He didn’t answer her question; instead he fired one of his own. “Why did you return my gift?”
She sighed. “I will not be your leman. I will not be your playmate, shared and passed around like a whore.”
Pause. “Deorwynn.”
She turned to face him at last and found such a look of utter yearning on his handsome face that it swept all her words away over the battlements. Why he’s a boy, she thought—shocked. The body was that of a man full grown, but inside he was young, still learning and unsure. She had no idea what she meant to say next and it seemed as if he was lost in much the same dilemma. A moment passed and then another. He struggled; she saw it in his jaw, his tight lips, but especially in his eyes. Too much blue, like a rare, luxurious cloth too fine for her to wear and yet coveted all the same, because she was a wretched sinner.
He stepped closer. She backed away.
“Sybilia will be angry if she hears you sent for me last night,” she exclaimed hurriedly. “She has already commented to me on your lusty, wandering eye, my lord.”
He ignored that. “Will you watch our sport in the tiltyard this afternoon, Deorwynn?”
“No. Tournaments do not interest me.” Neither did she want to see anyone hurt for “sport”.
“Then I command you to watch.”
She looked away again over the battlements and stared at the grim, winter-ravaged trees in the distance.
“Why do you come up here and look out so wistfully?” he demanded. “There is nothing out there better than I can provide for you within these walls.”
“I will not stay here. I will go where I am free and no one can give me orders. Or hurt me intentionally for their own amusement.”
“But you are a woman alone,” he muttered, his voice tight. “Where would you go?”
“I’m not afraid. Here I am also a woman. And alone.”
“You are not alone, Deorwynn.”
But it felt that way. Last night, for the first time in her adult life, she’d wept. There was no one she could turn to with this dilemma. She hated him. She yearned for him. He should not be looking at her this way—yes she could feel the heat of his passionate regard even with her face turned away—and she should never let him close again, especially after his trick last night. His aggressive virility was too much.
The enemy. A Norman. Men like him had…
He moved. Hands cupped her face and he turned it, forcing her to look at him. The hunger in his eyes was brutal, the lines of his face suddenly more severe, his mouth determined.
He meant to kiss her again, in public.
“Don’t do this,” she whispered.
“I do as I please.”
“At the expense of others, women like me.”
He squinted down at her. Wind blew through his dark hair and ruffled it like the hand of an indulgent mother. “There is no other woman like you, Deorwynn.” His lips lowered, hovering an inch above hers. “Nowhere in the world. Of that I am quite certain.”
She was not impressed. “Yet you would share me with your friend?”
His brow wrinkled, his eyes darkened.
She swung away, ducked under his arms and shot down the steep stone steps as if a flaming arrow followed her.
* * * *
When he rode into the tiltyard later, he immediately saw Thierry already there, astride his stallion, leaning over to chat with the ladies who watched from the wooden stands under the canopy. The Saxon wench laughed with Thierry as if she saw no one else in the yard. Anger swept him, almost out of his saddle. Lifting in his stirrups, helmet under one arm, he cantered over to where they were and fought for some way to insinuate himself into their conversation—a difficult task for a man who rarely conversed with women and seldom found anything interesting in their chatter. Clutching at the only thought he could find, he suggested a quick joust with his friend to begin the display.
Thierry readily agreed. “My lady,” he said, holding out his hand to Deorwynn. “Will you honor me with your favor?”
Infuriated, Guy watched as his wench untied a ribbon from her long braid and held it out for his rival. “Perhaps the lady will honor me with her favor,” he exclaimed, reaching for the ribbon at the same time.
A shocked murmur rippled through the onlookers under the canopy.
Deorwynn held the ribbon away from his thrusting, gauntleted hand. “I think not,” she murmured, holding it out for Thierry instead. “You will be my champion, sir.”
Snapping his head around, Guy looked for Sybilia and saw her staring with cold eyes, the color high on her face. “Ah, there you are,” he said, as if he’d been looking for her. She was clearly not deceived. His attentions toward Deorwynn were too marked. Unfamiliar with these feelings, never having competed for a woman in his life, he had no awareness of what he did or how it was perceived by others. Until that moment, as a breathless hush fell over the crowd.