Lady Of Sherwood by Jennifer Roberson6/10/2023 ![]() The room was bathed in shadow, courting the flame. She stared, momentarily transfixed by fire, by the flare and gutter in the eternal dance, the courtship of air and flame. Flame blazed in the darkness, setting the room alight. He was a subtle man, she knew, and therefore all the more dangerous. What he wanted was as blatant, though he would say nothing of it. She knew what he saw: tangled black hair harboring bits of dungeon straw a soiled, dishevelled kirtle smelling of horse and sweat and smoke gritty blue eyes red-rimmed from tension and lack of sleep. Her legs were tangled in heavy bedclothes, bound up by twisted skirts. She lurched abruptly upright, squinting against the torchlight, then forced herself to relax. The roaring of the torch swallowed the darkness and the world was alive again. Or merely the opportunity to have what another man had. He brought the torch with him, unattended by liveried soldiers what he wanted from her he wanted given- or taken-in the privacy of the chamber. Such a soft, seductive whisper-But with the edge of a blade in the sound, issuing from a man long accustomed to being heard no matter how softly he whispered. ![]() Grimly she reflected, But mostly into compliance, in bed and out of it.Ī sound destroyed the silence even as light banished darkness. Each was a weapon meant to break her, to drive her into humiliation out of defiant self-possession to goad her into surrender, into pleas for mercy, for compassion, for understanding. ![]()
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