“Where is the woman Deorwynn?” he bellowed.
Someone moved aside and then she was there, stepping into the roaring light of the great hearth. Amid all the noise he’d heard her voice—he was pathetically attuned to it. The sight of her was so pleasing that he could not speak for a moment. He’d thought her gone. He’d expected, at the very least, that she would hide from him. Neither had happened.
* * * *
She ignored the knowing glances of the other servants and hurried after him. Since the scene in the tiltyard, rumors had spread rapidly about his lordship’s preference for his wife’s handmaiden. Pretending he needed her only to tend his wounded leg again, she kept her head high, her expression bland and followed him from the sweltering cookhouse.
Half way across the yard he turned to face her, his robe swinging around his ankles. He was barefoot, she realized, shocked. He must have come in great haste to find her.
“You left me before I was done with our conversation.” His breath shot out in a fine mist.
Going from the stifling heat of the cookhouse to the chill of the yard, her entire body pimpled with goose bumps. The thin layer of perspiration on her skin dried speedily. “I thought our conversation had come to its natural end with the arrival of your wife. My lord.”
“Never leave my presence again without my permission.”
Eyes narrowed, she looked at him as he stood there with his hands on his hips.
“Hmm,” she said.
That gave him a little of his own medicine, she thought with amusement. She’d heard him make that sound before, several times, and now understood it was his way of seeming to answer a question without actually doing so. It kept the other person on their toes, discouraged further questions on the same subject and made no commitment on his part either way.
He scratched the disheveled dark curls on his head and looked at his feet. “Thierry tells me he wishes to pay court to you.”
“Does he?”
He wiped his hand across his lips. “Will you accept his suit?”
How could she when she was in love with another man? “Perhaps.”
“But he is Norman, like me.”
“Aha, but he is…” she paused, “gentlemanly.”
“Gentlemanly?”
“He apologized to me about last night. He explained that none of it was his idea.”
“Is that so?”
She put her hands behind her back and leaned toward him. “Hmm.”
He blinked rapidly. His nostrils flared. “Think you know Thierry so well already, wench?”
She shrugged, looking away, suddenly taking great interest in the clouds.
“Come.” He grabbed her elbow. “I’ll show you the true Thierry.”
“Stop pulling me about!”
He ignored her, dragging her along in his barefoot, limping wake, while the guards looked on in sheer astonishment.
They were heading back to his chamber. “Oh no,” she dug in her heels.
He lifted her around the waist, threw her over his shoulder and continued on. Just before they reached his door however, he took her down a narrow passage and entered an unfinished chamber that ran alongside his. “I made this for my wife,” he grunted, setting her on her feet. “There will be a door between the two chambers once it is complete.” Wind whipped in through knotholes in a boarded up section of wall and late afternoon light filtered through, striping the chamber with a cold, blue mist.
“Why did you bring me here?”
He drew her to the wall adjoining his chamber and showed her a section of loose stone. Carefully he moved it, so she had a full view of his chamber. There was Thierry, seated on the bed, with Sybilia bouncing merrily astride his lap, her breasts jostling in his face. They were both naked, sweating.
She would have looked away, but Guy stood behind her, wrapping them both in his wolf-skin robe. “See your precious Thierry now?”
“Why do you let him do that to your wife?”
He whispered very softly in her ear, “I am generous. I share.”
She scowled. So he was trying to convince her to join his frolics in bed with others.
He kissed her neck, in the hollow just below her ear. She tried to pull away, but his arms were strong around her and she was warm in his bear-like embrace. Already, her body was devoured by his strength and she felt his cock rising against her spine.
“Do you see how he mounts her? Do you see, Deorwynn?”
How could she not see? Thierry fucked Sybilia at a rapid, bumpy pace and her head was thrown back, golden hair spilling down almost to her buttocks.
“As I had you once on that same bed,” Guy whispered.