“And stupid,” Liana said. She wanted to kill the lice, so she picked up a small rock and began pounding the clothes. Then, as she turned the shirt over, she saw the tiny holes the rock was making. Her eyes widened in horror, then she smiled. She’d clean his clothes for him all right, but they’d look like a fisherman’s net when she finished. “Only a stupid woman would have you,” she said loudly, hoping to distract him from what she was doing.
“Stupid women are best,” he answered. “I want no clever woman. Clever women cause a man trouble. Are you done with those yet?”
“They are filthy and need a lot of work,” she said as sweetly as she could manage. Thinking of his appearing at a girl’s door in clothes filled with holes pleased her. “And I guess women have given you a great deal of trouble in your life,” she said. His vanity was overwhelming.
“Very little trouble.” He was watching her.
Liana didn’t like the way he was looking at her. In spite of her wet clothes, he was making her feel very warm. He seemed lazy and quiet now, but she’d seen his anger and felt the violence just under his skin.
“How many children did you say you have?” he asked softly.
“Nine,” she said loudly. “Nine little boys, all of them big and strong like their father. And their uncles,” she added nervously. “My husband has six huge brothers, strong as oxen, and tempers! I never saw such tempers. Only last week—”
“What a liar you are,” he said calmly, putting his head back down on the ground and not looking at her. “You’ve never had a man.”
She stopped pounding the clothes. “I’ve had a hundred men,” she said, then stopped. “I mean, I’ve had my husband hundreds of times and—” She was making a fool of herself. “Here are your clothes. I hope they itch you to death. You deserve a body covered with lice.”
She stood over him, then dropped the wet clothes on his hard, flat belly. He didn’t flinch from the cold but stared up at her with eyes that seemed warm and compelling. She wanted to leave him and she knew she was now free, but somehow she just stood there, her eyes locked with his.
“Such good work must be rewarded. Bend to me, woman.”
Liana felt herself sinking to her knees before him while he came up to meet her. He put his big hand behind her head, his fingers entwined in her hair, and pulled her lips to his.
A few men had tried to kiss Liana, but they had never been so expert as this. His lips, so unlike his manner, were soft and warm and she closed her eyes to the sensation.
The kiss was all she’d hoped a kiss could be and her arms moved to encircle his neck as she pressed her body to his, feeling his sun-warmed skin through her cold clothes. He moved his lips on hers, opening his mouth slightly, and she followed his lead. Her hands moved to his hair. It was clean from his swim and so warm she thought she could feel the redness of it.
When he broke the kiss and moved away from her, she kept her eyes closed and leaned toward him, wanting more of him.
“There, that’s enough,” he said with amusement in his voice. “A virginal kiss for a virgin. Now, go along home to whoever should have been protecting you and don’t go chasing after men again.”
Liana’s eyes flew open. “Chasing after men? I was not—”
He gave her a quick kiss, a twinkle in his eyes, before rising. “Spying on me from the bushes. You ought to learn what lust is before you try to inspire it. Now, off you go before I change my mind and give you what you’ve asked for. I’ve got more important business to tend to today than some hungry virgin.”
It didn’t take Liana long to recover herself. She was on her feet in seconds. “I will freeze in hell before I am hungry for the likes of you.”
He paused as he started to put a leg into a pair of wet braies. “I’m tempted to make you eat those words. No,” he said and began moving again, “I have other things to do. Perhaps later, after I’m married, you might come to me. I’ll see if I have time for you then.”
There were no curse words vile enough to describe what Liana was feeling. “You will see me again,” she managed to say. “Oh yes, you will, but I do not think you will be so arrogant when we meet again. Pray for your life, peasant.” She stormed past him.
“I do every day,” he called after her. “And I’m not—”
She didn’t hear any more as, once in the trees, she pulled her gown and headdress from their hiding place and ran toward her horse. The animal waited quietly while Liana tore the woolen dress from her body. She flung it to the ground, then stamped on it, grinding it into the dirt.
“Disgusting!” she said. “Filthy, dirty people,” she muttered. And she had thought the peasants’ lives romantic. They were so free! “They have no one to protect them,” she said to her horse. “If my guard had been here, he’d have skewered that swine. If Lord Stephen had been here, he’d have made him crawl. I would have laughed to see that red-haired devil kiss Lord Stephen’s shoe. What shall I do with him, Belle?” she asked the horse. “The rack? Drawing and quartering? Disembowelment? Burning at the stake? Yes, I like that. I’ll have him burned. I shall serve dinner, and his burning shall be the entertainment.”
Dressed in her own clothes once again, she mounted her horse and gave a glance of hatred in the direction of the pond. She tried to imagine the man’s violent death, but then she remembered his kiss. She shook her head as if to clear away those thoughts. Again she tried to think of his burning, but she couldn’t get past imagining his beautiful form tied to the pole.
“Damn him!” she cursed, and kicked her horse forward.
She had not gone but a short distan
ce when she came to fifty of her father’s knights, suited in heavy armor as if going to war. Now they decide to look for me near the pond, she thought. Why didn’t they come when he was tossing her in the water or making her wash his clothes…or when he was kissing her?
“My lady!” the lead knight exclaimed. “We have been searching for you. Have you been harmed?”
“Actually, I have,” she said angrily. “In the forest on the east side of the pond is—” She stopped. She didn’t know why, but suddenly fifty men against one unarmed peasant seemed very unfair.