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found himself softening toward her. He quickly shook off the disturbing sentiment by reminding himself she’d been a thorn in his side from the moment he met her.
    “If you’ll excuse me, Your Highness, I shall return to my quarters to prepare a list of suitable brides for your nephew.”
    At her pronouncement, whatever sympathy Lachlan had felt for her fled as quickly as she fled from the council chambers. Gaze narrowed on the sway of her curvaceous behind, he thought of the knowledge he’d filed away only moments ago. He had no doubt she’d broken through the barrier. And now there was a distinct possibility he’d be holding the information over her head sooner than he’d anticipated.

    Seated at a desk in the cramped quarters of her chambers in the palace’s tower, Evangeline crumpled a piece of parchment then tossed it on the floor. She blew out a frustrated breath upon seeing how high the pile beside her desk had become. With a flick of her finger, the evidence of her failure vanished. Now if she could only make her thoughts of Lachlan disappear as easily. Images of the too-handsome highlander had invaded her mind for the past two days.
    Since only Rohan and his daughter Syrena had ever defended Evangeline, she found it disconcerting that the man she’d regarded with such contempt had done so. He’d turned her preconceived notions of him on their ear. Absently, she rubbed her shoulder where he’d rested his hand. At the memory of his comforting touch, the muscles low in her belly contracted.
    “You’re being ridiculous,” she chided, “letting a simple gesture of kindness affect you so.” Perhaps because so few were kind to her, she reasoned, it explained her reaction. Accustomed as she was to the Faes’ contempt, was it any wonder she responded to him? And now, after Morfessa’s inflammatory charge, she’d be vilified further.
    As much as Rohan’s support meant to her, it would do little to sway the Fae. She damned Morfessa for putting her in the unenviable position of lying to Rohan, a man who’d been more a father to her than Morfessa had ever been. But it couldn’t be helped. She’d needed to test the limits of her power, to know that if the stones were tampered with, there was another means of escape. Besides, it was not as if she’d use her magick against the Fae.
    Her stomach churned as she remembered the black tendrils snaking through the pure light of her magick, the voice inciting her to strike out against the Fae. She pushed the memory from her head—an aberration, that’s all it had been, no matter what Morfessa would have her believe about herself—and got back to the matter at hand.
    Tapping her pursed lips with the quill, she once more tried to think of a suitable bride for Rohan’s nephew. Princess Tiana of the Welsh Fae, Broderick’s niece , she wrote. Then she scratched it out, certain Lachlan would find the young woman’s incessant chatter as annoying as Evangeline did. She frowned at the thought he might also find Tiana’s voluptuous figure and beautiful face outweighed the teeth-grinding screech of the girl’s voice and her inane prattle.
    “Men,” she grumbled as she once more wrote Tiana’s name. She came up with four others and added them to her list. But for each one she found a reason for their unsuitability—too young, vain, foolish, not enough magick—and, along with Tiana’s, rubbed them out. Her task was proving more difficult than she’d first imagined. When she’d suggested the idea to Rohan, she’d been only too happy to saddle the highlander with one of the women she’d just erased. But since his defense of her at the Seelie Court, she found it difficult to do so.
    Disgusted with herself, she tossed the writing utensil on her desk and rubbed the dull ache throbbing in her temples. Perhaps she’d been too hasty. After all, she’d witnessed the red glow of his sword. Surely if a man who held his emotions so tightly in control could feel anger, he