Free Knight's Prize by Sarah McKerrigan Page A

and on about
if we arrested his favorite outlaw?"
    Rand
wished the old man would go
on and on, but it seemed his addled mind had already drifted elsewhere. He was
currently absorbed in picking a crumb of bread out of his long, white beard.
    "No
one could catch him anyway," Colin said. "He might be small, but he's
wily as a fox."
    "Slippery
as an eel," Pagan agreed.
    Helena
chimed in, "Faster than a—"
    "But
surely someone must have tried." Rand attempted to keep his tone flippant,
but he didn't want to drop the subject. "No one can be that—" As he
raised his hands for emphasis, his finger caught the base of his empty flagon,
and he knocked the vessel off the table.
    It
should have hit the floor. But Miriel's hand whipped out and caught it an
instant before it did. For a heartbeat, their eyes met, his amazed, hers
guilty. Then she let the flagon drop.
    It
clattered with damning delay on the rush-covered flagstones.
     
    Chapter 7
    “Oh!"
miriel exclaimed . "Clumsy me."
    Bloody
hell, she thought. How could she have been so careless—not in dropping the
flagon, but in catching it? Rand had seen her. And he must know what she'd done
was nigh impossible. Gently bred, meek, mild maidens didn't snap up falling
tableware in the wink of an eye.
    Sung
Li, who had been watching the high table from his place among the servants with
increasing interest and annoyance, as he always did when the conversation
turned to the overblown legend of The Shadow, stared hard at Miriel.
    "Lucy!"
Miriel called out. "Will you bring more wine and get Sir Rand another
flagon?"
    She
bent to retrieve his dropped vessel, but as she handed the empty flagon to
Lucy, her gaze met Rand's again, and there was no question in her mind. He'd
seen everything. A suspicious furrow creased his brow, and his eyes glittered
with speculation.
    Now she'd
have to think up a good explanation.
    Or...
    She
could get him drunk.
    If she
got him drunk enough, mayhap he'd forget everything—the humiliating
conversation about his lack of fighting skills, her father's foolish tales of
The Shadow, his brief encounter with Miriel's fleet fingers.
    Indeed,
getting men drunk was an offensive strategy Helena oft employed. If it worked,
if Miriel could make a blur of Rand's memory, they could begin anew on the
morrow. And this time, she'd remember to keep her talents to herself, to play
the helpless, docile damsel who couldn't catch a caged dove with a broken wing.
    "Leave
the bottle," she bade Lucy when the maidservant returned with the wine
and flagon.
    Rand
lifted a brow.
    "We
have plenty now," she explained, pouring him a brimming cup.
"Besides, you've yet to be treated to true Rivenloch hospitality."
    He
gave her a wry glance, then picked up the bottle and poured a measure into her
flagon as well. " 'Tisn't hospitable to make a man drink alone."
    She
smiled weakly as he lifted his drink to toast her. This was not part of her
plan. But she supposed 'twould have been rude to decline.
    A
half hour and five toasts later, she wished she had declined.
Even Deirdre noticed the pronounced list in her bearing.
    "Miri,"
she whispered, "I think you've had enough to drink."
    Miriel
frowned. "I'll decide when I've had enough to drink," she whispered
back.
    "Don't
act like a petulant child," Deirdre hissed.
    "You're acting
like a child," she hissed back.
    Deirdre
only rolled her eyes, but Miriel sensed that her sister might be right. The
problem with this tactic, she realized as she teetered a bit too close to Rand,
rapping her flagon against his with a loud clunk, was that she wasn't Helena.
Helena could drink men into the rushes. Miriel had felt dizzy after her second
cup.
    But
he was keeping up with her, cup for cup. Soon his brain would get as muddled as
hers. Then she was sure he'd forget all about...
    What
was it he was supposed to forget?
    She
couldn't recall, which suddenly seemed terribly amusing. She chuckled, while
the hum of carefree conversation continued around her. Rand laughed