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“The moon is full tonight,” he murmured after several silent minutes passed as she studied his countenance.

“What do you want from me?” she asked abruptly.

He turned his head towards her in surprise.  “What?”

“What are you hoping to get out of a marriage with me?”

He gave her a very simple answer.  One that rocked her world.

“You.”

She simply stared at him.  For several silent seconds.  Then, “Why?”

“I don’t know,” he murmured honestly.  But as he gazed upon her, he revised his answer.  “You remind me of her.”

“Who?”

“My mother.”

Puzzled, she furrowed her brow at him.  “You want to marry me because I remind you of your mother?’ she asked, astonished.

He nodded.  His eyes slid away from her, and he stared at the horizon again.

“I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I,” he admitted. 

“You said she was the one comforting presence in your life.  Does that mean that my presence comforts you?”  Sook Myeong was studying his face again.  Trying to fathom this unfathomable man.

But just then, those intense, cinnamon eyes swung her way again and captured hers.  “Yes, you do,” he murmured softly.  Then he continued, “My mother was kind.  Compassionate.  Just.  She was a very good woman.  And a loving mother.” 

He paused for a few seconds.  Then he spoke again.  “I couldn’t sleep last night.”  After a moment, he added, “Because I was thinking of you.  And the pressure you must have been under to attempt to kill another girl.  An innocent girl who was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

She inhaled sharply.  She didn’t like to think of that moment.  When she’d loosed her arrow at Ah Ro, and it had hit the man she loved instead.  Thankfully, he hadn’t died.  Or been maimed.  But he had suffered.

Sook Myeong had to live with the fact that she had wounded a man whom she admired.  And if things had gone just a little differently, she might have had to live with the knowledge that she had killed him.  But if he hadn’t dived in front of that arrow, she might have been guilty of killing an innocent woman.  One her own brother loved.  And that would have destroyed her relationship with Jin Heung.  So she could only be grateful that Seon Woo had been willing to put his life on the line for the girl he adored.

Even if it wasn’t her.

She sighed.

“It really bothers you, doesn’t it?”

She glanced sharply at him.  “What?”

“That you were willing to carry out your mother’s order.”

“What bothers me is that I was too weak to accomplish it,” she lied.

He sat up straight as he furrowed his brow at her.  “I don’t believe you.”

“I don’t care what you believe!” she muttered crossly.

“You are a good woman.”

“No, I am not.”

Why did men keep telling her that she was good?  Were they all daft?  Or just blind?

“I am not the woman you’re looking for.   I am not like your mother.  I am neither compassionate nor just.   I am not kind.  I am a mercenary.  Like my mother before me,” Sook Myeong insisted.

“What you are is terribly young,” he murmured as his eyes caressed her.  “You can change who you are.”

Her eyes fenced with his.  “What makes you think I want to change who I am?”

He studied her silently for far too long.  His eyes probing the depths of hers.  

She grew impatient and stood up.  “I don’t have to listen to any of this.  I’m going back to my rooms.” 

She marched off, shaken.  But she heard his sweet response borne on the slight breeze that ruffled her hair, including the lock which he’d fingered earlier this evening. 

“Goodnight, princess.  I hope sweet dreams comfort you tonight.”

But she was fairly certain that she wasn’t going to be able to sleep tonight.  Not one wink.

As she strode angrily away, he watched her departing figure with a sense of sadness.  The girl was hurting.  He just knew it.

Had she ever known happiness?

Would she ever allow him to show her some?

Her beauty was undeniable.  As was his attraction to her.  He hadn’t been looking to rob a cradle.  But a marriage between him and Jin Heung’s sister would help to solidify a lasting peace between Goguryeo and Silla.  And it just might satisfy him too….

If he could get her to agree to it.