And yet he looked again. He could not help himself.
The lovers stood apart now, eyes locked. Stephen watched, transfixed, as de Roche covered her breasts with his hands and rubbed his thumbs over the tips. It was such a blatant show of sexual ownership that Stephen could stand no more.
He turned and fled without a sound.
Stephen drank with a purpose. Though his lips and even his fingertips felt numb, sweet oblivion escaped him. The drink had yet to loosen the knot of jealousy in his stomach. Nor had it dulled the loss that weighed down every muscle.
The woman was heavy on his lap—he had no idea who she was and how she got there. He wanted her gone, but it would take too much effort to make her move. The overpowering smell of cloying perfume, sweat, and sex turned his stomach. Even with his eyes closed, he could not pretend she was Isobel.
Quite suddenly, the weight was off his lap. He heard a sharp exchange of female voices, but he did not feel curious enough to open his eyes.
“You must be far gone to let that one near you! She’d give you the pox for sure, you fool.”
“Claudette?” He opened his eyes to find her looking down at him, her hands on her hips. “It is you.”
He was so glad to see her he leaned against her and put his arms around her waist. Though he was vaguely aware he should not have his face buried between her breasts, it felt comforting to be surrounded by all that softness.
Someone was pulling on his shoulders, and he heard a familiar voice behind him. Reluctantly, he released Claudette and fell back. All this movement was making his head spin.
“Jamie? What are you doing in this den of sin?” he asked. “William will have a fit.”
“He is the one who sent me.”
“William sent a fifteen-year-old to play nursemaid to me?” Stephen’s voice sounded distant to his own ears.
“Aye, that is just what he did,” Jamie said with a grin, “except that I am almost sixteen.”
William sent Jamie with Claudette? More proof the world made no sense. No sense at all.
“How could she prefer de Roche?” he asked.
Jamie gave him a puzzled look, but Claudette—dear, dear Claudette—understood.
“She would be a fool to prefer him,” she said and touched his cheek.
“But I saw her.” The words came out of his mouth of their own accord; he could not stop them. “She was kissing him. And touching him, for God’s sake. And—”
“Of course she was. She has to marry the man,” Claudette interrupted. “Women must be practical.”
Practical? Did women truly think that way?
“Kissing me was not practical.”
“It certainly was not,” Claudette agreed. “Not for either of you.”
The next thing he knew he was in a carriage, bouncing over cobblestones, his head banging against the side.
Cold air woke him, and he got his feet under him. Snatches of conversation came to him, as if from a long way away: Jamie saying he could manage alone; the guards’ loud jibes; his own voice suggesting they find Isobel.
When next he opened his eyes, he saw his feet dragging along the floor. Then some kind soul hoisted him onto the bed. He was sinking, sinking, sinking.
Jamie’s voice brought him back from the land of the dead. “What did Claudette mean about women being ‘practical’? ”
“She means… a woman will bed a man”—he sighed because of the effort it took to respond, but Jamie shook his shoulder again—“because it makes sense to her… though she has no true feeling for him. They are all heartless, heartless.”
“A virtuous woman would not do that.”
“Virtuous ones are the worst!” God in heaven, even Catherine took a stranger to her bed.
