Slowly, with supreme confidence, he began to undo the ties on his chausses with his free hand, while the other remained tightly pressed between her legs. And by his order she had to watch him do it.
“Fight it, little thief,” he commanded softly. “Fight it as I did, and learn that the body cares naught about hate and rage and shame. It is but a simple vessel, with simple but powerful instincts, and one of the most basic is the age-old instinct to procreate.”
His flesh sprang loose beneath his tunic, and by the bulge against the black cloth, she knew it was already full-grown. That very knowledge flooded her insides to wet his fingers and she groaned, knowing now what the moisture signified, though his triumphant laugh told her as well.
He did not touch her anywhere else, and he mounted her immediately to slide so easily into her body. This was a punishment, not part of his revenge, not part of his like for like, for he was not supposed to have forced her again until the morrow. Her body did not care. It was providing the means to avoid pain, welcoming the means to procreate, despite the fact that she had already fulfilled that basic instinct. But it was also welcoming another thing, and although she fought it this time, denied it with her whole will, screamed in rage against it, there was pleasure in the deep thrusts rocking her that could not be denied. And, God help her, Warrick was watching her when that pleasure culminated and burst into throbbing radiance, her total surrender to his mastery writ clearly for him to savor. But she was watching him this time, too, for the first time, and when the same pleasure took him, the cruel lines on his face vanished for an instant, showing her again the truly handsome man beneath the mask of hatred.
She did not want to see that, closed her eyes against it, and did not care if he killed her for it. All he did was collapse against her, his forehead to her pillow, his cheek against her temple, his labored breath ringing in her ears. Nor did he leave her as quickly as before.
When he did, his breath had returned to normal, and his mask was back in place. He made quick work of retying his laces, but with that done, he stared at her, letting his eyes rove down the length of her before coming back to her still flushed face, and his fingers trailed down the soft underside of her raised arm.
“Mayhap you will obey my commands more closely in the future—or mayhap not.” And then his cruel lips curled to sneer contemptuously. “You will admit I never yielded as easily as you, wench. I wonder what the thought of how many times I will come to you in the next days does to you. And I will not wait upon the night, for I do not intend to lose sleep as you did. Are you in dread, little thief, or do you no longer find my revenge quite so distasteful?”
She would have spit in his face if she were not gagged. Her eyes told him so and he laughed.
“Excellent. I would not like to think you await my visits eagerly when I so detested yours, when all I thought about was getting my hands around this soft throat and squeezing the last breath from your little body.”
That his hand came to that area now and squeezed did not cause Rowena alarm. He would never settle for anything as quick and final as her death when he was so cruel and merciless. But he saw her lack of fear, and his hand moved down to squeeze her breast instead of her throat.
“Think you you know me, do you?” he bit out, clearly displeased with her now. “Think again, wench, for you willneverknow me well enough to guess what I am capable of, never know what demons have shaped me and made me into what I am. Best you pray I find revenge against you satisfying, for if it palls, you may well wish for death.”
If he thought merely to frighten her with those words, he was diabolically ingenious.
Chapter 18
When Rowena thought of Warrick de Chaville coming to her again, she would begin to tremble, so she did not think of it. But he came.
She was not even awake when he came the next morn, the darkness of the night only just receding. But when she finally became aware of him, she was also aware that he had already coaxed her body to receive him. And he made quick work of it, so quick that she was almost more bitter about having her sleep disturbed than about having her body invaded, for the one was over and done with before she felt much of anything, but as exhausted as she was, she still could not get back to sleep after he left her.
Enid came not long after, but Warrick did not come with the servant this time. And Rowena was in no mood for the sympathetic looks she was receiving from the older woman, yet she again found herself grateful to her. She had not even known her shoulders were aching from the forced restraint until Enid started to massage the area, and although it was not necessary that she do so, she thoroughly washed the smell of that monster from Rowena’s skin.
But he came again at midday. And he came again at dusk. Rowena’s only compensation was that he had had to work hard to caress that shameful moisture from her the third time. And so it went the next day also, except the third time that day, the last time she should have to suffer his body into hers, was the worst of them all.
The man was not interested in merely preparing her to receive him, he was after something else, and she would not be surprised if it was to drive her mad. He touched her long after he knew she was ready for him, caressed her more than she could bear. He stirred lust in her until she would have begged him to take her, but all she could do was take what he gave, a new knowledge of her own body, a knowledge of her weakness of spirit as well as flesh. The bastard made her want him. And he knew it. ’Twas his final triumph.
The only thing that sustained Rowena was her certainty that she would be released on the third morn, to satisfy his like for like. Yet she dreaded what further revenge he had planned for her, for she did not think for a minute that he would be satisfied merely with what he had already done. He had said her life now belonged to him in payment for Gilbert’s intention of killing him, and that he placed little value on it. He had said she was now his to do with as he would.
Nay, he would not let her go as she had him—at least not until the child was born. If he meant to keep it, and keep her from it, then he would have to let her go—or merely send her to another of his properties. She still could not let that happen, though she knew not what she could do about it now, when she did not even know what the next day would bring.
It brought Enid with the key to her chains. Rowena had expected Warrick to come himself so he could tell her what further humiliations were to be hers. Enid, of course, could tell her naught. But she had brought food that Rowena was able to feed herself, and she had brought clothes.
The clothes gave Rowena her first suspicions of what was now to be her lot. Her own clothes had long since been taken away, but these new ones were nowise like them. The chemise and outer bliaut were both homespun wool in a drab dun, not overly coarse, but naught that could be considered of a fine quality. They were clothes for a castle servant, the bliaut shorter than any lady would wear it, new, clean, and now Rowena’s. For a girdle there was a strip of braided leather. Thick woolen hose were included, as well as plain cloth shoes, but no soft braies or shift for underwear. She was to be naked under these garments, likely as one more humiliating reminder of her changed circumstance.
And she was to leave the lord’s chamber.
As soon as Rowena had worked the stiffness out of her arms, and dressed and rebraided her hair, Enid beckoned her to follow. The woman could not tell her what was to be done with her, but she obviously knew where Rowena was to go. And no sooner had they entered the Great Hall than she felt the stare that drew her eyes to the lord’s table.
Warrick sat there, a sunbeam slanting through one of the high windows giving bright gold highlights to his dark blond head. Though the hour had long since passed for breaking his fast, a trencher and a tankard of ale still sat before him. He stared at her without expression, just stared, which made her recall the last time he had seen her, naked on his bed.
But that was over, she reminded herself. She could endure anything else that he intended for her—as long as that was over. However, he did not summon her to him. He had no intention of giving her warning of what was to come. So be it. It could not be so bad if he did not want to witness her horror upon learning of it.
A movement behind him caught her eye before she continued on. She glanced toward the hearth to see a group of women sitting there, all stopped in what they had been doing and staring avidly at her. She had not noticed them sooner because the brightness at the lord’s table did not extend back to the hearth. In fact, the sunbeam was so bright, all around it seemed almost in shadow. But her eyes adjusted now and noted that most of the women were ladies, several of them very young. And the two youngest were frowning at her, frowns so similar…
God’s mercy, Warrick had daughters nigh full-grown! They did not closely resemble him, except for those frowns that marked them clearly de Chavilles. Then he must have a wife, too. Nay, what lady wife would give up her solar so her husband could rape another woman in it? Then again, any wife of Warrick de Chaville’s would have no say in whatever he did, whether he kept mistresses or raped women in his bed. And Rowena could only pity a woman with such a husband as he.
And then she gasped as one of the women stood up from her stool so Rowena could see her clearly. Mildred! How was it possible?
Joy burst in Rowena’s breast, lit up her face, and she took a step forward. Mildred turned away from her to look toward Warrick, then sat back down, hidden again by the women sitting in front of her. Without a word? Without even an expression of greeting? Rowena did not understand. But then her gaze came back to Warrick to see his smile, and she did understand. In some way this was another revenge on his part. Could he have somehow turned Mildred completely against her? Nay, she did not think that possible, but obviously Mildred was not to talk to her.
