Mathis, Jolie by The Sea King Read Free Book Online Page B

response. Eventually his smile faded to bleak neutrality. Lips pursed, he lowered his gaze and found interest in some item near his feet. Her belongings. Unlike the bower belowstairs, her chamber had been left untouched.
    Like a nervous bird, Isabel shifted on her roost, her eyes narrowed. He had no right to touch her things.
    From a woven basket he lifted a styli. Between his long, blunt-tipped fingers he rolled the delicate instrument, the ivory snow-white against his dark skin. Again he peered into the basket, this time with clear expectancy. The faintest of smiles turned his lip as he retrieved her wax tablet.
    Only yesterday she'd written a bit of verse. Not even a verse, just a silly batch of words she'd intended to share with Godric when he grew old enough to understand; to laugh and to see she wasn't the remote, too-old-for-her-days young woman the rest of Calldarington surely saw when they looked at Isabel, youngest daughter of Aldrith, princess of Norsex.
    The Dane smoothed his fingertips over her words. Words intended only for her son.
    "Put it down." Her voice arose no louder than a rustle of reeds. He looked up.
    "As you wish." He returned the styli and tablet to the basket, and stood.
    Isabel's heart nearly tore free from her breast. Surely she had angered him. Her gaze veered upward over an endless span of rough-hewn leather boots to thighs surely the thickness of Offa's dykes. Behind him, his shadow blackened the tapestries on the wall.
    Slowly he lifted a hand and beckoned. "Come hither." With each word his neck corded powerfully. He moved toward her curtained haven, his boots making nary a sound. For one so large, he moved with unnerving grace. He bent to peer beneath the bed curtains. A strand of hair slid across his cheek. "I would see your wound in the light and tend to its dressing."
    "I think not," Isabel whispered.
    He lifted his knee, and half knelt upon the bed. The mattress tilted.
    "I will not allow you to touch me. Never again," she warned. Her heart slammed against her ribs. She pressed so hard against the post she expected it to splinter against her spine.
    Over time, she had found some small comfort in the lack of memories of the assault. Would she be able to retain her sanity if he were to attack her again, here and now, as she endured awake and fully aware?
    He leaned toward her, eclipsing the fire's light. "If I intended to do you harm, I would have already done so." Surely his voice, his eyes, cast spells, for she almost believed.
    She sprang off the bed. Her damp skirts tangled thickly between her legs. Frantic, her gaze swept the room. A weapon! Though her mother's jeweled dagger lay sheathed in Isabel's trunk, she would never be able to uncover it quickly enough. She saw nothing else. A low moan escaped her throat. From beside the hearth she snatched up a narrow log and whirled.
    "Stand away!" She wielded the weapon, however paltry, between them as if it were a sword as worthy as his own. Her shredded sleeve dangled like ribbons from her shoulder. "You may stand larger and stronger than I, but this time I will fight. This time I will watch your every filthy sin with my eyes wide open."
    He stood exactly where he had been when she'd leapt from the bed. The hilt of his sword glimmered at his hip. "I lose patience with you, little one. Put the stick down."
    Her laugh rang harsh. "Is that what you believe? That simply because you order me to surrender, I shall? Nay. This time I have a voice. This time I protest."
    Measured steps carried him forward. "My dispute is not with you, but with Ranulf." He stopped, an arm's reach from her.
    "Nay, your dispute is with me." Fury cut through her veins. Mistakenly she had assumed that once they were alone, face-to-face, his assault of her person two winters ago would be at the forefront of both their minds. Had she been so inconsequential a victim? Isabel tightened her grip on the branch and waggled it threateningly.
    Apparently her display of force