“Otto,” she exclaimed, rising to her feet and smoothing her gown. “What a surprise.”
A muscle twitched in his jaw. How he longed to walk over and take his bride in his arms. But could he trust her?
He folded his arms across his chest, coming to a halt in the center of the room. For a short while, all he could hear was the lashing of rain against the castle walls.
“It has been a morning full of surprises,” he said, eventually.
He watched her expression change from pleasure to concern, spying another emotion at work behind her wide green eyes.
Guilt.
He knew it clear as day. And the knowledge sickened him, like a dog.
She broke her gaze, looking away from him out of the windows. He saw a new tension in her shoulders and his resolve hardened into ice.
“I am sorry to hear it,” she faltered.
Her words were almost the undoing of his certitude, for he believed she spoke the truth. She was sorry. Her sorrow was evident in the downward cast of her eyes and the tremble in her voice.
“Aye,” he said, briefly.
Was that a tear he saw shimmering in her eye?
In that moment, he could have stridden forward and taken her in his arms, kissing away her tears and asking for an explanation, husband to wife.
He could have asked her for the truth, and she might have told him.
But Otto didn’t know how to show weakness. There was only one way to handle betrayal in Darkmoor, and that way didn’t involve kisses and kind words. He was the earl. She had done him wrong. And he had already saved her from guards. He had no intention of compromising his position further.
“You must come with me,” he stated firmly, lifting his chin and avoiding her anxious gaze.
“Where?” she asked tremulously.
He pointed to the door, insistent that she walk out ahead of him. “You shall see.”
Chapter Fourteen
Ariana would notgive Otto the satisfaction of hearing her rain her fists upon the fastened door, but as soon as his footfall faded from the stairwell, the tears she had been so valiantly holding back began to fall.
He had locked her in his tower. She was now a prisoner of the man she had begun to love. And his countenance had shown not the faintest glimmer of remorse for it. Had he uncovered details of how Ysmay had been rescued? Perchance one of the castle guards had kept watch on her progress all the while. If only she had told him the truth, when she had the chance.
“You have no reason to distrust me,”he had said, out in the rose gardens. But she hadn’t trusted him. Not enough.
What bitter irony that he had imprisoned her in the place they had first kissed.
Just days earlier, Ariana had stood over by the high window and experienced the dizzying sensation of stepping into Otto’s arms for the first time. Now, those same arms were closed to her. Albeit, he hadn’t struck her, nor even grasped her with any force, but she’d been all too aware of Otto’s size and strength as they journeyed across the outer courtyard. Her puzzlement was quickly replaced by dread when she recognized their path and realized where he was taking her on this cold trek through the unending rain.
She was chilled to the bone, the hem of her gown sodden and slick with mud. Otto hadn’t even allowed her a cloak, despite the ravages of the weather. Her hair was a tangle of knots from the howling wind, which had whipped around them as soon as they turned the corner from the keep. She had staggered to one side with the force of it, flinging out her hand in unconscious hope that he might steady her against him.
He had not.
He had not extended his hand once, neither in friendship nor chivalry. Certainly not with any love or respect for the woman he had embraced so tenderly after the Beltane Ball.
She had been a fool to believe that the Earl of Darkmoor was anything more than a cold-hearted warrior. TheFeared One.
Should she fear him herself?
She spun around, taking in her new surroundings through the heavy blur of tears. The circular chamber was exactly as she remembered it, complete with a bare wooden table and two upholstered chairs pulled around an unlit fireplace. Dull light filtered through the clouds into the regularly spaced windows, but when night fell, she would be encased in darkness.
