Free Warrior's Song by Catherine Coulter

Unfortunately, I did not learn of what you had done all those years until old Emily was dying and confessed it to me just this month. I wanted to kill you."
    Â Â Â Â "Why didn't you try?"
    Â Â Â Â "I am not a murderer," he said, "although you tempt me greatly. Why in the name of all the martyrs' graves did you beat a child?"
    Â Â Â Â "Why?" She could but stare at him. "You have the gall to ask me why? By all the saints, she is nothing to me. No, that isn't true. She is a blight, an unnatural whelp who should never have been born. She is nothing but the bastard from your slut in London, your proud lady who gave her to you so her reputation could remain unsullied and her family could arrange a great marriage for her. Aye, you made me take her, pretend she was my daughter. You thought I would love her, want her near me? That little bastard was nothing but a thorn in my side. I have hated her since the day you forced me to hold her in my arms."
    Â Â Â Â So many bitter, venomous words, so much malevolence. He'd known she hadn't liked Chandra— natural enough, he supposed— but this hatred, this viciousness? He said slowly, "Old Emily told me that when Chandra was eleven, she was strong enough to protect herself. She said Chandra nearly strangled you when you hit her that last time, and she saved your worthless life. It is me you should hate, Dorothy, not Chandra. She never did anything to you. She always was, and still is, innocent."
    Â Â Â Â "She existed," Dorothy said, and thought of that child who stared at her, pain in her vivid eyes, bowed over from the blow in the ribs her supposed mother had dealt her. No, she wouldn't think of that small, silent child, her silent tears. "Emily would never betray me. Chandra told you. I know she did."
    Â Â Â Â "I only wish that she had. She never said a word against you. I remember when she began calling you Lady Dorothy, and I did wonder about that, but if that's what she wanted, and it appeared it was what you preferred as well, then why should I question it?"
    Â Â Â Â "She's naught but a bastard. And the name you gave her— Chandra. A ridiculous name— the name of that ancient priestess who ruled in the land of men. Do you think if Jerval de Vernon knew the truth about her birth, he would still be here to look her over for his wife?"
    Â Â Â Â "He will never know," Richard said, and his hands clenched into fists now.
    Â Â Â Â "I won't tell him— you needn't worry about that. I want her gone, the sooner the better. She will make him a miserable wife since she knows nothing of what a woman is meant to be, meant to know, meant to do. She might even stick a knife through his ribs when he tries to bed her." Lady Dorothy laughed. "Ah, then she would be hanged. I should like that."
    Â Â Â Â "You damned bitch." Richard didn't strike her. He kicked her chair, then shoved it, and it fell backward, taking his wife with it. She lay there on her back, her knees bent over the side of the chair, the toes of her leather slippers sticking in the air, looking up at him. She didn't move, just looked at him with that blend of contempt and triumph.
    Â Â Â Â "Damn you, I would like to kill you."
    Â Â Â Â Still she didn't move, just lay there in that overturned chair. She smiled up at him now. "Do you really think she will allow him to bed her? Did you know that Chandra first saw you rutting with one of the serving wenches when she was about five years old? Naked you were, pumping into her, and the girl was laughing and moaning and telling you how grand a stallion you were. Aye, Chandra saw you. I know because I saw you as well. And I saw the expression on the child's face. Aye, and that wasn't the only time. Emily told me that she saw you taking one of the visiting ladies against a wall, with her husband swilling ale in the Great Hall, and she said Chandra vomited, emptied her belly at the sight.