Page 15 of Saxon Blade Norman Blood
Well. That was the crux of the matter.
From the very start Rowena hadn’t been sure he was the one she ought to kill.
Although he had killed Godric, honesty compelled her to admit that this alone would not have been enough to make her pursue him. What she truly wanted to avenge was the death of her mother, not her stepfather’s murder. And that was where it became more complicated. William had not actually assaulted her mother or wielded the weapon that had killed her. He was not directly responsible for her demise, and Rowena had always been uncomfortably aware of that fact.
But she’d needed to cling on to her hatred, for it was all she had. Killing him was the revenge her mother had demanded of her; he was the one she had named as their enemy. Andso, over the long months spent plotting her revenge, Rowena convinced herself that killing William de la Falaise, as her mother had wanted, would make her feel better. Would show that she had donesomething.
At first, she had tried to find the two men who had assaulted her mother, as they were the real culprits, but it had proved impossible. She did not know their names or where to find them. William’s name she knew and, as a man of importance, his movements were more easily trackable. If she killed him, her mother would know she had done her best to avenge her memory.
“I don’t see why you would risk all to kill me.” He leaned into her, eyes aglow.
She had to step away from him now or she might well blurt everything out. Being close to him created havoc within her, reducing both her body and resolve to warm butter.
“We were on our way to your castle, I believe?” she said, making it clear that the discussion was at an end.
He smiled and let her go. “Yes. We were.” Before she could move, he picked up her cloak again. She did not protest.
They carried on walking in silence for a while, him leading the way as before.
“We have a whole afternoon ahead of us,” he told her once they had reached a dense wood. “Time might pass more quickly if we had something to discuss, don’t you agree?”
She did agree but she found it difficult to behave naturally in front of him. He seemed to see nothing extraordinary in making idle conversation with his would-be killer, but she certainly found it awkward. As if it was not enough, this man had made her do things that on their own would justify the most acute embarrassment on her part. How was she supposed to be at ease with a man who had touched her as intimately as he had only the day before? This man had kissedher breasts and caressed her in places she’d never explored herself, and now he wanted them to discuss the weather.
It was disconcerting to say the least.
“We are not looking at each other,” he argued. “Surely that makes it easier for us to converse. I won’t see it if you blush.”
Rowena gave a gasp. How had he known what she was thinking about? She heard a soft chuckle and almost tripped over in confusion.
“I’m thirsty,” she breathed, before making her way to the river side. Anything to put an end to the conversation.
Once she had quenched her thirst she sat in a pocket of sun and lifted her eyes to it, trying to capture some of its warmth. Thanks to her wet clothing her body was frozen to the bone, but that was nothing compared to the chill pervading her soul.
What had she got herself into?
William was not only a ruthless warrior, capable of skewering an enemy with his sword at a moment’s notice, but he also had the ability of stealing her breath with nothing more than a whispered word or a well-placed look. All this made him a positively alarming opponent.
Hanging over the water was a hazelnut branch. The sight reminded her she had not eaten since dawn, when she’d been too nervous to eat more than a few mouthfuls of gruel. She cracked a hazelnut open under his eagle eye.
“I’m not going to offer you one in case you thought I was trying to poison you,” she said, prising the kernel out of its shell. It was still underripe, but she liked them that way.
“I’m not worried. I know an innocuous hazelnut when I see one,” he answered, reaching for a higher branch. “Besides I’m sure you’ll agree that it would be more satisfactory to plunge a blade into my body or bludgeon me to death than poison me.Muchmore satisfactory.”
He knelt by a flat stone and cracked a nut open in one neat, efficient strike. She had the impression he was mimicking her smashing his skull open with relish and shivered.
He popped the kernel into his mouth as he straightened back up and bit it with a smirk. “Mmm. Tart.”
Just like her, he meant. Rowena refused to respond to this provocation. “Is the castle far away?” she asked, busying herself with the opening of another nut.
“We should get there just before nightfall.”
Draping the cloak over his arm, he offered his hand to her with one of his elegant gestures.
She stood without his help. “I don’t need your help. And I’m perfectly capable of carrying my cloak myself.”
“Then please do. You will not hear any complaints from me.”
As he gave her the wet, cumbersome cloak she cursed her sharp tongue and the extra weight she could have done without. She set off behind him and did her best to ignore the stiff muscles in her legs and the pain in the soles of her feet.
