What madness had possessed him, that he had trusted her despite all the warning signs? What madness possessed him still, that he wished she had trusted him enough to tell him the truth?
And what would you have done? Let her go? So that she could rejoin her lover, rejoin this . . . this Hew?
Radulf had sent Jervois to Lily to discover the escaped man’s name and identity—he had not dared go himself.
He had been too crazy with hurt and fury.
When Jervois had returned somberly from his bidding, it was to tell Radulf that Hew, Lily’s cousin, had come to rescue her.
“She did not try to hide it,” Jervois had informed him nervously, eyes watchful in case his lord finally lost that iron hold he had clamped on his temper. “She said to tell you that she wished with all her heart he had succeeded.”
Now Radulf’s eyes narrowed and his jaw clenched. No doubt she was wishing she was with her lover at this very moment! Well, Radulf would make certain she never saw him again. He would kill her first, or . . . or lock her away at Crevitch forever. Ah yes, that idea held appeal.
As his prisoner, she would be at his mercy. Better still, he could continue with his enjoyment of her body. Keep her for himself alone, far from her lover.
Only he isn’t her lover.
The cold thought pierced his hot madness.
Radulf frowned, and finally some of his rage fell from him. His wits, which had been writhing like snakes in his head, began to calm. He asked himself whether, in the heat of his passion, he could have imagined her maidenhead. No, he had not been mistaken. Even now he recalled the resistance when he broke it asunder, and how she had explained her virgin state.
My husband was old.
Vorgen was old.
He was unable.
Radulf recalled there had been rumors, even before Hastings, that Vorgen was impotent.
She had not lied in everything, then.
His frown deepened. If she had told some truths, was it possible that she had told the truth when she said she burned for him? Burned for him as much as he burned for her?
Radulf shrugged his shoulders angrily. What did it matter? Why was he splitting hairs? She was the Lady Wilfreda, that was the important point.
He had been ordered by his king to find her and bring her before him.
He was happy to obey. Ecstatic!
At that moment, Jervois bumped against him and earned himself a look that would have turned a lesser man to jelly. “My lord,” he began, his voice strained, “I beg your pardon, but the lady will not eat or drink. She is making herself unwell. I fear by the time we reach the king at York, she will be no more than a wraith . . .”
But Radulf wasn’t listening to his captain. After that brief glare, his restless gaze had traveled past Jervois, over the tired and dirty faces of his soldiers, and settled on the author of his troubles.
Lily rode hemmed in by heavily armed guards. Lady Wilfreda, Radulf corrected himself.
May her soul rot for making such an idiot out of him. For tempting him to open wide his sore, wounded heart, only to have her stab him with her lies. She was an evil conniving bitch. Just like Anna. She was—
“My lord?” repeated the long-suffering Jervois.
Lily had begun to sway in her saddle. Her face had turned chalk-white, and her silver-fair hair was tangled and dulled. There was a mark on her cheek, caused by her fall from her mare during the escape attempt.
The woebegone sight of her did not soften Radulf’s heart. Instead his fury returned, a different sort of fury and hotter than ever. Like a spurred devil, it rode him, raking him. Giving him no rest. Suddenly he could bear it no more.
“Stop!”
At his bellow, his men did stop. They pulled up so sharply their horses danced, and their swords grated in their scabbards as they prepared for certain attack.
“Be easy,” Radulf ordered gruffly, when he saw what he had done. He looked about him at the weary, exhausted faces, as if seeing them for the first time. “We will rest here awhile.”
