“You are no virgin,” Catherine muttered under her breath as the door slammed shut behind Jaime. “That bastard has already taken you to his bed. Aye, poured his seed into you, he said. And you couldn’t even deny it.”
It has to be so, she thought. If Jaime were innocent, she would have denied the accusation. She would have shed tears over the questioning of her virtue. That was the way women are, Catherine thought, nodding. So many fools, thinking of their virtue like it is some pot of gold, the jewels of Suleiman. As if, untouched, it were something to brag about. And to weep over, when lost. But Jaime hadn’t done that. Nay, the s**t hadn’t done that.
Pushing the silk shawl off her shoulders and letting it fall to the floor, she walked to her bed, a smile working its way onto her face. Th
