own authority. In but four months I will attain the age of twenty, and inherit all that comes to me through my mother’s will.”
“Before that day comes,” he vowed, “you will be Lady Wallace, and all that you inherit dowered to whatever children you give me.”
Sofia struggled to be free, but Sir Griel cruelly dug his nails into her bare flesh to keep her captive, drawing long, deep gashes of blood along her skin as Sofia panicked and wrenched away.
Gasping, she reached up a hand to touch the raw, stinging wounds, and gaped at him in shock. Sir Griel looked at the blood he’d drawn with a satisfied smile, and nodded.
“My first mark upon you, Sofia. The first of many, if you continue to displease me.”
Blood seeped through Sofia’s fingers, trickling across the back of her hand and downward in streams to seep into the cloth of her surcoat. She was nearly too shocked to speak, but uttered, “Nay.”
He reached out again, this time to grasp her chin with tight, punishing fingers.
“Aye, mistress.” His voice was low and as dark as he was. “But you’ve time to learn. Four months’ time. Before the day that your twentieth year arrives, you’ll beg me to take you as wife. On your knees, yet. Aye, I shall have the satisfaction of seeing you there, to repay the insult you’ve given me not only on this day, but so many others.”
“No,” she murmured, shutting her eyes, striving to turn out of his grasp. “No.”
“And once you’re my wife,” he went on, “you will learn to please me very, very well. ’Tis a promise I give you, Sofia. A promise—and I do not make such as those lightly, as you will discover. Heed me well, mistress,” he warned, leaning very close. His strong finger squeezed the fine bones of her chin, bringing tears to Sofia’s eyes. “Heed me well,” he repeated more softly, then released her at last.
Sofia reeled back with relief.
Sir Griel held his hand out, his black eyes snapping with command.
“Give me your hand, Sofia.”
She was too frightened now to refuse, and instinctively held out the one that did not yet clutch at her bleeding wounds.
He shook his head once. “Nay, the other. Give it.”
She did as he said, and placed her bloodied hand in his own. He smiled down at it and then lifted it to his lips, seeming to relish kissing her trembling fingers through the blood that covered them. Afterward, he licked his lips of the droplets that remained. Sofia’s stomach lurched at the sight. Free of his touch, she backed away and stared at him with horror. She had thought him merely violent and cruel, but now she knew him for a madman.
Sir Griel made a slight bow.
“I will bid you good day, Mistress Sofia, and pray to visit with you again soon, with a far happier greeting.”
Sofia was painfully aware of the dozen men who had stood silently throughout their lord’s brutal attack. They must all of them be knights, and yet not a one of them had stepped forward to keep a lady from injury. Such was the measure of power that Sir Griel held over them.
Her shoulder burned as with fire, and her surcoat was bloodied. Sofia was ashamed to stand before such an assembly of strangers—with none of her own people, not even a servant to give her company—so completely vanquished. She strove to regain as much dignity as she could by drawing herself up, lifting her hand to cover her wounds once more, and saying, coldly, “Good day, my lord.”
He walked out of Ahlgren Manor with his men at his heels, and Sofia sank into a chair near the fire, yet holding her hand against her shoulder. Slowly, after the sound of Sir Griel’s many horses faded away, the servants began to come into the room. They showed an immediate concern for their lady’s bloody wounds, but she turned them away, and accepted no aid, not even from her father, who entered the great room last of all.
“You must accept him, Sofia,” he said, desperation in his tone. “He’ll kill us all—aye, even you—if he does not get his way. Here, daughter, let me send for the leech to bind your wounds. You cannot go about untended.”
Sofia shook her head and rose from her chair.
“Nay, Father. I’ll tend it myself, as I have tended many such small hurts before. Have no fear. None of the villagers will know what has happened here, if all remain loyal in their silence.” She cast her gaze over the servants, who nodded their agreement.
“But, Sofia,” Sir Malcolm protested, “you cannot go into the village today. You must rest and recover, and think of what you will say when Sir Griel visits us next, for you know it will be soon.”
“There is too much to tend,” Sofia told him stonily, weary and stunned by all that had occurred. “None of it can be put off. I will change my clothes and go, and rest after. As to Sir Griel,” she said as she moved slowly toward the stairs, “I believe he means to give me a measure of time to think upon the folly and danger of refusing him yet again—and you may be assured, Father, that I will use that time wisely, in finding the way to avoid him forevermore.”
Chapter Two
“There,” said Anne the baker’s wife to the women who were gathered near the warmth of her husband’s great ovens. “He’s coming, just as I said he would. Every day, he comes. At noon, and never later.”
The women, as one, leaned to peer out of the baker’s windows at the tall figure walking through the village, drawing ever nearer. Kayne the Unknown was indeed a man worth looking at, and so they all agreed, young and old alike. He was surely the handsomest man ever to set foot in the village of Wirth, as well as the strangest and quietest.
He’d arrived one afternoon a year ago, a stunning figure riding atop a large, black destrier such as only a knight of the realm might possess, tall and powerfully built with hair so blond it was almost white. All the people had come out of their doors to stare at him, wondering how such a man had come to visit their small village. He had gone straight to the abode of their only blacksmith and, upon learning that Old Reed wished to quit his work, bought his home and smithy for so great an amount of money that all who’d heard of it had been amazed. On such a fortune, Old Reed would be well able to spend the remainder of his days in the finest luxury.
But then Kayne the Unknown had done something even more surprising. He had given Old Reed his home and smithy back, freely, in exchange for the promise that the older man would remain in Wirth and help the newcomer set up his own shop, and on those occasions where his skill might prove lacking, impart whatever knowledge might be required.
He’d left Wirth for some few days following that, and those who had applied to Old Reed for every detail had been gravely disappointed. The old man smiled and nodded, but said nothing, save to say that the stranger’s name was Kayne, and that he’d refused to give any other. Shortly after he’d gone, rumors began to fly that the stranger had bought the finest piece of land to be had in Wirth, three full acres that Sir Malcolm Ahlgren had always refused to part with—until now, when enough money had been offered. But where would a mere blacksmith find such money? And why, having it, would he continue to labor at such a trade?
Long before his return the villagers had begun to call him Kayne the Unknown, and to whisper that he wasn’t quite right and therefore not to be trusted. Only a
