Coulter, Catherine. Rosehaven / Catherine Coulter.

“Severin is the lord of Oxborough. He is of use to me only because he protects Eloise.”

“Was he so very clumsy then when he took you as a boy, Marjorie?”

“He should not have told you that. We were very young, both of us. I did not wish to be wedded to that old man, to have him take my virginity, thus I gave it to Severin. That was many years ago.”

Hastings didn’t say anything more, just pushed past Marjorie and ran up the solar stairs. She needed clothes-not gowns, but a boy’s garb. She didn’t care about the bandits on the roads. Nothing could be as bad as re-

maining here, for she knew when Severin recovered sufficiently, he would return and beat her, if not to death, at least hard enough so that she would bleed and all the Oxborough people would see her bleeding. Marjorie would see her bleeding.

She could lose her babe.

She walked head high to the stable, ordered Marella to be saddled, then, while Tuggle was seeing to her palfrey, she eased into the small area where all the boys slept. All the clothes she picked up were too small and filthy beyond anything she could imagine.

She just smiled at Alart, the porter, telling him she was riding into the village. He waved her off, though he was frowning. Had he expected to see her beaten and bleeding?

She rode directly to the leatherer’s shop and asked Master Robert once again to see the chamber from which the saddle had been hurled down upon her. Ah, she thought, as she rifled through his apprentices’ trunks that were stacked in the corner of the room. She took what she wanted, stuffed them beneath her gown, and took her leave of Master Robert, who was in the midst of praising the gloriousness of the damned day.

She rode into Beethorpe Forest and changed into the boys’ clothes. She hadn’t estimated properly. The trousers were very tight. As for the tunic, it at least bagged enough to cover most of her to her thighs. She fastened cross garters, pulled on the supple leather boots.

She remounted Marella.

She had no money, no food, no weapon.

Where was she to go?

She just sat there on Marella’s back. She deserved to be beaten, but not because she had angered Severin. No, she deserved it because she was so stupid.

She rode back to the village and managed to find Ellen alone, weeding her mother’s small garden at the back of the baker’s shop.

When she rode out of the village a few minutes later, she had a bow and six arrows, a knife, three loaves of bread wrapped in a big cloth, and a blanket.

9. 7, 9

“You what?”

“She is the mistress of Oxborough. She rides frequently to the village. I had to allow her to leave, my lord.”

Severin cracked his palm over his own forehead. He’d come back to strangle her. Mayhap he would have beaten her after he had strangled her. At the very least he would have yelled at her until he was cleansed of his rage. That was what he had planned to do with her on the beach, just the two of them alone, but he hadn’t had the chance. Damn her, she’d planned to swim to the next beach. Then she had unmanned him. Only now could he stand up straight. He drank down the ale Alice handed to him.

He gave Alice a sour look. “I don’t suppose you know anything about this?”

She poured him more ale as she said, “If I did, I would tell you nothing, my lord. I do not want her or the babe harmed.”

Severin smashed his fist on the trestle table. “She is not with child!”

“If she said she was, then she is.”

“Did she tell you that she was?”

“No, but Dame Agnes wonders. She said she knew Hastings was queasy* irTher belly and that her appetite wasn’t right. Hastings is very private. She waits before she speaks.”

“She didn’t wait before she kicked my manhood into oblivion.”

Alice opened her mouth, caught the warning head shake from Gwent, and closed it again.