“These speculations do not help me, Mildred,” Rowena said irritably.
“Then you have not thought of using a woman’s weapons against him, have you?”
“What weapons?”
“Your beauty. His lust. Then even marriage will be an option, with the child as an added inducement.”
“He would never—!”
“Aye, hecouldbe brought to it, if he wants you badly enough. And you can make him want you that much. You could even make him love you if you did but try.”
Love? What would Warrick be like with that tender emotion fixed in his heart? Would he be as fierce in love as he was in hate? Nay, what was wrong with her? To even think of it was absurd.
But Mildred had not finished. “Most ladies loathe the marriage bed, and small wonder if they are wed to rutting louts who use them only for breeding, while taking their own pleasures elsewhere. But you already know what the marriage bed would be like with this lord. And for a husband, you would be hard pressed to find one as well matched to you in estate, who is also young, a power to reckon with, virile—as you can attest—and not too ugly.”
“He is not ugly,” Rowena protested without thinking. “He is even very handsome when…he…smiles.” She glowered then to realize she had just said something in that man’s favor. “Youhavegone mad, Mildred, and these notions are pure fancy. Warrick wants naught from me but the babe I stole from him and my eternal atonement for that theft. The man despises the very sight of me.”
“More like the very sight of you stirs his lust, andthatis what he despises just now. But you miss my point. I did not say the idea of marriage would come easily to him, only that ’tis possible to bring him ’round to thinking of it. First you must rid him of his animosity toward you, and that will take effort on your part.”
“Thatwould take a miracle.”
“Nay, merely set him to thinking of other things than what was done to him. Confound him. Do not do what he expects. Deliberately entice him. If he can be made to think you want him, despite his treatment of you thus far, all the better. That would completely baffle him, and he will spend more time wondering about it than thinking up those little cruelties you mentioned. Are you willing to try?”
“I can foresee only making a fool of myself should I do so. Methinks you have deluded yourself with wishful thinking, Mildred.”
“And if I have not? Do you like the treatment you get from him now?”
Rowena recalled last night with a shudder, the shame of being made to beg—the unwanted pleasure that begging had gotten her. “Nay,” she said in a whisper.
“Then use your weapons to change it. Show him the maid you were before the d’Ambrays’ coming. Your winsome ways were nigh impossible to resist, as any man who knew you then can attest.”
“I do not think I would know how to be that carefree, happy girl again.”
Mildred leaned over to give her a brief, sympathetic hug. “I know, my sweet one. A pretense is all that is necessary. Can you manage that?”
“Possibly.”
“Then will you try?”
“I needs think on this first. I am not sure I want more of Warrick’s attention than I already have.”
“That is not like to change either way.”
Rowena’s chin rose stubbornly. “And I am not sure either that I want to stop hating him.”
Mildred chuckled. “Then do not. Merely keep him from being aware of your true feelings. He is the one who wears his moods on his face, not you, so that should not be hard for you. But be aware that once he changes and begins to court your favor, you may become as caught up in the game as he and find yourself other than hating him.”
The thought of Warrick de Chaville courting her was so ridiculous, Rowena did not bother to argue against the likelihood of it ever happening, or of her feeling differently than she did now. Besides, she was heartily sick of the subject, and so changed it.
“How is it we have this room to ourselves, Mildred? ’Tis the sewing room, is it not?”
“Aye, but I sent the women off to experiment with a new dye.”
Rowena laughed at Mildred’s mischievous look. “Not that awful green we made last year?”
“Exactly. But I did not tell them ’twas awful. I told them to expect a most beautiful shade, so they would be long in trying to create it. Later I will confess I forgot to mention the addition of yellow, which brightened the shade to that leaf green we ended with.”
“Have you the direction of the sewing women, then, that you can order them?”
