On the dais, Owain's face grew darker and darker as he listened to the performance his discarded plaything was putting on. Looking around the hall, he could see the eyes of uncomfortable men who couldn't bear up under the pressure of their own wives' glares.
Elsewhere in the crowd, he spotted self-righteous fools, postering before their families as though they'd never taken a tumble with their own servants or hidden a bastard of their own. But among the men who mattered, men like Preden Saliou and the traitors, Wes Iriso and Loghlan Dunn, who clung 'faithfully' to their wives, he saw a growing contempt in their eyes.
Ashlynn was naive if she thought that bringing out this trollop with her padded belly and 'heartwrenching' story was going to gain her the universal sympathy of the powerful and wealthy rulers of the march. But that didn't mean the wench's story was harmless, and there was a limit to how long Owain was willing to let the charade play out.
