Free Knights of de Ware 01 - My Champion by Glynnis Campbell Page B

quarters atop the counter.
    She glanced at the fruit coffyns. They were balanced precariously on the beggar’s thigh as he leaned against the booth. If he weren’t careful, he’d drop them and waste all that delicious fruit. Apples wouldn’t be so bad, but cherries…
    Her mouth watered.
    She smoothed the material with wide, brusque strokes.
    She glanced up. A drop of rich brown juice hovered on the beggar’s lower lip.
    She bit the inside of her cheek and creased the fabric.
    “Mmm, there’s nothing like tender English lamb, is there, Harold?” the beggar crooned, lapping up the juice.
    “Nothin’, m’lord,” Harold agreed, then glanced up quickly at her in apology. “Er…nothin’.”
    Linet gripped the edge of the counter to keep from screaming. Her supper of salted cod seemed less and less appetizing by the moment. “You may leave as soon as you finish your meal,” she told the beggar tautly.
    “I can’t eat all this myself,” he said reasonably. “Come have a bite. I promise I won’t make you blush again.”
    Of course, those were the very words to turn her flesh pink once more. She tried to ignore his teasing blue eyes.
    “I’m not hungry,” she lied. “Especially not for…for apple coffyns.”
    His smile was like honey poured slowly over pokerounce. “They’re cherry.”
    She swallowed hard. She loved cherry coffyns. But they’d been purchased with the beggar’s coin, coin no doubt pilfered from innocent purses.
    “And they’re still warm.” His languid eyes were as tempting as the sweet he offered, no doubt as tempting as Satan’s when he’d enticed Eve to taste the forbidden fruit.
    She wavered in indecision.
    “I won’t even make you eat all your nasty cod first,” he teased, wiggling his dark brows.
    She had to crack a smile at that. “Just this once,” she decided, “and then you’ll go. I don’t make a habit of living off the charity of others.”
    Duncan tried to contain his amusement. The toplofty merchant acted as if she did him a favor, taking the coffyn off his hands. But with what eagerness she came to retrieve it. She bit gently into the pastry, her eyes closed with delight. A smudge of cherry lingered on her lips, and Duncan longed to taste it there. But her tongue flicked out to catch the stray juice, savoring it with almost improper ardor.
    He’d seen that expression a hundred times on the faces of the children he’d saved from the streets—that ecstasy at their first taste of an orange or a piece of sugar loaf. But Linet was no starving waif. Surely she’d eaten her share of sweets.
    Then again, he was certain she’d never experienced the touch of a man. And as lovely as she was, with her sparkling eyes, her flawless skin, her supple lips and glorious mane of hair, that seemed harder to believe.
    She was an enigma, this wool merchant who was so worldly and yet so enchantingly innocent at the same time. The combination was intriguing, but dangerous. It was indeed fortunate he’d undertaken to see to her safety.
    She licked the last drop of sticky juice from the tip of her finger.
    “Would you like another?”
    She lowered her eyes. She’d finished the pastry off as quickly as a starving hound did a bone, and she knew it. “Nay. Thank you.”
    He smiled. She’d said it. She’d said thank you. “It was my pleasure.” And had been, indeed.
    Linet looked up and felt the warmth of the beggar’s smile all the way to her toes. Then she endured an awkward moment of silence when her hands seemed to turn to useless extensions, fidgeting with her skirts. “Hadn’t you better go while it’s still light?” she finally blurted out.
    “Go?”
    She stiffened.
    “I told you I was here to protect you,” he said. “The night can be even more dangerous than the day.”
    “But surely you can’t mean to—“
    “I couldn’t possibly leave you now. To abandon you when you need me the most? Nay, that would be unchivalrous.”
    “But I don’t