To the Lady Born by Kathryn Le Veque Page A

seemed so distressed about my injury.  It was to ease her more than me.”
    John’s gaze drifted from Weston’s torso to his face. He’d been spending a lot of time with Lady Amalie; they all knew it. She was a beautiful little thing so no one particularly blamed him, but rumors had already started about his interest in her, something that John doubted Weston was aware of.  He’d been so singularly focused on the lady that there hadn’t been time for much else. His activity on the battlement right now was a rarity.
    “She has been through a great deal, no doubt,” John commented. “Who knew that Sorrell was capable of such atrocities?”
    Weston nodded faintly, watching Heath as the man surveyed off another section of digging. “If I ever see that man again, I intend to have serious words with him,” he said. “To beat a woman, any woman, is a travesty.”
    John lifted his eyebrows; he, too, was watching Heath below. “It was not simply the beatings but the humiliation as well,” he said. “To announce to the entire castle of his conquest is purely despicable.  It wasn’t as if he raped a lowly serving wench; he was speaking of a well-bred lady and should have kept his mouth shut.  The man is no better than a dog.”
    Weston was still gazing at Heath but as John’s words sank in, he lifted his head, struggling to process the words as if someone had spoken a foreign tongue to him. He didn’t quite comprehend at first. His gaze was fixed on the keep as he blinked, digesting the words, coming to understand them.  Then, he looked at John.
    “What did you say?” his voice sounded strangely confused.
    John met his gaze. “I said that Sorrell was a dog. If I see that man again, I will….”
    Weston cut him off, brutally, smacking him in the chest with an enormous fist. “Nay,” he growled, suddenly sounding quite lucid and dark. “Before that; what did you say about raping a serving wench?”
    John wasn’t following him; he spoke as if it was something they both already knew. “I said that it wasn’t as if Sorrell raped a serving wench and boasted about it,” he said. “He abused the earl’s sister and then announced it to the entire castle. What kind of man would do that?”
    Weston was staring at him with a stone-like expression, so tightly coiled that any small movement would crack him.
    “Where did you hear this?” he finally asked.
    John heard the tone, studied the body language, and began to realize that Weston must not have heard the rumors. The man had been so busy with Lady Amalie that he’d not spent much time with the men, at least not enough to hear what they knew about Sorrell. Most of Weston’s company had been kept with the lady or his knights, not the troops that had been here during Sorrell’s tenure. There was some fear in John’s expression as he replied.
    “I heard it from some of Sorrell’s men,” he said steadily. “Were… were you not told this, West?”
    The hand that had so sharply thumped him now grabbed at the collar of his tunic. “Told what?”
    “That Sorrell raped Lady Amalie,” John said quietly. “The night he nearly beat her to death, he went about announcing his conquest of the lady for all to hear.  I suppose it was his way of punishing Robert de Vere by brutalizing the sister.  If you’d only speak to some of the men, they can confirm this. Sorrell told everyone who would listen that he raped the lady and was damn proud of it.”
    Weston just stared at him, a strange slack-jawed expression coming to his face.  It was clear he was shocked, but the truth was that he was beyond shocked.  He was in the world of outrage and astonishment, so much so that he could hardly contain it.  He couldn’t believe what he was being told but, in the same breath, it explained everything Amalie had been unable to tell him. She had admitted to being beaten, of course, but rape was an entirely different issue. 
    It was no wonder the woman had been trying to kill