“I suppose ye will do. Yer father says ye be un-breached. In fact, he was quite indignant about me askin’. As if a princess could no’ be other than a virgin. I told him, and I’ll tell ye, I will be certain ye do no’ come to me wi’ another man’s brat in yer belly.”
Another man’s child. Deathan’s. Could it be?
Not waiting to hear her answer, MacNabh began unfastening his cloak. His belt.
“There will ha’ to be a child. Among other reasons, I need an heir and Roisin is past it, even if I am no’. My bitch o’ a wife never gave me sons. There were daughters—long married and gone now. Though ye would no’ warrant it likely, I am nearly sixty years old.”
He laid aside the belt that held his knife and other weapons Darlei did not pause to identify.
“Mayhap ye’ll do better, eh?” He flipped up the folds of his kilt. He wore nothing beneath.
“Oh—” Darlei began on a gasp of air.
“On the bed. Let us get this o’er with. No’ that way.” She scuttled on her bum atop the counterpane, away from him. “On yer face, so that I do no’ ha’ to look at ye.”
He tossed Darlei face down on the bed. Hauled her so her legs hung halfway off. When he tossed her skirts over her head, he found the long knife she’d stolen from the wagon, seized it with a grunt, and flung it away, toward the door.
Leaving her defenseless.
“Brace yersel’, lass.” Her undergarments tore.
Darlei did not have to feign the discomfort of a maidenhead breached. What he did to her hurt. Pain, outrage, terror, and violation all chased the numbness away. She kept silent only because her face, buried in the counterpane, did not afford her the breath to scream.
Once he finished grunting, he fell silent. Darlei lay where she was with tears trickling down her cheeks.
When he spoke again, it was in another tone—angry.
“So, yer father lied to me.”
She drew herself up and away, limbs under her, onto the bed, and stole a look at him. He examined the counterpane.
“Ye are no’ un-breached.”
“My father did not know.” From somewhere she summoned the dignity to speak. “I—”
“Filthy savage.” To her complete astonishment, he struck her across the face, knocking her sideways across the bed. The sting of it broke through the last of her numbness and set her senses screaming. “No’ bad enough I am forced to wed wi’ an accursed blue wench, to keep the king’s favor. Now I’ll ha’ to wait till ye bleed, to be sure whatever babe I get upon ye be mine.”
He put his belt back on around his portly waist and snatched up his cloak, fixing Darlei with a stern eye.
“Ye will let me know.”
Let him know? As if she might be eager ever to have him touch her again. The breath left her body in a hiss.
“Meanwhile,” he tossed at her, “stay here in yer room unless I send for ye. We do no’ wish to lay eyes on ye.” He caught up the long knife from the stone floor and slammed out of the chamber.
Orle ran in, eyed Darlei crouched on the bed, and opened her arms. “Oh, Darlei, are you all right?”
Was she? Physically, no. A welt rose on her cheek where MacNabh had struck her, and she felt battered inside, as she never had at Deathan’s hands.
Deathan.
Spiritually, she was near shattered. Broken. She wanted naught so much as to hide—here in this terrible little chamber, if possible.
No one was coming to save her. If she survived this, she would have to save herself. Become the wild woman the Gaels thought her.
How? How might she drag herself up from this abject misery?
“Darlei.” Orle smoothed the tangled hair back from Darlei’s face and asked again, “Are you all right?”
