Loyse caught his reflection in the mirror, brave, bright, turning her even more into a night taper. But she did not face about.

“Greetings, Lord Fulk.” Her voice was toneless.

“Lord Fulk, is it? Is that the way you speak to your father, wench? Come show a little more than ice in your veins for once, girl!”

His hand slid under one of the braids on her shoulder, and he forced her around, gripping with strength which would leave her bruised for a week. He did it deliberately, she knew, but she would give no sign of feeling.

“Here I come with news as would send any proper wench leaping with joy, and you turn me that cold fish face of yours with no pleasure,” he contemplated jovially. But that which looked out of his eyes was not born of good humor.

“You have not yet voiced this news, my lord.”

His fingers kneaded into her flesh as if seeking to find and crush the bones hidden there.

“To be sure I have not! Yet it is news as will set any maid’s heart to pounding in her. Wedding and bedding, my girl, wedding and bedding!”

Purposely Loyse chose, but with a fear she had not known before, to misunderstand him.

“You take a lady for Verlaine, my lord? Fortune grant you a fair face for such an occurrence.”

His grip on her did not loosen, and now he shook her, with the outward appearance of one playfully admonishing, but with a force which brought pain.

“You may be a wry-faced nothing of a woman, but you are not stupid of wit, no matter how you may think to befool others. You should be properly a female at your age. At least you will now have a lord to make trial of that. And I’d advise you not to play your tricks with him. By all accounts he likes his bedfellows biddable!”

What she had long feared most had come upon her and it brought with it a betrayal of feeling she could not bite back in time.

“A wedding needs free consent—” She stopped then, knowing shame for her momentary breaking.

He was laughing, relishing having torn that protest out of her. His hand moved across her shoulder to vise upon the back of her neck in a pinch which brought an involuntary gasp out of her. Then, as one moves a lifeless puppet, he whirled her about, pushing her face toward the mirror shield, holding her helpless there while he pelted her with words he believed would hurt worse than any beating his hands could inflict.