he stared at her without blinking , thinking how much he loathed her , that she had never even pretended to like him , had never hidden her disgust for himand he was certain it was only him , not delamere or fitz maurice or the rest of them , only himhad conspired against him by getting rid of gladys and flirting with chester , had probably gone with rhirid ap maelgwn quite cheerfully , despite her servants protestations ; he stared at her , unmoving , seeing in her the sum of his experiences in wales , which was failure : failure to best rhirid , to keep gwalaes , to find happiness in his situation at rhuddlan because she had gone out of her way to deny it to himshed never done anything for him , as a wife must do , only against him .