Shattered Vows by Carol Townend Page A

were narrowed on the door. The caterwauling sound was fading. Bored with their diversion, their tormentors were doubtless stumbling down the spiral stairs, the lure of the wine kegs was strong.
    ‘Couldn’t resist, could you?’ Oliver sneered.
    ‘I...I’m sorry?’
    ‘It’s fruitless playing the innocent with me, I fell for that game before and I’m rarely caught in the same trap twice. You would do best to remember that, my sweet. Never the same trap twice.’
    He closed the distance between them and steely fingers clamped round her wrist. He found the white ribbon, jerked it free, and her hair tumbled about her. Tears sprang into her eyes.
    ‘Oliver,’ she saw him through a haze. ‘None of this was my doing.’
    ‘You’re quite the noble lady tonight.’
    His hand was running down her newly-washed hair. He was looking her body up and down. His gaze lingered for a moment on the swell of her breasts.
    ‘I hope they paid you well, for I promise you, by the time I’ve finished with you, you’ll have earned every last farthing. Got everything you wanted have you? And what about Oliver? Is he to have what he wants? Or are you to take on the wiles of fine ladies along with their clothes? Are you going to purse those pretty lips of yours and look down your nose at me. A squire. A poor, bastard squire of little account.’
    ‘Oliver,’ she whispered, ‘please don’t.’
    ‘Please don’t.’ His tone mocked hers. He pulled her up against him and his eyes narrowed. ‘What? No shrinking from me in horror? No twisting away to escape?’
    His mouth came down hard and his kiss was bruising. She tasted wine on him but she knew instinctively that he wasn’t drunk. He’d been maddened by the wretches who had locked them in this chamber. He believed she was their conspirator.
    She had to get through to him, to reach the Oliver she’d met on the beach. The man who was holding her as if in a vice was not the man she knew. She must reach that other Oliver. She didn’t struggle – what was the point? – that hard, well-muscled body was too strong to resist. So she stood immobile in his hold, a deep feminine wisdom telling her that she could best reach him by not responding. He wasn’t one to want a puppet, he would want a real woman, and at the moment he was being ruled by his fury.
    It was shaming to realise that even though he was kissing her in anger, he was reaching her. She felt a slow, warm glow in her belly. She couldn’t understand it, her body was responding to him despite his lack of gentleness. Alfwold, with all his careful consideration had never kindled the tiniest spark of a response. She stood stone-still – she’d be lost if Oliver realised the power he had over her.
    He lifted his head, eyes glittering in the candlelight. When she raised a hand to her mouth – she could taste blood – his dark eyebrows snapped together. He swore, loudly and fluently in the foreign tongue she knew that the nobles used and flung her away from him. She fell onto the bed.
    ‘Jesu, Rosamund, I’m sorry.’
    Shoving back her hair, she eyed him warily. ‘I swear this wasn’t of my doing, I was brought here against my will.’
    ‘Aye?’ His face was black as thunder.
    The candle sputtered on an impurity in the wax, the wick was smoking. Taking his dagger from his belt, he went to trim it.
    ‘You didn’t use that on them,’ Rosamund said. ‘You could have done.’
    He glanced at the dagger. ‘You would have me stab my lord and cousin?’ Unexpectedly, he laughed.
    This was more like the man she had met on May Day. She tucked her feet beneath her, but she was not yet entirely relaxed with him, and when he came up to the bed, she edged back.
    ‘So,’ he tipped his head to one side. ‘You are not party to this trap my cousin has set me?’
    ‘I am a victim of this as much as you,’ she said. ‘I take it they locked us in?’
    ‘They did, my angel.’
    Rosamund swallowed. She still did not quite like his