He’d noticed this about her the first time they met. She must have been frightened in the dungeon. It was dark, and it stank of death and decay—and those were the more agreeable odors. Yet she’d beaten back fear for her brother’s sake. Since then, Rupert had seen daily examples of her pluck. They all made him want to get her naked, naturally, but he had other feelings, too. He wasn’t sure what they were: a sort of fondness, a kind of affection, something oddly like what he felt for his brothers.
