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Nay, Hugh wouldn’t hurt her. There might be torment involved, but it wouldn’t be painful torment.
He slid his hands under her shift and touched the top of her hose. “Now,” he said. “Let us begin.”
“Begin what?”
“First, let’s talk about that barn and why you followed me in there.”
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“I’ll have to have a new shift made for you.” Hugh ran his fingers down Edlyn’s belly. She liked that, he knew. She said it felt like a trickle of water, and when he did it right, her stomach collapsed. He stared in satisfaction.
“Why?”
She sounded drowsy, just as if she hadn’t spent the entire evening and all of the night in bed, and that warm drowsiness made him lean forward and kiss her. She rubbed his shoulders with her hands—he’d freed them long ago—and he stretched with pleasure. He liked her to touch him, but he liked to torment her by making love to her when she was tied, too. It had been a most enlightening, a most enjoyable, experience, although she’d proved unusually intractable.
“Because I cut the other shift off.”
“I have another. In fact, I have several others.”
“Oh. The ones I bought you at the abbey.”
“Nay.”
She hadn’t said she loved him yet. She hadn’t even admitted to loving him when they were both growing up at George’s Cross. Yet while wrapped in the passion of the night, he’d become resigned. Trying to convince her to say it was almost as much fun as hearing her say it.
She stretched and pulled the covers up. “I’m hungry”
“Me, too.”
He rubbed his legs against hers. She had loved him when she was a girl, and that made sense. All the village girls had doted on him, and more than one noblewoman had lured him to her bed. And she must love him still, for he’d not changed much. If anything, his body was stronger, and other women said the scars on his face added character. He still lived to win, and if his focus had changed from winning a fortune to winning a woman…well, that was what men did.
He thought about the shifts again, then frowned. “What do you mean nay?”
“I don’t think I got any more shifts from the nuns, but I got several from Richard’s men.”
He sat up, contentment flying away with the covers. “From Richard’s men? Richard of Wiltshire?”
She made a soft sound of complaint and tried to retrieve the furs. He stopped her with his hand on her arm.
“What do you mean, Richard’s men gave you shifts?”
She stared at him as if he’d lost his mind, then chuckled and touched his cheek. “There’s no reason to be jealous. It wasn’t just shifts. They gave me everything. They gave me fans and gloves and rings and the cutest gold toy ball with a bell in it. I don’t know who they stole that from, but it must have been someone very wealthy.”
A great up-welling of some emotion, he didn’t know what, made him ask sharply, “Why did they give you gifts?”
“They claimed it was gratitude for the story, but I think partly it was because I talked to them as if they were normal men rather than just outlaws.” She sat up, raised her knees, and wrapped her arms around them. “Oh, and I gave the sick men tonics and patted them on the cheek and promised to pray for them.”
Hugh didn’t even have to think before he said it. “I want you to send it all back.”
“What?”
He didn’t like the way she was staring at him, as if he were being unreasonable, when in fact some louts had blatantly usurped his responsibilities. He jumped off the bed and padded toward his trunk. “I want you to send everything back. Everything that they gave you.”
“I can’t do that!” She sounded uncertain, as if she didn’t understand his mood. “They’d be hurt.”
“Hurt? They’re a bunch of thieves.” He flung open the trunk and dug through his clothing.
“Hugh.” She took an audible breath. “I know what I have is stolen, and mayhap that makes it tainted, but the poor women who lost their possessions will never get them back. Some of that stuff had been hidden away in the trunks for years. The linen was yellow in the creases, and the men were blowing dust off the shoes!”
