His expression had not changed, was no more than it had been, which was no expression at all. She began to tremble, though he couldn’t see it. How easily he could catch her off guard. How easily he could move in for the kill whilst she was least suspecting. How did he do it?Whyhad he done it?
“You mean to toy with me,” she accused, no other reason coming to mind.
“Certainly—until I am able to do more than that.” And he smiled, an absolutely beautiful smile that made her catch her breath. “The ropes becomes you, lady,” he added in a pleasant tone, staring at her throat. “I particularly like the one around your neck.”
Erika blanched. He meant to hang her. He was letting her know so she could think about it, dread it, so the fear would eat away at her sanity.What she suffers will come from me. She closed her eyes, fighting tears.
Selig watched her, pleased by her reaction. She was so damned beautiful, so damned desirable—even now, hating her, he acknowledged her ability to stir his senses—yet so damned cruel. He had never known a woman to be like that. Was it the power her brother gave her that made it so? His mother and sister held such power, yet they did not abuse it as this Dane did. She’d had him lashed, and for what? Because he had offered to share her bed. When any other woman would have leapt at the chance.
Lashed…and she had stood there and laughed the while, a coldhearted, malicious—beautiful—witch. But she was going to pay for what she’d done. He was going to enjoy seeing to it. Before he was through with her, she would beg for mercy, and he would be the one to laugh and deny it.
“I like that rope around your neck so well,” he continued, “I think I will have an iron collar made for you, with a ring attached. I am sure I can think of many things to do with that ring.”
Erika looked up to see that he was still smiling, but the hate was in his eyes again, deeply smoldering. No hanging, then, but the fear remained, as he had intended. Toy with her? He meant to drive her mad.
“You did not find that amusing?” he asked.
Words failed her at that point. She could only shake her head.
“Good,” he said, his tone positively chilling now. “Because I mean to see you never laugh again.”
That sounded significant, as if there were more to those words than threat or promise. But Erika was too shaken to question him, and he moved away from the side of the wagon until she could no longer see him. Sweet Freya, if only she might never see him again.
Chapter 15
THE DAY PROGRESSEDas Erika might have expected. Kristen mounted and rode beside her husband, which meant the terrible Dane could not be left alone in the wagon with the defenseless Selig. Defenseless? The man might still be weak as a babe, but he had weapons aplenty in his words.
Erika was grateful she wouldnotbe forced to endure his close company, even though what was left to her was to walk. The walking she wouldn’t have minded at all, except her shoes had not been returned to her.
She wasn’t even sure if it was a deliberate oversight, for Kristen hadn’t been the one to tie her wrists before her with a long length of rope attached to the wagon. Thorolf had done that, and she doubted he had noticed she was without shoes, her under chainse was so long. The Norsewoman could merely have forgotten that she had removed the shoes the day before, or, as was more likely the case and a common enough practice, it was hoped her feet would suffer enough damage that she would be in nocondition to escape by foot if the opportunity should present itself.
Erika had noticed the oversight immediately, but for some ridiculous reason, probably because Selig had been watching whilst she was being tied to the back of the wagon, her pride had reared its head and she refused to ask for her shoes. The wagon didn’t move so swiftly that she couldn’t keep up with it, but her hose were no protection from the rough ground.
She had begun by walking beside the wagon, where she couldn’t see inside it, nor could the man inside it see her. But as the hours passed, she fell behind. She didn’t once fall, but the exertion, coupled with the rising heat of the day, had the sweat pouring from her.
The sun was high when the Saxon lord drew his horse next to her and offered her a skin of water. He hated Danes, according to his brother-in-law, but she saw no hate in his eyes. Curiosity, disturbance, but no animosity like she experienced from everyone else.
She handed back the skin, expecting him to leave, but he spoke instead. “Who hit you?”
The swelling on her cheek was, of course, quite noticeable. Besides the tightness of the swelling, she could actually see it when she looked down. She wondered if it had bruised as well. She wasn’t going to ask anyone.
“Your wife,” she said in answer.
His expression didn’t change. “She sees to her own quite fiercely.”
Fiercely indeed. Erika doubted she wouldever forget the dagger at her throat. “I was expecting it.”
“Were you? Why?”
She glanced up at him, wondering if he was merely curious, or if there was another reason for these questions. Hesitantly, she gave him the truth. “I suspected she had not seen her brother’s back yet.”
“Ah, the lashing. Why did you do it?”
She was surprised that he would ask that. Had his wife told him nothing?
“He was an accused spy. His answers did not ring true when he was put to questioning.” That wasn’t the whole of it, wasn’t even the why of it, he had insulted her, asked for her bed, but she wanted to know, “Why does everyone here find that lashing so unusual? I doubt me you would have done differently.”
“Possibly, but then, I am a man and his angel’s face would have no effect on me.”
