The Overlord's Bride

by Margaret Moore

  Elizabeth silenced him with a glance. “I adore babies,” she explained. “If you would rather continue to hold him yourself, I understand.”

  “My lady!” Rual panted as she arrived. “Lord Kirkheathe does not encourage peddlers.”

  The man beside the guards gave her a sour look. His matted hair and patched clothes did not improve the impression he was making, and his wagon contained what looked to be bits and baubles, cheap and flimsy and useless. However, it was not the peddler or his wares that mattered to Elizabeth.

  “I didn’t say I wanted to buy anything,” Elizabeth said before turning back to the woman. “Please, may I hold him?”

  “If ye’re not going t’buy, we better not stay,” the peddler grumbled.

  Elizabeth and the woman glanced at him, then smiled at each other, and the woman carefully handed down her son.

  Elizabeth moved the tattered blanket away from his little face. He was a well-made child, with a shock of dark hair and plump, pink cheeks. “Oh, he is lovely!”

  The baby opened his eyes and started to cry even more loud and lustily. The woman nervously bit her lip.

  “His crying doesn’t bother me,” Elizabeth assured her.

  Patting the baby’s back, she started to rock from side to side. She didn’t know why she moved that way; it just felt right.

  Suddenly, the infant stopped crying, gave a tremendous burp and settled against Elizabeth’s shoulder. She smiled at the woman. “Wind, that’s all.”

  The woman nodded while the peddler frowned.

  “Since I have no money of my own, I cannot buy anything, but there is no reason you cannot stay here for a night, and eat with the servants in the kitchen. My husband sets a very fine table. Please say you’ll stay and let me hold little…?”

  “Erick,” the woman said softly.

  “Little Erick some more?”

  The woman looked anxiously at her husband. “Well, a free meal is a free meal,” he muttered with a shrug of his thin shoulders.

  “My lady,” Rual said pointedly, and as if the peddler and his wife were deaf, “I don’t think Lord Kirkheathe will agree with that. He’ll think you’re encouraging them.”

  The servant’s warning gave her pause. However, another look at Erick’s thin and tired mother told her what she had to do. “Let me worry about my husband’s approval, Rual. For now, they may stay.”

  “You’ll find out what he thinks soon enough,” Rual grumbled as she nodded at the gate.

  They all watched as Lord Kirkheathe and his men rode into the courtyard.

  How imposing and imperial he looked mounted on a huge black horse, like a king or emperor.

  There was another man, also mounted on a fine horse, just behind him. The stranger was flamboyantly dressed in a short tunic of bright green and gold, with a velvet cloak thrown back over his shoulder.

  In among her husband’s men were others she did not recognize from the hall. They must belong to the stranger, who was scrutinizing the castle and trying to look as if he wasn’t.

  Not a friend.

  And there was more to his scrutiny than mere study.

  Envy. Oh, yes, envy. She had seen that look a thousand times at the convent among the girls who competed for the Reverend Mother’s favor and what gifts she had to bestow.

  Elizabeth had been spared that feeling because she knew she could never hope to win favor, but she had watched the others, and knew what she was seeing.

  The look her husband shot the stranger as he dismounted confirmed that they were not friends.

  As for the stranger, for all his smiles and chatter that she could not quite distinguish above the sound of the horse and harness, he was tense. Battle-ready, was the expression that came to Elizabeth’s mind.

  And then her husband saw her. A shiver of alarm ran down her back. Would he be angry that she had offered some small hospitality to the peddler and his family?

  He did not look angry. In fact, she could read nothing at all in his expression.

  Then his eyes narrowed slightly as he gestured for her to come to him. She wished she had not noticed Erick and his parents—but she had, and it was not wrong to offer them a bit of food.

  Elizabeth handed Erick back to his mother. “Stay unless you are told otherwise,” she said quietly, then turned and prepared to make the best of things.

  As she approached, the stranger ran his gaze over her and on his face she saw…surprise.

  Her hair must be a wild, curling mess. She had taken off her scarf and wimple and tucked them in her belt when she had been in the laundry, where the air was hot and damp from the fires warming the water. The steam also made her horrid old gray gown damp, and she had sneezed so much, her nose must be as red as the stranger’s boots.

  If the stranger were a friend, it might not matter—but he wasn’t. Lord Kirkheathe was a proud man, and surely he would not be pleased to have his ugly wife looking disheveled and more like a servant than some of the servants.

  That thought rankled like an arrow’s tip in her breast and she flushed with shame. Not for herself—she had long known she was unattractive and unfortunately, there was nothing she could do about her appearance.

  “Elizabeth, this man is Sir Fane Montross,” her husband said as she reached them. “Montross, my wife, Elizabeth.”

  She bowed. “I am honored, sir.”

  “It is I who am honored, my lady,” the blond man said with an even greater bow and what she thought was a snide little smile. “I could not rest until I had seen Raymond’s young and beautiful bride.”

  “Are you married, sir?”

  Her question startled him, and she was glad. “No, my lady, I regret that I have not been so fortunate.”

  “I see,” she said in a tone that implied she could understand why—and the reason was not a flattering one.

  Then she slipped her hand into her husband’s, praying all the while he would remain his inscrutable self and not shy away. “You will stay and dine with us, of course?”

  She felt her husband stiffen. Had she gone too far?

  “Dine? Why, I shall be delighted. It has been many years since I have had the pleasure of supping in Donhallow Castle.”

  “No doubt because men can become quite boorish if they’re without female companionship for a long time,” she noted, running her other hand up her husband’s muscular arm and looking into his face adoringly. She might not be pretty, but she could give this impertinent, vain fellow a reason to think her husband need not be pitied.

  Her husband’s dark eyes regarded her with a hint of…interest? Perhaps even amusement?

  “Oh, I think you need not fear that in his case, my lady,” Montross replied. “He has never lacked for female companionship.”

  If she had loved her husband, that would have been a very hurtful thing to say. As it was, it did hurt, just not so much as it might have. After all, she had assured her husband-to-be that he could take a mistress after they were wed, and she would not mind. She could not, therefore, protest what he had done before they were married.

  She turned to Montross with a patronizing smile that would have done credit to the Reverend Mother herself. “For a man as virile as my husband, one could expect nothing else.”

  “Kirkheathe is fortunate to have so forgiving a bride.”

  “It is I who am fortunate,” she replied. “Very happy and very blessed,” she cooed, giving her husband another look of adoration.

  “I had heard, my lady, that you come from a convent.”

  “I did,” she said, caressing her husband’s forearm, “and if I had known what I was missing, I would have run away years ago.” She gave Montross a bold, triumphant smile. “But then I would not be married to my lord, so I think it is better I stayed in the convent until my uncle came to bring me here. Do you not agree?”

  Chapter Seven

  Standing in his courtyard with his bride caressing him in front of everybody, utterly confounding Montross—and him, too, truth be tol
d—Raymond wondered how long he should let this bizarre conversation continue.

  Surprisingly, however, he was enjoying this strange situation. He was especially delighted and amused by the consternation on Fane Montross’s face. He had always been full of himself and possessed a snide tongue, yet who would have guessed Elizabeth, who had been locked away from the world for so long, would prove a match for his worldly and sophisticated enemy?

  And who would have guessed that he would not find a public display of affection an embarrassment, but actually arousing?

  “I did not hear you were so happy,” Montross remarked.

  Elizabeth laughed again. “It would seem gossip flies as swift as a hawk about these parts if you have heard so soon about the state of our marriage. Surely you do not give much credit to gossip, sir. I can assure you, after all my years in the convent, that I do not.”

  “I have heard it said there is usually a grain of truth in it,” Montross retorted, as nonplussed as Raymond had ever seen him.

  “Well, I suppose there may be in some cases, but they are very rare. Besides, my husband can have no doubts of my happiness about our marriage after last night, can you, my lord?”

  She smiled as she lowered her eyelids, looking for all the world as if she were both embarrassed and delighted. The implication was unmistakable: that their wedding night had been bliss.

  She was astonishing. Absolutely astonishing! Who could guess what she might say next?

  Then she tilted her head and gave him a questioning glance.

  God’s wounds, she wanted him to answer, Raymond thought with a jolt of dismay.

  He would not announce his feelings for everyone to hear.

  Yet as she continued to regard him with her brilliant eyes, and as Montross shifted impatiently, he was suddenly overcome by a need to respond in some fashion. So, lifting Elizabeth’s hand to his lips, Raymond softly kissed it.

  He let his lips linger, wanting to keep them there for a long time. Then slide his mouth toward her warm palm, continuing slowly, slowly toward her slender wrist…

  Elizabeth blushed. From so simple a thing as a kiss on the hand? What would she do if he—?

  Startled at the tremendous rush of heated desire firing his loins, he straightened.

  “Oh, you must forgive me, sir,” Elizabeth said, her face still flushed as she turned toward Montross. “We should not be standing in the courtyard. Please, come with us to our hall.”

  Our hall, Raymond thought as they led the way, Montross trailing behind.

  Their hall. If ever a woman seemed worthy to share his estate, his home and his bed…

  Had he not thought that of Allicia, too?

  As they entered the hall, Elizabeth paused and whispered, “Forgive me, my lord, for looking as I do.”

  He supposed she must mean that hideous dress she wore, although he had only noticed it now. It hung like a sack, belted with a cheap leather girdle that was knotted at the side. Tucked into the belt were squares of cloth. Her scarf, perhaps? If so, he was glad she was not wearing it. Her glorious hair waved about her face like she were a wild creature, untamed and free. It seemed a crime to cover it.

  Montross came up behind them.

  “If you will excuse me,” Elizabeth said, addressing them both, “I will get out of this working gown and into something more suitable for receiving guests.”

  With that, she briskly hurried away.

  Without a word to Montross, Raymond headed for the dais, letting Montross follow him. When they reached the dais and Raymond gestured at the chair opposite him, the strangeness of the situation reasserted itself. He had vowed once that he would die before he would let Montross cross his threshold again, yet now he was here—and at the behest of his wife.

  His beautiful, surprising wife.

  Raymond sat in the chair that had been his father’s, and Cadmus settled at his feet. They sat some moments in silence, until Montross spoke.

  “Nothing seems to have changed. Same furnishings, same tapestries.”

  Raymond didn’t reply.

  Montross fixed him with a pointed look. “Tell me, does she know about Allicia?”

  “That is between my wife and I.”

  Montross’s lips curved up into a sinister smile and he leaned closer, reminding Raymond of a snake poised to strike. “She doesn’t, does she?”

  Raymond smiled.

  Montross obviously didn’t believe his unspoken denial, for he sat back, a smug grin of satisfaction on his face. “Well, well, well. Perhaps she won’t be quite so happy and loving when she learns what you did to my sister.”

  “You are forgetting what Allicia nearly did to me,” Raymond growled.

  “Whatever the exact circumstances, she must have been miserable in her marriage to try to kill her husband. Perhaps that alone will give your wife pause.”

  His hands curling into fists, Raymond got to his feet. Cadmus rose just as swiftly, a growl rumbling in his throat.

  “Oh, my lord, I am so sorry!” Elizabeth cried behind him.

  He whirled around.

  Dressed in the blue gown, her hair braided, Elizabeth hurried up to them. “I have ordered wine to be brought at once. I should have done so before I went to change my gown. Please forgive me for being so remiss.” She glanced at Montross, who made a halfhearted attempt to rise before sitting again. “And I apologize to you, too, of course, sir,” she murmured before returning her anxious gaze to her husband.

  Raymond didn’t know what to do. She thought he was angry she had not ordered wine? His wrath had absolutely nothing to do with her.

  Except that he didn’t want her to hear about Allicia from Fane Montross.

  “I have told Rual to inform the kitchen servants about our guests, and to prepare extra places for them to sleep in the hall.”

  “We will not stay overnight,” Montross muttered.

  Raymond silently agreed. The king would abdicate before that happened. It was one thing to have the man here now, quite another to extend that hospitality any further.

  On the other hand, he had sworn that Montross would not cross his threshold again, either. Maybe it was not a wise thing to make vows until he knew his wife better.

  “No? Perhaps another time,” Elizabeth replied with rather too much haste, and yet a pleasant enough smile that he could not be sure whether she was glad or not of Montross’s refusal to her invitation.

  “Nor, I think, shall we avail ourselves of your hospitality any longer,” Montross continued, getting to his feet.

  “I hope you do not find my welcome lacking?”

  “Not yours, my lady. Truly, you are most kind,” he said with another bow. “But your husband knows I will not sup with you, or sleep beneath your roof, because he killed my sister.”

  Raymond’s hand went to his sword as he glanced at Elizabeth. A strange expression flitted across her face, and then it softened to one full of sympathy. “I understand, sir. The shame of having a sister who would do murder must be too great.”

  Raymond felt as if the dais had collapsed, while Montross stared at her with unabashed shock, his mouth open and his eyes wide.

  How had she heard about Allicia? From her uncle? How much did he know? What exactly had he told her?

  Elizabeth went to Montross and patted him on the arm as she might a distraught child. “It must be very upsetting to have so wicked a sister. However, surely it is obvious that my husband is willing to overlook the past.”

  Now that the initial shock had subsided, Raymond felt the most outrageous urge to crow at the stunned disbelief on Montross’s face. For years he had complained to all and sundry—and their overlord, the earl of Chesney, most of all—that Raymond was a cold-blooded killer who had murdered Allicia without good cause. He might have had more people believe him if not for the testimony of all in Donhallow, Raymond’s honorable reputation and the evidence of Allicia’s own crime in the scar around Raymond’s throat, as well as his ruined voice.

  Yet this w
as the first time Raymond had witnessed anybody telling Montross that he should be ashamed of his sister. He could kiss Elizabeth for that.

  Enraged, his enemy looked from Elizabeth to him, then turned on his heel, called for his men, and marched out of the hall.

  “My lord, I hope I didn’t offend him too much, or you,” she said, looking up at Raymond doubtfully, all her bold spirit apparently gone.

  If she thought him angry with her, she could not be more wrong. He took hold of her hand. “Come.”

  “Where are we—?”

  “My solar.”

  She didn’t say anything more as he led her where only yesterday—although it seemed days ago—he had announced he would marry her.

  Once inside the room, he shoved the door closed behind them.

  She looked at him, her mien serious. “I’m sorry if I embarrass you, my lord.”

  She seemed skittish and more afraid than she had been before, and that troubled him greatly. “How much do you know about Allicia?”

  “I had a little talk with Rual this morning,” Elizabeth confessed. “Not a talk, exactly,” she continued after a wary glance at his face. “I asked her to tell me. She wasn’t very eager, I assure you, my lord.” She took another breath. “At any rate, I asked her to tell me what she knew and she told me that you accidentally killed your wife after she drugged your wine and tried to strangle you.”

  He nodded, once.

  “I didn’t know that man was her brother until he spoke in the hall. I realized you were enemies, of course, but I didn’t understand why until then.” Her eyes widened. “You are not surprised that I guessed that, surely? It was very obvious, my lord, from the way you both acted. He hates and envies you, and you loathe him. Given that you killed his sister, albeit in self-defense, the hate is easy to understand.” She slid him a shy look. “I confess I had some doubts about your claim of self-defense, for you are a warrior and your wife was but a woman.”

  “Had some doubts?”

  “Her own brother dispelled them, for it is very clear to me that he would not hesitate to have you brought before the king’s court if there had been a shred of evidence to accuse you of murder. Since that did not happen, I believe that you did not mean to kill her.”