As Naida attempted to redirect the conversation back to Crow’s past with Penelope, the viceroy shifted tensely in his seat. He had been fine with dangling one detail in front of Cedric’s nose, just to make the other man somewhat aware of their closeness, but delving further into their mission in Younis would make it increasingly obvious that there had been more going on between them than they were letting on.

Thinking back on the journey, there had been a number of times when he and the knight had both risked their lives for each other in ways that went beyond the efforts a criminal and his handler would normally put forth. When he’d done the same again at Jaxon’s camp, many of the people who knew the details surrounding his near-fatal injury had been suspicious or even asked questions to find out why he’d sacrificed himself for a noblewoman who was supposed to be his enemy. Luckily, they seemed to have quelled everyone’s speculations with the excuse that they had been secretly working together to hunt down the murderous thief. However, telling Cedric and Naida that the incident in the outer villages wasn’t the first time one of them had put the other’s safety before their own would certainly bring the theories back to light.

He glanced at Penelope as she glossed over the question, thankful that she’d also had the sense to keep their history a secret from the two sitting across from them. His sister was too nosy for her own good, so he was sure she would have taken any hint of a romance between them and run it into the ground if either of them had given her a real answer.

He was just about to turn his attention back to his plate when the sound of Cedric’s voice caught him by surprise. Apparently the conversation about the past still wasn’t over. He kept his gaze lowered as the knight as he asked about Penelope’s scar. This part of the story always left him with an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach. Though he couldn’t have returned to the inner kingdom with her and William without facing the rest of his sentence in prison, he still felt a little guilty that he hadn’t been there when she’d been attacked by the mercenaries in their own kingdom. A part of him wished he had been there to help. Maybe if he had, they wouldn’t have lost the staff and the war wouldn’t have started. Aeklora [i]had[/i] said that all three of them needed to work together if they were to succeed. Instead, he’d run off and left the knights to complete the job alone.

Of course, there was no way to undo the past nor any way to find out if his presence would have changed the what had happened. He just wished he had been there for Penelope when she had gone through that dark time.

Uninterested in Cedric’s thoughts about what had happened two years ago, Crow bit into a mouthful of his supper only to nearly choke when the knight made a blatantly flirtatious comment to Penelope. He quickly chased the food with a gulp of water, attempting to compose himself before he snapped at the other man for flattering her while he was sitting right there. The wink Cedric added at the end of his compliment made him certain he was trying to get on her good side, and he had to remind himself that the knight didn’t know he was trying to woo a taken woman.

Chafed by the other man’s boldness and his own inability to put a stop to it, Crow discreetly pressed his leg against Penelope’s beneath in the table. He didn’t trust himself to keep the discussion civil when all he wanted to do was tell Cedric off, so he continued to eat without speaking, leaving the knights to chat amongst themselves if they chose while he cleaned his plate.