He reached behind him to pull that jerkin’s hood up around his face. “I only meant that a woman who does not want men’s attention should not encourage it by grinding her backside against one of their fronts.”
Evangeline’s laugh was higher pitched than I thought it would be. As she regained her breath, she said, “Robbie,whatare you doing with your backside now? I must hear about this.”
My mouth was dry, but I said, “I think he is referring to my trying to get away from him when he was restraining me.”
“What?” she snapped and whipped her head to him, curls bobbing. “You restrained her? My gods, Reed, why are you putting your hands on?—”
“She was trying to sneak out of camp.”
“I was trying to find supplies for medicines,” I countered.
He turned to look past Evangeline to me. “And you weren’t very subtle about it. I heard your raucous steps from halfway across camp.”
“That’s no cause for putting your hands on her!”
“Evangeline,” he said and looked at her significantly. “Have I ever?”
“No, but you’ve never decided to leave the wardens and all that you’ve ever known and travel across the continent on a whim either.”
They stared at each other.
Then he said, “It wasno whim.”
“Then why won’t you tell us why?—”
“I did not touch her,” he interrupted. “I grabbed the strap of herbag and held her by that. She then proceeded to push herself into me like a cat in heat.”
I was surely crimson everywhere my skin was exposed. I stared down at Zara’s white mane, shot through with a dull yellow, the color of chicken fat. Tired with his continual refrain that I was some kind of insatiable temptress, I said, “Well, it worked, didn’t it?” I made myself continue to look ahead.
Evangeline chortled and slapped her thigh. “Did it, Reed?”
I wished I could see his face, but I knew that if I turned, it would, as it so always was, be concealed by that hood. So I forced myself not to look.
There was a beat and then he said, with indifference, almost as if admitting to it took nothing away from him, “It’s a fine backside.”
Unable to resist, I turned to him, surprised and a bit triumphant. But my triumph was short-lived. His wry smile was in place, and he remained looking at the road. Then he sighed and said, “It always feels nice to win, doesn’t it? At least every now and then.”
I exhaled noisily. “Are you saying you admit that my backside’s effect on you is a victory for me? Because it is.”
“Oh no,” he said, cocksure but still relaxed. “I am sayingyouhave finally admitted to what I have been saying for weeks now. It ismyvictory today, madam. Not yours.”
Godsdamn him. He had trapped me into admitting I was a seductress.
“Explain,” Evangeline demanded.
Reed finally turned to look at me and then said, “I’ll let the midwife tell you. I worry I will gloat if I do.” Then he spurred his roan and shot off down the road, adroit in his horsemanship, navigating the horse around wagons and walkers.
IV
HAG
35
THEN: THANE
Torm Sheridan had married a noblewoman from Perpatane. It was an arranged marriage, and her people had sent her—a younger sibling in her family—to wed the far-off lord of a settlement in the low country that bordered Nyossa. She must have been far down the line in her family with several daughters ahead of her. For though he was a lord, it was not a position of much standing to a Perpatanian lady. The Lady Sheridan was as icy as the cold western north from whence she came. She had a son they named Bertram. She bemoaned only having a small retinue of servants from her home country. Perhaps she should not have complained so much, for this drew her husband’s attention to one of those servants and he got a son on her several winters later. The poor lady-in-waiting did not last much longer than the birth and named the boy Thane before her passing. The name meant “king,” and it was a cruel name as he was a bastard and could not inherit any of his father’s holdings.
But Torm seemed to love both boys the same.
