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She touched the scar again. “It must have pained you greatly.”
He shrugged, though in truth, he’d thought he would die, what with the fever that had nearly consumed him to ashes.
And now this. He had taken a maid, and not just any maid, he’d taken the Valcourt heiress. Surely a remarkable experience, but he knew there was no pot of silver waiting for him. He sighed. “You did not consider the consequences of this, Merry, you did not realize that I will pay for it?”
“No, no, you will not pay anything. I will explain everything to the king. I will tell him that you are so very honorable that I had to force you. I will tell him I want you, Garron, I admire you, not some faceless lout he would give me to. He will see that we will deal well together. I will tell him that you make lists just as the queen does, just as I do, and he will realize that you will manage Valcourt as well as my father. And he does know you and admire you already, Garron. He will understand why I want to marry you, not some stranger who could be as bad as Jason of Brennan. The king will understand.”
He was still between her legs, his hands on his thighs. She stretched out her hand and laid it atop his. “My father’s book of rules—I will give it to you, and you can memorize each one, mayhap add some of your own. I know you can keep Valcourt prosperous. The king will be pleased. He will praise you. You will become so rich you can give him money and soldiers and you will become as close to him as the queen.”
Garron grabbed both her hands, jerked them over her head, and came down to within an inch of her nose. “Listen to me. You do not know the world, nor do you know the king. He will have me beheaded.”
She knew he believed utterly what he said. “You are saying he would have beheaded Jason of Brennan if he’d managed to force me to wed him?”
He was pressing against her again, and quickly pulled back. He stared down at her flesh, and wanted to touch her again with his fingers, with his mouth. He wanted to weep. His brain stalled and he guided himself inside her.
She yelped and jerked back, struck her head against the wall, and yelped again. He didn’t move, remained still. “Get used to me,” he said, and realized when a man was inside a woman, his brain ceased to work. “If I am to die for taking your maidenhead, then I might as well enjoy you again. A man can only die once.”
She was panting, pressing her palms against his shoulders, trying to pull away from him. “It doesn’t hurt as much as before, but I do not like it, Garron. I want you to go away, but not too far away so that we would have to shout at each other. No, truly, we must talk. I will not allow the king to hurt you, I swear it. I am a great talker, I will make a list of all important points so I will not forget any, and I will present them to the king and he will welcome you as my husband.”
It didn’t matter that he was panting, that his eyes were nearly crossed in lust. At her words, his brain took him by the throat and shook him hard. He jerked out of her and rolled off the bed. He stood panting over her.
Merry jerked the blanket to her neck. He continued to stand over her, naked, hard, his hands fists at his sides, and stare down at her.
“I would not have forced you if I believed the king would kill you, Garron.”
“Don’t lie—you did not even think of the king when you planned this. And you did not force me. You merely surprised me. A man can’t be forced.”
She said thoughtfully, never looking at him above his waist, “Do you know, it is almost worth marrying Jason of Brennan if you swear the king would behead him. I should demand to see it done immediately, before he could do to me what you did. It was bad enough with you and I like you, but the thought of Jason of Brennan—” She shuddered. “I will save you from the king. I will think of something. That part of you is still big, Garron.”
He looked down at himself and saw her blood. He had never before bedded a virgin, but he knew virgins bled and sometimes it wasn’t good. He grabbed the blanket and pulled it off her. Blood was smeared on her thighs. “Do not move,” he said, and fetched a wet cloth.
She grabbed the blanket to cover herself again, and came up fast, swinging her legs off the bed. “What are you going to do?”
“Bathe the blood off you. I told you to hold still.” He grabbed the blanket off her and pushed her down onto her back. “For once, just be quiet.” And she was so shocked when the cool wet cloth pressed against her that she couldn’t have spoken if the Black Demon burst into the chamber. She squeaked.
He touched her with his fingers, and nodded. “The bleeding has stopped. That will not happen again. It is your maid’s blood.” He wiped himself off with the cloth, threw it on the floor, and came down beside her. She tried to sit up. He pressed her down again. “No, hold yourself still. I must think about what I should do.”
“You are not a bad man, Garron. Indeed, not only are you not a bad man, you are noble, you have wealth and land. You are an earl. Surely the king would see you as an excellent husband for any heiress.”
He ignored her, and she simply saw him making a list in his mind. “First, I must see the king. If I tell him I slept through a female impaling herself on me, even though I believed it the lusty Blanche, he might understand, but he will laugh at me, he will call me a fool, he will clout me, and I will have to take it.”
“No, seeing the king is second on the list. First you must wed with me, then both of us will visit the king. The queen—”
He spoke over her, his brain moving straight and forward. “I must kill Jason of Brennan. That will give me great pleasure since he very likely was responsible for poisoning Arthur. Then I must deal with your mother.” He cursed again, and Merry heard more animal body parts than she’d known existed.
He said, “Do you know, it makes no sense that no one would know that Arthur had stolen such a vast amount of silver coins from Jason of Brennan. Or more likely Arthur stole the coins from Jason’s father, Lord Ranulf.”
“Well, Jason knew.”
He leaned down and squeezed his hands around her neck. “I would strangle you but I doubt I would survive it. On the other hand, I doubt I will survive the king’s punishment either, so why not?”
“You are an earl, no longer the king’s guard. It will be all right.” And she leaned up and kissed him.
He started cursing again. Merry couldn’t help herself—she laughed.
Gilpin called out, “I hear you talking, my lord. I hear ire in your voice. Who is there with you? Is it an enemy who has sliced upon your gullet and is watching you die?”
“Go to sleep, Gilpin!”
