Page 62 of The Devil Baron

Who was he kidding? Hewouldrather like that.

“Why so angry?” He repeated the question softly.

She yanked an arrow free and spun around, her forefinger pressing along the shaft, pointing the steel tip at him. “Who says I’m angry?”

“Your body does, for one. Your face too. And your voice, your voice just joined the party as well.”

She growled, spinning away from him, and ripped two more arrows free from the hay target.

“Why so angry?”

Her right hand wrapped around the next arrow, then she paused, but didn’t turn around. “He left me behind.”

“Your father?”

“Yes.” She spun around to him. “He should have taken me with him. I’m the one that was there when they took Eva. I’m the one that can help them find her and he just…just…just left me. I was her best chance and he thought it more important to lock me up here.”

“He wanted you safe. Even I could see that.”

Her glare skewered him in half. “You’re taking his side?”

“I’m taking no side. I agree with you. I agree with him. You can’t expect a man to sacrifice the safety of his daughter.”

“I can take care of myself. What trouble could I have gotten into?”

Plenty.If she only knew what awaited her father and her Uncle Lachlan.

He motioned toward her hand. “Punishing that bow isn’t going to help.”

“Nothing else helps.” Her words seethed, even as tears of frustration made her blue eyes watery.

He couldn’t shift his stare off her.Hell.He was utterly and stupidly fascinated by this woman. His stare stuck on her just a moment too long and the air between them shifted into uncomfortableness.

“What?” She snarled. “You’re here to tell me I’m an idiot for thinking I could help save Eva? Just like him?”

He gave her a pointed look that told her exactly what he thought on that score.

What he thought of her, and what her father thought of her were worlds apart. He didn’t even bother to acknowledge the poison-laced question. “Have you been like this all night?”

“Like what?” Her voice nearly slid into a screech.

“Like a ball of fury, spinning hotter than the sun.”

She turned away from him, pulling the last three arrows free from the target. “Yes. Through my bath. Through dinner—where were you?” She tossed the arrows to the pile by her feet, the wooden shafts all clattering, and spun around to him. “You just disappeared into the bowels of the castle and I didn’t see you all night.”

“I couldn’t find my way to the dining room. I tried, but gave up after an hour.”

“No one showed you where it was?”

“No. And no one would talk to me—especially not the staff I encountered while searching about. They’d clearly been told to spare a wide, silent circle about me. A footman brought me a platter of food late in the night but refused to say a word to me.”

Her head shaking, her arm swung out high and wide from her hip. “So now they’re also trying to hide you away from me?”

The indignation on her face was palpable. Stark and furious and beating from her heart so damn hard that it took him aback. “Youdofeel emotions in a big way.”

Her head snapped back. “In a bad way.” A statement, not a question.

“No. In a good way.” He shook his head before the wild churnings in her head sucked her down into a vortex of misery. “You said days ago that you feel emotions too big, but I didn’t really understand it at the time. I see it now. It isn’t born from the need of attention or for drama. It’s genuine, how you feel things. Your heart tied to your body and mind. It is fascinating.”

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