The White Lord of Wellesbourne Read Free

sure if his brother was breathing. Finally, Matthew
cast a long glance at his brother before looking to the lady.
    She stood in the middle of the
room, a vision of ruby and lustrous hair. She had the most beautiful face he
had ever seen, delicate and sweet, yet with a hint of wisdom that was difficult
to describe.
    A cursory examination of the lady
showed him absolutely no physical flaws as far as he could tell.  But the
expression she held was of indignant outrage, tempering his reaction to her
presence.
    “What did you say to her?” he
asked his brother.
    Luke was glad he was out of arm’s
range. He did not want a massive fist to come flying at him. “I… I told her
that you were terrible company because you were awaiting the arrival of your
betrothed whom you did not want to marry.”
    “Is that all?”
    Luke winced, closing his eyes. “I
said awful things.”
    “How awful?”
    ”She hates us, I know it.”
    Matthew did not want a fight on
his hands from the onset. In fact, gazing at the lady, he wasn’t sure he wanted
a fight at all. He was rather taken aback by what he saw. The only appropriate
thing to do was face her. 
    Matthew rose from his chair
slowly, like the phoenix rising from the ashes, a massive man with equally
massive shoulders on which to bear the weight of a kingdom. Everything about
him reeked of power and command as his presence, once seated and inconspicuous,
now filled the entire room.
    It was a gesture not lost on
Alixandrea. In fact, she had to suppress the urge to back away. She’d never
seen such a sizeable man, even though he was in full armor which made him
appear even larger. To her credit, she stood her ground as he approached. When
he came within a few feet of her, he stopped.
    “Lady Alixandrea?” he asked.
    “I am the Lady Alixandrea,” she
not too subtly corrected the pronunciation of her name, Alix-ahn-dray-a, so that he would know for future reference. “And you are Sir Matthew?”
    He lifted an eyebrow. “Aye,” his
deep voice was without force. “Forgive me, my lady. This is not how I had
planned our first meeting.”
    Her lovely lips turned up at the
corners cynically. “From what I understand, were it left up to you, there would
be no first meeting at all. Just how did you plan it?”
    Matthew could only imagine what
his foolish brother had told her. Awful things . Unless Matthew wanted
this marriage to be strained and conflicting from the beginning, he had to make
amends. He had to undo the damage that Luke had done.
    “Certainly not in a tavern with
my brother drunk and me well on my way,” he said. “I had hoped to meet you at
Wellesbourne in the great hall where the appropriate introductions would take
place.”
    She cocked her head slightly,
studying him; he was a handsome man, not obviously beautiful, but in a rugged,
masculine sort of way that was both powerful and intriguing. His pale blond
hair was shorn tight against his scalp, curly and coarse. He had enormous blue
eyes, a square jaw and gentle-looking features that were oddly out of place for
a man of his fierce reputation. His ears even stuck out a little, giving him an
inherently human quality.
    But in that quality was something
innately calm, although she knew that he was one of the most fearsome knights
in the realm. He had been with King Richard on many campaigns against Henry
Tudor’s forces and had proven himself without question. She’d been hearing
tales of The White Lord of Wellesbourne since she had been ten years old. It
was a long time to hear of a legend.
    So the man did not want to be
married. There was no great crime in that. But she was disappointed. Somehow
she had hoped that he would have longed to know her just as she had longed to
know him. Her uncle had filled her with fairy tales of the man. Matthew had
apparently been filled with horror stories of her.
    “Then let us make the
introductions now, however inappropriate,” she said, trying not to sound too
bitter.  “My