Page 43 of Her Dark Seduction
“I want no more deaths on my conscience.”
His eyes narrowed. A glimmer of emotion swam in their depths before his usual, dispassionate expression took over.
“You forget. Your maid brought about her own end. She betrayed you. She was weak-minded and treacherous, as all women are.”
“Not all of us, Monsieur,” I said bitterly. “Your hatred for us blinds you.”
“Hatred? Of women? Far from it. I enjoy them frequently. But I understand better than others what your purpose is—to serve a man’s needs and nothing more. Women with ideas outside their station are either whores or lovesick fools.”
“And which am I?”
“I will leave that for you to decide.”
He smiled, tracing an invisible line with his fingertip down my throat to the swell of my breasts before he reached a nipple and flicked it with his thumb, curling his lip into a smile as it peaked under his touch. Leaning forward, he kissed my cheek before taking my earlobe between his lips where he had bitten it the night before, marking me as his.
“Remember who you belong to.”
He bowed and left the room. We played a dangerous game. My worth as the bearer of Mortlock’s heir was not limitless, nor would it last forever.
After he had gone, I noticed a piece of paper on the floor near my cot. It must have fallen out of his clothes.
My letter to Tarvin; the letter which had condemned Harwyn to death.
With trembling hands I picked it up and held it against my breast before concealing it in my trunk where I’d hidden all the notes and poems Tarvin had written to me over the months.
Was he alive?
****
Over the next month I did not see Sawford. It was as if he had disappeared. Had my husband finally discovered the identity of the stallion? Had Sawford shared Harwyn’s fate? While Celia saw to my needs, I watched her carefully for a sign that she knew anything. But she remained sullen and quiet, and I dared not enquire.
Though I was not permitted to go outside, my husband granted me freedom within the confines of the building. He did not summon me to the solar again but insisted I dine with him each night. He seemed to grow daily in strength and stature, eating his meals with an increasingly voracious appetite. The very air was thick with anticipation. There was a lot of activity among the men, their excited whispers echoing in the stone passages. I saw Baldwin and Wyatt thick in conversation. It sickened me to see the knight chatting amiably with the very man who had tortured and mutilated the young man who’d served him.
Sawford was noticeable by his absence. To my surprise my heart ached with regret at the possibility that he might be dead.
So I had an unexpected fright when I woke in the middle of the night, a large hand covering my mouth. Sawford’s eyes pierced through me as he held a knife to my throat.
“Come with me now, lady, or you die tonight.”
