Wolf Bride Read Free

with the flowers just opening their buds. Today, the January weather was chill and sunny, no wind but a slight bloom of frost on the flagstones as she swept through the cloisters, her yellow gown raised slightly to avoid soiling the hem.
    To her relief, Simon soon appeared, ducking his head as he passed through the arched doorway to the cloisters.
    ‘Eloise!’ Simon clasped her hands, kissing them as the king had done earlier, though now she thrilled at the warm lips against her skin. ‘You look flushed. Are you in trouble with the queen again? I have warned you not to be so free with your speech. She will not tolerate impertinence, even less now that she and the king are so estranged.’
    ‘My father has come to court,’ she told him urgently, ‘and intends to offer me as a bride to Lord Wolf.’
    Simon nodded. ‘Yes, I have seen Sir John.’
    ‘You have seen my father?’ She stared. ‘Have you spoken with him?’
    ‘Not spoken, no. But I saw him with Lord Wolf only this morning.’ Simon shrugged. ‘They say King Henry has given his blessing on the match. The queen may not wish to release you from her service, for she dislikes it when her maids are wed. But she will bow to the king’s will in the end.’
    Simon turned her palm upwards and kissed it lingeringly, teasing her skin with his lips. She thought he would at once suggest that they marry in secret, but instead he looked up at her with a sorrowful smile.
    ‘I know this marriage is not what you had hoped for. But perhaps you will find a comfortable life with Lord Wolf, even if there is no love between you. I hear his family have become very wealthy since the fall of the church. Not that such gifts of land are undeserved, for his lordship has served the king well these past ten years. He is a brilliant soldier, by all accounts.’
    ‘A brilliant soldier?’ she repeated, shocked by this careless acceptance of her fate. ‘Is that all you can think of, when I am to be enslaved forever to this stranger?’
    A thought hit her and she frowned. ‘Wait, Simon, you must be mistaken. Lord Wolf is an old man, all but bedridden. How could he have served the king in battle so recently?’
    Simon laughed, shaking his head. ‘That was Wolf’s father, my love. The old lord died at Yuletide. His son is the new baron.’
    ‘His son?’
    A vague memory came to her of a sullen, grim-faced youth watching her play as a young child, sitting astride a wall in their old apple orchard. Had that boy been her prospective bridegroom? She had seen him again maybe once or twice when growing up on her father’s estate. But he had been away so often, fighting for the king, she had barely known him.
    Not quite such a terrifying prospect as an elderly noble, it was true. But he was not her beloved Simon. And if he had spent the past ten years on a battlefield, she doubted they would have much in common.
    She knew it was rare for a girl to choose her own husband. But Simon was at least of noble birth, and she had hoped her father would look kindly on their match.
    ‘I hardly remember him.’
    ‘I told you, he’s been off soldiering for years.’
    ‘He’s a stranger, I know nothing about him. Though I do remember there was some scandal . . . He was betrothed when I was still a child. But the girl ran off with someone else before they could be wed.’ She looked at Simon wonderingly. ‘Maybe that’s why he never married, for he must be almost thirty years of age.’
    ‘No doubt he will be eager for an heir, then,’ Simon mused, tracing a finger across her lips.
    Simon did not seem to care that she was being married off to this stranger, that she would soon be sharing another man’s bed. She did not understand. Did Simon not love her? How could he remain so calm in the face of this disaster?
    ‘I cannot even remember his name,’ she pointed out, trying not to be angered by his calm demeanour, ‘and now I must marry him? It is unjust.’
    ‘True,’ Simon agreed sombrely,