They began falling into place. His hand moved rapidly, filling in the gaps, just knowing where the words should go. His eyes narrowed on the emerging message.

Damn the woman. She was going to drive him mad.

Paul went very still. He snuck a glance over his shoulder and made a weak, apologetic smile.

Marcus stared at the message that they had just spent the whole day discovering and deciphering.

Marcus I send no messages full of plots to Carwyn. Do you think I would be so stupid as to plan treason by such dangerous means.

CHAPTER 15

Nesta dared not send a written message to Carwyn, but she needed to explain the betrothal just the same. She asked some farmers to pass a verbal message west, but she could not count on it arriving as she said it, or even completing the journey. She was stuck, forced to hope that Carwyn would see the truth and know what to do.

News trickled in about Carwyn’s continuing raids, indicating that he did. More revealing was the evidence of Marcus’s response. Young men began arriving from the farms. The yard and nearby field rang with the practice of arms.

Nesta watched it all, and read the implications. Perhaps being confined to this castle did not render her impotent to the cause, after all. She would know exactly what Marcus intended to do. She would know the size of his force, and whether and when he called up the neighboring lords. It would all play out in front of her, and even if Marcus locked her in the cellar, he could not hide any of it.

She was not sure that she wanted to know, however. She did not want to have the chance to betray him so directly.

She admitted that as she strolled along the wall walk late one morning as the last of the farmers left the yard.

She realized with dismay that time was dulling her anger. She had to think about his deceit very specifically in order to work up her outrage now. She no longer carried it with her all day and fretted about it all night.

That worried her. She needed that anger. She needed it when they passed each other in the hall. She desperately needed it when they sat beside each other at meals. She never looked at him, but she felt him there as they ate. Eventually, when the food was finished, she felt him physically, as he firmly covered her hand with his on the table so that everyone could see that, despite her distant behavior, she belonged to him.

Slowly, appallingly, that touch was bridging more than the space between them. Last night, to her shock, she realized that she spent the whole meal waiting for him to reach for her.