His Lady Bride (Brothers in Arms) (2 page)

Gripping his broadsword in his tense, throbbing fingers, he looked at Kieran, then at his mentor. His mind felt slow, almost numb. His heart felt only rage for the injustice, the inhumanity of this bloody power struggle for the throne, these dangerous times in which a man could make a healthy living by killing.

No more.

Aric glared down at the heavy sword in his hand. This weapon, this instrument of death, had cost many men their lives. He had wielded it to uphold a prosperous England he had believed in. ’Twas all a lie. A giant hoax revealed.

He refused to take part in it any longer.

With a mighty thrust, Aric cast his sword into the ground and left the battlefield behind.

CHAPTER ONE

April 1485

Sitting in the shadows, Aric carved on the block of half-shaped wood in his hand as dusk settled over the tranquil, spring-shaded forest in greens, blues, and pinks.

Here lay peace, endless days of it, uninterrupted by greed, ambition, or war. Here he would remain, unfettered by the world.

“Damn you! Dagbert, where do you take me?”

Aric stilled his knife and lifted his head to peer into the surrounding forest, where the unseen woman had screeched into his prized tranquility. Dare he hope that if he ignored the loud wench and her unwanted companion, they would leave him be?

The woman shouted her protest again, closer this time. Uneasiness skittered through him. He set the wood aside, clutched his knife, and rose. Scowling, Aric felt the resurgence of his battle instincts.

From between a pair of giant, eons-old oak trees, a diverse party emerged. A servant, a soldier, and a holy man marched directly toward him, holding a fetching female captive beside them. He studied each face, feeling his scowl deepen.

Aye, this group intended to shatter his peace with their demands, so said the bearing of all. Except one.

The maiden, dressed a trifle more finely than the soldier, shouted and kicked like a wild thing as two men gripped her fragile wrists and dragged her toward him like some virgin sacrifice to a pagan altar.

The woman was clad in striking crimson and gold that stretched tautly across her young breasts. Her glossy black hair shone in the sun as she struggled. For the first time since leaving politics, battle, and women behind, Aric felt intrigued.

He cursed the intruders—and himself.

She shouted, “A pox upon you all, you hen-brained fools!”

Clearly, the beauty had no trouble finding her tongue.

“Release me now,” she continued loudly, “for I will not be subject—”

“Aye, ye will, Lady Gwenyth,” the soldier interrupted, grunting as they dragged her ever closer. “Or the baron says we all could die.”

“Die? What foolishness do you speak, you maggot pie? My uncle will know of this scheme!”

“’Twas Lord Capshaw’s own idea to wed you off to yon sorcerer as an offering to stop the drought.”

Yon sorcerer.
Aric knew they described him, and he had done nothing to dispel the untruth. The rumor had bought him six months of peace—at least until today.

Before he could protest, the woman looked at him, her eyes large and furious and fearful. And blue, so blue he’d ne’er seen a color so rich, so deep and fine, so striking against the pale roses of her skin. An instant image of her as she lay beneath him, those brilliant eyes liquid with languid passion, assailed him.

He frowned. Nay, he wanted nothing to do with anyone, even such a comely wench as this. His existence was a solitary one, and he had never been happier since leaving court intrigues and Northwell Castle behind and coming to this tiny cottage.

“Wed
him
? Have you gone daft?”

The woman’s gaze snapped over him like blue flames, flashing with contempt—and that same hint of fear.

“Dagbert, I will not marry this…hermit,” she insisted.

Aric gave the ebony-haired beauty a sharp glare. Hermit? He lived comfortably, with an abundance of candles and plenty to eat. The roof over his head kept him dry, while his bed kept him warm from the night’s chill. What more could a man want?

Certainly not a woman who, by all appearances, was a sharp-tongued shrew—albeit a lovely one, with a full pink mouth that made him recall the joy of kissing. But she was a shrew all the same.

One he had no wish to marry.

As Aric prepared to tell the castlefolk to leave him in peace—and take his bride with them—Dagbert looked at Lady Gwenyth with wicked glee. “If ye refuse to wed the warlock, we’ve been told to kill ye in offering.”

Kill her?
Shock vibrated through each bone and muscle of Aric’s body. She was but a woman, whose only crime appeared to be a lamentable freeness with her words. Surely they could not be serious.

The soldier pressed his blade against Lady Gwenyth’s throat, his grin broadening. Aric knew they would indeed kill her, without haste or remorse.

More senseless death was not something he could tolerate.

“Do not touch her.” As his fist tightened about the hilt of his knife, Aric leveled a glare at Dagbert.

“What say you, sorcerer?” Dagbert asked, easing his knife from the arched expanse of Lady Gwenyth’s throat.

She trembled, Aric saw. And she fought it, if the strain in her arms and face was any indication. Somehow the thought of the black-toothed ruffian causing her fear angered Aric as nothing had in his blissful months alone.

“I say you release her now and leave my sight.”

“And ye will take ’er to wife and stop the drought plaguing Lord Capshaw?” asked Dagbert.

He could no more stop a drought than he could predict the rain. “Nay, this is foolishness.”

Dagbert scratched his head. “Does she displease ye?”

Lady Gwenyth’s startled gaze flew to his face. Silently she pleaded with him, though he sensed she rarely pleaded for anything. That square chin told the story of her stubborn nature—that and those vivid, keen eyes.

“She’s the comeliest wench at Penhurst Castle,” Dagbert added.

That he could believe, but it did not change his answer. “I’ve no wish for a wife.”

With a shrug, Dagbert brought the knife back to the frightened lady’s pale neck. Her pulse raced beneath the sharp steel, and Aric’s own heartbeat quickened.

“If she ain’t well-pleasing enough to take to wife, then we’ll see ’er dead. The Lord Capshaw asks only that ye end the drought in return.”

Lord Capshaw apparently was a superstitious baron, willing to sacrifice his own niece to bring prosperity back to the castle. The baron was also willing to kill her if she failed to win the sorcerer’s favor and end the drought. Aric wondered how he could possibly respond to such idiocy.

“Leave her here with me and be gone with you.”

“Ye accept her, then, as Lord Capshaw’s offerin’? Dagbert lowered his knife a fraction, his hand hovering somewhere around Lady Gwenyth’s breast. Those blue eyes of hers colored with indignation.

“Aye. Leave her to me.” Aric gritted his teeth in irritation.

What he would do with her once Dagbert and the baron’s other cowards left was anyone’s guess. He could solve only one problem at a time.

“Nay, I must see ye wed all proper-like. Lord Capshaw insisted.”

Aric found his patience thinning. “I told you, I have no wish for a wife.”

“The baron gave me but two options, a wife or a corpse. ’Tis for ye to decide, but I’ll not risk me arse in crossing a man like Lord Capshaw.”

“So you would rather cross a sorcerer?” Aric raised a brow in question.

Dagbert lifted the slabs of his shoulders in disdain. “I don’t believe in your rabble-rubble.”

“Don’t you? How do you explain the dog?”

At Aric’s shrill whistle, the half dog, half wolf emerged from the cottage’s shadows, his gray-brown ears up on end, his sharp teeth bared. The small crowd drew back at the animal’s approach, their expressions ranging from piqued interest to panic as the animal padded beyond a cluster of flowered toadflax and across the soft dirt to heel at Aric’s side.

The dog growled, and the priest crossed himself. The servant pointed, his eyes wide with fear. Dagbert’s face gave away little, except that he turned a shade paler.

To Aric’s surprise, Lady Gwenyth’s face held almost no fear. Did she sense the animal’s goodness, or did she not know the beast had once ravaged the countryside?

“He tamed the devil’s own and took him for a pet, a sure sign of evil,” the holy man claimed.

“The dog, he might be from the devil,” Dagbert conceded, casting furtive glances at the mutt, “but ye don’t have any more powers than me. ’Tis a sense for these things I have. Now take the wench to wife, or I kill her.”

Aric looked about for another means of thwarting Dagbert. The servant, pitifully dressed, did no more than clutch Lady Gwenyth’s wrist and stare at the ground. If he was not mistaken, the beefy man was the one the castlefolk called Mute. Aric assumed the man could not speak. Little help there. The holy man merely clutched his Bible to his chest, wearing an expression of outraged righteousness. Aric sighed. He had to try, anyway.

“Good Father, would you wed two unwilling people to each other?”

The priest puffed out his thin chest. “Lady Gwenyth can rid you of Satan’s evil with her purity. It is my duty and God’s will.”

“And what if I should place a hex on you?” Aric crossed his arms over his chest in what had always been a most intimidating stance.

If possible, the little man puffed out further. “God will protect me from evil like you.”

Christ’s blood! Now what?

Dagbert snickered. Aric speared the odious man with a lethal glare but found his gaze ensnared by Lady Gwenyth, instead. Her heated eyes, her soft mouth, the tempting curve of her breast—and her sharp tongue. Lord, he hated to think of that.

“Well,” Dagbert prompted, “shall I see her wed or dead this day?”

Why did the world have to intrude upon his peace now, just when the nightmares were beginning to abate?

Aric sighed. “You shall see her wed.”

* * * *

It seemed to Gwenyth as if the whole matter ended in moments. No matter how she’d protested to the tops of the oak and alder trees above or kicked the gluttons beside her, Mute and that wretched cur Dagbert had held tight.

The towering, thick-chested stranger was now her husband, his thatch-roofed shanty her home.

With the vows now spoken, Dagbert sneered at her. “Don’t ye come back to Penhurst, or the baron says he’ll kill ye himself.”

With that, Dagbert and the others retreated back into the forest, leaving her alone with the imposing sorcerer.

The golden-maned man the Church saw as her husband turned his broad frame about and headed toward his tiny dwelling, his feet falling silently on the soft spring earth. Gwenyth stared, openmouthed, at his retreat. Had he nothing to say to her? Nothing at all?

She could not remember a time she had been more scared—or more angry.

“Could you not have done something to stop Dagbert’s madness?” she ranted, following the silent stranger. “Why did you allow this foolish wedding to happen?”

He turned back and stared at her, his strong, wide face sharp with question, his icy gray eyes challenging.

The silence dragged on. And on. Gwenyth gritted her teeth, and her nails dug into the callused flesh of her palms. She had never been one to keep her patience or hold her tongue. And at the moment, restraining either seemed impossible.

“Well, say something, you fen-sucked lout!”

Surprise crossed his chiseled tawny features. “Fen-sucked?”

Was that all he had to say? He had married her against her will. God’s nightgown, it seemed he had married her against his own will! And he spoke first of her choice of insults, instead of their preposterous exchange of vows? The man hadn’t seemed shy of wits earlier. Why wouldn’t the coxcomb make sense now?

“Aye, fen-sucked, fly-bitten, and beef-brained. Why did you wed me?”

Turning away, he flung the door to his shanty open and ducked to step inside. “Should I have seen you dead?”

“Of course not, you tottering horn-beast,” she shouted at his back. “You should have talked them out of this fool-born idea, promised to lift the drought, or fought your way out.”

“I tried to reason with them, if you recall,” he said through clenched teeth, his voice deep and tight.

Oh, and was he angry now? ’Twas a state he should finally reach, her having arrived long before! “Tried? Is that what you call it? My cousin’s unborn babe could have said more to stop this farce.”

He whirled on her again, hovering just inside the doorway, the simple green tunic covering his massive chest mere inches from her face. His eyes resembled angry storm clouds as he stared down at her. “And what did you try?”

 “I-I told them I wanted this not. I kicked, railed, I screamed—”

“Aye, and everyone between here and London heard you.”

Gwenyth gasped, and the beast turned away with a smile, evidenced by a flash of surprisingly straight teeth and the curve of his wide mouth, before retreating inside the little cottage. With much foot stomping, she followed. The oaf would feel the full measure of her fury!

At the door, she stopped as her gaze fell upon the dwelling’s interior. A ramshackle bed sat upon the dirt floor next to a blackened pit of a hearth. A pair of his braies lay strewn across the single chair, and a tiny table with a teetering leg and a pitcher with a broken handle filled the rest of the small space. The lone window had no glass. Nay! Gwenyth closed her eyes in despair.

For half her life, she had lain upon the cold stone floor every night at Penhurst and wished to reclaim her position as lady of the castle, of the fine home she’d been born to. Most of all, she yearned for a place where she belonged, where the people within saw her as a prize, not a burden, something her Uncle Bardrick had taken great pains to remind her she was.

She’d always known he much enjoyed being Lord Capshaw and showing his two daughters off as great ladies. Still, she had imagined he would see his brother’s only child well wed. Hadn’t he brought the exceedingly handsome Sir Penley Fairfax to the keep for just that cause?