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Page 191

| what she had come searching for nestled in some rocks near the river. What she planned for Stanford would at least give her a reprieve for one night. As soon as he drank the coffee she prepared for him for supper, he would be too ill to touch her. |

| With trembling fingers, Bianca picked up a drab green objecthard shelled, but cracked, the size of a small ball. It was the seed of the idiospermum, nicknamed idiot fruit, for it was a hallucinogen, and poisonous. |

| "Tonight I shall sleep peacefully," she whispered to herself, placing several of the seeds into her basket. She smiled. "Stanford will enter the pits of hell, begging to be dead!" |

| The fire in the fireplace was burned down to dying, glowing embers. Sasha lay on the bed, covers drawn to her chin as she listened to Ashton's even breathing. She scooted to the edge of the bed and gazed pensively down at him, Lightning curled up in his arms on the floor close to the fireplace. She was haunted by Stanford's words about Ashton. She was haunted by the kangarooers calling him by the name Lawrence Proffitt. She had hoped that they would ease into a gentle conversation about it at the supper table, but Ashton had taken his plate of food and had eaten outside. His cold behavior toward her was unchanged. |

| Flopping over on her stomach, Sasha tried to will herself to sleep, knowing that she should be feeling victorious. She had gone with Stanford Sidwell to prove a point to Ashton and it seemed that she had succeeded. |

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