She turned to go, but his voice halted her again. “That’s not at all what I’m concerned about. Alise, I feel I must speak bluntly. And confidentially. Please, come back here where we can discuss this quietly.”
She didn’t want to. “Discuss what?”
“You,” he said in a soft voice. “You and Captain Leftrin.”
For a time, she stood frozen. There was a hubbub of voices on the shore. She glanced that way and saw Leftrin hastening toward the group. Then she turned back and, wearing her calmest expression, walked back toward Sedric. “I don’t understand,” she offered him, trying to sound puzzled. Trying to keep breathing, to keep the blood from rushing to her face.
He wasn’t fooled. “Alise, you do. We’ve known each other too well for too long for you to be able to hide it from me. You’re infatuated with that man. Why, I can’t imagine. I compare him to Hest, to what you already have and—”
“Shut up.” The harshness of her own voice shocked her, as did the bluntness of her words. She couldn’t recall that she’d ever spoken to anyone like that. It didn’t matter. It had worked to silence him. He stared at her, his mouth slightly ajar. The words tumbled from her lips, boulders carried on a torrent. “What I already have, Sedric, is nothing. It’s a sham of Hest’s devising, one I agreed to because I could not imagine that there would ever be anything better. Our marriage is a travesty. But I’m aware that I agreed to it. I took his damn bargain; we shook hands on it, like good Traders, and I’ve lived up to my end of it. Far more than he has, I might add. And I will continue to live up to my word. But don’t, do not, ever, compare Leftrin to Hest. Never.”
The vehemence in her voice rasped her throat. She’d thought she’d had more to say, but the shocked look on his face drained her words and thoughts from her. The uselessness of ranting against her fate to anyone suddenly exhausted her. “I’m sorry I spoke so roughly to you, Sedric. You don’t deserve it.” She turned to walk away from him.
“Alise, we still need to talk. Come back here.” His voice shook, making his words more a plea than a command.
She halted, not looking back at him. “There’s nothing to talk about, Sedric. We’ve just said it all. I’m imprisoned in a marriage to a man I don’t like, let alone love. I know he feels the same way about me. I’m infatuated with Captain Leftrin. I am reveling in the attention of a man who thinks I’m beautiful and desirable. But that’s all. I won’t act on it. What else is there you want to know?”
“I’ve told Leftrin that we have to leave. Today. I’ve asked him to find one of the hunters who will volunteer to take one of the small boats and escort us back to Trehaug. We’ll be traveling with the current, so it shouldn’t take us long. We may have to camp for a few nights, but we’d manage it.”
His words turned her back to him. Her heart leaped against the ribs that encaged it. Despair rose in her. “What? Why would we do that?”
“To remove you from a temptation before you fall to it. To remove a temptation from the captain before he yields to his urges. Forgive me, Alise, but you don’t know much about men. You so blithely admit that you are infatuated but assure me that you won’t act on it. Captain Leftrin knows how you feel. Can you truly say that if he pressed you, you’d be able to say no to him?”
“He wouldn’t do that.” Her voice grated low. No matter how much she longed for him to, he wouldn’t press her. She knew that.
“Alise, you cannot take a chance. By staying here, you invite ruin, not just on yourself but on Leftrin as well. Your dalliance is still innocent. But people see you and people will talk. You cannot be so selfish as to think only of yourself. Consider how such a rumor would shame your father and distress your mother! And what would it mean to Hest, to wear the horns of a cuckold? He could not let it pass! A man in his position has to be seen as shrewd and powerful, not as a duped fool. I do not know what it would lead to . . . would he demand satisfaction of Leftrin? And then, even if you did not consummate this ill-advised romance, what good would it do you? Alise, you must see that my solution, dangerous as it is, is the only one. We should leave today, before we get any farther away from Trehaug.”
She sounded calm, even to herself. “And Leftrin has already agreed to this?”
Sedric set his lips and then sighed. “Agree or not, it must happen. I think he was on the point of agreeing when he heard some sort of outcry from the keepers and went to check on them.”