Coulter, Catherine. Rosehaven / Catherine Coulter.

“Where did you ride with Marjorie this morning?”

“I showed her the marsh just beyond the northern estuary. Why? Come, Hastings, do not be jealous. It doesn’t become you. Let me come to you the way I did before. You enjoyed my body. You yelled your pleasure. Do not continue this madness. I told you, Marjorie was lost to me years ago. It is over. It is done.”

Where had Marjorie gotten that new gown? Rot the woman and rot Severin. “You think it your right to betray me? To have two women in the same keep? Or will another saddle fall upon my head?”

He stared down at her, his face white. He opened his mouth, but she raised her hand to stop him. “No, Severin, no lies. I can bear no more lies.”

She saw that he was as angry as he had been so long before, when they had first wedded. He came over her again, shoved into her, and moved over her until once again he reached his release.

He held her arms above her head, speaking even as his breathing still hitched. “No lies, Hastings. I will tell you the truth. You are pathetic. Look at yourself. Ranting at me, lying there with nothing to give me but your damned anger that I do not deserve. It is you who have mucked up the miracle, not 1.1 will not accept this, Hastings. Damn you, become the

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way you were a week ago. Look to Marjorie, she is sweet and gentle, an angel who walks in the sunlight even when it is night. Aye, try to mold yourself into Marjorie’s likeness.”

He jerked off her. As he walked from the bedchamber, she yelled at him, “I wish your saddle had fallen on you! All that was between us was a lie. I was never anything to you save a convenience. Damn you, I am not pathetic! I would rather mold myself in Satan’s likeness than Marjorie’s.”

He slammed the door behind him. She lay there for but a few moments, then rose to bathe herself. It was at that moment that Hastings ,made her decision.

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“T ask it as a favor to my father. Please, Beamis, don’t say no.”

1 Beamis scratched his armpit, looked everywhere but at his mistress’s face, and wished G went would magically appear, overhear what she wanted him to do, and forbid it without hesitation and with great force of voice.

Hastings tugged at his sleeve. “Listen, Beamis, you know my father traveled to this place three or four times a year. Don’t shake your head. Surely you knew of it. You were his master-at-arms. You did, did you not? Of course you did. You accompanied him.”

He nodded finally, praying that if Gwent didn’t come then Lord Severin would appear. No, he would not pray for that. All knew that Lord Severin had mucked things up again with his wife. All knew that he desired Lady Marjorie, an exquisite wench with exquisite silver hair that a man wanted to stroke and rub against. But, Beamis thought, she was still just a wench like any other wench. Hair wasn’t all that important.

Hastings was an heiress and a healer, only a wench secondarily. “I can’t,” he said finally, and wanted to cry.

Her hand was still on his arm, tugging now frantically at his sleeve. “Beamis, I cannot remain here and watch her take my place.”

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“I cannot, Hastings. Please, do not ask this of me. It is impossible. I cannot.”

He was miserable, she could see that, but she didn’t care. She said very quietly, “The saddle that fell on me-Lord Severin’s own saddle. You know it was not an accident. Do you wish Fawke of Trent’s daughter to be killed? If I remain here, it could happen and you know it, Beamis.”

Beamis groaned. Half the men thought it had been an accident. The other half wondered aloud, but Beamis knew what they thought. They believed that someone wanted Lady Marjorie to take Hastings’s place as mistress of Oxborough. But who? The lady herself? How could someone so beautiful, with such exquisite hair, be so treacherous?

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