His Lady Bride (Brothers in Arms) Read Free

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,”