Cassie thought that the pirate must hear the furious pounding of her heart. What a fool she had been. There would have been no escape for her. The earl had saved her, not she the earl.
“Your generosity, as always, my friend, moves me greatly. But a wife must always be her husband’s responsibility. Surely you have enough wives to occupy your attention without concerning yourself with my stupid affairs.”
“Ah, Antonio, you have the smooth tongue of the diplomat. You say everything so fluently, yet there is no meaning to be drawn. Could it be that you do not please your English wife in the marriage bed? I have heard it said that your English ladies are as cold as the northern winters. You carry the blood of your Ligurian ancestors, passionate blood, demanding blood. Can it be that you have terrified your lady wife with that huge shaft of yours?”
“I cannot believe that my prowess in the marriage bed can be of such interest to you, my friend, you who nightly may choose from so many beautiful women.”
Khar El-Din threw back his head, his mane of thick hair swirling down his back, and laughed deeply. He pointed a gnarled finger at the earl and wagged it. “I grow old and exhausted in their service. Yet, Antonio, I have not in my fifty years been shot by one of them. Let me inquire of your lady wife why she holds you in such dislike.”
Cassie felt his pale blue eyes resting intently upon her, and kept her head down. She was startled into looking up into his leathered face when he said in slow, precise English, “Give me your attention, girl. Your husband is a gentleman and thus skirts my every question. You had the courage to shoot him, and I must ask myself why. If it is your wish to leave him, my pretty one, you have but to tell me. I will willingly help you. You really do not have to render your lord husband dead, you know.”
Cassie licked her dry lips. She did not look at the earl, for she knew that he could not help her. She was aware that in her fear she was rocking slightly back and forth in her chair. An idea came to her. She said in a vague, soft voice, “My husband but tries to protect me, sir.”
Khar El-Din leaned toward her, his eyes glittering. “ Protect you, my beautiful child?”
“Not from you, sir, but from myself.”
Her voice held a peculiar singsong quality that made the pirate start.
Cassie felt a wet strand of hair fall over her cheek. In a slow, deliberate motion, she licked at the strand until it fell into her mouth.
“Yes,” she said, her eyes going wide and vacant. “He does not wish others to know of my madness. He promised many years ago that he would wed me. He saved me from Bedlam, sir, by taking me from England.”
Khar El-Din shifted angrily in his chair and spat at the earl, “What inane jest is this? Do you take me for a fool?”
The earl only nodded, wearily.
Cassie wrapped her arms about her waist and began to rock in huge dips in her chair. She mumbled an old nursery rhyme from her childhood.
Khar El-Din swiveled back in his chair toward her and she saw doubt narrow his eyes.
“I am not always so, sir,” she said in a high child’s voice. “They called me a witch, a witch with evil powers, for I made a man die because he dared to touch me. I cannot be certain that it was I who was responsible, but he died so quickly afterward, choking to death over his wine.”
Khar El-Din thrust his empty wine glass into Scargill’s hand. He drew back from her, and Cassie saw in his eyes that he believed her to be evil, mad. He rose quickly and stared down at the earl’s drawn face. “You are a fool, Antonio, with your English honor. Let me drown her for you, ’twill most likely save your life. I knew a woman like her once, afflicted with the same madness. I had her stoned before she could devour men’s souls.”