Gayle Callen by The Darkest Knight

the nobleman only laughed. He turned to face Reynold, pulling Katherine back against his chest. She stared up into Reynold’s angry face, then cried out when the man crudely grabbed her breast.
    “Whatever can you do, peasant boy?” His voice was as nasty as his drunken laugh. His head bumped Katherine’s when he peered over her shoulder and pulled at the gown’s neckline. “Why keep such treasure to yourself?”
    He tried to plunge his hand down the front of her gown, straining the seams.
    “Please,” Katherine whispered, her body andemotions bruised. Why did Reynold stand so still? In the shadowy torchlight, his face looked hard and angry, and his chest rose and fell rapidly. But still he did nothing.
    The marquess’s son released her body to grip her arm. “Your man knows, if you do not. He must sleep alone tonight. Come to heaven with me, angel.”
    He began to drag her down the corridor, and Katherine dug in her heels and tried to pull free. She stumbled forward, then flung herself back, her free hand stretched out to the monk.
    Though she cried out, he did not look at her. As she was pulled relentlessly down the corridor, his dark form remained still, head bowed, fists clenched. She screamed again until her abductor covered her mouth, and dragged her around a corner. She could see Reynold no more.
    The young man bent and flung her over his shoulder. He staggered to one side, and Katherine thought he’d bash her head into the wall. He steadied himself, and merely swayed as he took a torch down from the wall.
    “We don’t have all night,” he complained, as if she were just as anxious to begin as he.
    Katherine hung limply, barely able to breathe with his shoulder crushing her stomach. Reynold had abandoned her. She had only begun to trust him, and already he had betrayed her. She had thought he was different than any man she had ever known, his compassion and understanding changing her life.
    Katherine was too despondent for tears. She hung there, feeling the blood rush to her head, hoping she would faint before she found herself beneath the nobleman.
    She lost track of the corridors they wound through. Every staircase was an exercise in fear as the nobleman swayed on each step, threatening to tumble them backward. Finally he opened a door and threw her onto a musty bed, where dust flung into the air made her sneeze. Dazed, she watched him light candles with his torch, then toss it into the hearth.
    What was she doing, lying here, waiting for the worst to happen? She sat up and he flung her back, then straddled her hips to pin them to the bed.
    “Don’t fight, angel,” he whispered, slurring his words. “What’s another man when you’ve had that big oaf in your bed?”
    “Let me go,” Katherine demanded, trying to push him off. He held her arms and kissed her until she twisted away. As he lifted his head to grin at her, the next moments became confused in her mind. She felt as if a shadow had detached itself from the wall, hovered above them, then struck swiftly. The young nobleman collapsed on top of Katherine, and she found herself staring into Reynold’s hard face.
    “You didn’t leave me,” she said softly. Relief surrounded her like a warm blanket, and she felt dizzy with happiness.
    Reynold dragged the limp man away, thenstraightened and frowned at her. “You thought I had abandoned you?”
    She nodded, but he gave her no encouraging smile or reassuring word. He looked at her as coldly as he had the nobleman. She realized she had injured his pride.
    “I was foolish and scared,” she said quickly. “Forgive me for not thinking.”
    He rolled his eyes, and proceeded to toss the man on the bed beside her. Katherine scrambled off, and watched in shock as he began to remove the nobleman’s clothes.
    “Reynold, whatever are you doing?”
    “The same thing I was doing when you thought I abandoned you—weaving a story he will believe.”
    “But—”
    “We do not want the entire household