“Will you not tell me where you are taking me?”
“Nay. Keep your tongue behind your teeth, my lady. We have some distance to go before we rest for the night.” His actions did not match his harsh words. His arm curved more protectively around her slender waist. “You are tired. Sleep now.”
To her befuddled surprise, she did, nestled against Dienwald’s chest. He heard her soft, even breathing, and realized that she was stirring feelings in him that he had thought well dormant for years now. He was a fool, he thought, to be drawn to this pitiful little female.
She awoke with a small cry on her lips, and struggled briefly against him until he said, almost unwillingly, “I will not hurt you, little chick. We will stop for the night.”
“Why do you call me ‘little chick’?”
He gave her a twisted smile, lifted his hand, and lightly ruffled her curls. “Because your hair is soft and downy and you are small and warm.”
For an evil man, Kassia thought, growing more bewildered, he was not behaving as he should.
Dienwald called a halt some minutes later. He dispatched his men to hunt their dinner, and motioned Kassia to sit quietly beneath a tree. He watched her fidget a moment, then said curtly, “The ride was long. Go relieve yourself.” His eyes narrowed cruelly. “Do not attempt to flee me, or it will be the worse for you.”
She believed him, just as she believed Graelam.
It was not long before she was helping Ned, a short, wiry man who looked as fearsome as her childhood images of the devil, pluck and prepare the rabbits. She stared at him when he said in a kind voice, “Nay, lass, ye cannot skewer the beast like that. Watch.”
She sat back on her heels, blinking at his seeming kindness. The smell of the roasting rabbits filled her nostrils, and her stomach growled loudl
y. She knew that she should likely be fainting or at least wailing in fear, but oddly enough, it did not occur to her to do so. Whatever they wished to do with her would be done. It was not in her power to stop them.
“Eat, little chick,” Dienwald said, handing her a well-cooked morsel. He ate silently beside her, saying nothing. Afterward, he left her a moment, his eyes a silent threat, and spoke to his men. They moved away, to protective positions, Kassia supposed, about their small camp. The evening was warm and the sky clear. The skimpy meal sat well in her stomach. She waited.
Dienwald stood over her, his hands on his lean hips. “Well, little chick, do you think it time I raped you?”
18
She stared up at him, her eyes wide and helpless upon his face. “I wish you would not,” she said.
“Then what should I do with you?” he asked irritably.
She moistened her lips with her tongue. “I do not know.”
He eased down beside her, and sat cross-legged, staring into the dying fire. “Nor do I,” he said more to himself than to her.
He turned to face her. “How came you to wed Graelam de Moreton?”
She gazed at him uncertainly a moment, then shrugged inwardly. There was no reason not to tell him. “He did not wish to wed me,” she said. “ ’Twas my father who . . . convinced him to do so.”
Dienwald stiffened. At least about that Blanche had told him the truth. “A man like Graelam is not easily convinced,” he said.
“You sound as if you know my husband.”
“Let us say,” Dienwald said dryly, “that I have a healthy respect for de Moreton. But continue.”
“You are right, now that I know him better, I wonder how my father accomplished it. You see, I was dying, and have no memory at all of wedding him.”
“I think,” Dienwald said slowly, his eyes never leaving her face, “that you will tell me the whole of it.”
She repeated to him all that her father had told her. She paused a moment, then said calmly, unaware of the thread of bitterness in her voice, “Then I thought perhaps he cared for me, just a little, you understand. But ’twas not true. I do not understand him. It is likely that I am too stupid to understand his motives.”
“You are not stupid,” Dienwald said sharply, even as he mulled over what she had told him.
“Then unfit to be a wife.”
He ignored her words. “You tell me he refused to annul the marriage in the face of the Duke of Cornwall’s wishes?”