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She arched her brows and tapped her foot impatiently.
“Is Runa mine?”
The things women do to hide their secrets...
Sidroc watched with increasing fury as Drifa’s face went bloodless and she put a hand to her heart, swaying on her feet. What had seemed like an impossible idea a short time ago was becoming possible.
“What do you mean by such a question?” she demanded in her haughty princess voice, raising her chin and pretending ignorance.
Hah! She was as innocent as a cobra in a privy. Well, her lies were about to come back and bite her in the arse.
“What do you think I mean? Every time I mention the child or its father, you get scared. You ne’er answer any questions about the girl. And you just about fainted now when I asked if Runa was mine. You are hiding a secret, M’lady Liar, and I would know what it is. The logical conclusion would be—”
“—that I birthed a child of your seed? For the love of Frey! When you asked if Runa was yours, you meant ours?” she asked with wide eyes and dropped jaw. And then relief, of all things. “What was it? An immaculate conception? A long-distance tupping? I swear you are the dunderhead of all dunderheads.” She dared to laugh at him.
His jaw hardened with anger and he fisted his hands to keep from throttling her. “Did you or did you not have your way with me when I was in a six-sennight sleep? Did you birth my child? Was Runa born, oh, let us say, almost exactly four years ago?”
She stared at him with seeming incredulity.
“Answer my bloody damn questions?” he roared.
He could tell she wanted to hit him, but instead she asked in an irksome voice of calmness, “Exactly how would a woman go about having her way with a sleeping man?”
“As if you do not know! She would wait until he was in a death-sleep, and when he had a nighttime erection, or mayhap she would have brought him to enthusiasm with her hands or mouth, she would climb atop him and hump until his seed shot into her womb.”
Her eyes got wider and wider with his words. “Mouth ... enthusiasm ... hump?” she sputtered. “You think I did those things?”
He nodded. “Mayhap more than once.”
“Runa is not a child of my womb.”
She was lying, or at the least there was some secret she was withholding. “Do you swear the girling Runa is not of my blood?”
“She is not our child, Sidroc. But just for the sake of curiosity, what would you do if she was? You are a soldier. You have no home. You have no wife.”
“I will soon have a home, and I would have my child under my shield, regardless. If you bore my child and kept it from me, I would take the babe in a trice and not look back.”
Her lips quivered and her hands shook as she sank down onto a marble bench. He followed and turned toward her, knee to knee.
“Sidroc, I have never lain with a man, and Runa is not our child.”
He was still suspicious. “So, if I asked your men about the girl ... the color of her hair or eyes, her facial features, they would not say reddish-brown hair, gray-green eyes? If I went to Stoneheim and saw the child, there would be no resemblance?”
“Nay, do not be questioning my men. And I definitely do not want you going to Stoneheim to disturb my family.”
“Your wishes are no longer my concern, if ever they were.”
“I swear to you on my mother’s grave and my father’s heart, Runa is not our child.”
“Then what secret do you hide?”
“Mayhap I will tell you one day, but for now it is my secret to keep.”
“So be it!” He stood and was about to leave. First thing he was going to do was question some guardsmen.
“Wait,” she said, and stood to face him, a hand on his arm. “For all purposes, Runa is my child, though I did not give her birth. I must needs protect her at all costs. If you promise not to ask any more questions about Runa, I will tell you my secret after you return to the city, afore you leave Miklagard for good.”
He frowned. “Why would I make such a promise? What benefit is there for me?”
