“You’ve all but kidnaped me, I think you can leave off the honourific, my lord,” she said wearily. Her legs ached from the unaccustomed effort of riding a horse. Looking down at her hands, she went on, “I understand too well what drives your action — is it not the same as what brought me to my decision? I can’t hate that. After all,” her voice fell to a near whisper, “have you not done the same as Sir Kit, but from a purer motive? I would have been reft from them anyway.”
“Only if you return the favour,” he stated pointedly, arching an eyebrow to add to the effect before pushing back a wayward curl as it flopped over to twist across his forehead. “I can’t watch anyone I care about die, not again. Too many have…” He trailed off then and shook his head, before he stiffened and whirled to face her. “I am nothing like him! I’m trying to save your life, not end it!”
“Do not shout at me!” she snapped back. “Weren’t you listening?” Summer gritted her teeth and clenched her hands into fists. “He was going to rape me, not kill me. Fine, you have no designs on my virtue, for which I suppose I owe you my thanks, but you have taken me away from my family just as he would have.”
Oh, that hadn’t come out at all right.