She could not lie. Never, to her brothers. “He had me flogged. But ’tis finished now.”
“Damn him!” Morcar cried furiously. “I’ll kill him!”
“You are very brave, are you not?” Edwin said quietly, watching her.
Tears came to her eyes. “You would have been proud. I did not beg for mercy, I did not cry out.”
“I am proud,” Edwin said. “Will you help me, Ceidre? At great risk to yourself?”
“You know I will.”
“Good.” He smiled. “Continue to spy. What you’ve done is good. But now that I am planning a new rebellion, I need information. I cannot wait for it to fall into your lap, or mine. I must have it.”
Ceidre waited expectantly.
“Has he touched you, Ceidre?”
It took her a second to understand this abrupt change of topic, and when she did, she flushed and looked away.
“I see he has,” Edwin said. Morcar leapt up, swearing to castrate him. Edwin told him to be quiet. He lifted her chin, gazing into her eyes. “Are you still a maiden, Ceidre?”
She was beet-red. “Yes.”
“He does not fear you like the others. Is this true?”
“Yes.”
“The gossip is he wants you badly.”
It was a question. “I—I think so.”
He released her chin to pace away, then turned back. “He is very handsome.”
Ceidre’s eyes went wide. An inkling began, and it horrified her. “Ed?”
“Ceidre, you can have power over him if you are careful and certain. The power of a woman over a man.”
Morcar gasped, Ceidre stared.
Edwin’s voice was low, steady. “I do not ask this of you lightly. If you cannot bear his touch, or will not, I understand. But I have thought long and hard, Ceidre. What is one maidenhead in the course of this war?”
She was stunned, she was devastated. Tears came to her eyes. He was asking her to give herself to the Norman, to be a sacrifice. Edwin, her brother, her god.
“If you become his leman, Ceidre, willingly, cleverly, you can have access to his innermost secrets.”
“I can’t believe you’d ask this of her,” Morcar said furiously.
When Edwin looked at him, it was with resignation and something else, something tortured in the window of his soul. “I did not order it and I do not ask it lightly, and if I could give what she could, if the Norman wanted me …” He trailed off. Then his voice was strong. “For Aelfgar I would sacrifice my body.”
Edwin was asking her to give herself to the Norman. To let him use her body, to become his mistress. The thought was an echo, laced with despair and hurt. Ceidre tried not to cry. Why was she so crushed? This was war. Her life, her virginity, was insignificant. What was significant was Aelfgar, her brother’s patrimony, the liberation of Mercia, the defeat of the Normans. Oh, Sweet Saint Cuthbert, she had no choice. “I will do it, Ed.”
He did not smile. “I knew you would.”
Her mouth trembled, tears spilled onto her lower lashes. “But, Ed,” she said, “what if he really doesn’t want me?”
“Then you will lose nothing,” he said.
Where did one begin a seduction of one’s enemy?
