by Shayla Black
“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.”
Before he could see the tears threatening to fall, she whirled about and darted through the door. Kieran blocked her way, and she wondered how much of their conversation he had heard.
Her gaze tangled with his blueish one, which was full of empathy and pity. Too much. He had heard too much.
Before she could embarrass herself any more, Gwenyth shouldered her way past her husband’s friend and slipped out the door.
* * * *
Aric heard Kieran’s footsteps moments later and swore beneath his breath. Of the three, Kieran had ever been the best at ferreting out the secrets of others.
He wondered if Kieran would understand this hell of need, lust, pride, and something unfamiliar he now found himself in. ’Twas doubtful. Kieran bedded many and stayed with none.
Aric grimaced. Once he had been similar, though without Kieran’s cheerful manner for leading a woman into dalliance. Now, Aric realized, he had wed one and bedded her not at all, despite a strong, disturbing longing to do so. ’Twould seem poor sport to Kieran, at the very least.
“Gwenyth is no passive wife,” Kieran observed without judgment.
Aric knew what Kieran wanted. “You have never been one to mince words. Pray, do not start now.”
“You are right. Now that we are alone, tell me how in the hell Gwenyth came to be your wife upon threat of death, my good friend.”
Without ado, Aric explained. He expected many reactions—shock, dismay, anger at the injustice done Gwenyth. He never expected Kieran’s laughter.
“You, a sorcerer? The clodpates at Penhurst know you not.”
“Nor did they care to,” Aric returned wryly.
“You can scarce accept the magic of your own warfare, much less make a drought from your displeasure.”
“It is not magic, Kieran. It is an odious talent.”
“And someday again it will serve you well.”
Aric shrugged. “For now, I must decide what to do.”
“You will not support King Richard?”
Retrieving his mug of ale from a nearby table, Aric studied its contents. How could he explain to Kieran the atrocity he knew Richard capable of when he could hardly understand such brutality against children himself? He could not tell anyone—not without endangering their very lives, for good King Richard would not hesitate to kill anyone privy to such damaging facts.
“I’ve no wish to support anyone,” he answered finally.
“Someday you will be forced to,” Kieran advised.
Aric knew it to be the truth, but that day was in the distance. His trouble with his wife swirled about him now.
“Rowena seems unhappy that I have returned with a wife.”
“Aye, though it would bring her comfort to know you have not yet lain with Gwenyth. Is that not right?”
Aric cursed the fact Kieran could see so much, often too much. He gave a bitter laugh. “Is it so obvious, then?”
“I guessed as much in part from the way Gwenyth looks at you, sometimes as if you are a riddle she seeks to solve but is afraid to try, other times like you are a bauble she covets.”
“And the other part?”
“Do you truly want to know the manner in which you stare at her?”
Did he? Or would such force him to face whatever sentiment seemed to be growing inside him? “Nay. I am better off without such knowledge.”
“But you want her. And you care for her.” Neither was a question.
Again, Aric wanted to ask if that truth were so obvious, but he refrained, knowing it must be—at least to Kieran. Instead, he replied, “I cannot make her Northwell’s mistress now. The feeling in my gut tells me Rowena would only make use her determination to hurt Gwenyth if I do.”
“And so you protect your wife?” He paused, rubbing the back of his neck as if discomfited. “Have you considered telling her that, instead of letting her believe you’re swiving Rowena again?”
“I have told her as much,” he said glumly, knocking back the rest of his ale. It slid like a lump down his throat. “And still, she does not believe me.”
Kieran sent him a rogue’s smile. “Mayhap you ought to simply show her.”
* * * *
“Lady Margaret Beaufort ’ere to see you, my lord,” a maid said as she entered the great hall. “Shall I send ’er in?”
’Twas the eve before their departure to rescue Drake, and Aric felt ill prepared to deal with politics now, particularly Henry Tudor’s mother. Aric’s blood brother Drake and his own troublingly chaste marriage occupied all his thoughts.
Still, the woman had come a long way, and she certainly hadn’t come to visit, despite a distant familial connection. His great-grandmother had been her great-aunt, but he had never met Lady Margaret in his life. Yet she clearly wanted something. Was she plotting treason?
“How big is her party?” he asked the young maid.
“Just ’er and two men, my lord.”
He paused. What could she seek? “Admit them.”
Within moments, a fashionable woman with shrewd eyes and a softly lined face appeared, her men behind her eager to take refreshment after a long journey.
“My Lady Beaufort?”
She nodded her graying auburn head. “The celebrated White Lion, I presume?”
He nodded in return, sizing up the small woman. She was determined, he decided, and clearly no fool.
“Please sit.” He offered her a chair on the dais. “Wine?”
“Such would please me, aye.”
Aric bade a servant to bring wine, cheese, and bread, then turned back to his unexpected visitor.
“To what do I owe this honor, my lady?”
She cast him a sharp gaze. “Have you not heard of my cause?”
He shrugged. “I am not a man who appreciates gossip.”
“Of course not.” She folded her hands primly in her lap and fixed him with a smile he felt certain had charmed many a man. “There are those who would say Richard Plantagenet killed his nephews so he might gain the throne for himself.”
Aric knew her speculation to be horrifyingly true. “And what would you say, my lady?”
“Like you, I am not much for gossip. However, for those people who believe Richard guilty, they cry he makes a mockery of the throne.”
“I have heard that much,” he conceded.
“And their numbers grow. Richard is not a popular man.”
“Many kings
are not.”
She nodded. “My son, Henry Tudor, is the last grown man with Lancaster blood.”
Here it was, the treason. The choice. Could he support a king who had come to power by foul means or support a usurper who would kill a king instead of two boys to gain such power?
“I have always been a Yorkist,” he returned with care.
“That is the beauty of my…proposition to you, my lord. You can be both.”
Aric frowned. The woman did not strike him as simple. How could she say something so baldly impossible?
“I see I have confused you. Let me be plain.” She leaned forward, and her voice dropped to just above a whisper. “Help put my Henry on the throne. Once there, the dowager queen has agreed to wed her eldest daughter, Elizabeth of York, to Henry. The Lancasters and the Yorks will unite to form a new Tudor dynasty. No more war. No more need to choose sides, my lord. What say you?”
Aric’s heartbeat drummed inside his head. His mind raced as he smelled a trace of the woman’s floral scent and the fresh rushes upon the floor. Margaret Beaufort smiled smugly. ’Twas a good plan, to wed the dead princes’ eldest sister to this Lancaster man, and well she knew it.
And Aric wanted to throw himself into the fire. Anything to end the bloody, ceaseless war.
Anything except endanger his friends, his family…and Gwenyth. Anything except return to battle himself.
“I think it sounds much like treason, my lady.”
Margaret stood, her spine straight, her chin lifted with pride. “Perhaps you should think on it further, Lord Belford. I shall be in touch.”
“When?” he barked.
She merely sent him another mysterious smile. “When the time is right.”
CHAPTER TEN
Aric leaned against the cold stone wall, dragging air into his starved lungs.
An unconscious Drake lay at his feet.
Cursing the damp chill of the Scottish midnight air, Aric again lifted his friend, easing Drake’s long, limp body over his aching shoulder. Drake groaned but did not awaken.
’Twas for the best, Aric felt certain. Drake’s hair, hanging now between his shoulder blades, smelled as dirty and foul as the rest of him. Drake’s normally tanned skin appeared a pallid imitation, making him look as if he might fade into oblivion. And he was so thin, Aric could feel Drake’s ribs against his shoulder, poking each time he took a step toward Drake’s freedom. Merciful God, let naught happen to risk it.
