by Sarah Hegger
He had lost all reason. If Mother wasn’t still cowering on the casement seat, she would have run by now. Grown slower and fatter with age, Sir Royce lacked the speed to catch her, and if she stayed away long enough, he invariably found one of his whores to pound his temper into.
“She does not want to marry, Sir Royce.” Mother rose and stumbled toward them. “Kathryn would never do such a thing because she does not want to marry.”
“Is that so?” he jeered.
“I have vowed to never marry.”
“What a pity for you.” He twisted his hand in her hair.
Kathryn’s abused scalp screamed, and a moan escaped her.
He grinned. His teeth flashed yellow. “Because I will have this alliance with Anglesea, and one daughter is as good as another.”
“What?”
“If your sister is not here to marry Sir Roger, you will marry him.”
“Nay, Father. He does not want me. He wants Matty.”
He laughed and flung her away from him. “One woman, another woman, what does it matter? He wants a wife, and he does not care who it is.”
He slammed the door shut behind him.
Mother touched her gently on the shoulder. “Are you all right, Kathryn?”
“Nay.” Kathryn shook her head. Her thoughts grew so jumbled she could not find the right words. “I cannot marry. I will not marry.”
“Oh, sweeting.” Mother cupped her face. “Surely a husband would be better than this.”
No husband, not ever. Not for her. She shook her head because she would not wound her mother further with words she uttered. No man would own her, have dominion over her, and treat her as a convenient target for his ever-present rage. “I will fix this,” she said.
“But how? Some things are not yours to fix.”
God, that she could wipe that permanent sadness from her Mother. “Have I ever failed you, Mother?”
Mother sighed. “Nay, Kathryn, you have not.”
Chapter 4
Roger loved his mother, but the desire to bellow at her had his fists clenched as he stared into the bailey below. He blamed her and Father for this. With their infernal pressure for him to marry and beget sons. Oldest son, family name, Anglesea…waffle, waffle, waffle.
Now see this pretty pickle. Jilted at the altar. Nay, before he even reached the bloody altar. Failure tasted bitter on his tongue. Sir Arthur had picked a woman betrothed to another and still emerged victorious when he had come to marry.
“We should take Sir Royce’s offer.” Mother sat behind him in a pool of morning sunlight, golden head bent as she sewed some or other thing. Back straight, calm and poised, the perfect lady.
Easy. Swap one sister for the other and get the deed done. Except, Roger was not inclined to. “I had very specific requirements in a bride. If I meant to accept any girl, I would have married like William.”
“Your brother is very happy.” Lady Mary raised her chin. “He might not have married Alice for love, but it has certainly turned out that way.”
Roger snorted and turned away. “You knew I did not want to marry yet.”
“Aye, Roger.” Lady Mary rose and stood beside him. “But you cannot take forever to choose a bride. Your father is not getting any younger, and I am tired. I want to play with my grandchildren, travel and see Faye and William. I want to hand over Anglesea to a younger woman. Your wife.”
“You have met Lady Kathryn?” Somehow he could not picture his jousting hellion calmly becoming chatelaine to a keep such as Anglesea. If he could not have a woman he loved, then by hell, he would have one who would be a credit to his name.
Mother chuckled. “I have met her, and I find her…refreshingly delightful.”
“You would.” Roger shook his head. He should know Mother would like Kathryn. He was raised in the same household that had turned out Bea and Faye. Lady Mary had never held with a woman remaining in her place. His mother had never held with many of the ways other households raised their children.
“What do you care which sister it is?” Lady Mary tossed up her hands. “You cannot tell me you are in love with Mathilda.”
“Nay, I am not in love with her, but she fit my list perfectly.”
“Ah, your list.” Mother shook her head. “Only you could come up with a list for a bride.”
What else was he to do? With Henry on holy pilgrimage and William settled into fatherhood, he had run out of excuses. The real reason for his reticence sounded too pathetic to voice, so he had not. It would make him sound like an even greater disappointment. The Great Sir Arthur of Anglesea had sired a weakling. A mewling sentimental baby who craved what his parents had. A loving partnership filled with laughter, passion, and joy.
Bea’s voice rose from the corridor outside. “You cannot mean that.”
Garrett stalked past the open doorway, shoulders rigid, fists clenched by his side.
Bea waddled into view. Heavily pregnant, she stood in the corridor outside Mother’s sewing chamber and yelled after her husband. “You are just being stubborn. Nobody here thinks of you as a leech. You are married to me.”
A big enough task for any man.
“We will discuss this later.” Garrett’s voice drifted up. “When you are prepared to be reasonable.”
“Reasonable!” Beatrice reddened. “I am having a baby. I do not have to be reasonable.” She suddenly looked to her left and caught them watching. “I am very reasonable,” she said and burst into tears.
“There now, Sweet Bea.” Mother bustled over and put her arm about Bea. “Calm yourself or you will upset the babe.”
“H-he says he does not want to live at Anglesea anymore.” Beatrice buried her face in her hands. Her shoulders heaved with sobs. “He says he is tired of living off scraps from Father’s table.”
Roger would not have thought Garrett capable of such stiff-necked pride. He kept his surprise to himself. He did not fancy ending up as the target of one of Bea’s crying fits.
Mother pressed a hankie into Bea’s hand. “Garrett has always fended for himself,” she said. “His lack of purpose must weigh heavily on him.”
“He has a purpose.” Bea wailed into her hanky. “He is my husband and father of my children.”
As heir to a mighty demesne Roger had always had his purpose, a preordained place in the world. Garrett, however, had risen from bastard blacksmith’s apprentice to the husband of a powerful lord’s daughter.
He winced as he opened his mouth, and hoped his mother could keep Bea calm. “What does he want to do?”
“Make his own way in the world.” Beatrice raised her tear-stained face to him. “He says he feels like he is nothing more than a tick on father’s back. Why would he say that?”
Beatrice collapsed onto Mother again, crying loud enough to scare the sun from the sky.
Mother looked pained and sighed. “A man has his pride, Bea,” she said. “Now let me finish speaking with Roger and I will come to you directly.”
“I did not realize you were busy.” Bea raised her head and scrubbed her eyes with her fists, looking like she had as a tiny girl.
“Go and lie down, sweeting.” Mother smoothed wisps of flaxen hair off Bea’s face. “And I will be there before you know it.”
“All right.” Bea heaved to her feet. She trailed toward the door and drew level with him. The look of entreaty she gave him fisted in Roger’s gut.
He waited until she had disappeared. “Has this happened before?”
“Aye.” Mother folded her sewing into a neat square. “Garrett feels he has no place here. He wants to be able to support his own family.”
“Doing what?” Roger stared at his mother. Anglesea already had a blacksmith.
“Anything.” She shrugged.
“I could speak with Father.”
“I have already.” Mother rose and stretched her back. Sunlight caught the grey strands amongst her wheaten hair. “You are heir here,
Roger. Marry and take up your duties.”
Duty came before all, especially for Sir Arthur’s heir. Aye, he had made a list, a damn-nigh impossible list to fill. Until Lady Mary had appeared with Mathilda of Mandeville. He had accepted with grace that he’d been bested. However, simply swapping one bride for another seemed a step too far. Anglesea demanded the right sort of chatelaine.
“Think on it, Roger.” Mother patted his arm. “I am sure you will come to the right decision.”
* * * **
Roger batted at the insistent hand on his shoulder. A thump followed by a pained yelp wrenched him wide awake and looking for the threat.
“God’s teeth!” A dark head poked over the edge of his bed. “You pack a sturdy wallop there.”
“Lady Kathryn?” It certainly sounded like her.
“Aye.” Using the edge of his bed, she pushed herself to standing. “You hit me,” she said, sounding much more like an aggrieved woman.
“You shook me.” This was his response? The best he could muster, given she invaded his chamber, in the middle of the night—Roger peered closer through the gloom—in her nightrail. “What are you doing?”
“I must speak with you.” She motioned the bed. “May I sit?
“Nay, you may not.” Tension from her sister’s disappearance had affected her mind. The jousting, he found rather endearing, but this, God’s balls, or rather his, because he lay naked beneath the covers. “What you may do is march yourself right back to your chamber.”
“I will.” A flint struck and she lit the candle by his bedside. She plopped her ass onto his bed and wriggled until she settled into a comfortable position. “Once I have spoken with you.”
She resembled her sister closely, the same dark hair and eyes in the delicate bones of their mother’s face. Roger tried not to stare, but candlelight shone through her nightrail and outlined her full curves.
Kathryn made no such attempt not to stare. In fact, she cocked her head and studied him. “You do not wear a night shirt.”
He hauled the linens up to his chin like a startled virgin. “Do you have any idea what would happen if you were discovered?”
“Never mind that.” She flapped her hand close to his chest. “I have seen naked men scores of times.”
“Scores?” Given Sir Royce, Roger had his doubts.
She squirmed and shrugged her slim shoulders. “Well, perhaps not scores, but a chest is a chest. I have one, too.”
Where to start! Roger forced his gaze up. “You cannot stay here.”
“It will not take long, and”—she leaned closer in a waft of something sweet and flowery—“if you toss me out now, I will make enough noise to rouse the dead.”
This entire family conspired to rob his affability. His pride still smarted over the vanishing Mathilda. “What do you want?”
“I think the question is more what I do not want.” Her voice oozed like a hairpin peddler as she toyed with the end of her long, dark braid. Candlelight burnished her hair to bronze.
The sooner he got done with her, the sooner he could get her out of his chamber, and safely tucked into her bed. Unless the hour drifted closer to morning and the keep poised ready to stir. “What time is it?”
“Very late, or early.” She tucked her long legs up beside her, as if she meant to stay for a while. Delicate feet peeped out of the end of her nightrail. “Not to worry, there is nobody about. I checked before I left my chamber. I also lurked outside your door for a goodly while just to make sure.”
“Oh, good.” Nay, not good. “There is always somebody about. Do you know what would happen if you were seen leaving this chamber?”
Smoothing her nightrail over her shapely thighs, she said, “I know very well what would happen. I would be forced to marry you, which is hardly any worse off than I already am. Now is it?”
“Nay.” Clearly this sister giddily anticipated her nuptials to him as well. Next thing he knew the village whores would reject his advances. “Rest easy, I have not accepted you.”
“I did not mean that the way it sounded.” She took a deep breath. Her nipples formed dark circles beneath her nightrail. “Well, I did, but I did not, if you get my meaning.”
“Not in the slightest.”
“What I mean is, I do not want to marry. Anyone.” She studied him. “As husbands go, you would not be a horrible choice, and were I inclined to marry, I would not be averse to you.”
“I am humbled by your enthusiasm.”
She chuckled, sweet and husky. “You are a very handsome man, Sir Roger. And a good one, which is why I am here.”
Roger hid a smile behind his hand. She was an entertaining little thing, to be sure. “I also know how to use a sword.”
“Aye. You most certainly do.” She clasped her hands at her chest. Then she dropped them and squared her shoulders. “But that is what appeals to me and not Matty. And it is Matty I came about.”
His good mood soured. “Lady Mathilda is no longer a consideration.”
She tried to hide her smile behind her hand.
“Are you mocking me?”
“Nay. Indeed.” Her eyes twinkled. “It is only that you sound so proper when you speak that way.”
“My pardon.”
This time she collapsed into a giggling heap, shaking his bed with her mirth. “Oh, I do like you. You will do very well.” She cleared her throat and sat up. “For Matty. You will do excellently for Matty.”
“Matty does not agree, it would appear.” Her laugh tugged at him, and made him want to join in. How he could find any of this amusing escaped him.
“Matty is befuddled.” She placed a slim hand on his knee. “She is rather timid, and something you said to her must have set her off. I know if we can find her, and you can reassure her, she will happily marry you.”
Roger sat up straighter, the heat from her innocent touch scorched through the linens. “You are suggesting I go chasing after my escaped bride?”
“Now, now.” She patted his knee with a coy smile. “It is not as bad as all that. We could not really call her an escaped bride at this point, could we? All we need do is get her to see reason.”
“What would we call her?” The twisting of her mind almost distracted him as much as her hand.
“A frightened almost-betrothed, which is not the same thing at all.”
Lady Kathryn involved a lot of “we” in her discourse. “Where do you factor in all of this?”
“I am glad you asked, because it is vitally important.” She shifted her hand up to his thigh. The girl had no clue as to men, not a whisper. “If we do not get Matty back, you and I will be forced to marry. My father is most insistent, and he can be rather unpleasant about it. I have already decided you are perfect for Matty, other than she does not care for dogs, and you appear to be never too far from one. Here is my plan.”
Roger braced himself. She could take this wild flight anywhere.
“I am your best chance of finding Matty. I know her better than anyone. Without me, you would search in vain. We pretend to agree to this marriage between us, you take me on a bride tour of your lands, and we find Matty together.”
He could ride his destrier through the numerous holes in her plan. “A bride tour would involve a retinue.” He lifted her hand from its far too enjoyable sojourn on his thigh. “A groom and his bride are not allowed to disappear alone.”
“You will think of something to make them stay away.” Her hand returned to his thigh, warm and delicious. In any other woman he would have suspected her of a little light seduction, but Kathryn had no such notion. She petted him as she would a favorite dog or horse.
“Nay, I will not.” He placed her hand in her lap. “Because this is a ridiculous plan.”
“But—”
“Go to bed, Lady Kathryn.” He used his firmest tone, the one he reserved for squires assing around. “If you do not wish to marry me, then I will simply tell your father that i
t will not do.”
“But—”
“I had no intention of accepting your father’s offer, so you can sleep peaceful in the notion you are not going to marry me.” Thank the Lord for his nearly impenetrable hide.
“You were not?”
“This conversation is done. Go to bed.” He nudged her ass with his leg. “And stay there, before I run screaming into the hall.”
* * * *
Roger waited until the door shut on the dejected slump of her shoulders before he rose. The girl had one thing right. They would not suit. A jousting, planning, conniving wife would not suit him at all. He needed a docile girl, a calm force to counter his bluster. Not a hellion with a burgeoning sense of adventure. The name of Anglesea rested its almost crushing weight on his shoulders.
He found his chausses and yanked them on. There would be no more sleep tonight, not with his mind working as it was.
And what did she mean by not wanting to marry? Of course Lady Kathryn would marry, all girls did, but it would not be to him.
From his clothes chest, he pulled a handful of clean chemises and a spare pair of chausses. God alone knew how long this would take.
Mother had chosen well for him. Lady Mathilda, before her flight, had been exactly what he had requested. Beautiful as his sister, Faye, sweet as Beatrice, wise like Ivy, and with his mother’s graciousness. Matty’s wisdom appeared questionable, but a girl could learn, could she not? A few years beneath Mother’s tutelage would see any girl right.
Anglesea. This castle, the entire demesne would be his. His father would leave him a legacy worth dying for. How did a man make ready for such a task?
Lady Mathilda was perfect. He did not want another bride. He had one already, and one he aimed to keep.
Lady Kathryn had given him a splendid idea. He would find his bride, woo her a bit more, and bring her back. Without Lady Kathryn hanging on his horse’s tail.
Chapter 5
Kathryn dismounted. Her quarry stopped a little way ahead in front of a small inn.
