The girls were sewing. Royce found that notion rather difficult to comprehend, given the lateness of the hour. His own experience with wealthy women was that they sewed special items for their families and their homes, but they left mending for servants to do. He supposed, as he tried unsuccessfully to make out Jennifer's shadowed form against the canvas of the tent, that wealthy women might also sew to keep busy when they were bored. But not this late and by candlelight.

How very industrious the Merrick girls were, he thought with a tinge of sarcasm and disbelief. How nice of them to want to aid their captors by keeping their clothes in good repair. How generous.

How utterly unlikely.

Particularly in the case of Lady Jennifer Merrick, whose hostility he'd already experienced firsthand.

Shoving away from his tent, Royce strolled forward, wending his way past his exhausted, battle-scarred men sleeping on the ground, rolled up in their cloaks. As he neared the women's tent, the obvious answer to their sudden compulsion to have needles and shears suddenly struck him, and he stifled a curse as he quickened his pace. They were undoubtedly destroying the clothing they'd been given, he realized angrily!

Brenna stifled a scream of terrified surprise when the Wolf yanked the tent flap back and ducked inside, but Jenny merely started and then slowly rose to her feet, a suspiciously polite expression on her features.

"Let's see what you've been doing," Royce snapped, his gaze slashing from Brenna, whose hand rose protectively to her throat, to Jenny. "Show me!"

"Very well," Jenny said with sham innocence. "I was only now beginning to work on this shirt," she prevaricated as she carefully laid aside his shirt with the armholes she'd just sewn closed. Reaching to the pile of clothing she intended to wear, she held up a pair of thick woolen hose for his inspection and pointed to the neatly mended, two-inch rent down the front.