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to poison.”
    He looked tired, she realized. And older than she had first thought. “’Tis naught but herbed wine.”
    “And I should trust you?”
    “I don’t care if you trust me or not, but I’ll not have you swooning again.”
    “Swooning!” Indignant anger bubbled up inside her. “Is that what you call it when one is struck on the head while defending herself from execrable brigands?”
    “Execrable brigands!” He scoffed, perhaps at her choice of words. Nicol had once suggested that she spoke like a constipated scholar. “They were nothing but a one-armed petty thief and his dwarfed companion. If you totaled their ages, they were older than the stones of this castle.”
    She drew herself up. “I am sorry if my tormentors weren’t to your liking.”
    He shook his head. “’Tis a sorry day when Teleere’s premier thief can’t best a pair of doddering miscreants.”
    “Again, my apologies.”
    The room went silent. He had the deep penetrating gaze of a peregrine falcon, though his eyes challenged the blue of the morning sky. “So you admit your true identity?”
    “I admit that you are a spineless cur.”
    “You almost make me wonder why I rescued you.”
    “Rescued me!” She growled the words at him, though, if she remembered correctly, ladies were not supposed to growl. Drawing a deep breath, she steadied herself. “’Twas you who tossed me into their midst. ’Twas I who distracted them with their own witless brawling.”
    “You set them to quarreling?”
    “I thought it preferable to rape.”
    For a moment she thought he would respond, but he remained as he was. “Drink the wine,” he said instead.
    “No.”
    “Drink it,” he ordered, “or I swear, Pikeshead will look as rosy as an afternoon jaunt in the park.”
    She wanted nothing more than to resist him, but his eyes were deadly earnest, and she was no fool.
    The wine tasted like yesterday’s death. She drank it in one long draught, shuddering at the end, but forcing herself to glare up at him.
    “Where else do you hurt?”
    “What?”
    “Besides your head.” He said the words as if she were daft. “Where else are you injured?”
    “Why? Do you keep a list? So many a day to reach your quota?”
    “Dammit, woman! I’m surprised he didn’t kill you, too.”
    Her stomach twisted. “You said he was only a petty thief.”
    MacTavish scowled. “Is that what he told you?”
    “We didn’t have a great deal of time to converse. What with his companion wanting to rape me and the woman in the next cell—”
    “Christ! I’m talking about Wheaton.”
    She blinked, trying to assimilate this new information. “Whom did he kill?”
    A muscle jumped in his jaw, and he drew a deep breath through his nose as if trying to steady his nerves.
    “Where else are you hurt?”
    “If you’re so concerned for my well-being, you could have me see a physician.”
    “Hoping to escape, Megs?”
    “Hoping to stay alive regardless of your cruelty.”
    “Perhaps you want me to check your well-being for myself?” he asked.
    She glared at him. “Touch me again, and I shall not need Burr’s help to dismember you.”
    “You threaten me again?”
    “Nay.” She raised her chin. He touched a finger to its center. She jerked away. “I tell the truth.”
    His eyes laughed at her. His mouth remained absolutely immobile. “So you would kill me.” He dropped his hand to hers. Lifting it, he turned it over. “With this hand?”
    She nodded. Regal pride was all she had just now, but it had stood her in good stead in the past.
    Bending slightly, he kissed the center of her palm. Hot feelings shot through her like a flaming arrow, beginning at the point of the caress and streaking madly up her arm and off in a thousand sizzling directions.
    “’Tis a soft little hand, for one who uses a threat so boldly,” he said, and pushed her sleeve up her arm. The simple cotton fabric had a rent near the elbow. He ignored it. “And a frail arm,” he added