That embrace had been a livid response to the anger and hunger that had gripped him while he watched her bathe. It had been a furious impulse born of insult and desire, and he had succumbed too greedily. He could not regret it, however, no matter how the memory would torture him. He was glad he had forced her to acknowledge that a taste of hell waited for both of them.

He touched her shoulder with his fingertips. She flexed as if she had been waiting for it, and the vaguest tremble shook out of her and into him through the tiny contact.

Aye, hell awaited.

“I would speak with you, Nesta. Come with me.”

She hesitated, but rose and faced him. Her expression remained composed, but for an instant he saw resentment in her eyes, and an unspoken rebuke for what he had done in the cottage.

He dared not take her into the trees because he didn’t trust himself to have her alone. Instead he led her to the women’s camp, where they could talk but still be seen.

A smaller fire burned here, and she sat on another log near its low flames. “Sit,” she said. “I’ll not have you looming over me like some threat out of hell. I am not easily intimidated, so you might as well rest yourself.”

It was the only log, so he settled beside her—and knew at once that he had lost an advantage in doing so. They were too close. She had intended that. He was sure of it.

“Dylan sings beautifully,” he said. “Your sister appears enchanted by him. Does Genith know him? Or has she fallen in love in one day?”

“You see more than is there. She is just a girl touched by a jongleur’s love song.”

He had to smile. “Nesta, have you spent your life around unusually stupid men? I ask because you act as if you assume I am denser than stone. Dylan is no mere jongleur, and he has not been singing about love. I know the Welsh language, my lady, and I recognize the old bardic songs.”

She shrugged, and picked up a stick and began absently drawing in the dirt again. “Most of the English lords do not know Welsh.”

“My family has been on the marches for hundreds of years. My grandmother was Welsh.”

“Still, most of you do not know the language. I did not think you dense, just typical of the English families who hold Wales but rarely visit their lands here. Their English manors are more to their taste, and we are glad for that.” She glanced toward Dylan. “He is no danger to you. Not in his songs, nor with my sister.”

“He is if she fled to be with him. Did this man and his friends take her from you?”