Her lip curled as she regarded him with wrathful contempt. “My reputation won’t be ruined, because you’re going to marry me. You can act as if you’re pleased you’ve successfully seduced me, or you can look like a lascivious cad forced to do the honorable thing, but either way, youwillmarry me. My father will insist. Need I remind you he’s a rich and powerful man?”
The Saxon guards returned, breathless from running back up the stairs. They came to a stunned halt at the sight of Joscelind wearing only a sheet, on the threshold of Nicholas’s bedchamber—as well they might.
“Joscelind,” he warned through clenched teeth.
She ignored him. “Fetch my father,” she commanded imperiously. “At once!”
The guards looked to Nicholas for confirmation.
There was nothing else to be done. Joscelind had forced his hand. “Go.”
As they left, he went back into the room and threw himself into his chair to await Lord Chesleigh. “Get dressed, Joscelind.”
She slammed the door and marched up to him. Then she raised her hand and slapped him hard across the face. “I am not some whore you can use and discard.”
He didn’t so much as flinch when she struck him. He had Yves Sansouci to thank for that. He’d endured harder blows than that many a time. “You came to my bed and now you demand to be paid. What does that make you, if not a harlot?”
She raised her hand to strike him again, but he caught her wrist and held it only tight enough to still.
It was then he saw the bruises on her arm.
His rage changed to anger of a different sort. He knew wounds too well not to realize that these could be no accident. They came from a man’s harsh grip.
“Who did that?” he asked as he released her and got to his feet.
“If you don’t marry me,” she replied, her eyes gleaming, her lips thinned, “I’ll sayyoudid.”
Appalled and disgusted that she would even suggest making that accusation, he said, “I have never hurt a woman in my life, and no one can say otherwise.”
She stuck out her noble chin. “I’ll say you enticed me to your bedchamber and when I refused to make love with you, you forced me. That mark is proof of how you held me.”
God help him, she would, too. “I’ve never taken a woman against her will. It was your father, wasn’t it?”
Her face flushed, but she pressed her lips tight and didn’t answer.
“Why did he do it? Or does he require no excuse to hurt you?”
A tear rolled down her cheek, but still she didn’t speak.
He thought of what Riona had said about the pressure being brought to bear on the women here because of him, and cursed the day he’d thought of his plan to find a wife—except for one thing. It had brought him Riona.
“My lady,” he said, his tone less angry and more reasonable, “if Lord Chesleigh were a loving father and you told him that I raped you, he would demand that I be tried and executed—or he’d challenge me himself. No loving father would insist you wed the man who forced himself upon you.” He thought of Percival’s scheme. “Or did he send you here?”
Before she could answer—if she were willing to answer—Lord Chesleigh rushed into the room. He took one look at his sheet-clad, disheveled daughter, then he strode across the room and struck her with a fierce, backhanded blow. “Whore!”
Nicholas grabbed Lord Chesleigh’s arm and yanked him back so hard, he nearly pulled the man off his feet. “Strike her again and you’ll have me to deal with,” he growled before he cast the man off.
Lord Chesleigh straightened and ran a haughty, disdainful gaze over Nicholas, his shirt unlaced, his hair uncombed. “I’ll have you to deal with regardless,son-in-law,”he declared as Joscelind had put her hand to her red cheek and started toweep. “I don’t know what honeyed words you used to seduce my daughter, but honor demands that you marry her. I won’t have my family name besmirched, especially by an upstart like you.”
“At least now I know what you really think of me, my lord,” Nicholas said with undisguised loathing.
Percival appeared in the door. “Why the noise? What’s going—?” He looked from Nicholas to Joscelind, then glared at Nicholas. “What kind of lustful, lascivious scoundrel are you?” he demanded. “Eleanor’s not enough to slake—?”
“Eleanor?” Joscelind shrieked, turning on Nicholas. “You’ve been with her, too? What have you been doing, using us as some sort of harem?”
“I haven’t made love with you, or Eleanor,” Nicholas replied, his rage now under the same iron control that had stood him in good stead on many a battlefield.
Percival’s face was so red, it was nearly purple. “Rogue!” he cried. “How dare you deny it! Eleanor’s been your lover for days.”
