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Page 155
New to passion, she did not associate the trembling with desire. The last image fixed in her mind was the bright, wet blood on Simon's gray surcoat. The trembling of a wounded man meant weakness to Alinor. Anxiety drowned passion. She disengaged her lips gently.
"Beloved, beloved," she murmured, "sit down here. Let me tend to you. You are hurt."
Simon opened glazed eyes that slowly began to fill with horror. "What have I done?" he said faintly.
Alinor understood. "Nothing," she soothed, "nothing. A kiss to comfort me." She stroked his cheek. "Come. Sit. Let me see to your hurts. No one saw. We are alone."
"Alone?" Revulsion thickened his voice. To take advantage of a frightened girl was disgusting. Simon bit his lips, still soft and warm from her kiss, and stared at her. Perhaps he had not been the first to take advantage. "Who has torn and bloodied you?" he cried.
"No one. Simon, love, listen to me. I ran through the thicket to escape the boy and the branches and brambles scratched me and tore my clothes. That is all. No man laid a hand upon me." Alinor looked at the three bloody corpses that lay so near. "And you have paid them well already who only threatened me."
She took his hand to lead him around the hut, suddenly remembering how bitterly he had spoken about blood and terror. Alinor knew that some men were taken with a sickness after battle and could not, for a few hours, bear to remember or look upon what had been done. And the blood was still welling from his right side.
"Come, beloved, come away from this abbattoir," Alinor urged gently. "Let me stanch your bleeding."
"Oh God!" Simon put up a hand to his face. "Do not use those words to me."
"What words?"
"Do notYou called me beloved," he choked.

 
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