He did not. He turned his back on her, sitting on the opposite side of the bed. He cast off his boots. Then he lay back upon the bed, hands folded behind his head.
Shawna lay silent for several long moments.
“I know nothing about Mary Jane. Nothing!”
“Curious that she is involved. And she is gone.”
“If she is missing,” Shawna insisted, “we should be searching for her!”
“She is missing by choice,” he said flatly.
“How do you know that?”
“Her clothing is gone.”
“She might have been forced from the castle, and her things might have been taken?—”
“Shawna, stop.”
She should have stopped, just as he suggested. But she couldn’t.
She wrenched his pillow from beneath him, slamming it over his chest.
He moved like lightening. She was suddenly crushed against him. His arms were like the steel bars of a dungeon. She lay with her back flush against the cotton of his shirt and the denim of his breeches, her wrists held in a punishing grasp before her.
She could scarcely breathe.
And she scarcely dared to do so.
“I cannot believe this!” she whispered, tears stinging her eyes. Mary Jane! Who had pretended to be her friend as well as her servant! “Maybe it’s not true. How could you so easily believe Fergus?”
“Because he told the truth.”
“How can you believe that?”
“Because my sword was at his throat.” He sighed with vast impatience. “Shawna! You cannot go on refusing to see that people close to you harmed you and mean you greater harm!”
She held very still for several moments, then said, “You’re—crushing me.”
His hold upon her eased. In fact, he moved away from her.
And she lay in bed with him, naked with him, and he did not touch her.
Their backs were now to one another.
And she wondered if it hadn’t been much better when their anger ignited passion. The desperation of their sex seemed preferable to the chill that seemed to assail her from all over.
“David?’
“Damn it, Shawna, why didn’t you tell me about having a child?”
She swallowed, moistening her lips. “You were too embittered over your own past for me to mention that losing a child had not been pleasant.”
He didn’t reply. He lay silent for so long that she thought he slept. Then she nearly jumped as he lashed out with, “Damn, my lady, do stop shaking!”
He suddenly pulled her hard against him.
She should protest. She should freeze for all eternity before allowing his touch in any way.