His Lady Bride (Brothers in Arms) (16 page)

“Who is your…companion, Aric? Will you not introduce us to her?”

Aric was not fooled by Rowena’s cordial request. She was unhappy he had come home with a woman in tow. He was not certain why. More than like because Gwenyth was worthy competition for her beauty. Rowena never liked that.

“Stephen, Rowena, this is Lady Gwenyth, late of Penhurst Castle.”

Urging her closer to the remnants of his family, Aric paused with great intentions. Let Stephen wonder and Rowena stew. ’Twas no less than either of them deserved, Stephen for his irresponsibility and Rowena for her superiority.

He watched their rapt faces.
Good
, he thought, eager to deliver the shock that would change both their lives.

Finally, he smiled. “Gwenyth is my wife.”

Stephen’s eyes near popped from his head. Rowena gasped, then recovered herself. Watching them both, Aric could see understanding dawn: Stephen wondering if Aric, with a wife in tow, was likely here to stay and resume his role as lord of Northwell, and Rowena probably seeing Gwenyth as a new chatelaine, eager to assume Rowena’s duties. And as Gwenyth currently occupied Aric’s life and most likely his bed, Aric would have no need of any offer Rowena might make to warm his sheets so she might retain control of the keep and servants.

The terrible anguish he felt about coming here again, living here once more, dissipated for a brief moment as he drank in the possibilities.

At the very least, he could make their lives a walking hell upon earth. The thought made him smile.

Until something on Rowena’s countenance changed. Her nearly colorless blue gaze swept over Gwenyth with a mixture of fear, contempt, and malice. Her small mouth pursed with determination.

At his side, Gwenyth gazed about at the keep, never noticing Rowena’s expression. Aric slipped his arm quietly around her waist, glowered at Rowena, and felt a heated stir of determination to protect his wife.

CHAPTER NINE

For two days, they remained at Northwell without incident, Aric and Kieran awaiting men and supplies so they might rescue Drake from Murdoch MacDougall’s dungeon. Then a royal page arrived, bearing Richard III’s coat of arms.

The young man left the castle’s great hall immediately after he sought Aric and delivered the missive from his master.

Gwenyth held her breath, not believing for an instant her husband’s reaction would be pleasant. She knew better. Since they had arrived, his expression had been surly, his mood sour, his demeanor utterly silent. He had not slept in their chamber more than a brief hour or two, much less than the scant amount he slept at the cottage.

Without asking, she knew he did not wish to be here at Northwell. Another summons from the king, whom he seemed to hold in oddly marked contempt, was not likely to improve his manner.

“What does it say?” Stephen asked, lounging on a gleaming bench by a blazing fire, a mug of ale cupped in one hand.

When Aric looked up from the summons, his eyes were as flat and bleak as she had ever seen them. His usually mobile mouth was set in stiff lines, as were his shoulders. Without knowing why, exactly, Gwenyth’s heart ached for him.

“He wants an army at the ready for the next battle.”

“’Tis as his last note says, I think he fears Henry Tudor is gaining some support,” Kieran added from his chair on the dais. He eyed a passing kitchen wench, who smiled in return.

“Aye,” added Stephen. “You are far superior at war and such, Aric, so I sent for you.”

Ah, so Stephen had sent the missive Aric had allowed the rain to destroy. From the annoyance stamped on her husband’s lean features, she could tell he wished the foolish boy had not sent for him at all.

“I have no intent to amass an army for Richard,” Aric said finally. “We will not reply.”

“Not reply! Aric, Richard is our king. We have ever been loyal to the Yorkist cause. Why would we not aid him against this Welsh pretender of the Lancasters?”

Emotions flashed across Aric’s face—anger, guilt, resignation. Just as quickly, his expression became blank once more, no emotion visible in the narrowing of his flat gray eyes. Gwenyth frowned, wondering at all his sentiments and whence they had come.

“I am done raising my sword,” Aric declared at length. “I have told you so again and again. Richard has other northern lords, like Northumberland, willing to aid his cause. But no one at Northwell will do so.”

“’Tis treason you speak! He will send his soldiers here to cart you off to London and give us a traitor’s execution.”

“So be it.” Aric looked as if he wanted to say more, but did not.

So be it?
Gwenyth wondered in panic. Why did Aric dare defy the most powerful man in England? Certainly he didn’t believe his relation to the deceased queen would save him, did he? Only a fool would think that. The king hadn’t even been able to protect his nephews, though only the Lord knew what had happened to the young boys.

“You risk the death of us all!” Stephen ranted, throwing his hands in the air with great drama.

“Not true. The Duke of Northumberland will be looking for knights in his army for King Richard. Alnwick is a fine castle, and you are but months away from completing your training. Let the Percy family help you finish it. You may be loyal to Richard’s cause there.”

“Northumberland? He is not my brother.”

“And I am not interested in raising an army.”

Gwenyth wondered at Aric’s unusual responses. He ignored a summons from the king upon risk of death and flung his brother’s wishes back in his young face. Why? Whatever the reason, it clearly hurt him in some way, for a pained scowl tightened his features, and his gray eyes brewed like thunderclouds.

“This is because of Rowena,” Stephen said finally, his voice accusing.

How could such an argument be about Aric’s stepmother? Aye, she was younger than Gwenyth had expected and admittedly lovely, but what had she to do with the war? Gwenyth sent Aric a puzzled frown.

He, too, looked confused. “Rowena?”

“It unmans you that she chose to wed our father instead of you. I think it unmans you more that she now chooses to warm my bed instead of returning to yours.”

Shock burst its way through Gwenyth in a numbing explosion. Aric had once shared a bed with his stepmother? Her memory reminded her of Rowena’s pale, questing eyes drifting over Aric upon their arrival. At the time, she had thought the gaze that of a concerned mother figure. By the moon and the stars! Had the woman been longing for her former lover? Or did their reunion explain Aric’s absence from the bedchamber she shared with him?

She turned to Aric for answers, knowing her shock lay evident upon her countenance. He sent her the briefest of glances, then turned his attention back to Stephen. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Kieran grimace.

Though she wanted to demand an explanation, now, starting with the knowledge of whether or not Aric still wanted his former lover, she would not ask such before his brother and his friend. Nay, she would save that conversation for a moment alone in their chamber, one she prayed he had not shared with that pale wench in the past.

“I no longer find Rowena all that charming,” Aric tossed out. “You are welcome to her.”

Gwenyth found herself fervently hoping his words were the truth.

Stephen turned petulant, his brown eyes uncertain. “You were not so unruffled when Rowena ended your betrothal to marry our father.”

Gwenyth felt her eyes widen again. The woman had broken her betrothal vows to wed Aric’s own father? Though Gwenyth knew she would hate anyone who broke such faith with her, men were strange creatures of lust, or so Aunt Welsa had always said. Did Aric secretly want to reclaim the cool beauty he had thought of as his own? Or had he already done so?

Once they were alone, she intended to find out. As his wife, she had a right to know.

A real wife shares her husband’s bed,
said a pesky voice within her. Gwenyth pushed it aside. Hell would find its moat turned to ice before she would share the bed of a man who had another woman on his mind, even though she did not want him herself. Or did she?

Remembrances of his heated kisses upon the sensitive curve of her neck, his burning gaze raking her tingling breasts, his long fingers teasing her thighs, nudged her doubt—and her desire.

“Ask yourself, Stephen, why Rowena now warms your bed,” Aric advised.

“Because her heart is mine, and she loves me well.”

Aric raised a cynical tawny brow. “And why did she not love you well while she was my betrothed, or our father’s wife?”

Fury stamped itself across Stephen’s young face. “You imply something devious in her manner, and such insults me greatly. Apologize now!”

“For the truth?” Aric shrugged. “Nay.”

Stephen approached, his fists raised. “This is your way of making me doubt her so she will come to your bed again.”

Was such possible? Gwenyth did not want to believe her husband desired Rowena any longer, but the woman had once been his betrothed and his lover, and he had been gone from their chamber much of late. Nay! Gwenyth admitted she thought of Aric much during those long evenings, strangely yearning for his touch. Could he not know that? She bit her lip in uncertainty and waited for Aric’s reaction.

“Think what you will,” he said, irritation in his voice. Then he quit the room.

Unable to wait for the answers to her questions, Gwenyth followed.

* * * *

Gwenyth entered the solar to find Aric at a small window, a mug of ale tightly clenched in his hands as he stared out at the crashing surf. What troubled him? Did he long to be elsewhere, as he claimed? Or did he find the truth of his lust for Rowena difficult to speak of with her current lover, his own brother?

As she approached, Gwenyth realized she did not know what she felt. Angered and justified. Uncertain and unwanted. Betrayed. Everything came at her so quickly.

She bit her lip, not knowing what to say.
Coward
, she railed at herself, then forced her feet a step closer.

She closed the distance between them, and Aric’s gaze snapped around to her. His expression was again blank, as if he thought nothing, felt nothing. But as she peered into his eyes, the gray depths revealed something so mired with pain she nearly swallowed her accusations.

“You have come to ask me about Rowena,” he said. It was not a question.

She wanted to say nay, to prove him wrong. But her stomach tightened with something terrible, and her heart beat too fast, tingling with everything she felt.

She needed the truth more.

“Aye,” she admitted. “Why did you not tell me?”

“Because there is nothing more to say that you have not heard.”

“She agreed to become your wife, then wed your father instead. Now she shares a bed with your brother.”

Aric rose and set his mug aside. “I asked Rowena to wife because she has a quick mind, is efficient in the castle, and inspired obedience in the servants. With my father much gone, Northwell’s running had become my responsibility. Rowena made a good helpmate.”

The anger she had been feeling finally rose up above the other hazy emotions sliding around within her. “And now you make excuses for her behavior because she shares your bed and occupies your heart again. Is that not true? That is where you have been these past two eves,
my lord
,” she sneered.

His countenance turned from indifferent to snarling. “I do not desire Rowena any longer, and I never pretended to love her, nor she me. I understand her motives. She nearly starved to death as a child and forever seeks money and power as security.”

He understood Rowena, but he did not respect her. The contempt in her husband’s voice hit Gwenyth in the chest. Had she not sought to wed Sir Penley for many of the same reasons? Aye, but she had also sought a man to love her, one who would provide children’s laughter as well as food. Her desires were not the same.

And as Aunt Welsa had told her more than once, a man’s heart need not be engaged for his loins to be occupied.

So why could she not engage his loins?

“When my father returned from war,” Aric continued, “he became lord of Northwell again, the one with authority. And so Rowena chose him. Once my father died and I left, Stephen became master here, so she chose him.”

Fear gripped her. “And now you have returned.”
And she will choose you.
The words hung between them, unspoken but understood.

Gwenyth knew she could not compete with the woman who knew the secrets of Aric’s body, had lain with him before and would do so again without hesitation. The thought of Rowena wrapped in the strength and heat of her husband’s sensual embrace made her chest ache in a way she did not understand and wanted to escape.

“Now you are my wife, and we will talk no more of Rowena.”

Not completely your wife, Gwenyth
wanted to argue. Since their marriage, she had done little but rail at Aric, refuse him access to her bed, and push him away. Nor for lack of desire, but for lack of courage, for lack of faith when he had vowed to always see her secure.

Now she felt like a fool and a child, even as part of her demanded one more show of faith.

“If I am your wife, I should be your chatelaine. Why does Rowena still direct the servants and carry the keys?”

Something in his face tightened. He paused a long time indeed before replying. “Rowena has been mistress here for six years. We have only just arrived. Give it time, Gwenyth.”

His gaze evaded her, and she smelled something foul in his demeanor. “You will not make me mistress of your home, will you?”

“Not for some while,” he admitted with reluctance.

Fury sparked and began to blaze within her. “So you would choose your whore over your wife.”

“She is not my whore, Gwenyth!”

Aric had never yelled so loudly. ’Twas then Gwenyth feared he spared Rowena’s feelings at the expense of her own, which surely meant he harbored some feeling for the woman.

She used every ounce of her dignity to square her shoulders and glare directly into his stormy gray eyes. “As you say.”