‘Laera, I’m sorry, I-“
“You might have killed me, you miserable wretch!”
she said, shoving him away and getting to her feet unsteadily. He tried to help her, but she pushed him back again and he fell onto the straw.
She stood over him, naked, her eyes blazing with fury. “How dare you! I ought to have you whipped!”
“Laera, lower your voice, for mercy’s sake!” he said, pulling up his breeches and brushing off the straw. “The grooms-“
“The grooms! The grooms! It would serve you right to have the grooms come in here and find us like this! What do you suppose they’d think?”
He got to his feet. “And just what would you have them think?” he asked with an edge to his voice.
Even as he spoke, he realized that suddenly everything had changed.
“I could tell them that you’d lured me to the stables and then choked me so you could remove my clothes and have your way with me!” she said spitefully. “And then what would you do? What do you think Lord Arwyn would do when he found out?”
“He might find out considerably more than you intended,” Aedan countered angrily.
“Oh, and do you really think that he would take your word over mine?”
she asked contemptuously.
“No, I rather doubt he would,” said Aedan. -But he might take the word of the house guards, who saw you leave your room each night for the past few weeks and come to mine.”
“They never saw where I was going!” she said, but a look of uncertainty came into her eyes. For the first time, she seemed to realize she was no longer completely in control.
“Didn’t they?” Aedan said. He shrugged. “Well, perhaps not. Perhaps one of them didn’t follow you to see where you went each night.
Perhaps he never saw you go into my room. Perhaps there is some other reason why they all wink at me and smile each time I pass them in the corridors.”
“Even so,” she said, “they are the Royal House Guard, and their first loyalty will be to me, the princess, and not the lowly chamberlain’s son!” She tried to say this with conviction, but a note of doubt crept through.
“The lowly chamberlain,” said Aedan, echoing her words with heavy sarcasm, “is the man who has always seen to it that they were paid on time and well, and who has made certain their families were properly provided for, and given comfortable quarters and the care of court physicians whenever they were ill. It is just possible that they might also feel some loyalty toward him, and not wish to see his son falsely branded as a rapist when the truth is that the princess is a wanton slut.”
She stared at him with shock, then struck him across the face with all her might. He saw it coming, but he took the blow, not even trying to avoid it. “You insolent pig!” she said, spitting out the words.
“You’ll pay for that! And to think I gave myself to you!”
“Indeed,” said Aedan, wryly. “It was a gift I never asked for and was a fool to have accepted in the first place, considering its questionable worth.”
With a cry of rage, she launched herself at him, arms raised, fingers hooked like talons, ready to claw his eyes out. He caught her by the wrists and pivoted, using her own momentum to throw her down. She fell, sprawling, into the straw.
“Enough!” he said. “By all the gods, enough!
Whether in anger or in lust, you have laid hands on me for the last time! Now get up and put your clothes back on! You are still a princess of the royal house, so try to act like one! And henceforth, I shall try to act as befits my proper place and station, which I had forgotten, like a fool. As for the rest of it-your threats, your wounded pride-do what you wish.
Whatever it may cost me, I am past caring one way or the other.”
Aedan turned and left the stall, leaving her lying there with an incredulous look on her face. He crosse the aisle and took his horse out of its stall.
Michael already had a good head start, and he had to catch up to him.
It was not safe for the prince to be out riding alone, and it was past time he started thinking once again about his duties and responsibilities-for however long they would remain his duties and responsibilities. Perhaps only until this afternoon. It would not surprise him if he were seized by Arwyn’s men-at-arms the moment he returned. He didn’t care. He felt, at least for the moment, marvelously free.
Laera’s words had been like a bucketful of cold water dashed into his face. Whatever spell he had been under was finally broken, and he saw her for the selfish, spiteful, spoiled girl she really was …
and himself for an utter fool. One way or another, however things turned out, at least it was finally over and he could try to regain, if at all possible, some vague semblance of his self-respect.
He truly didn’t care about what would happen to him now, except for how it would affect his parents.
His disgrace would become theirs, as well, and for their sake, he hoped Laera had enough wits about her to leave well enough alone. Perhaps he had convinced her she would not come away unscathed if she made any accusations against him, that if she chose to reveal their affair or claim he had forced himself upon her, it would be her disgrace, as well.
Perhaps it would not be very chivalrous of him to reveal a lady’s indiscretions, even in self-defense, but
