Whatever he meant by that, she didn’t care to find out. She knew his game now, and his ultimate goal. Humiliation at every opportunity, and utter devastation of her pride.Crushing it will be one of my priorities. She should have remembered that promise.
His staring at her nakedness now was done just to shame her, not because he was actually curious about what she looked like. He didn’t do it for his pleasure, or even in anticipation of having her. His sister had said that was something she wouldn’t have to fear. He had told her nearly the same thing. Normal emotions didn’t apply to this. Just her shame, her discomfort, her helplessness.
Erika got angry.
Fear had been controlling her, fear of what the sight of her nakedness could do to a man, and what that man would then want. But shehad forgotten that Selig was no ordinary man. He was her enemy, and that particular fear didn’t apply to him. He wasn’t even capable of coupling just now, if for some reason he should desire it, and even if he was, he wouldn’t act on that desire. Coupling would mean he wanted her, and he would never give her something like that to throw up in his face afterward.
The anger came, and with it, an abrupt change in her demeanor as well as her thinking. He wanted to shame her? How could he, when she had wanted this bath more than he wanted her to have it, when his presence presented no actual danger to her, when she had it within her power to make him regret toying with her this time? He wanted to watch? She would give him something to watch. Perhaps she had no power as a lady, but she still had her power as a woman.
Erika had never in her life deliberately tried to entice a man, but some things were instinctive. She turned around to face him. She reached for the soap and spread it on her hands instead of the washcloth. Slowly, with ancient challenge in the sky-blue eyes she locked to his, she rubbed her hands over her breasts, smoothed them over her belly and hips, down the side of her legs to her knees, then, even slower, up the inside of her thighs. He followed those hands with his own bright grey eyes, and she knew the very second that he forgot who she was, and was just watching a woman at her bath.
“Will you wash my back, Viking?”
“Vixen,” he hissed.
She wanted to laugh, but didn’t. She had never imagined she could salvage her pride this way.
And then, somehow, he turned the tables on her.
It was the way his expression suddenly became sensual. The way his lips softened and curved just so. The way his eyes gleamed more silver than gray as they caressed the intimate parts of her. He was a man who knew how to make love with his eyes, and he was giving her a demonstration of that skill.
Uncertainty returned with a vengeance, making Erika distinctly uncomfortable again. It had been unbelievably stupid of her to provoke this reaction in him. After all, the conclusions she had drawn were not writ in blood. Lust could destroy the strongest resolve.
He still wasn’t capable of doing anything about it just now, but that and only that kept her from running, screaming, from the room. She looked away from him instead, and finished her bath with all speed. But she knew he hadn’t closed his own eyes.
He watched, and she trembled. She also began to feel something else, something unexpected and not unpleasant that hummed in her core. Was lust contagious? Odin help her if it was, because he could see to his with any one of a dozen women in the hall below, but who would see to hers? Nay, fanciful was what she was. She wouldn’t know lust if it bit her. And for him to stir it with just a look? Impossible.Her stomach had merely reacted to such swift changes in emotions, no more than that.
He said no other words to her, and she didn’t look his way again. But she had learned a lesson. She was no good at his game.
Chapter 20
“YOU WILL FINDa comb in the coffer next to you,” Selig said.
The offer was so unexpected, and so generous, Erika distrusted it, coming from him. That she had been trying to work the tangles from her hair with her fingers for the past half hour was beside the point. Selig wouldn’t give her something she might be grateful for. So why had he?
She opened the coffer warily, expecting some sort of trap to spring, knives to drop from the ceiling, the floor to open and swallow her, rodents to leap out of the trunk itself. Nothing happened. It was an ordinary trunk. And the comb was there, next to an oval looking glass, both set atop a deep pile of male clothes.
The looking glass she simply couldn’t resist using, but staring into it brought bemusement. She didn’t look as awful as she had expected. In fact, freshly scrubbed, she showed not a sign of hardship on her face. No more than a slight tinge of yellow was on her cheek where she had been struck, telling her she had bruised, but notbadly. The swelling was also gone from that area. Her sky-blue eyes were bright, surprise reflected in them. Even the sun had treated her kindly, merely darkening the golden tan she had already begun acquiring since summer had come to the land.
She looked, actually, quite lovely, making her doubt what she was seeing. It had to be the candlelight, glowing throughout the room since a servant had come to light the many tapers at the first signs of approaching dusk. Candlelight could be deceiving…
“You thought to see something different?”
The blasted mancouldread minds. “Nay, I—”
“Give me time, wench,” he interrupted. There was distinct laughter in his tone. “I will put the suffering there you expect.”
“Bastard,” she hissed beneath her breath.
She began yanking the comb through her hair. The tears that sprang forth from her stinging scalp forced her to ease up and use the comb properly.
They had both already eaten. The food given her had not been what one might expect for a prisoner, but instead, of surprisingly rich variety and quite tasty. The inside of her mouth was still sore, though had healed enough that she no longer had to be careful in her chewing. But she would have enjoyed the meal better if she didn’t have to listen and watch the love-play going on across the room.
The girl, Edith, who had come with the food,did more touching and caressing of Selig than feeding him, and spent a full hour at it. Shameless slut, and he enjoyed every moment of it, exuding more charm and sexual appeal than Erika had ever been witness to. It was obvious they were well “acquainted,” and just as obvious they would be again as soon as Selig’s strength returned.
The hour was, in fact, grown quite late now, yet no one had come to extinguish the lights or retie her. The water had been emptied from the tub. Lady Brenna had come again, to assure herself that Selig was taking the potions the healer had made for him. Lady Kristen had merely poked her head around the door, to inquire if he needed anything. The most disquieting visit, however, had come from Selig’s father and brothers.
The three men dominated the room with their height and brawn, and each had gazed quietly at Erika at different times during their visit, though none addressed her or even asked Selig about her. Kristen had probably told them all there was to know, her version at least. Erika sensed varying degrees of curiosity from them, distaste, perplexity, and anger, but surprisingly, no actual hate. Likely they just hid it better than Selig did.
