow, and hauled her up against him. “What do you mean you rather like being touched?”

  She sputtered, clearly exasperated. “After everything I just said, that is what you focus on?”

  Damned right it was. He might have growled and drew her a little closer with a shake. “Like being touched by whom?”

  She blinked up at him.