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He twisted around, astonishment writ clear on his face. “What did you say?”
“I said no. I will have nothing further to do with you. You do not deserve me nor do you deserve Oxborough. My lord Graelam and King Edward made a grave mistake. My father probably saw right through you, saw the kind of man you really are, and recognized a kindred evil. I will have nothing more to do with you, Severin. Nothing.”
“You will come here and wash my back.”
“I will put a knife in your back.”
At that, he rose, water pouring over the sides of the tub. “You threaten me? You, a woman, dare to threaten me?” He struck his palm against his forehead. “I just took you. I probably should not have used the cream. I went easy with you. Do you never learn restraint, woman?”
She simply shook her head, rose from the bed, and walked slowly, bent like an old woman, to where the drying cloth and her bedrobe lay on the floor. She looked weary. He watched her pull on the bedrobe.
“You are very white. If you would but moderate your speech, if you would but tend me when I tell you to, there would be no need for cream, no need for me to have to force my way into your belly. You are supposed to enjoy me, yet you refuse to.”
She looked up at him with blank surprise. “Enjoy you? That is a cruel jest no woman would believe after the first time. Aye, you’re right, Severin. It is all my fault. I think you should have hurt me because what you did was your punishment. Aye, you showed your weakness by using the cream. You should have showed me how very merciless you are, what a powerful warrior you are, how I am nothing compared to you. Am I truly supposed to enjoy you? Am I truly supposed to scream with delight when you drag me to the bed, insult me, and stuff yourself into me?” She turned on her bare heel and left the bedchamber.
He yelled, “Don’t you dare leave. I did not give you permission.”
But she didn’t turn. She closed the door very quietly. Slowly, Severin sank back down into the water. He finished bathing himself. There was only the drying cloth she had used. It was damp. He dried himself as well as he could, then slowly he began to dress. Trist made no sound. He just looked at his master, his eyes dark and clear.
“She continues to fight me, Trist. I did not hurt her. You saw that I did not hurt her. She just lay beneath me like a sacrifice. Aye, she was soft and warm, but she wasn’t there, Trist. She cared not.
“I did not wish to marry, Trist. We made our way quite well until we returned to Langthorne, and there was naught but devastation, and you know I had to have an heiress then. Ah, and now I have everything a man could wish. I am a man of substance, a man of worth. What is a wife? An annoyance, nothing more. I will take her, be she an unmoving log.”
The marten kept staring, making no sound.
“She is but a woman, a wife, she must learn to obey me. She threw water on me, all because I was looking at Alice’s bottom, and you saw how Alice was sticking her bottom nearly into my face. And then even that one turned on me. Alice said I was just a man but that she and Hastings had been friends for a long time. Surely that makes no sense at all. Of course I am a man. What did she mean just a man? A man is a complete man, not just a man, whatever that means. And I am the master here, not some sort of low villain. All that is here is mine.
“What is going on, Trist? Mayhap I could have gone more gently with her, but I doubt it would have mattered. Besides, she deserved my force. And still she won’t obey me. Still she said she hated me. Still she called me an animal. I saved her from Richard de Luci. Well, perhaps not exactly, but I would have if his assassin hadn’t stabbed me before I could hunt the bastard down. Damnation, Trist, what have I done to deserve her woman’s spleen?”
The marten closed his eyes and rested his head on his front paws.
Severin grunted and dressed in clean clothing, his tunic a rich pewter gray. He wished his damned squire, Mark, would come to help him. Mark treated his every word, his every request, with deference. Mark never goaded him or pushed him off his verbal course with wit. He would have to do something about Hastings. He just didn’t know what yet.
Hastings remained in her chamber, sorting and mixing herbs, humming, as was her wont, for it calmed her. She wiped her brain clean of him, concentrating on the blossoms and stems on the flat board in front of her. Dame Agnes came in some moments later, bringing a tray. “You will eat something, Hastings. I will not have you sicken just because you do not know how to handle your husband.”
Hastings was so startled she knocked over three foxglove stems, the blossoms thick and beautiful. She was on her knees in a moment, picking them up. She said without looking at her old nurse, “Did you know that the ancient Druids considered foxgloves their own flower? They believed that each blossom looked like a Druid hat.”
“Enough of that nonsense, Hastings. You use your herbs and their lore to distract both yourself and the person you’re speaking to, particularly if it isn’t something you want to hear. I’ll wager you even treat Lord Severin that way. He says something and you tell him a brief story about one of your plants.” Dame Agnes frowned. “Why are you being so careful with the foxgloves? They’re not good for anything, you know that. Why do you have them here with your healing herbs?”
“They’re beautiful, no other reason.”
Dame Agnes shook out her skirt, moved to smooth the cover on Hastings’s bed, and turned, saying, “Listen to me. Everyone knows that Severin forced you. Alice informed even Eric the falconer, and you know that his mouth flaps looser than Belle’s breasts. The lowest servant in the kitchen knew before the evening meal. There is no laughter, no loud conversation, no arguments below in the great hall. Severin’s men have tried to be normal, but they are met with sullen silence. It is like someone has died. Their only sounds are slurping, chewing, and belching.”
Hastings straightened. “I suppose Severin told you to fetch me down?”
“Oh no. I suspect your husband would just as soon leave Oxborough. Surely it is a great holding and he is now a man of wealth, but there is no pleasure in it for him. He eats, he even speaks occasionally to Eloise, but nothing else. The marten is stretched out beside him and stares at him, unblinking.”
“There,” Hastings said. “There is the truth for you. You act as if this is all my fault, but Trist knows better, he knows his master’s cruelty, his lechery, his—”
“If you were a child, I would slap you. Unfortunately you are now a grown woman, indeed, the mistress of Oxborough and the three other keeps that now belong to Lord Severin. Listen to me, Hastings. You are a woman. You are not stupid. Alice told me how you have no notion of how to maneuver a man like Lord Severin into paths that are pleasing to you. She told me it smote her to see you floundering about like a fish in a net, insulting him for no good reason, enraging him until he had no choice but to punish you. And, of course, he did. Did he hurt you badly when he took you?”
Hastings felt the stiffness in her legs. She still felt a soft pulling deep inside. A man had come into her body. He’d touched her womb. He’d felt her belly and her hips to see if she would easily bear his children. The bastard. If only she told Dame Agnes what he’d done, she wouldn’t be blaming Hastings for all this. But he had done so much more and Alice had told Dame Agnes. She couldn’t believe Dame Agnes was speaking to her like this. Blaming her. It wasn’t right. Surely she wasn’t to blame for her new husband’s acti
ons, surely.
“Nay, he didn’t hurt me, but that is not the point. I do not suppose that Alice admitted that Severin very nearly took her in his bedchamber, not ten feet from me?”
Dame Agnes laughed. She laughed. “Aye, she said she thought you’d gone behind the screen to dress. She said she was removing Severin’s boots, bent over, her bottom to him, and showing him that she would bed him willingly if he chose. What is wrong with that, Hastings? Alice is a fine, strapping girl.”
