Eadyth gasped. “How do you know?”
“He was overheard boasting during his cattle-slaughtering spree.”
As the implications of Eirik’s words began to seep into Eadyth’s dulled senses, she stiffened, then pulled her hands from his grasp and shoved her palms against his chest. “You thick-headed, dull-witted, lackbrained… oh, there are no words to describe you! You chose to imprison me rather than talk to me sensibly?”
When Eirik did not move or respond to her taunts, she raised a hand to slap him, but he caught both wrists and held her firm.
“You were ‘imprisoned,’ if you could call it that, for your own protection.”
“Argh! How dare you lock me up like a timid, wooly-brained maid rather than tell me the truth?”
“I knew you would not obey my orders to stay inside the keep. And your leaving for Hawks’ Lair, at the least provocation, just proves me right.”
“The least provocation! I would hardly call infidelity ‘the least provocation.’ ”
He shrugged, and was pleased to see her face turn almost purple with rage at his seeming lack of concern.
“How would you react if your wife… if I… went off to be with another man? And locked you in a bedchamber to await my every whim?”
He did not even try to stifle his grin then. “Now, that poses some interesting possibilities.”
His thumbs were tracing sensual circles on the soft inner skin of Eadyth’s wrists as they talked. He felt the traitorous increase in her pulse under his fingertips as he spoke. And the flush that swept her face now was undoubtedly caused by his proximity, not her continued anger. He pulled her closer, against his chest, and wrapped his arms around her waist.
She tried to turn her expressive face away from him, but he cupped her chin in one hand and turned her back to him.
“You cannot continue to make decisions’ for me,” she protested weakly. “I am not a child. Nor an untrustworthy wife.”
“You cannot continue to ignore every decision I make,” he countered, “as if I have no ability to run my own estates, or care for those under my shield.”
They glared at each other.
“You will have to be punished.”
She raised her chin haughtily. “I will not display myself for your pleasure in that wispy veil again.”
He grinned. “That was not a punishment.”
“It was to me. You have already made me a laughingstock with the servants. Will you lock me in this bedchamber again?”
“Not unless I am in here with you,” he said with velvet promise. He considered the possibilities of such a shared confinement and felt an immediate thickening in his loins. “In truth, that is not a bad idea,” he conceded silkily. “See, Eadyth, I do listen to your advice sometimes.”
“I did not recommend our being locked together in a bedchamber,” she asserted indignantly.
He laughed softly. “But, you must admit, it has definite possibilities. Hmmm. I will have to think on it more.”
“I have to tend my bees, and see what havoc Bertha has wreaked in the kitchen in my absence, and—”
“I did not mean just yet, Eadyth. Tsk, tsk. Do not be over-anxious. I know you seek a means to relieve that itch you have developed, but—”
“Overanxious? You are vile to say that of me! And what itch?”
He grinned widely from ear to ear.
Puzzled, Eadyth stared at Eirik’s smile, which did not reach his angry eyes. Then her lips parted with astonishment and her face turned hot with understanding. “Oh… never mind. see you are just teasing me about punishment.”
“Nay, I am not. You will pay, and pay well, according to my terms, Eadyth. But I need your help with Emma first. Once I lock the door on this bedchamber—and I have decided that poses many opportunities for your ‘punishment’—I do not want to be disturbed for days, not even by my needful daughter.”
For days! A delicious tingle swept over Eadyth. What could two people do for days? But then his other words seeped in. “What is wrong with Emma?” she asked.
He proceeded to tell her of the six-year-old’s muteness since the fire that had taken her mother’s life three years before. “Her memory is coming back, no doubt prompted by the fever at the orphanage and the burning of tainted clothing and bed linens. She has even started to speak some words. But she screams and cries out at all hours of the day and night.”
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