A shocked look flashed across Galen’s face, only to vanish in the next instant, replaced with an implacable expression.
As he peered intently at her, Laoghaire suddenly felt unkempt and disheveled, and she could only assume that with her hair falling wildly about her shoulders she resembled the devil’s trull. In the intervening silence that arose between them, she hurriedly reached for her kirtle and pulled it over her head. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed that Galen also began to dress himself.
“You cannot blame me for what transpires whilst I am asleep,” Galen said at last, without a trace of remorse in his voice. “That is a realm over which no man has control.”
That he neither denied nor confirmed the accusation made Laoghaire all the more suspicious.
Fumbling with the laces on her kirtle, she said, “I’ll grant ’tis impossible to bide yer tongue when ye’re asleep. Nevertheless, ye spoke verily.”
Though he made no reply, the slight but perceptible stain of color on Galen’s upper cheekbones was answer enough. Sucking in a deep breath, he ran a hand through his hair, the age-old gesture of male exasperation.
“Lies are the mortar that bind every word ye speak,” Laoghaire bristled, certain he was withholding the truth from her.
Having already donned his braies, chausses and undertunic, Galen grabbed hold of his boots and proceeded to yank them onto his feet. “What lie have I told?”
“’Tis what ye haven’t said, the unspoken lie, that speaks volumes,” she informed him, as she likewise donned her boots.
Galen pulled his black tunic and surcoat over his head. “You would actually blight our passion because of a few injudicious words spoken whilst in the throes of sleep?”
“That is allye care about, satisfying yer passion. Ye’re naught but a beast!” she hissed through her teeth, her gaze set firmly on the rampant red lion emblazoned on the front of his surcoat.
Plainly taking offense, Galen’s eyes narrowed. “I am a man! Flesh and blood! I feel pain and hunger, as do we all.”
“Pain, hunger and lust,” she jeered. “That makes ye no different from any animal that roams the forest. It certainly doesn’t make ye a man possessed of one shred of integrity. All ye know is how to slaughter men and lay waste to castles.”
“And lest you’ve already forgotten, I know how to lay waste to you as well, lady wife,” Galen said mockingly while he buckled his sword belt with an efficient and practiced motion. “Indeed, I’ve heard it said that ultimately all love comes down to ruin or rapture. ’Tis obvious which path you have chosen.”
“Hah! Do ye mean to say ye love me?” she taunted.
“Nay, lady wife. I said no such thing,” Galen replied in a flat, emotionless voice. “And I find it confounding that you would even ask such a question.”
Pained that he would dangle the word “love” before her, only to yank it away at the last, Laoghaire glared at him accusingly. “’Tis a bitter grist ye grind, Galen de Ogilvy.”
“I will grind whateverI must.”
“And the devil take anyone who stands in yer way, including yer wife.”
“God’s wounds! If I could distil your magnificent rage, I wonder what it is that I would find at the bottom of the vessel,” Galen snarled as he picked up her fur mantle and handed it to her.
Laoghaire snatched the mantle from his grasp and flung it around her shoulders. She then stormed over to the entrance of the grotto. Her emotions swinging wildly between fury and despair, she peered at the grove, but the entire landscape was soaked in a sodden mist and she could barely distinguish trees from rocks.
Never in her life had she felt as betrayed as when she heard Galen murmur Melisande’s name in his sleep. In that horrifying moment she knew with heartbreaking certainty that Galen preferred the golden-haired Melisande, the woman who’d been his first choice for a bride.
I am nothing more than a convenient receptacle for his lust.
Now, with their marriage vows finally consummated, Galen was free to return to his ladylove. And though Laoghaire told herself that she cared naught, in truth, it felt as if she were about to be swept away on a rough tide.
Refusing to surrender to that agonized swell, she turned back around. Her chin angled defiantly, she said to Galen in a clear and steady voice, “I demand that yer ladylove leave Castle Airlie.”
“Melisande cannot return to her home as it was destroyed by the English,” Galen stated matter-of-factly, making no attempt whatsoever to deny that Melisande was his “ladylove.”
Although she was greatly pained by that blatant omission, Laoghaire was nevertheless determined to exercise her rights as countess. “I didn’t say she had to return to her home. I said that she had to leave Castle Airlie. ’Tismyhome now and I refuse to have her sleep under the same roof.”
“I pledged my protection to Melisande,” Galen replied in a measured voice. “She is naught but a defenseless woman.”
“Defenseless she may be, but she still has designs on myhusband,” Laoghaire was quick to point out.
“And do you think I haven’t noticed that the eyes of every man at Castle Airlie glaze over with lust whenever you walk into the great hall,” Galen retorted. “Forsooth, there’s not a man in the whole of my demesne who hasn’t dreamt of bedding you. Maybe I should expel every man over the age of twelve to remove the temptation from you.”
