His Lady Bride (Brothers in Arms) Read Free Page A

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