He just stared at her, his gaze dark and enigmatic, probing hers too deeply. Mary had to look away, flushing furiously. “If you think,” she said low when she could finally speak, “that my capitulation to you in bed is an indication of fate, then you have gone mad!”
“I think, perhaps, that you have forgotten what it is like to be beneath me,” he said slowly, watching her face.
Mary was scandalized. Especially as she had hardly forgotten his prowess in bed—or her own behavior with him. This time she succeeded in jerking free of his grasp. “That you speak to me in such a manner—”
“I speak the truth. I have not forgotten the feel of you, Mary, nor the taste,” he said, his tone low and intimate.
Mary could not move. She was stricken with a recollection of his mouth nibbling at her thighs—perilously close to the juncture there.
He smiled. “Soon I will remind you of your fate with far more than words,” he promised her.
Mary had forgotten to breathe. She gulped in air. She wondered what had kept him from taking her to his bed last night. It made no sense.
“Come,” he said, his tone seductive. “Enough bickering.” Mary forced herself out of her daze. This time she allowed him to lead her to the table and was seated on the dais as his guest of honor.
“Surely prisoners eat below the salts,” she finally said in a feeble attempt to antagonize him.
“You are not just royalty, but soon to be my bride, and to be treated accordingly,” Stephen said calmly. He pulled a loaf of warm white bread forward, and a trencher of cold meat left over from the night before.
Mary barely saw the food or what he was doing. Geoffrey had taken the seat on her other side, hemming her in. Although she did not physically touch the Norman, she felt the heat of his hose-clad thigh against hers. “I have told you, my father will never give me to you,” she said hoarsely. “He loves me too much to sacrifice me to you.”
He gave her a long, thoughtful look. “Does he, indeed?”
Mary tensed. From his tone, she gathered that Stephen doubted her words, and she was angry. “He does! So mark what I have said, Norman, least you later forget who is right now and who is wrong.”
His eyes gleamed. Mary realized that she had leaned into him in her rage. Immediately she pulled away. Mary recognized the brilliance in his eyes. It had nothing to do with anger, it was carnal.Why had he failed to come to her last night?
“Do you still think to best me?” He had a dagger in hand, one long and lethal and not meant for eating, and with a motion too fast for her to follow, he had sliced the bread. A moment later he skewered it and held a piece out to her.
“If only that were possible,” Mary said, her gaze flitting from his knife to his face. How could such a big man move with such grace? Was she the mad one, to even think of fighting him?
“You will not best me, demoiselle, you shall only weary us both. Needlessly. Come, take what I offer.”
Mary looked from his well-shaped lips, pursed ever so slightly, to the slice of bread held aloft in the air on the tip of his knife. She refused to accept the bread. Just as she refused to accept him. But sweet Mother of God, he frightened her, for he was so powerful that she could not really imagine him not succeeding in anything he chose to do. And now, now he was choosing to wed her.
But Malcom was powerful, too. Mary shuddered, thinking of the meeting that must soon take place between the two of them, a hostile meeting that in all probability would degenerate into violence. And then what would happen to her?
“I will marry you anyway,chère,”he had said.
Mary was seized with a sudden hopelessness. “Could you not content yourself with a ransom?” she heard herself plead.
Stephen did not immediately respond. He was holding the knife to her again, now offering her a morsel of cold pheasant. Mary’s gaze flashed to his. He was treating her as he might his betrothed, his bride, or his wife. Worse than his disconcerting chivalry was the intensity she sensed behind it. That same intensity was mirrored in his dark eyes. How would she ever outwit him when he could so easily scramble her wits?
Stephen sighed, tossing the pheasant aside. “No. I will not. I cannot.”
Mary stared. His words hung between them. She felt their significance, but was afraid to understand it. Surely he did not care for her in some small way? And for just an instant, Mary dared succumb to illicit dreams.
She shook herself free of the moment of insanity. “You will start a war.”
Stephen moved the knife to her lips. Mary’s words died. Its point was long and sharp. Before she quite knew how he had accomplished it, the pheasant was in her mouth and she was chewing it, and he had not even cut her. He skewered a piece of cold lamb. “I have no intention of starting a war,” he murmured. “Long have I worked for this peace.”
Mary sputtered with disbelief.
Stephen’s eyes darkened. “What is so amusing, demoiselle?”
“As if you do not know!” She almost crowed. “You—a de Warenne—interested in peace. You must truly think me a mad fool.”
He stared at her. “What do you think interests me? Other than your sweet body?”
