He was as horrified as he had ever been in his life. But Rufus had not been offering him respectability, power, or marriage, he reminded himself. Rufus had wanted to use him, abuse him. Still, the parallels truly frightened him.
Yet he was helpless, too, a prisoner of his own lust and ambition. He could not free her, he would not.
“You are not a prisoner,” he repeated, but whether to convince her or himself, he dared not know. “You shall be my wife! Everything that is mine shall be yours.”
She dropped her hands, her face glazed with tears, her eyes wild with rage. “There is nothing you have that I want!”
She had goaded him as only a woman can a man. “Do not make me prove the falsehood you have just uttered!” He found himself leaning over her. “In bed you are hardly unwilling!”
She choked. “Not in bed—no—for you are a devil who has ensorcelled me—but otherwise I am only unwilling—and I will never let you forget it!”
He could not move away from her even though he longed to then, transfixed by her hatred. “Unwilling, disloyal, it hardly matters,” he said heavily. There would be no turning back. “We will be wed, as your father and I have planned.”
“Do not speak to me of Malcolm!” she screamed.
And Stephen had a glimpse of what moved her to such fury, and he was aghast. “Mary, you are angry with Malcolm?”
“Ihateyou!” she screamed. Suddenly she drove herself off the wall, launching herself at him. Stunned, Stephen caught her as he stumbled backwards. She pummeled him with her fists. Stephen fell onto the bed, trying to embrace her even as she beat him. Enraged that she could not hurt him, she curled her fingers into claws. Stephen winced as one of her nails ripped a deep scratch along his cheek. He had no choice then but to throw her on the bed. Standing, he held the stinging scratch and felt the moisture of his blood.
Mary doubled over into a ball, hugging her abdomen, moaning.
Stephen forgot the small wound. How could he not go to her—despite how she felt about him? He sat beside her, taking her into his arms, stroking her hair as she wept openly against his chest. How could he soothe her? God damn Malcolm Canmore to hell! God damn himself!
She stiffened when she realized that he held her, and wrenched free. She leapt from the bed, maniacal. “’Tis your fault!”
He was motionless, except for the slight tremor that afflicted him. He opened his mouth to defend himself, recalled abducting her and seducing her, and promptly shut it. Even if he dared defend himself, to do so would only cast more blame upon her father, which he was reluctant to do.
Mary pointed a finger at him, unable to keep it steady. “You did this! You came between us! You turned Malcolm from me!‘Tis all your fault!”
How she hated him.It flashed through his mind that he had secretly anticipated something far more than a marriage of either resignation or hostility. He had envisioned warmth and sweet succor, gentle laughter and genuine loyalty. Pain pierced his breast. For both his bride and himself.
He slowly rose to his feet. His own fists were tightly clenched. With an effort, he relaxed them. “I am sorry you lay the entire blame for this affair at my feet,” he said stiffly. “But perhaps you are right. For I do want to wed you—and I will, no matter how you hate me.”
Mary choked on a sound of raw despair.
He was grinding his jaw from the tension. His chest ached. Without looking back, he swung open the door and disappeared into the hall.
As soon as he was gone, Mary collapsed on the bed. She realized she could not cry anymore. The pain throbbed on in her. She wanted to beat the bed, claw the sheets, claw herself. She wanted to rave against the injustice of it all. In that moment, she felt like a madwoman, caught in the horror of a madness that defied reality.
Many minutes dragged by, minutes in which she grew calmer and saner, minutes in which she grew unthinking and numb. Gradually a feeling of unease stole over her. Mary felt eyes upon her. Cold, hateful, intent eyes. She realized that she was being watched.
She jerked, for the woman who stood in the shadows of the open doorway, observing her with real pleasure, gloating over her distress, was the very last person Mary wished to see. It was the too beautiful black-haired woman who had confronted Stephen so intimately just an hour ago; it was his Norman mistress.
They stared at each other.
The other woman’s gaze swept over Mary with no small amount of contempt. “Do not tell me you are sharing this room!”
Mary drew herself up straight, chin lifted. She was very aware of her vulnerability, of having been caught by this woman, Stephen’s beautiful, voluptuous ex-mistress, off guard and in a moment of extreme weakness. “I am indeed,” she said quietly, trying not to show her dismay.
The woman entered the room, sauntering around it—and around Mary. “So—they force you to wed Stephen.”
“It appears that you know who I am,” Mary said tersely, unsmiling. She stood up. “But you have yet to introduce yourself.”
The woman smiled, not prettily. “I am Lady Beaufort,” she said. “Adele Beaufort. The woman Stephen was to wed.”
Mary could not contain her shock. She had assumed, so wrongly, that this woman was his mistress. She was not his leman, she was one of England’s greatest heiresses. Mary’s dismay increased. She had assumed Adele to be his consort because her actions—and Stephen’s—had indicated that they were intimate with each other. Knowing that, and knowing now that Adele was a noblewoman and a great heiress, somehow deflated Mary. She told herself that it did not matter, for Mary far outranked her, and regardless, they were not rivals. But Mary felt as if they were rivals—as if they were great and bitter rivals.
“He only marries you because of the alliance you bring him,” Adele said with narrowed eyes. She had closed the door; now she smoothed a hand over her stunning turquoise gown, over her voluptuous hip. Her stance was provocative, and Mary knew she flaunted her curves deliberately in the face of Mary’s own slender, boyish body.
