“She was beaten. Who says so?”
Thorpe’s humor fled. Rolfe had paled, and his body was still as death. “Damn me, Rolfe, do you mean you didn’t know? But you spent the night with her. How could you not know?”
“Who?” Rolfe repeated. His voice was a whisper.
“Lady Roese caught a glimpse of her face the next morning when the ladies came for your sheets,” Thorpe said uneasily.
“How badly was she beaten?”
Thorpe realized he had to tell all he knew. “Apparently it was a harsh beating. I heard it said Lady Leonie’s face was swollen grotesquely and blackened with bruises. That is what shocked Lady Roese sobadly. Thinking you were responsible, she did not keep quiet about the beating.”
“You knew all this, and you never spoke to me about it?”
“I thought surely youknew. I would not have mentioned any of this now except for the gossip and…”
Thorpe watched as Rolfe leaped from his chair and bounded out of the hall in six strides. A few moments later, he jumped as a door slammed shut upstairs.
Chapter 39
LEONIE looked up in dismay as her husband towered over her, in a rage about something, glowering in a terrifying manner.
“Why did you never tell me what was done to you?”
“Done?” Was he drunk again? “You will have to be more specific if—”
“You were beaten severely! Was everyone to know of it except me?”
Leonie stiffened, her eyes turning a stormy silver gray. This was not a subject dear to her, but then he already knew that.
“I have told you before that I will not speak of what happened,” she said frostily.
“Damn me, you will! You will tell me what you gained by hiding your beating from me!”
“Hiding it!” she came back furiously. “There was nothing to hide, except from Sir Guibert, and that was to prevent murder being done.Youknew! Judith admitted to me that she told you. Why else do you think I stabbed you that night? I awoke in pain, caused by your touch on my bruised face. It was a thoughtless, normal reaction. You must have understood that, since you never mentioned the stabbing to me.”
Rolfe’s anger was tempered somewhat by hers, but only somewhat. “I never mentioned that little prick you made with your knife, Leonie, because that is allit was. And your stepmother did warn me you had to be forced to marry me, but she didn’t tell me how you were forced. I thought you were denied a few meals, the standard practice for reluctant brides.”
“There was no time for that, my lord,” she said bitterly. “My father did not tell me I was to marry until the day before the wedding. As usual, his drunkenness made him thoughtless.”
“Does drunkenness excuse him?”
“Ido not excuse him!”
“For your beating, or because you are now married to me?” he asked harshly.
Leonie turned her back, but Rolfe whirled her around, his fingers biting into her arms, his eyes black with rage.
“Why, Leonie? Why was I so abhorrent to you? Why did you have to be beaten before you would consent to marry me?”
He was shouting at her, stirring her already churning emotions. Never mind that she was beaten. Never mind that she had suffered. His vanity was wounded, and that was all that concerned him!
“I was afraid of you, my lord. I had been told you were a monster, and that was all I knew of you. I thought you wanted me only for revenge, because of the trouble you felt I had caused you. A beating was easier than what I believed you would do to me.” Reflectively, she added, “I thought I could withstand a beating, but I was wrong. The cur would have killed me had I not sworn on my mother’s grave that I would wed you.”
This was uttered with all the hatred she felt for Richer Calveley. Rolfe thought it reflected her anger at being forced to marry him.
“So you thought me a monster?”
“I did.”
