She still felt drained and exhausted from saving Mary Kate from the river. She had barely slept during the night. Her thoughts were a scattered mix of conflicting feelings. She warmly remembered Fox laying atop her, kissing her, touching her, loving her. But she also remembered the ugly hatred in his eyes when she confessed her crime to him. She trembled fiercely as the image of his darkly enraged glare filled her mind. Her fingers were shaking so hard she couldn’t get the buttons on the back of her dress buttoned completely. Frustrated, she gave up on the last button, leaving it undone. She picked up the pouch and stared at it. It was Evan’s crest, all right. There was no mistaking the red background and the black dragon. What was a pouch filled with gold doing with the baron? Had Evan worked for him? Was the gold meant for him? Or for his father? Had they done the baron some service? Jordan squeezed it in her hand. It didn’t matter. She looked up toward the path Fox had taken, remembering the hate, the anger, when only moments before there had been love.
