“Oh, won’t I?”
“No, youwon’t.”
“I can’t believe you’re doing this to me!” She pounded on his back.
“You seem to have trouble believing things that are real and make perfect sense.”
“Don’t you dare take me inside like this! Nicholas! Don’t you—” She pinched his side to get his attention.
He smacked her on her behind.
She fought him the entire way upstairs. Good thing his body was well honed, or she would have worn him out. He brought her to her room, dumped her on her bed, and left her alone, locking the door behind him.
He thought he’d have to listen to her wailing and crying all night, but she didn’t utter a sound when he left her room and said very little to Elia when he sent her to Kestrel an hour later.
“She asked me to tell you that she has nothing more to say to anyone. She wishes to be alone.”
“What?” he asked Elia, pacing in his solar. “Alone? What was she doing?”
This woman, more like a mother to him than a maid, gave him a hard look. “I heard about what you did, Nicholas. Why would you treat her that way? I’m sure you humiliated her and now you want to know why she lies in her bed with her head in the pillow. Here is the key to her room. I will not take part in locking her inside.”
He took the key from her hand and started for the room without a word to Elia. He wasn’t sorry. He couldn’t allow her to fight and argue with him in front of his men.
When he reached the door, he drove the key inside the hole and turned. The door didn’t budge. He pushed harder. Something was blocking it.
“Miss Locksley.” He didn’t shout. He wanted to wring her neck. “Kestrel! Open the door.” He looked around. No one was in the hall. Yet. “I wish to speak with you.”
Something smashed against the wood directly opposite his face. He moved back, then scowled hard at the door. “Fine then. Be alone.” He strode away, glaring at Elia as he passed her.
His supper was served in his solar. But he couldn’t eat. She plagued his thoughts. She’d turned things around like a brilliant tactician. He’d locked her in her room, and she’d locked him out. Somehow, he was the one being punished. He missed her company. Surely, she missed him, too. She’d told him she missed texting and talking—whatever the hell the first thing was. She believed she came from a place with millions of other people. She had to be lonely in her room all day. Why had he locked her away in the first place? She was no fool to tell anyone her story.
And why did his blood rush hot through his veins when she’d told him the name on the brooch. Pendragon. It was a name shrouded in magic and legend. Of King Arthur and his…knights.
He pushed his bowl away. Why did he have to be the one to see her on the field? Why had he taken her off the field and brought her to his home?
He thought of her in her bed, weeping. Was she weeping? He moved toward his door. He should try to talk to her, just to make sure she was well.
He found himself walking to the western end of the hall, where her room was. Did she still have the door barred?
When he came to it, he knocked and then tried the key. Still barred. “Have you eaten?”
“Go away.”
She spoke. That was a promising sign.
“Kestrel, open the door. I wish to speak with you.”
“And if I don’t? Will you hang me from the window?”
He closed his eyes, gathering all his patience.
“I acted too harshly. How long will you be angry with me?”
Silence. Then she asked, “How can I be angry with an ogre for being an ogre?”
“Then will you open the door and have supper with me?”
He heard her moving about inside and moving something by the door. She opened the door and stepped out.