pillow, his cheek against her temple, his labored breath ringing in her ears.
Nor did he leave her as quickly as before.
When he did, his breath had returned to normal, and his mask was back in place.
He made quick work of retying his laces, but with that done, he stared at her,
letting his eyes rove down the length of her before coming back to her still
flushed face, and his fingers trailed down the soft underside of her raised arm.
?Mayhap you will obey my commands more closely in the futureor mayhap not.?
And then his cruel lips curled to sneer contemptuously.
?You will admit I never yielded as easily as you, wench. I wonder what the
thought of how many times I will come to you in the next days does to you. And I
will not wait upon the night, for I do not intend to lose sleep as you did. Are
you in dread, little thief, or do you no longer find my revenge quite so
distasteful??
She would have spit in his face if she were not gagged. Her eyes told him so and
he laughed.
?Excellent. I would not like to think you await my visits eagerly when I so
detested yours, when all I thought about was getting my hands around this soft
throat and squeezing the last breath from your little body.?
That his hand came to that area now and squeezed did not cause Rowena alarm. He
would never settle for anything as quick and final as her death when he was so
cruel and merciless. But he saw her lack of fear, and his hand moved down to
squeeze her breast instead of her throat.
?Think you you know me, do you?? he bit out, clearly displeased with her now.
?Think again, wench, for you will never know me well enough to guess what I am
capable of, never know what demons have shaped me and made me into what I am.
Best you pray I find revenge against you satisfying, for if it palls, you may
well wish for death.?
If he thought merely to frighten her with those words, he was diabolically
ingenious.
Chapter 18
When Rowena thought of Warrick de Chaville coming to her again, she would begin
to tremble, so she did not think of it. But he came.
She was not even awake when he came the next morn, the darkness of the night
only just receding. But when she finally became aware of him, she was also aware
that he had already coaxed her body to receive him. And he made quick work of it,
so quick that she was almost more bitter about having her sleep disturbed than
about having her body invaded, for the one was over and done with before she
felt much of anything, but as exhausted as she was, she still could not get back
to sleep after he left her.
Enid came not long after, but Warrick did not come with the servant this time.
And Rowena was in no mood for the sympathetic looks she was receiving from the
older woman, yet she again found herself grateful to her. She had not even known
her shoulders were aching from the forced restraint until Enid started to
massage the area, and although it was not necessary that she do so, she
thoroughly washed the smell of that monster from Rowena?s skin.
But he came again at midday. And he came again at dusk. Rowena?s only
compensation was that he had had to work hard to caress that shameful moisture
from her the third time. And so it went the next day also, except the third time
that day, the last time she should have to suffer his body into hers, was the
worst of them all.
The man was not interested in merely preparing her to receive him, he was after
something else, and she would not be surprised if it was to drive her mad. He
touched her long after he knew she was ready for him, caressed her more than she
could bear. He stirred lust in her until she would have begged him to take her,
but all she could do was take what he gave, a new knowledge of her own body, a
knowledge of her weakness of spirit as well as flesh. The bastard made her want
him. And he knew it. ?Twas his final triumph.
The only thing that sustained Rowena was her certainty that she would be
released on the third morn, to satisfy his like for like. Yet she dreaded what
further revenge he had planned for her, for she did not think for a minute that
he would be satisfied merely with what he had already done. He had said her life
now belonged to him in payment for Gilbert?s intention of killing him, and that
he placed little value on it. He had said she was now his to do with as he would.
Nay, he would not let her go as she had him at least not until the child was
born. If he meant to keep it, and keep her from it, then he would have to let
her goor merely send her to another of his properties. She still could not let
that happen, though she knew not what she could do about it now, when she did
not even know what the next day would bring.
It brought Enid with the key to her chains. Rowena had expected Warrick to come
himself so he could tell her what further humiliations were to be hers. Enid, of
course, could tell her naught. But she had brought food that Rowena was able to
feed herself, and she had brought clothes.
The clothes gave Rowena her first suspicions of what was now to be her lot. Her
own clothes had long since been taken away, but these new ones were nowise like
them. The chemise and outer bliaut were both homespun wool in a drab dun, not
overly coarse, but naught that could be considered of a fine quality. They were
clothes for a castle servant, the bliaut shorter than any lady would wear it,
new, clean, and now Rowena?s. For a girdle there was a strip of braided leather.
Thick woolen hose were included, as well as plain cloth shoes, but no soft
braies or shift for underwear. She was to be naked under these garments, likely
as one more humiliating reminder of her changed circumstance.
And she was to leave the lord?s chamber.
As soon as Rowena had worked the stiffness out of her arms, and dressed and
rebraided her hair, Enid beckoned her to follow. The woman could not tell her
what was to be done with her, but she obviously knew where Rowena was to go. And
no sooner had they entered the Great Hall than she felt the stare that drew her
eyes to the lord?s table.
Warrick sat there, a sunbeam slanting through one of the high windows giving
bright gold highlights to his dark blond head. Though the hour had long since
passed for breaking his fast, a trencher and a tankard of ale still sat before
him. He stared at her without expression, just stared, which made her recall the
last time he had seen her, naked on his bed.
But that was over, she reminded herself. She could endure anything else that he
intended for heras long as that was over. However, he did not summon her to him.
He had no intention of giving her warning of what was to come. So be it. It
could not be so bad if he did not want to witness her horror upon learning of it.
A movement behind him caught her eye before she continued on. She glanced toward
the hearth to see a group of women sitting there, all stopped in what they had
been doing and staring avidly at her. She had not noticed them sooner because
the brightness at the lord?s table did not extend back to the hearth. In fact,
the sunbeam was so bright, all around it s
eemed almost in shadow. But her eyes
adjusted now and noted that most of the women were ladies, several of them very
young. And the two youngest were frowning at her, frowns so similar?
God?s mercy, Warrick had daughters nigh full grown! They did not closely
resemble him, except for those frowns that marked them clearly de Chavilles.
Then he must have a wife, too. Nay, what lady wife would give up her solar so
her husband could rape another woman in it? Then again, any wife of Warrick de
Chaville?s would have no say in whatever he did, whether he kept mistresses or
raped women in his bed. And Rowena could only pity a woman with such a husband
as he.
And then she gasped as one of the women stood up from her stool so Rowena could
see her clearly. Mildred! How was it possible?
Joy burst in Rowena?s breast, lit up her face, and she took a step forward.
Mildred turned away from her to look toward Warrick, then sat back down, hidden
again by the women sitting in front of her. Without a word? Without even an
expression of greeting? Rowena did not understand. But then her gaze came back
to Warrick to see his smile, and she did understand. In some way this was
another revenge on his part. Could he have somehow turned Mildred completely
against her? Nay, she did not think that possible, but obviously Mildred was not
to talk to her.
The anger burst on her as swiftly as the joy of a moment ago. She had already
been disturbed that she was to be allowed naught up her skirts but stockings and
skin, already suspicious of the next step of Warrick?s plot to break her, but
this, to deny her the woman who was like a second mother to her? She forgot her
tenuous position, forgot that he could throw her back in his dungeon, beat her,
kill her.
She ignored Enid?s hand pulling on hers and marched up the raised dais to the
front of his table until she stood across from him. He did no more than raise
his brows in question, as if he could not see that she was enraged.
She leaned forward to hiss for only his hearing ?You can deny me every last
thing that I hold dear, but I can and will pray every day for the rest of my
life that you rot in hell, Warrick.?
He gave her that cruel smile that she was corning to know so well.
?Am I supposed to fear for a soul that is already damned, wench? And I did not
give you leave to be so familiar in your address.?
She leaned back, incredulous. She had just cursed him to everlasting hell, and
he was only concerned with her use of his first name? She was seething, and he
continued to merely smile at her?
?I beg your pardon,? she sneered.
?What I should have called you was bastard.?
He stood up so fast, he startled the anger out of her. And before she even
thought to run, he leaned completely across the table to grab her wrist.
Rowena gasped, his hold was so tight, but all she heard him say was ?My lord.?
?What??
?You did not end that statement with the proper address due me. Say ?my lord.??
He was not going to kill her for calling him bastard?
?But you are not my lord.?
?I am now, wench, and henceforth I will hear you say sooften. And I will hear
you say it now.?
She would rather cut out her tongue. He must have seen that in her stubborn
expression, because he jerked her close to warn in a soft but menacing tone,
?You will say it, or I will have a whip fetched and mete out the standard
punishment due for such insolence.?
Twas no bluff. He had said it, so he would do it, whether he wanted to do it or
not. A man such as he did not give idle threats. And she liked it better when
she did not know the consequences.
But she waited several pounding heartbeats before she gritted out ?My lord.?
He released her immediately. She rubbed her wrist while he sat back down, his
expression no different from what it had been before she had challenged himand
lost. But this time his look was deceiving, for he was in fact annoyed that the
first thing she had done upon her release was to castigate him, when after the
past three days she should have been too intimidated to don any mantle of noble
outrage.
?Mayhap you are not as bereft in wisdom as you are in intelligence,? he said in
response to her capitulation, but then added in a growl ?Get you from my sight
ere I take exception to what you did call me.?
Rowena needed no further prompting, did not even spare him a parting glare. She
hurried over to Enid, who was waiting anxiously below the dais, and followed her
out of the hall and down one floor to the kitchen.
The kitchen could usually be found in a separate building out in the bailey, but
it was becoming popular in recent years to have the kitchen moved right into the
keep, particularly in areas that received a great deal of rain and foul weather.
Fulkhurst?s kitchen was one such new addition, having taken the large area where
the castle garrison used to be quartered.
There were at least twenty people busy at different tasks in the large room.
Preparation of the evening meal was already under way. A huge fire pit was being
stoked under a roasting side of beef. Cooks surrounded a long table where
vegetables were being peeled, pastries made, meat chopped. The wardrober was
doling out spices. Two men at arms were eating a hasty meal standing up while a
pretty maid flirted with them. A dairymaid was cuffed for spilling a bit of milk
from her bucket when she tripped over one of several dogs underfoot. She in turn
kicked the dog, which only yelped, but did not relinquish its seat near the
butcher?s block. A scullion was washing out tankards from the morning meal. The
baker was sliding new loaves into his oven. Two hefty serfs were coming up from
the basement with heavy sacks of grain.
Because of the room?s size, it was not oppressively hot, but it was exceedingly
warm and smoky with so many fires going and so many wall sconces burning. Rowena
took it all in with dread. The steward was there, just leaving the clerk?s
office up on a higher level above a store area. But it was not to him that Enid
took her. It was to the large woman who had cuffed the dairymaid. Blond, florid
faced, and quite tall for a woman, at slightly over five and a half feet, she
was not a serf but a freewoman, and wife to the head cook.
?So yer the other one from Kirkburough,? Mary Blouet said as she looked Rowena
over from head to foot, as just about everyone else in the room was also doing,
though not so openly as Mary.
? Twas rumored it were a lady kept in the dungeon, but yer being sent to me puts
the lie to that right quickly. Ye will call me Mistress Blouet, and give me no
airs or back talk. I have had right well enough of that from that haughty
Mildred, and her having the lord?s favor, I cannot give her the back of my hand.
But ye be not so favored, are ye, wench??
?Indeed,? Rowena replied, unable to keep the dejection from her tone ?I am so
ill favored/tis my lot to be eternally punished.?
?Punished?? Mary frowned.
?Nay, not unless it be needful. Well, come along, then. I have to make my rounds,
or naught will ever get done, not wi
th the lazy sluts I have in my charge. I
will explain yer duties on the way.?
Rowena was surprised.
?I am not to work in the kitchen, then??
?Here?? Mary laughed with genuine humor.
?They have enough hands down here to not need more, and my husband does not like
my wenches in his domain. He cannot abide laziness in his workers, whereas I am
cursed with naught else, and can find no cure for it, not when that bitch Celia
belittles my authority the moment my Jjack be turned. And she gets away with it
because she be Lord Warrick?s favorite slut, and everyone knows it. How I wish??
The thought was left unfinished as Mary mounted the stairs back to the Great
Hall. Rowena dragged her feet, dreading another encounter with Warrick, but he
was no longer in the hall. Not as many ladies remained by the hearth either. And
there was no sign of Mildred.
?I have no say over the ladies? maids,? Mary said when she noticed the direction
Rowena was looking toward.
?But yer not so lucky as that Mildred was, to be getting such an easy job as
that.?
?Has Mildred been here long??
?Nay, she came with the lord. Why? Do ye know her??
?Aye.?
?Well, stay away from her. There be levels of hierarchy amongst the castlefolk
here as in any keep, and her having the care of the lord?s daughters puts her
higher up even than the other ladies? maids, which be all higher than ye. But
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