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By all rights, he who knew everything about her should know nothing at all.
Damn him for his foolish stupidity.
She looked around the corridor, then stepped back into the room and shut the door.
Simon still didn't move.
He was torn between the desire to go to that door, kick it open and take what he wanted and the need
to run for cover lest Kenna learn of his trickery.
But was it trickery when he hadn't meant it that way? He'd never really lied to her. He'd only failed to
correct her misinterpretation.
Every word he'd written to her had been the truth. Every feeling real and honest.
"Simon?"
He started at the familiar voice that came from the opposite end of the hallway.
Stepping out of the shadows, he saw the MacNeely lairdess. She was even more beautiful now than
when he'd left Scotland. Her long, red hair was braided down the side of her face, and she wore a deep
blue kirtle that accentuated the perfection of
her body.
"Callie," he greeted.
A warm smile curved her lips as she pulled him into a sisterly hug of affection. "Whatever are you doing
here, and hiding in
the shadows, no less?"
Simon stepped back. "Like the others, I have come for the show of arms."
She nodded. "Is your brother, Draven, with you?"
"Nay. He didn't want to travel without Emily and the boys, and he felt it was too far for the youngest to
journey."
Caledonia took his arm in hers and led him toward the room where Kenna was.
His heart pounded more with every step that took him closer to his doom.
Perspiration broke out on his forehead.
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Unaware of his panic, Callie continued. "Then I shall just have to stop at Ravenswood on my way home
and make sure to
see them and Dermot. And speaking of my errant brother, have you seen him recently?"
Simon shook his head. "Not since I released Dermot's custody over to Draven, but Emily has written to
say he is well."
"Good."
Simon swallowed as she reached for the door handle.
Run!
The command was so strong that he wasn't sure what kept him from heeding it.
But before his common sense could return, Caledonia opened the door.
Simon's gaze met Kenna's instantly. She sat in a chair on the other side of the room, just before the open
window with a
small psalter in her hands. Sunlight streamed in through the window, where it lightened strands of her hair
to form an angelic halo around her face.
She was beautiful.
Desire hit him fiercely. It was all he could do to breathe. His body was instantly hot and cold.
He found himself unable to move. Unable to break eye contact with the one woman who had haunted
him for the last year.
The one woman he would give up his life for.
Kenna couldn't move as she saw the man beside her cousin. His dark auburn hair was a bit longer than
was the English
fashion, but he wore a small, stylish goatee that had been perfectly manicured.
He was taller than most men, with a lean, muscular build that bespoke power and strength. Deadly
grace. His blue eyes
were riveting in their striking color.
Truly, he was a most handsome man.
And it took her a full minute before she realized who he was.
The Wraith.
They'd seen each other only once, but she had never forgotten the handsomeness of his features. The
way his blue eyes
were able to sear her with his passionate heat.
He looked at her now like some hungry predator who had just found its next meal. The intensity of that
stare made her hot
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and nervous. And oddly enough, it brought a strange thrill to her.
There was an aura of dangerous power surrounding him. One of possessiveness.
She couldn't fathom why, but the sensation didn't lessen.
"Kenna, have you met Simon? He is the friend of Sin's who came with him to Scotland after we married.
His elder brother
is the one Dermot was sent to live with."
Kenna was completely stunned by the news.
"You'reSimon?" she said, her face breaking out into a smile. It was all she could do not to laugh at some
of the stories she
had heard from Callie and Sin about this knight.
It was hard to fathom that the dangerous predator before her could be the kind, good-natured man of
whom they had spoken.
He was far too intense for that. Far too intense ever to follow the orders of someone else.
She had imagined Simon of Ravenswood as a small, gentle man, not as someone who towered over her
cousin with such a steely and dangerous demeanor.
He inclined his head toward her. "It's good to see you again, my lady."
Caledonia looked back and forth between them. "You know each other?"
"We met in France when I went to see Lord Stryder." Kenna rose to her feet and placed her psalter in
her seat.
As she neared Simon, she tilted her head to look up at him. What was it about this man that made her
knees weak? Made
her burn to reach out and touch him? To brush the stray lock of hair back from his forehead and to kiss
the bared skin?
His gaze was guarded, cool.
"You refused to tell me your name then." she said. "Why?"
Kenna was fascinated by the way his muscles rolled under his supertunic as he shrugged his shoulders.
"You were more interested in Stryder than you were in me."
She had the impression that those words seemed to wound him somehow.
"Have you heard the good news, Simon?" Callie said. "Kenna is to marry Stryder."
There was a very subtle tensing to his features. One that looked like pain. "Congratulations, my lady. I
hope he makes you happy."
Callie frowned at that. "Are you all right, Simon? You seem rather reserved."
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He cleared his throat and offered her a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "Forgive me, Callie. I didn't
rest well last night."
"Do you still travel with Stryder?" Kenna asked him. "Or are you knight to another lord?"
A fierce heat came into his eyes at that. Flickering. Burning. Her question had offended him, she could
sense it.
"I am always my own knight, my lady. I travel with my friends and brothers until I feel the urge to leave
and go my own way."
"Brothers?" Callie repeated. "I thought Draven was the only one you had."
"Nay. I am bastard born. I fear my father was rather free with himself, and I have a large family to
burden whenever the
mood strikes me."
Kenna laughed at that. "You sound like Stryder. He once said the very same thing to me."
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