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What did he have in mind? What would happen next? Would he take me back now or wait for an entourage?

I noticed a pack of green pears on the ground. So that’s where he’d been off to. Either they came from the cottage cellar, or he must have located a wild orchard nearby.

Ugh. My stomach creaked. The blanket wrapped around me failed to muffle the sound.

So. Embarrassing.

Aire leaned over, picked up a piece of fruit, and offered it to me.

“I’m fine,” I said, because denial made so much sense right now. The tip of my cursed nose tickled, warning me how close to a lie that had been.

The knight’s arm fell. “Is that because puppets don’t eat?”

“I lost my adorable hat to those fox floozies. I’m grouchy enough as it is without you calling me that. I’m a girl, and my name is Aspen.”

“I remember.” The knight shoved the pear toward me. “Eat this or I shall use it to gag you.”

“That’s the sexiest thing you’ve said all morning.”

He clenched the fruit, his chest heaving. “Seasons, I don’t know what to do with you.”

My confidence resurfaced, blossoming like a flower. I dipped my shoulder and gave him a sidelong kitten glance. “I’ve got a few ideas. To start, say my name.”

“Nor have I ever encountered such unabridged cheek, for it saturates the air around you.”

“Sort of like your honesty. Even if you didn’t speak your mind, your voice and face—they say it all.”

Aire looked at me, confused. “I have nothing to hide.”

“Oh, get over yourself.”

“You first.” He held out the pear, but when I pouted, his eyes glinted in awareness. “You won’t eat unless I peel it for you, is that it?”

“My hero,” I cooed. “My knight in shining armor.”

I plopped onto a pumpkin, ready for food. When he idly tossed the pear onto my lap, skin and all, I harrumphed. “Hey. At least give me more than this.”

“I thought you weren’t hungry.”

“I just remembered: I’m famished.”

Holy Seasons, he almost grinned. Probably for the best that he caught himself in time, seeing as I would have pocketed that smile for eternity.

He reclined against a tree and crossed his arms, his ring gleaming. “I wasn’t aware that peasants had the fortune, nor the precious time, to be selfish and spoiled.”

“Do I look like most peasants?”

“You have hands and feet. That’s all it takes for labor. That’s all it takes to pick pears.”

“Is that all it takes to pick your pears?”

Aire’s blue eyes widened, a chaste pink mottling his throat.

Shit. I’d teased him about my saying my name, but for married reasons, I hadn’t planned to venture intothatkind of explicit territory. Everything virtuous about him screamed the obvious. He was the last man in Mista to be flirted and flattered into submission.

In fact, one would think he wore a chastity belt instead of a wedding ring.

And on that note, being taken meant he was off limits. I might be a thieving bitch, but I wasn’tthatkind of thieving bitch.