Page 82

She raced back across the chamber toward the window, as if its opening far above the bailey offered an exit. “You were dreaming.”

He followed her. “Nay, I wasn’t.”

She tried to get the cotte over her head now, and he stopped her just in the way she feared—he snared her with her arms up and her head covered. Carefully he uncovered her head and looked into her face while keeping her trapped. “I heard you. You told me that when you were a girl, you loved me.”

“You were ill.”

“I was more than ill. I was dying.” She folded her lips tightly to seal in any response, so he shook her. “Wasn’t I?”

“I don’t know.” Tears sprang to her eyes, although whether of annoyance or distress, he didn’t know. “I’m not God.”

“I know. I saw the other side, and only one thing called me back.” His hands slid up and down her arms as he held them over her head. “’Twas you, Edlyn. ’Twas you.”

She trembled now.

“So you see, I can’t resist you.” He still smiled, but tenderly now, as if he sympathized with her embarrassment. “Nor can you resist me.”

His face lowered to hers, and she slithered down until he held her cotte and she sat on the floor. “I can, too.”

She tried to crawl away, but he caught her shift by the back and held her until he could wrap his arms around her waist and lift her.

“You asked for a feather bed,” he said, “now let us enjoy it.”

Was she going to give him all he wanted again? Was she going to collapse like some feeble, wanting female who thought she needed a man to complete her life?

She was not. Not when she knew he didn’t need a woman to complete his life. Not when she was nothing more than a useful tool he possessed.

He held her backside pressed against his loins as if he were a wolf panting for its mate and walked toward the bed.

She shrieked, “I won’t!” and tried to spring away even before he put her down.

He put his knee in her back and knocked her onto her stomach. “I say you will.”

She gave the most hateful intonation to the word she could call up. “You…husband.”

“I’ll make you like it.”

He wasn’t laughing. He wasn’t mean. He sounded as calm and as determined as she imagined he would when faced with a siege. He’d promised her before he would win this battle between them, and now it seemed he had decided on his choice of weapons.

It wouldn’t work, of course. She couldn’t let it, not without letting the pain back in when the prince called him to war.

“I won’t do this.” She twisted, trying to swat at him, and he used her momentum to flip her onto her back. Placing his hand on her belly, he held her down and wiggled around while she lashed out at him. One foot landed painfully close to his groin, and he caught it just in time.

“Our unborn children,” he chided. He grabbed her wrist and stretched it toward the headboard.

“What…?”

He whipped one of his garters around her wrist and secured it around the post.

“What!” She took a swing at his head with her other hand.

He grabbed it and tied it above the other hand.

She stared at her wrists, tied securely to the bedpost, and tried to understand. She’d heard of men who did things like this. It was one of the things women whispered about—husbands who tied them and hurt them unbearably. But Hugh?

She swung around and looked at him. Hugh wouldn’t hurt her.

Then she really looked at him. He sat on his heels, surveying his handiwork with the satisfaction of a dedicated artisan.