Hopefully his rage would remain focused where it should: on the man who had kidnapped and ravished his bride. But if the Dragon suspected for a moment there had been no force, no rape involved in Servanne de Briscourt’s submission, or if she betrayed by the slightest word or gesture that she preferred the touch of one man over the other …
Cursing inwardly, he turned away and started rummaging beneath the mist for his discarded clothing. He was shrugging his heavy shoulders into the green linsey-woolsey shirt when the touch of her hand on his scarred flesh stopped him again. It was only the tips of her fingers that gently traced the hideously misshapen weals, but it could have been a red-hot iron searing his flesh for the same impact it left on his body.
“These must have caused you a great deal of pain for a very long time,” she whispered.
“Wounds of betrayal hurt far more than any wounds of the flesh,” he said flatly and pulled the shirt down to cover the scars.
Servanne sat motionless a moment longer, chastened by his sudden anger, yet ignorant of the cause. She began sorting through the tumbled ruin of her own clothes, each small movement emphasizing the empty ache inside her. Even her hair, brushing over her bare skin, produced shivers that would never again foster innocent thoughts.
Had he been left unaffected by the passions they had unleashed together? Could a man do all that he had done to her, share all they had shared, and not be changed, altered in some way? She did not expect declarations of undying love and devotion but neither did she expect to have her clothes tossed casually across the moss as if, for him, it had been but a pleasant afternoon’s diversion.
“Might I ask another question without fear of having my head snapped off?”
“Ask it,” he said sharply. “And we shall see.”
“This black-hearted knight you would foist me upon to ease your conscience … does he know who you are and why you are here?”
“La Seyne?” Something akin to a smile glimmered in the dark eyes. “He knows.”
“Does he also know of this other … danger, to which you referred?”
“He knows more than he would care to have as a burden.”
“You said you could not provide proof of who you are until you are inside the castle. Is La Seyne here to back your claim when and if it becomes necessary?”
The Wolf looked at her with a grudging respect. A claim made against one of Prince John’s allies was useless and suicidal without the support of equally formidable and influential witnesses. La Seyne Sur Mer was the dowager queen’s champion; a knight regarded as being above reproach, who would be no easy man to fool or slough off with half-truths.
“You had best not show yourself to be too clever around the Dragon,” he warned softly. “He does not take kindly to minxes with sharp noses and sly tongues.”
“Another similarity with his brother. I confess I am becoming more intrigued by the moment to meet and compare qualities myself.”
The Wolf was leaning over to retrieve his deerskin leggings when the unexpected sarcasm of her words halted him. With their faces only inches apart, and the light from the mouth of the cavern at its most generous angle, Servanne again thought she saw something flicker in the guarded depths of his eyes. If she did, it was quickly hidden and her humour as effectively quashed.
“As I told you before, there are some things we do quite differently. If you doubt me, ask any one of his scores of former mistresses … or his current one: Nicolaa de la Haye.”
Hurt and confused by his unwarranted bitterness, Servanne stared down at the crumpled folds of velvet she held in her lap and wondered why it seemed to be his prime task to perplex and confound her to the verge of tears. Resolutely, she gathered her courage to ask one more important question of him, but when she looked up, her emotions as exposed as an open wound, he was not even paying her any heed. Something had drawn all of his attention to the wall of ivy, and that something was causing him to turn as still as stone.
“What—?”
His hand lashed out to cover her mouth and stifle the question against her lips. Another moment passed before she heard it too: the squeak of leather, the faint chink of metal on metal, the snap and rustle of carefully bent