“About the matchmaking scheme, do you mean?” She shrugged again and leaned a hip against the table. “Certainly, but two prizes require two challenges.” She smiled wickedly. “You have to chew a minimum of four times before swallowing.”
The smallest hint of unease clouded his dark eyes. “You’re very sure of yourself.”
“Oh, yes. Yes, I am.”
“So am I. What is your boon should I fail?”
She spoke without thinking and asked for the one thing she hadn’t been able to get out of her mind. “A kiss. On my terms.”
His face darkened. “No. Choose something else.”
“Why?” The sting of his quick rejection added a cool edge to her voice. “What difference could it possibly make what I choose? I’m overreacting, remember?”
There was a pause before he spoke. “And so you are.” He took the fork and gave her a hard look. “Are you certain you want to do this? I’ll hold you to the bargain.”
“I do not require threats to keep my word,” she reminded him. “I’ll speak to Mrs. Summers, directly after sending for the undertaker.”
His retort was to pop the ham into his mouth.
The previous day, Evie had been certain, absolutely certain, that nothing could ever surpass the sight of McAlistair drenched in pond water.
Never before had being wrong been quite so satisfying.
The very second the ham hit his tongue his expression went from smug and confident to comically horrified. His jaw hardened. His eyes watered. He made an unpleasant noise in the back of his throat.
He failed to manage even one chew of the meat before he rushed to a basin and spit it out.
Evie watched, delighted, as he searched out fresh water to rinse his mouth.
“It’s a bloody spice rack,” he rasped after the third rinse.
She barely heard him over the sound of her own laughter. “It’s worse,” she managed to sputter. “It’s infinitely worse.”
He straightened and grabbed a strip of cloth to wipe his mouth. “What the devil did you do to it?”
She wiped her own watering eyes. “I’ve no idea. But words cannot express what a gratifying spectacle that was.”
He sent her a scowl, then sent one to the ham.
Evie took pity and poured him a glass of watered beer from a nearby carafe. “This should help.”
She watched as he downed the glass in greedy swallows and waited until he was almost—but not quite—done before adding, “And I should hate to have a second taste of that ham when I kiss you.”
She had no idea what possessed her say it—probably the same inexplicable impulse that had compelled her to dump him into the pond two days ago or the itch that had demanded she chose a kiss for her boon. Whatever the reason, she wasn’t the least bit sorry she had. It was always rewarding to obtain unguarded reactions from the stoic McAlistair.
And his reaction to her statement was most decidedly unguarded. He made some sort of choking noise and though he managed not to spray the liquid at her—which was, in hindsight, a possibility she should have taken into consideration—he did do quite a lot of coughing.
She made sympathetic noises, the sincerity of which were no doubt thrown into question by her expression of glee. “Oh dear, would more beer help?”
He set the glass down with a satisfying amount of force. “No. Thank you.” He gave her one very hard look and then, to her complete astonishment, said, “Let’s have done with this.”
“Did…” She blinked rapidly for a moment while she struggled to add sound to the workings of her mouth. “Did you just say, ‘have done with this’?”
He gave a curt nod.
And she gave serious consideration to feeding him the remainder of the ham. It was very tempting, but aside from the fact that she wasn’t physically capable of force-feeding a grown man, she was still clinging to the small, fragile hope that she had misunderstood him in some way. She must have misunderstood him, because…well, honestly—
Have done with this?
“For the purpose of clarification,” she said carefully, “are you referring to our bargain?”
“Yes.”
So much for misunderstanding. Temper, disbelief, and hurt battled inside her. Alarmed by a sudden press of hot tears at the backs of her eyes, she reached for her temper and latched on. “Need I remind you that you made an identical bargain only days ago?”
“I remember.”
Swamped by her own emotions, she failed to see the way his jaw tightened and his hands curled into fists at his side.
“But why?” she demanded. “If you find the experience so disagreeable—”
“I don’t find it disagreeable.”
She opened her mouth, closed it, and fought the urge to pull her hair, or his. “I don’t understand you.”
*
McAlistair frowned at the flushed woman before him.
He wasn’t handling this well.