[color=lightgreen]"Lady Olivia Barker,"[/color] the clumsy but also alluring brunette blurted out before bowing.

Paul looked quickly to the stunning blonde, stunned himself.  His first [i]instinctive[/i] thought was that maybe he [i]should[/i] have pulled his dagger for the first woman to approach, not the second: had Lars sent his own daughter to do his work, to quickly interrupt any possibility of his losing power over the Duchy?  No.  Paul didn't believe that, not once his conscious thinking overwhelmed his unconscious thinking.  

That conscious thought followed along the same lines as that of the brunette, of this Sophia Blake: had Olivia been hiding her identity, or had she simply not gotten to fully introducing herself.  Paul added to the argument the fact that Olivia and her handmaiden had entered the tavern after midnight, unescorted, in rather plain cloaks more suitable for traveling merchants, with the hoods up hiding their faces ... [i]hiding their identities.[/i]  

As if he didn't already have enough rushing through his head, Paul suddenly recalled something more: this beautiful blonde who he had been sure was of Noble birth almost immediately upon seeing her; and who [i]already[/i] he'd been fantasizing about having flat on her back, thighs parted, calling his name in ecstasy as he drilled her in the Castle bed in which he was destined to sleep ... [i]was his cousin![/i]  Olivia was the child of Count Lars Barker, Regent of the Duchy of Westrock, Lord of the House of Ryrstock, and Mary, Countess of Ryrstone, Lady of Westrock ... and Paul's [i]sister![/i]

As he listened in stunned silence to the continuing exchange between the two women, all Paul could think to himself was, [i]Well ... fuck.[/i]