In the next moment, he was gone, standing over her, panting, his breath jerking and deep. She didn’t look at him. She stared toward the tapestry on the wall opposite her narrow bed. It was lifting lightly as the storm winds buffeted against the keep walls.
He said, his breath still fast and harsh, “It is done. Now you are safe.”
“Safe? You just treat me like I am worth nothing at all and you bray that you have made me safe?” She turned to face him as she spoke. He was still standing there, breathing hard, his member now lying flaccid against his body. It looked shiny and wet, wet with his seed and her blood.
‘Trlarg you,” she said with great precision. “You’re naught more than a rutting animal. I will never forgive you this. Never.”
He began to straighten his clothes. “An animal doesn’t use cream to ease his way. I spared you what pain I could. A virgin has a maidenhead. I had to force my way through it. The next time it will not hurt you.”
He had used the cream. She’d give him that. “You are still wearing your boots. You tear off my clothes yet you keep yourself clothed.”
He was done. He looked down at her and shrugged. “I just wanted to get it over with. Now, draw the cover over yourself. Your legs are sprawled apart like a trollop’s. Don’t bathe my seed from your body. The sooner you are with child the more secure will be my possessions.” With those words he leaned down, picked up the key, and opened the door.
He turned in the doorway. “You will remain within the keep tomorrow. I will find Richard de Luci. If he is a reasonable man, I won’t kill him, though I fear he is just the first of many. Until you are with child, you are at risk.”
Aye, she thought. Severin was sorely tried. The poor man-marrying an heiress was the very devil.
He was gone, his boots sounding loud on the stone floor. He had still been garbed in his gray clothes.
She lay there, her legs still sprawled wide, feeling as though she’d been ripped inside, which, she thought, she had, since he’d torn through her maidenhead. She hurt. She lay her hand on her belly. She was no longer herself, no longer just Hastings.
No gentleness from him, no soft wooing, just the cream, which cost him no kind words. She had been married for six hours and she hated the man who was her husband.
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She is gone.” Severin blinked down at the old woman. “What did you say? Who is gone?”
“Hastings. My lady, your wife, is gone. What did you do to her? Hastings is never imprudent, yet I cannot find her. She is not within the keep.”
“What the devil is this?” Graelam demanded as he strode to Severin.
“Hastings is gone?”
“Aye; my lord Graelam. There was blood on her bed and bloody water in the basin. The lord broke his word to her. Her father is to be
buried today, surely he should have left her whole last night.”
Severin said, “It was not possible. Richard de Luci nears. He will try to take her. Now you say she is gone.” He cursed. “I should have locked her in her bedchamber. You say she is never imprudent. If she has tried to leave the castle, he will take her. That is stupidity beyond anything I can fathom.” He hit the heel of his hand against his forehead. “I expect wisdom from a woman? I am a fool. I believed she understood. I believed her cowed. Well, Graelam, all is changed now. I must find her before Richard de Luci does. Damnation. I will punish her for this. Never again will she go against me.”
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Graelam turned to Dame Agnes. “It is only seven o’clock. Did you only go to her bedchamber?”
“I have looked everywhere. If anyone has seen her, then they are lying fluently.”
“Did you go to her herb garden?”
“Nay, I have looked just within the keep. I will go there now.”
“I will go,” Severin said. “I told her she was to remain within the keep. She must be taught obedience.”