Page 79 of Bull Moon Rising

“You know him?” I hiss to Gwenna when she turns back to us.

“I know his type. Every servant does.” She shrugs. “Where’s your husband this morning?”

“I have no idea.” My face heats. “He’s avoiding me.”

Her brows go up. “He is?”

I nod. “He might be mad at me. I didn’t tell him who I was meeting the other night.”

“Nor should you,” she whispers. “No good can come of any of that.”

Gwenna knows things with Barnabus didn’t go well. That he threatened me and that I threatened to marry someone else. That things ended up going nowhere and I’ve been uneasy ever since. “No more messages have come in, have they?”

She shakes her head. Gwenna’s been getting friendly with the repeater who brings the mail just so she can snatch it up first and hide any messages I might get. There’s been no other contact from Barnabus, and that makes me just as nervous as that first message.

“I don’t know what he’s up to,” I fret. “If he’s making moves or if he’s lying low and waiting to see what is found in the tunnels.”

“He might be waiting to see what you do,” Gwenna suggests.

Ugh. She might be right. I wish bad people came with a glowing beacon over their heads that saidAVOID. We need an artifact like that. “Mucking prick is trying to ruin everything I’ve been working for.”

“Ooh, strong language for a lady.” She nudges me playfully.

“I just wish he hadn’t figured out I was in the city. He said he recognized you that day in the woods.”

A guilty expression comes over Gwenna’s face. “I was hoping he hadn’t remembered me.”

“He said he recognized you because we were always together.”

She nods. “He tried to get me to go to his rooms once and I turned him down. I didn’t think he’d recognize me because, well, it happens to all servant women far too often. Perhaps he’s more sensitive to rejection than most.”

I stare at her, agog. He propositioned my maid? “When was this?”

“Right after your engagement party, I think?” She winces. “Don’t hate me?”

After myengagement party? When he’d declared love to me? When we’d kissed in the gardens and I’d allowed him to fondle my breasts and thigh? Thatarse. “I’m not mad at you. I’m furious at him.”

“Yes, well, most nobles can’t be trusted to keep it in their pants.” Gwenna shakes her head. “I think they’re too used to getting everything they want. Hawk’s different, though.”

I blink at her. “I married him for the chaperoning, nothing more.”

“It might have started like that, but I’ve seen the way you two look at each other. Tell me there’s nothing there except for convenience. No fascination at all?”

My face grows hotter by the moment. I can’t think of anything to say. How are we looking at each other? Like he’s tongued me between my thighs? Like he’s shoved his hand down my bloomers in an alley and made me come? Like he made me watch other people having sex so I could see what a knot is like? Like—

“Thought so.”

“Shut up.”

“NEXT IN LINE,” the guild clerk calls out, and then we’re up.

Our names and positions are carefully recorded. I’m listed as bulwark and Kipp is listed as our sword. Gwenna’s the gearmaster in charge of supplies, Mereden’s the healer, and that leaves Lark as our navigator. We all look a little alarmed at that.

Magpie just waves a hand. “We’re just trying it on. I won’t let you get lost. Have a little more faith.”

The way she says it is so loose and lazy it doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence, however.

The guild clerk licks his fingers and thumbs through the pages of a logbook, expression one of complete boredom. “I show that Magpie is the guild leader and Hawk is the guild leader’s assistant. Which will be going into the tunnels with the fledgling team?”

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