had tried not to think much on the coming night, he just wanted to accomplish as much as possible before the sun set. So, he’d focused his thoughts on how to hold so many prisoners, and how many of his own men had been killed, and how many villeins had fled his approach and how many yet remained to tend the fields, and other matters as weighty as those. It was only as he climbed the steps leading to the second floor of the corner tower of the keep that he realised he’d thought about her more than he wanted to admit … even to himself.
The scorn and scolding he saw in the gazes of his soldiers who stood guard stopped him in his steps. He was about to address their insubordination when Stephen called out his name. Since the man stopped at the end of the corridor and did not come to him, Soren walked back to hear his concerns.
‘Soren, is this wise?’ Stephen asked in a low voice.
‘What do you speak of?’
‘I know that a man’s blood runs hot after battle, but is this wise?’
Coming from this man, someone who had learned the hard lesson of misplaced lust after a battle, gave Soren pause. But, this was not of his concern.
‘If I was caught in the throes of bloodlust, you would be lying unconscious on the floor for asking such a thing and I would already be lying between the wench’s thighs halfway to satisfaction,’ he said. Soren glared at his friend. ‘So, ask me not such things and we will both be the better for it.’ Soren turned away, but was stopped by Stephen’s grasp on his arm. He shrugged it off easily.
‘She is your wife now, Soren.’
‘She is Durward’s get.’ The men who fought with him knew, had heard, his plans for any who carried the blood of Durward of Alston and who came under his control. In all the dark and painful detail. The change in her circumstances mattered not.
‘And now your wife. Different than what you had planned on. A different matter completely now.’
‘And my concern alone, Stephen. Do not make me regret accepting you into my service.’
The warrior looked as though he wanted to argue, but he controlled that urge and nodded. With only one more glance over his shoulder at Soren, Stephen left. Soren continued his path down to the doorway to her chamber. The guards stepped aside and waited for his orders.
‘Stay down there. I will call you if you are needed,’ he said, directing them to the place where he’d just spoken to Stephen. ‘No one comes further until I say so.’
He noticed the sweat on his palms as he reached for the latch and lifted it. He swore he felt no nervousness, but his heart raced and his chest tightened as he faced the next step in seeking vengeance against the man who had destroyed his life … and his body and soul. Soren pushed open the door and stepped inside.
Her servants, both the older, stout-figured one and the younger, lithe-bodied one, stood like statues next to the pallet. The wench lay nearly motionless on its surface—motionless but for the quick and shallow rise and fall of her chest and the curling of her fingers as though she tried to take hold of the bedcover and could not find purchase of it.
‘Can she see?’ he asked. The injury to her head did not necessarily mean blindness. ‘When the bandages were removed?’
With a stiff shake of her head, the older woman confirmed her condition and he let out his breath.
‘I told you to prepare her,’ he said, moving then and making his way slowly across the chamber. ‘Undress her and get out.’
‘My … lord …’ the younger one stuttered, bowing her head now in an unsuccessful attempt to placate him. ‘Twas too late for that.
He hesitated in spite of his intentions and watched as they helped her to stand next to the bed. Now in a clean gown and tunic—what did they call those, syrce and cyrtel?—with her injury tended to, Soren could see her loveliness. And he could see the terror that drained her face of any colour and made her body tremble with fear.
Her pale hair fell in waves over her shoulders, but it was her hands that caught his eye. Fine and graceful, like the curve of her neck as she whispered to her servants. Any trace of the earlier bravery she’d displayed had fled her and he could see that she was younger than he first thought … more beautiful as well. But it was her delicate features that struck him now. She was a well-born lady and he was.
He shook his head to clear his thoughts and to focus his intentions. ‘Either you undress her or I will see to it,’ he said, harsher than he needed to, but he made his point.
Soren turned away then, trying to ignore them, hearing them move to do his bidding rather than allow him to do it. Soren busied himself with removing his heavy leather belt and scabbard, and lifting the chain coif from his head and loosening the leather helm. Turning away, he positioned the leather patch to make certain it hid the stitched flesh that covered the place where his eye should be. When it grew silent behind him, he turned back to find the wench lying under the bedcovers and her garments in the hands of her maids.
Good. He let out a breath he did not realise he’d held. His task here would be done quickly and he could see to more important matters. If his seed did not take, he could visit her until it did and then not see her until the birth of his heir.
As he’d realised during his hours of toiling to make this place his, apathy would be a more fitting punishment than the hatred that simmered just below his skin, waiting to tear free of his control and wreak havoc on his enemies … on her. Though vengeance was key in his plans for her, he would make this woman nothing but a vessel that would bear his seed and fulfil his needs.
Soren smiled grimly, glad that success felt so close at hand. With a nod, he ordered them from the room and when the door closed he took in and released a deep breath. But the smile remained. Only when he was within an arm’s length of the bed did he notice her trembling once more. The curling mass of her pale hair outlined her head and shoulders and distracted him again from his contemplation of vengeance sought and found. Though the bandages had been removed, she lay with her face turned away from him as though she did not wish to look upon him.
The humiliation he’d felt when others had turned from the carnage that used to be his face returned in an instant, pouring bile into his stomach. But, one glance at her empty gaze and he remembered that she could not see him at all. Relief flooded his senses in that moment and the tension evaporated within him.
She cannot see me.
He allowed himself to revel in that realisation and he felt lighter than he had in all the months since that September day. Standing over her now, Soren noticed the creaminess of her skin and wanted to caress those graceful lines of her neck, the fullness of her lips and the fragile daintiness of her slender figure. It would, he realised, take little effort to tug the linens out of his way and see the rest of her feminine curves and skin laid bare. With just this small hint of her comeliness, his body warmed and readied for the task ahead. Soren reached over to lift the sheet away when she startled so suddenly that he jumped back.
‘Sybilla,’ he said, realising he should offer her some words of explanation. He did not doubt she came to this ill-gotten marriage a virgin.
The sound of her name on his tongue for the first time felt rough and ill-fitting. He swallowed and cleared his throat. Before he could move closer or do anything, she tossed the covers back and pushed herself off the bed, sliding away from him. He reached over
