“And why not?” He gripped the bedpost so tightly he could feel the ridges of the carvings imprint themselves on his palm. “Wherever men were, they flocked to you. Like bees to sweet clover. Always plying you with flattery and love words.”
“Aye, they did—and more often than not, you left me to them.”
“You did not seem anxious for rescue.”
“Then you never looked, husband.”
“Thayer! Curse your eyes, call me by my name. Cease with all this m’lording.”
“As you wish,” she bit out, purposely goading him, then had to catch her balance when he punched the bedpost, causing the bed to shake.
“All right,” he roared. “I did think what you accuse me of. Such has been my experience with beautiful, well-bred ladies. They mouth sweet words, make promises with their bodies, then scorn you at the next turn. They give their fickle hearts and bodies to another, then another. There lies the reason I was struck with horror to find you as my bride. God’s tears, I could foresee years of tripping over fawning courtiers, years of ousting men from your bed. I waited for the laughter, the scorn.”
He briefly closed his eyes, shaking his head in a vain attempt to put some order into the maelstrom of emotion battering away at him. Anger, hurt, and a gut-wrenching fear all tore at him. He did not know how to mend matters.
“In the garden that eve,” he continued, “I was caught betwixt past and present. My shock was all the stronger, for I had just discovered that I was free of Lady Elizabeth, free of that choking hold she has had on me for so long. You had broken it. Then, there you were…” He faltered, then took a deep breath. “I know not if t’was but a moment or an hour that I stood there before my muddled brain cleared. Then I knew that I had seen what was not there. But it was too late. By then you had freed yourself. I have never felt so shamed. Why did you go with him?” he asked in a near whisper.
“Still looking for a sin that never was?” she snapped as she hopped off of the bed. “I went with that cur because I was not thinking. I was easily swayed to his will.”
“That cur is dead.”
She was a little shocked by that cold pronouncement, but quickly returned to the matter at hand. “I was easily led for, you see, I had just watched my husband leave with his arm about another.”
Idly, she began to ready herself for bed. Thayer had said most of what she needed to hear. She also knew how her disrobing always affected him. The need it would arouse could easily stir him to a greater loquacity. There were a few things she would still like to know.
“The sly bitch claimed a faintness, a need for air.” He inwardly groaned when he realized what she was about to do.
“An old trick.”
“I knew that, but I wished to test myself with her.”
Undressed to her chemise, she began to unpin her hair. “You could have chosen a better time for such a test. Then her game would have failed. She knew that, if you saw me in an embrace with another man, you would condemn first and reason later.”
“T’was all a plot?” he croaked, shock roughening his voice. “Are you certain?”
“Bek told me so himself. He heard her speak of it with that man before they fled.”
“But why? For what purpose? She seeks a husband and I am already wed.”
“A rich, generous lover would ease her somewhat impoverished state until a husband was found. He would also fill her bed. She was most precise on how filling you are. If I turned you away, she was certain you would turn to her.”
“Yet, knowing her plans, you left me.”
She met his gaze in her looking-glass as she finished brushing her hair. “I cared little at that moment how you filled your bed or what mire you chose to roll in. As the beast goes to its lair when hurt, I sought to go home to lick my wounds.”
“I did not lie with her, though she tempted me.”
“Of that I have little doubt.”
“I did not lie with any woman. Nay, I spent my nights—many of them soaked in wine—in an empty bed trying to still the fear that it would always be so.” He edged closer to her, taking a lock of her hair between his fingers. “I took no other. Not even when I returned from some foray, my blood still running hot. Aye, and t’was one of those times that Lady Elizabeth sorely tempted me. My refusal was curt, even rude.”
Thrilled by those words, Gytha glanced up at him. He looked very much like a child who reaches carefully for a sweet while fearing his knuckles will be rapped. She was not quite sure how to tell him such timidity was unnecessary.
“You must be very hungry, then,” she whispered, blushing over her wanton thoughts.
“Gytha?” He carefully eased her into his arms, groaning when he found no reluctance in her. “Gytha,” he murmured as he kissed her.
Still intimately entwined with Thayer, Gytha smiled half with pleasure, half with surprise. She marveled at the speed with which Thayer had shed his clothes. For such a large man, he could move with dizzying speed. His clothes were strewn all over the room. Their lovemaking had been as frantic as his disrobing. They had both been too starved for each other to go slowly. She was feeling slightly battered but was too sated, too content, to care.
