“Strutting? I never…”
“Just like a cockerel, all puffed up with arrogance because she chose me for her champion.”
“Why should I care what…?”
“I know, I know. Why should you care what a little Saxon peasant does?” Still chuckling, Thierry strode to the door. “Mayhap you ought to think about the answer to that yourself.” He winked. “I’ll send her up to tend your wound, my lord.” Then he added with teasing solemnity. “I believe it was Le Coup de Foudre. You were struck down the moment you saw her, Devaux.”
Guy stared, open-mouthed in outrage as the other man disappeared, laughter echoing down the corridor. Disrespectful wretch.
“She’s no different to any other wench,” he yelled after the laughing man. “I’ll prove it to you, Bonnenfant.”
He couldn’t bear to be seen as weak.
Le Coup de Foudre? If that mythical thunderbolt had happened to him, it happened when he hid in the cookhouse, behind the screen of drying hides and caught her touching herself in the bath. Never had he been so instantly, so violently aroused by the sight of a naked woman as he was by her. It was as if he scented his mate. She made his mouth water.
He sank tentatively to the edge of the bed. Suddenly he wasn’t sure he wanted her tending his leg. Perhaps it wasn’t such a good idea. He made a fool of himself over this woman. Well, he’d just have to prove his infallibility—not only to Thierry, but to himself. He would give her to his old friend, share her readily. It mattered not to him.
But it was too late to send for another woman. She was tapping at the door already and then, not waiting for any reply, she came in with a bowl of water and a rag. Her long braid was retied with a new ribbon; her eyes were downcast. She was the very picture of a meek, harmless maiden with only good deeds on her mind—all things the little Saxon troublemaker was not.
Speedily he lay down, making much of the pain in his thigh.
She shot him a skeptical look and he closed his eyes tight.
“I was instructed to come and wash your wound,” she said.
He rolled his head against his furs and moaned. “Yes. I am ready for you.” When he stole a glance from under his lashes, she was approaching the bed cautiously. He lifted his gambeson and tunic, to let her see that he was indeed ready for her.
There was just a subtle tightening of her pursed lips, but that dimple in her cheek deepened and her eyes flared.
“See what you’ve done to me,” he groaned, his cock twitching.
She set her bowl down beside his bed.
“Are you not sorry, Deorwynn to cause me this much agony?”
“I have done nothing to you,” she replied briskly, rinsing her rag in the water and squeezing it hard. “Any agony you suffer you did to yourself.”
“How so?”
“No one forced you to ride like demon out there.”
“Did you forget something, Deorwynn?”
She looked up.
“You forgot my lord,” he added. “It seems to me there are too many people showing me disrespect lately. First Thierry, now you.” He folded his arms. “I should punish someone for this insubordination before it spreads—gets out of hand.”
She dabbed his thigh gently with the damp rag, wiping up the dried blood. His prick lifted, trying to brush against her arm. “I see you are not so badly hurt after all,” she muttered, keeping her eyes on the task. “Mayhap I should send your wife to tend you. My lord.”
“Not now. Later you can both tend me.”
He watched her cheeks redden.
“Did she mention it to you, Deorwynn? I asked her to arrange it.”
“No.”
“Curious. I mentioned to her on our wedding night, as she lay in my arms.” He grabbed the end of her braid. “I did not expect her to defy a command.”
Ignoring his hold on her hair, she finished cleaning the wound and then took a small clay pot of herbal lotion from her apron pocket.
“What’s that?” he demanded.
“Poison. You’ll be dead in an hour with any luck.”
He huffed. “My wife warned me about you.”
“And yet you send for me to tend you. I thought Normans were supposed to be clever.”
He wound his hand around her braid, slowly pulling her closer to his bed and his lips. “I keep my friends close, but my enemies closer.”
“Then do your enemies not have you surrounded?”
He should have been furious with her for forgetting the “my lord” again. He was not, however. “Saucy-mouthed wench. What’s in the lotion?”