“Knowing how evil Steven is, why can you not see this letter for the ploy it is? ‘Twas planted to divide us in our intentions to hold his son from him. And he succeeded, thanks to your gullibility, you bloody fool.”
She turned and stumbled blindly toward the door, as fast as her legs could carry her, hampered by her sodden garment. For a moment, Eirik wondered if he had judged her unfairly, but then he remembered the other, the most important part of the letter.
“Are you breeding? With Steven’s child… again?”
She gasped and her back stiffened. Then she turned slowly and her violet eyes flashed icily, remarkably beautiful eyes for an old crone, he thought irrelevantly.
“Nay, I am not carrying a babe. Not unless you believe me capable of an immaculate conception.”
Eadyth’s sarcasm irritated him. She had no cause to be affronted. He was the injured party.
“I will not harbor another of Steven’s bastards,” he informed her. “One is enough.”
Her cheeks turned even redder, and he noticed her fists bunching at her sides. Then she reached toward the scabbard at her belt, forgetting that her small knife still lay on the far table. He was not so dim-sighted he could not see the speculation in her eyes as she measured the distance, wondering if she had time to get the blade and stab him.
“Do not even think it, or you will find yourself with a slit throat afore you can blink.”
Giving up on that alternative, she lifted her chin defiantly, staring him down in silence. If she only knew how ridiculous she looked with her scowling countenance and her wet garments making a puddle in the rushes, he mused.
“This marriage will not be consummated ’til you get your monthly courses and I know for certain you carry no bad seed.”
“And when you are proven wrong?” she sneered, disdain giving a sharp edge to her voice.
“I will decide then whether I want to live with another false wife.”
“Another?”
Eirik immediately realized his mistake, but refused to answer her question.
She scrutinized him haughtily, then repeated her earlier statement. “I am not breeding.”
He just raised an eyebrow skeptically.
Her face turned crimson, but she met his eyes head on. “I am bleeding now.”
That disclosure caught Eirik by surprise. Could he possibly have been wrong? But years of Steven’s treachery had taught him to be ever suspicious. He could not stop himself from doggedly persisting, “How do I know you do not lie?”
Her lips curled scornfully. “What shall I do, my lord? Lift my robe and show you the bloody rag?”
Her contempt disarmed him. That and her demeanor of wounded pride.
“Yea, that would be a good start.”
She backed toward the door, eyes wide with fear at his suggestion. “You… you would not ask that of me,” she sputtered in a voice shaking with disbelief.
“Do not place a wager on it. Come here, Eadyth, and prove your innocence.”
She gasped and turned quickly, hand on the door, but he moved even quicker and placed his body at the exit, barring her way. She jumped away from him in fright, like a bedraggled cat, and moved back to the center of the room, looking right and left for a weapon, to no avail.
“Oh, nay, oh, please, do not do this. You have misjudged me. I can expl—”
Eirik cut off her near hysterical words when he lifted her by the waist and threw her back onto his bed with a loud whooshing sound. He followed close after her, as her arms flailed out, hitting and scratching his already irritated skin.
Ignoring her enormous, doelike eyes, he straddled her body with his knees, holding her body in place, and locked both her hands over her head in one fist. Despite the fear she tried to hold in check, her chin lifted defiantly like a martyr’s.
Eirik hesitated. What if she was innocent?
“Tell me true, wife, have you ever, since we signed the betrothal agreement, deceived me?”
In the charged silence, Eadyth did not speak for a moment, averting her eyes guiltily. By the time she started to speak tentatively, “There is one small thing… ,” it was too late, to his mind. Her hesitation spoke for itself.