Crow offered Penelope a sympathetic look when she said she wasn’t feeling very well either. He had been hoping that between the two of them, at least she would have made it through the night without developing a hangover. It looked like they had both drank more than they could handle the day before. He sighed, regretting once again how inattentive he had been for Olivia and Alistair to have tricked him so easily. With so many moving parts happening all at once in this mission, he needed to be more alert. He had gotten lucky this time—or so he was trying to convince himself—but there was no telling what sort of slip ups could happen if he let his guard down again.

When Penelope brought up how they had behaved while they had been drunk, he laughed softly and shook his head, “You can say that again.” He glanced at her as she leaned in to kiss him on the cheek and colored slightly at her following words. “I know,” he groaned, running his hand over his face in embarrassment. “Why do you think I try not to let myself get drunk?” Whenever he got intoxicated, he always lost control over his impulses—namely, his willpower to keep his hands off of women he found attractive. While he didn’t regret kissing Penelope—that part had been quite fun—he did wish they had thought to at least take things somewhere more private. The thought of all those other eyes on them while they had been so physical with each other made him want to crawl under a rock.

He looked up again when Penelope climbed to her feet and then followed suit after a moment of hesitation. As she spoke to Gavin, he watched the knight from the corner of his eye, holding his breath as he tried to read the other man’s face. After what Gavin had said the night before, he wanted to know what to expect, but it was difficult to tell since the knight had such a stoic demeanor. He hoped again that he was overreacting and there wasn’t actually anything to be worried about. Maybe in his drunkenness, he had just imagined what her former suitor had said.

Despite his attempts to reassure himself, he still felt unnerved around Gavin, so he decided to distract himself by getting some water to ease the dryness in his mouth. He stepped over to his things and crouched down to get his flask, uncapping it and bringing it to his lips. However, just before he tilted the container back to take a drink, he paused, suddenly remembering what he had used it for two nights ago. Having not cleaned it out since then, the water inside was still mixed with valerian root. He let out his breath in a sigh of relief, [i]That was close.[/i]

Glancing back over his shoulder to make sure no one was looking in his direction, he quickly poured out the rest of the flask. Once it had been emptied, he resealed the lid and stood up straight again, making his way back over to Penelope. “Do you have any spare water that you could share with me?” he asked with a sheepish smile, shaking his flask to show her that it was empty. “I forgot that I finished all of mine yesterday, and I’m parched.”