Eirik snorted with disgust and pressed her tighter to the bed with his body.
“You beast, I will never forgive you for this. Worse, you will never forgive yourself when you discover the truth.”
“Nay, I will never forgive myself if I do not find out for certain if you have betrayed me.” Eirik, in a misty haze of utter fury, flipped her robe up to her waist, exposing long limbs.
And the bloody rag between her thighs.
Eirik looked up and saw the silent tears of humiliation seeping from her closed eyes. A nagging voice inside his head told him to release her, to be satisfied with the evidence he saw, but a berserk rage had overtaken his body. Blood roared in his ears as he passed the breaking point. He had been at the wrong end of Steven’s perfidy for too long to be satisfied with less than the ultimate proof. Even the bloody rag could be a carefully concocted ruse.
Roughly, he reached down and tore the soiled cloth from her body and threw it onto the rushes. Then, swiftly, before she could comprehend what he was about, Eirik used his legs to maneuver her thighs apart and thrust his middle finger into her body.
She screamed then, loud and keening. He did not know if it was from the humiliation, or the pain, for her passage was dry and tight for even his lone finger.
Realization swept over him, even before he pulled the finger out and saw the bloody evidence. She did not carry Steven’s child.
Eadyth lay stiffly, trying hard to control the racking sobs which shook her thin body. Her pale eyes stared lifelessly at the ceiling.
Eirik jumped up in horror and walked to the wall near the window. Angrily, he pounded his fist against the stone wall until he drew blood.
He had never, never been so ashamed of himself in all his life.
Chapter Nine
“Eadyth, we have to talk.”
Eirik pulled a chair closer to the bed. For more than an hour, he had been pacing the bedchamber, watching his wife sleep restlessly, waiting for her to awaken.
After his gross assault on her person, Eadyth had refused to look at him or hear his words of apology. She had surprised him by hurling out a few surprisingly coarse curses that would make a Viking sailor blush, then curled herself into a pitiful ball. She had wept quietly for an ungodly length of time before falling into a fitful slumber.
He eyed the crumpled heap of clothing which hid Eadyth’s slight frame as she came slowly awake and moved awkwardly into a sitting position in the middle of his large bed. He didn’t know which Eadyth he misliked most—the shrewish, arrogant crone who had plagued him with complaints from the moment they first met, or the silent, humbled one who jabbed at his conscience now.
Hell’s flames! He was sore tired from lack of sleep, and his skin itched unbearably from the bee stings. He needed to settle this matter between them. Then, he would like nothing better than to be off to Jorvik where Asa could minister to his needs—both the bee stings and that other long-unmet one.
“Eadyth, did you hear me? We have to talk,” he snapped.
“We have absolutely naught to discuss,” she replied icily as she eased herself off the bed and stood on the opposite side of the room from him. She adjusted her infernal head-rail in her usual fashion so that it half-covered her face, but not before he noted her red nose, puffy eyelids and pink-blotched skin.
He hadn’t thought it possible she could look any worse than before. She did.
He rubbed his index finger thoughtfully across his mustache, wondering how he had got himself into this mess of a marriage, then stopped in midstroke as he noticed something alarming. Suspiciously, he held the fingertips of both hands to his jaw bones, then moved them slowly upward to his eyes and over his forehead in an exploring fashion.
He groaned aloud at what he discovered.
His face had swollen, and one eyelid had puffed almost completely shut. He muttered something foul under his breath and rose and walked over to the wash table under the framed polished metal on the wall.