Alice bit her lip to keep from smiling, unable to believe her good fortune. She wanted to know details, but she would find them out soon enough. “I wanted to warn you,” she said carefully, “before you left for York.”
Rolfe pierced her with a cold gaze, clad only in his hose. “Did you?” His tone was mocking.
Alice flushed. “She came to me the day before you left, my lord.”
“If there is something you want me to know, then spit it out.”
He was rude and crude and she hated him. Yet she remembered the feel of his huge lance inside her, the pain and the pleasure, and imagined him taking her again, roughly, hurting her, making her hate him, making her weep, making her keen. The carpenter’s blows as he nailed the new bolt in place on the solar door began ringing out. She lifted her chin. “She came to apologize for bedding you, my lord. She wanted to explain that ’twas her duty—to her brothers.”
Rolfe stared, expressionless.
“They had asked her to seduce you and gain your trust—to spy. ’Twas the only reason she shared your bed, she said. She thought to ease my mind.” Alice laughed lightly. But she was watching him, and she rejoiced silently when she saw the hot, red anger flooding his face and the hard, cold hatred filling his eyes. He turned away from her, and she smiled quickly, unable to contain herself.
When the tub was filled, Rolfe eased himself in. His heart was thudding thickly, too thickly, and he kept remembering how he had come to this room and found the witch naked in his bed. It had been a plan, a scheme of her brothers—seduce him and spy. And he, the fool, had been led by his eager cock. Well, he thought, a cold laugh passing his lips, ’twould never happen again.
His anger choked him. It had been choking him since she had actually confessed—he could not escape it. And with it came the hate.
She was a traitor, and she was his prisoner, and she would rot in that chamber until the day she died.
Ceidre was led by a guard into the solar. He released her and left, slamming the thick wooden door closed behind him. She heard the bolt falling, the sound ominous, final.
She hugged herself, hard, and looked around.
This was where Alice had been confined, yet the chamber no longer resembled that room. The bed had been removed—a straw pallet and blanket took its place. One candle had been provided, with a cup of water and a chamberpot. Being so bare, the room seemed vast, even though it was half the size of the chamber across the hall.
Ceidre walked to the arrow slit and looked out, tears filming her gaze. She had been imprisoned in the dungeon at York for half a day. That dungeon had been nothing like the one at Aelfgar, fortunately. It was large, taking up the entire space beneath the keep, and airy in comparison, not pitch-dark, with cells and many prisoners. She had been able to breathe despite the cloying fear in her chest. True, her breathing had been shallow, she had felt as if she was going to suffocate, but somehow the awful madness that had seized her in the other dungeon had not overwhelmed her. Maybe it was because of the other prisoners, maybe it was because the place was so large. She had had her own cell, half the size of this chamber. She had huddled in a corner, ignoring the other prisoners, perspiring and panting, but she hadn’t tried to claw her way out in a futile hysteria.
She had wept.
The pain in her heart overshadowed all else, and she did not care that she might be swallowed up by the ground or choke to death from the lack of air. She wept, hopelessly, endlessly, grievously. She had betrayed him, and Ceidre knew what kind of man he was. She knew he would never forgive her. She wept until she had not another tear to shed, because she loved him.
The realization came much too late.
And even if it had come sooner, what difference did it make? She loved her brothers too. She would have been torn between the two irreconcilable sides. She would have, however, refused to spy, but brooding upon what might have been did not change anything. He would never forgive her.
The ride back to Aelfgar had taken two days. Ceidre had only seen Rolfe’s back upon occasion. He had cut her out of his existence with one brutal blow. She knew this, was not surprised, just as she knew there would never be any going back to what they had once shared. Fortunately, she had no tears left. Her heart ached with its broken love. And whenever she saw his broad shoulders, or heard his voice, she could not tear her gaze from him. Yet he did not once look her way.
Not once.
It was growing dark. Ceidre wondered if she would be brought another candle once this one was finished. She decided not to light it. She was uncertain how her confinement would be styled. Right now, she feared the utmost deprivation. In truth, she was surprised she hadn’t been sent to the black pits beneath Aelfgar.
She heard the bolt being removed and assumed it was bread and ale, the fare she had subsisted on since her imprisonment. She leaned her cheek against the wall, not bothering to look. Yet when the door was open, she knew who had come. She could feel his presence—it was overwhelming, vibrating with force, seething with hostility—and she jerked around, eyes wide.
Rolfe stood framed in the doorway in the last dimming light of the afternoon.
Ceidre said nothing, but her heart was leaping wildly—with hope. Why had he come? Oh, God, please let him forgive me, ’tis all I want!
Rolfe looked around, then smiled with cruel satisfaction. His gaze pinned her. Ceidre saw the contempt, undisguised, and the hatred, and all her hopes died. She slumped, beaten. He hated her. “I had no choice,” she whispered, the words unbidden. “You must believe me!”
He smiled, another cruel twisting of his lips. “You think I care about your choices, Ceidre?”
“Have you never been forced by circumstance to act against your will?”
“Pretty words.” He laughed roughly. “Pretty words from a pretty whore. Proof lies in the deed, and you have indeed proven yourself.”
She gulped air. “Please listen, please!” She heard herself begging. “I had no choice! I sought only to protect Hereward, not to harm you! Never to harm you! I—”
He reached her in three strides, twisting her arm up behind her back and forcing her against the wall. “Stop!” he shouted. “Stop with your lies! Words spill from your lips like honey, but ’tis poisoned honey— like the honey that spills from here!” He grabbed her crotch.
