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favor. So even if Guy hadn’t insisted on his taking precautions, Wulfric would have done so. He wasn’t going to have his father accuse him of losing the bride-to-be by carelessness—whether he would like to or not.
    The bride-to-be … Just the thought of that scrawny little she-devil had him growling low in his throat. Which made his half brother raise a brow at him in puzzlement.
    They had just broken camp on the second day of the journey, were back on the road and making good time. With so many men to find lodgings for, no easy feat, he had deemed it best justto camp beside the road last eventide. Though he would have to find those lodgings on the return trip, since
she
was like to insist on sleeping in a bed.
    “You
still
have not reconciled yourself to this marriage?” Raimund asked him as they rode side by side.
    “Nay, and ’tis as like I never will,” Wulfric admitted. “It feels as if I am bought with coin—an abhorrent feeling to say the least.”
    Raimund snorted. “When our father made the offering, not hers? If ’twere the other way around, then aye, I might agree. But—”
    “Faugh, I would speak of it no more—”
    “Nay, ’tis best you chew on it now, ere you must deal with her directly,” Raimund cautioned. “What truly vexes you about this match, Wulf?”
    Wulfric sighed. “There was naught to like about her when she was a child, but there was much to dislike. I am not hopeful that a few years will have changed her. I fear I will hate my wife.”
    “For certain, ’twould not be the first time that has happened,” Raimund said with a chuckle. “You want to find an agreeable marriage, look to the villeins. They have the choice of mates. Nobles have not that luxury.”
    That was said with such obvious gloating, Wulfric threw a fist at his brother, who let out his laughter now as he dodged the blow. “You needn’t remind me that you chose your own wife,
and
love her dearly,” Wulfric snarled. “And you are no villein,” he added, grumbling even louder.
    Raimund smiled fondly at his brother, for not many would claim his nobility with the conviction that Wulfric did, since Raimund’s mother had in fact been a villein, putting him in the unenviable position of not being accepted by either villein or noble. But Raimund had been more fortunate than most bastards, for Guy had acknowledged him, had even had him fostered and trained to knighthood, and once knighted, had bestowed on him a small keep that he could call his own.
    Because of that property, he had been able to win the woman of his choice to wife, Sir Richard’s daughter, Eloise. Richard was a landless knight himself in Guy’s household, and so had had little hope of finding a man of property for his only child, and had been delighted by Raimund’s interest. Nay, Raimund did not envy his brother being the earl’s only legitimate son. His was a simple life and he liked it that way. Wulfric’s life was ever like to be much more complicated.
    “How much time has passed since you did first meet her?” Raimund ventured.
    “Nigh a dozen years.”
    Raimund rolled his eyes. “Christ’s Toes, think you she has not changed at all in that time? Not been taught proper behavior suitable to her rank? She’ll be like to beg your forgiveness for whatever caused your dislike—and what
did
cause it?”
    “She was six, I was ten and three—and aware of who she was to me, even if she was not. I sought her out to meet her, found her in the Dunburh mews with two young lads near herage. She was showing them a large gyrfalcon, claiming it was hers. Had even got the bird onto her arm. It was damn near as big as she was.”
    As he told the tale, it came back to him clearly, that day he’d met his betrothed. She was not clean, looked like she’d been rolling about in the dirt, had smudges all over her piquant face. And long legs she had for her small size, made glaringly apparent because she was not dressed as she should be, but was