LITMIR.BIZ

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pulled on his garment, then faced her, his expression unreadable. “How dare you?” he asked coolly.

      “Me? It was you! You knocked me down, you—”

      “If you do not wish to be kissed, do not look at a man that way. If you are indeed betrothed, you should act like it.”

      She drew herself up. “What `way’ did I look at you? And I am acting like a betrothed woman! I keep asking you to take me back to my brother.” She had merely regarded him as she would any other man...hadn’t she?

      “Are you trying to say you did not enjoy the kiss?”

      “No, I did not! I could not enjoy the embrace of a...of a peasant!”

      “You do not know I am a peasant.”

      “You are not a nobleman.”

      His infuriating smile broadened.

      “Do you intend to help me or not?”

      “I said I would, so I will.”

      “Then you will please have the goodness to stay far away from me.”

      “As you wish, my lady.”

      “I’m hungry. What is there to eat?”

      He pulled out yet another piece of stale bread from his pack and tossed it at her. She caught it just before it landed on the ground and then watched as he picked up his weapon and walked toward the horse. “We should go soon,” he said.

      She took a bite of the bread and marveled that her teeth did not remain behind. Chewing slowly and avoiding meeting his gaze, she nodded. “Aren’t you going to eat?”

      “No.” He saddled the horse and tied on his pack. She kept silent as she ate and watched him. He was no nobleman, say what he would. He couldn’t be.

      And he should not have kissed her. It was all his impertinent doing. Indeed, she would do well to be rid of his company. Truly, she did not enjoy his lips upon hers. How could she? He had taken a great liberty.

      Would he try to take another such liberty before he left her?

      “We must go.”

      His blunt words roused her from her reverie. Brushing the crumbs from her garment, she joined him as he left the byre. Outside, the sky was cloudy, yet she did not think it would rain again soon. Puddles were plentiful, however, and the leaves of the trees still dripped. All in all, the scene before her was as dismal as her future if she returned to her brother.

      But she had to find out what had happened to Roger—Roger, whom she had almost forgotten, just because this rascal claimed that her brother was probably uninjured.

      The Welshman linked his hands together and waited, crouched beside the horse. Obviously the intention was that she should ride, so she placed her foot in his hands and let him lift her onto the saddle. Then she waited with bated breath for him to join her. She could almost feel his body behind hers, touching her, and told herself that she was dreading the contact.

      He did not mount the horse. Instead, he took hold of the horse’s bridle and began to walk toward the road.

      “Where are we going?” she asked coldly.

      “To a Norman’s manor I know of.”

      “Whose manor is it?”

      “Sir Guy.”

      “Sir Guy?” There was something vaguely familiar about the name, but Guy was common enough. “Is that all of his name you know?”

      “Yes.”

      “How is it you are welcome at a Norman’s manor?”

      “Would you rather I left you to find another escort, my lady?”

      There was nothing she could say to that, so she fell silent. After all, she needed to be safe and she needed to find Roger. She couldn’t do that by herself. Surely a Norman nobleman would be better able to help her accomplish those tasks than this mysterious Welshman.

      * * *

      The shaded, narrow road to Sir Guy’s manor wound through the thick forest of oak and beech, pine and hawthorn. The sky was gray and thick clouds had blocked out even the midday sun. The air was close, rank with the smell of damp underbrush and decaying foliage. All was still and quiet, and not even a bird’s song interrupted the silence. No bright spring flowers pushed their way to the sunlight here. It was as if they had stepped into a bard’s tale of a forest under the spell of a witch or evil sorcerer.

      As Dafydd plodded along beside the roan, he told himself he was glad he would soon be far away from Lady Madeline de Montmorency. Either she could have taught Delilah a thing or two about seduction, or she was the innocent creature she claimed to be. That look, as she lay beneath him, that sultry, pouting glance at once dismissive and challenging—was it art, or was it a natural response? Whatever it was, he would have been more than mortal to resist kissing those full, red lips.

      And no matter how much she tried to deny it, she had responded. Oh, he might have startled her at first, but soon enough she was eagerly kissing him back.

      God’s wounds and blessed blood, what kind of trouble had he gotten himself into this time? She was a Norman and the sister of a man hated by the Welsh.

      Just as he despised all Normans. He could see good cause for his hatred, too, the few times there was a break in the trees. Ragged, bowed peasants worked narrow strips of farmland. They all looked old, thin and sickly, barely able to work. The buildings he spied were little better than the byre in which he and Lady Madeline had spent the night. And strangely, he saw not one young person, nor any child. All was back-bent, joyless silence and hard toil.

      Dafydd desperately tried to recall what the holy men had said of Sir Guy. That they did not approve of him had been easy to guess, but he had put that down to the naïveté of men who lived a sheltered, chaste life. Was there more to it? Was Sir Guy a greedy, cruel master who kept men and women working past their prime, when they should have been resting and sleeping in the springtime sun? Had something occurred to drive all the younger people, who could travel with greater ease, away from this place?

      He did not know, and there was no one he could ask. Lady Madeline was obviously ignorant of Sir Guy’s existence, not surprising considering she had spent the past years of her life in cloistered seclusion.

      Just as she was apparently ignorant of her effect upon him.

      “Has there been famine?” Lady Madeline asked with pity when they passed another group of ancient peasants. “Mother Bertrilde often said the world was a harsh place of disease and lack of food. Sometimes I thought she said such things to keep us content within the walls of the convent.”

      “No famine.”

      “But these people...”

      “Peasants, they are, my lady. Have you never seen peasants before?”

      “Not like these.” Clearly she was as puzzled as he.

      It could be that he was making a mistake heading this way, Dafydd thought. What if Sir Guy recognized him for a Welshman and probably a rebel as easily as Lady Madeline? If the man’s treatment of his peasants was anything to go by, he would get no mercy from Sir Guy.

      Dafydd decided he would send Lady Madeline toward the manor alone once he could see it. That would be the least risky thing to do.

      Suddenly he felt a sharp tug on the lead at the same time he heard Lady Madeline’s startled gasp. His gaze followed her shaking finger pointing at something hanging from a tree some distance away, like a grotesque pennant. “What...what is it?” she asked in whisper.

      “A body,” he replied stonily. He had, unfortunately, seen such things before. “It is a corpse, probably some poor soul convicted of a crime, hung and left to rot as an example of Norman justice.”

      “There are so many!”

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