Page 71 of Hers To Command
De Mallemaison might have been made of stone for all the results her efforts made.
“Roald!”
Her cousin paused on the threshold, and turned back to look at her as if she were nothing to him but a nuisance he was well rid of. “Farewell, Mathilde. And don’t worry. I’ll see Giselle gets your body. I’m going to have hers.”
“Roald, don’t—”
De Mallemaison struck her a backhanded blow that sent her to the ground. On her hands and knees, she looked up through her disheveled hair at the vicious brute standing before her. Roald had abandoned her, but she would fight to the death rather than let De Mallemaison take her.
“What sort of devil’s spawn are you?” she sneered. “Does it take rape to make you feel strong? Does it make you feel like a man? You are nothing more than a beast that walks on two legs. If you rape me, God will understand and pity me, and he will surely punish you. I will feel no shame, because none belongs to me.
“Nonebelongs to me,” she repeated, truly believing that was true, and it had been true before. “But you—you should die of shame. Have you no mother, no sister, that you should treat women thus, as slaves and whores to use as you will?”
“I have no mother, no sisters,” De Mallemaison growled as he tore the veil from her head and pulled her up by her hair. “I was left in a gutter. Some of my scars are from the rats that found me first.”
He struck her again, sending her hard to the floor on her hands and knees. “Don’t try my patience by claiming mercy because you’re a woman.”
She scrambled forward, grabbed the leg of the back stool and threw it as hard as she could at De Mallemaison.
When he jumped aside to avoid the missile, she reached for her dagger lying on the floor.
“Oh, no, you don’t!” he snarled, charging forward and wrenching it from her grasp.
She still had the smaller dagger in her boot. “I’ll never let you take me,” she breathlessly vowed, inching backward toward the heavy chair. “I’d rather be dead!”
De Mallemaison tossed her dagger across the room and threw off his coif. The dagger clattered and the coif landed with a metallic thud. “I’m going to make you scream so loud, they’ll hear you in the castle.”
“You’re going to burn in hell!” she cried as she overturned the bigger chair to block him.
With a curse, he leaped back as it fell. Mathilde ran around it for the door.
He tackled her, bringing her down hard. She tried to crawl forward, but he grabbed her foot, the one with the other dagger in her boot.
He laughed, and there was malicious pleasure in the horrible sound. “Go ahead, my lady. Keep fighting. Make me work for it. But I always get what I want in the end.”
Not this time,her mind shouted.Not me. Not again.
She kicked and flailed, trying to free herself from his grasp without letting him pull off the boot, lest he find that dagger, too. She clawed at the wooden floor, desperately attempting to gain purchase.
He dragged her inexorably closer. “That’s right. Don’t make it easy for me,” he said, his voice now thick with lust.
She stopped kicking her foot and let him pull off the boot. He swore again and went to get the knife that dropped onto the floor, while she got up and lunged for the candlestand. She grabbed hold of its narrow shaft. The weight was nothing, the heat and flame from the candles unimportant, as she swung it at De Mallemaison’s head. The candles went flying from their metal holders toward his face.
With a cry, he threw up his arms to protect himself. The candles rolled on the uneven floor at his feet while Mathilde ran at him, holding the stand as if it were a lance, striking him hard in the stomach. De Mallemaison fell backward, onto the wooden floor and some of the candles.
The force of the impact hurt her arms and she dropped the stand to rush to the door. Before she could get there, he kicked the stand toward her, knocking her sideways. She nearly lost her balance and fell, but managed to keep upright. She caught a whiff of fabric burning—and as he got to his feet, she saw what was on fire.
Crouching like a cat about to spring, Mathilde panted, “Fool, your surcoat’s on fire.”
He glanced at the hem of his garment and then leaped up as if the flames had nipped his flesh. He twisted back to swat out the fire and she saw her chance, dashing for the door, pulling down on the latch and slipping outside.
She paused for the briefest of moments, like a startled deer on the threshold of flight. Some men huddled around a small fire nearby stared at her in stunned disbelief, too shocked by her unexpected appearance to move.
She took off at a run as the startled men jumped to their feet to give chase and shouts of alarm rang out in the night. Near the edge of the village, she deftly ducked one large lout who came at her with outstretched hands as if he wanted an embrace.
She made for the thicker trees by the riverbank, heading back to the postern gate, alert for any sentries she might encounter, and who would have heard the hue and cry.
She’d failed. Once again she’d failed. But this time, nothing had been lost. She had hoped to gain by her gamble, but as long as she made it safely home, she had not lost anything.
