He didn’t at first notice how his commanding tone affected her. But when he saw the deathly hue of her cheeks and the strange, haunted look intensify in her eyes, he went still. More softly, he said, “I need to know how this happened, lady, and if you were hurt elsewhere. If you cannot remember or will not comply, I will summon a physician to examine you, to ascertain that you are in no danger.”
“There’s no need to call an examination, my lord. The bruises were the result of my own foolishness, nothing more.”
Gray waited in silence for her to continue, but she apparently felt herself finished. The only outward sign of her feelings came in how her fingers clenched in her lap. Her throat worked convulsively, as if she tried to hold back some strong emotion. Placing his fingertip under the silky curve of her chin, he guided her gaze back to his again. “Are there more bruises than those I observed?”
He thought he saw a glimmer of unshed tears beginning to build again, but then she just blinked and nodded. Gray found himself wavering between a desire to comfort her and the urge to force her to explain. The conflicting feelings annoyed and angered him. She had no right to come into his life and upset the delicate balance he’d worked so hard to achieve. He’d not allow it. He needed to get to the bottom of his wife’s secrets, and he intended to uncover this particular mystery right now.
“Show me.”
She pulled away with an abrupt motion, standing and pacing to the other side of the chamber. “Nay. ’Tis of no matter. I will heal in time.” She half-turned, her eyes downcast as she clenched her fingers again. “I swear that I will not allow it to interfere with your pleasure this night, my lord.”
Shadows masked her face, but not enough so that Gray couldn’t see the tightness there.Fear. Aye, he’d expected as much. She was virgin, after all. He’d already reminded himself of that fact, cursing his inexperience in handling one such as she.
But whether she was his virgin bride or one of Thornby’s most seasoned whores, nothing mattered as much right now as making sure that she was well.
“Lady, I’ll wait no longer for your compliance.”
Gray covered the distance between them in the space of a heartbeat. Against her soft protests, he led her toward the fire; taking a candelabrum from the mantel, he tipped it to the flames.
The tapers ignited with a popping hiss, and he set them on a small table perched near the hearth. Elise faced away from him, motionless; the mellow candle-glow bathed her hair, turning its lighter brown strands to gold.
Sweet Jesu, but this was more difficult than he’d expected. It took all of his strength not to bury his hands in her hair, to feel its silky weight against his cheek and breathe in her sweet fragrance. Desperate to quell the desire, Gray pulled his dagger from his belt and sliced through her smock in one quick motion.
Elise gasped as the fabric of her underdress slipped, but she couldn’t prevent Gray from seeing what she’d obviously been trying to hide from him. The bruises that flowered across the smooth expanse of her back showed even more brutality, if that was possible, than the discoloration on her arm.
No accident under heaven could have resulted in this. It had been caused by the pounding force of some kind of animal.A human animal.
Fury swept through Gray with the swiftness of a winter squall; he beat back the surging memories that the sight of her injuries invoked. Memories of pain, darkness, misery, and impotent fury. A muscle in his jaw twitched as he stepped forward to push his wife’s hair gently from her neck. She shuddered, and her shoulders hunched forward protectively.
By all that was Holy.Cursing softly, Gray let its silky weight fall back down to shield her. “Tell me who did this.” His voice echoed quiet and deadly, and he felt the all too familiar battle rage begin to build in his blood. Whatever man had dared to touch Elise, had dared to touchhis wifelike this, would pay dearly. Before morning, the wretch’s blood would soak the earth below the walls of Ravenslock.
She swung around to face him, eyes wide. Her mouth was even more drawn and pinched than before. “Please, my lord, ’tis of no matter. I beg of you to let it pass.”
Gray’s anger burned hotter, and a dark, destructive need for vengeance flared in his blood. “I’ll excuse your request on the grounds that you’ve known me but a few hours, lady. Do not ask it of me again. Just tell me the name of the bastard who did this to you. Now.”
“I can’t,” she whispered. Her eyes had filled with tears, and her voice sounded choked.
“Why the hell not?”
“Because, I…because I can’t let you take action against him, or—” She broke off mid-point, choking back another sob and clenching her fingers so tightly in front of her that Gray felt sure they must snap from the pressure.
His temper broke instead, and he stalked to her, gripping her hands. “Why all the secrets? Why the heavy silences, the mysterious glances? Have you a lover whose seed already grows in your belly? Is that why you take such pains to protect his name?”
Elise’s face turned ashen, and she gasped. “Nay! I’ve taken no lover, now or at any time in my life!”
“Who, then, would dare to visit such abuse upon you?” But even as he uttered the question aloud, its answer burst upon him with startling clarity. Only a man who had access, power, and the right given him by law to exert such force could be responsible for the deed. And only one man fit that description, so far as Gray knew.
“Christ, it was Eduard.” He murmured it half as a statement and half as a question. His wife’s silence gave him the confirmation he needed.
Releasing her, Gray stalked to the door, preparing to hunt down and drag the bastard from his bed, King Henry’s sanctions be damned. But before he could pull back on the wooden slab, Elise cried out and threw herself against him to block his access. He stared at her, stunned. Though she was tall, he’d not expected her to wield such strength.
She gazed at him, her eyes blue and glistening as the dew-soaked flowers that dotted the meadows near Ravenslock; she’d pressed back against the door, so caught up in the grip of emotion that she didn’t seem to notice how the cut edges of her smock slipped from her shoulders.
Gray did.
His gaze drifted almost against his will, picking up every nuance, noticing how the creamy fabric bunched around her hand where she continued to clutch it to her breasts. The sight enticed him beyond reason. She looked wanton in a purely innocent way, which only added to the spiking shafts of desire and rage that lanced through him at the moment.
The soft linen provided sensual contrast with the smooth contours of bare flesh above it. In the firelight her skin took on a deeper glow, a silky warmth that made Gray burn with the desire to stroke his palm over the exposed places.
