The girl’s eyes widened, then she left the room.
“Ye’d do well to make peace with yer husband,” Morag said. “Ye’ll gain nothing by making him angry.”
“My husband! My husband! That’s all I hear. He is not my husband yet. Am I to jump at his call after he has ignored me these past days? I’m laughed at by everyone in the manor because of him, yet I am to fall at his feet like an obedient wife the moment he bothers to appear. I don’t want him to get the idea I’m a pliable, cowardly woman. I want him to know I hate him and all his kind.”
“And what of young Chatworth? He’s an Englishman.”
Bronwyn smiled. “At least he is part Scot. Perhaps I can take him to the Highlands and we can make a whole Scot of him. Come, Rab, we have an appointment.”
•••
“Good morning, Stephen,” Sir Thomas called. It was a lovely morning, the sunlight bright, the air fresh from a quick shower the previous night. The scent of roses was in the air. “You certainly look better than you did yesterday.”
Stephen wore a short jacket of deep brown worsted. It emphasized the breadth of his shoulders, the thickness of his chest. His legs were encased in hose that hugged every muscular curve of his powerful thighs. His dark blond hair curled along his collar, his eyes sparkled above his strong jaw. He was extraordinarily handsome.
“She refused to see me,” he said without small talk.
“I told you her ways were sharp.”
Stephen suddenly jerked his head up. Bronwyn was coming toward them. At first he did not see Roger beside her. His eyes were for her alone. Her heavy, thick hair flowed down her back, unhampered, uncovered. The sunlight flashed off it, making it glitter like specks of gold dust. The blue of her dress repeated the blue of her eyes. Her chin was as stubborn in the daylight as it had been at night.
“Good morning,” Roger said quietly as they paused for a moment.
Bronwyn nodded to Sir Thomas, then her eyes lingered on Stephen. She did not recognize him. She only thought that she’d never seen a man with such eyes. They seemed to see through her. It was with difficulty that she looked away and continued down the path.
When Stephen recovered enough to finally realize that Roger Chatworth walked beside the woman he was to marry, he growled low in his throat and took a step forward.
Sir Thomas caught his arm. “Don’t go after him like that. I’m sure Roger would like nothing better than a fight. And for that matter, so would Bronwyn.”
“I may give it to them both!”
“Stephen! Listen to me. You’ve hurt the girl. You were late, you sent no message. She is a proud woman, more proud than a woman has a right to be. Her father did that when he made her his heir. Give her time. Take her riding tomorrow and talk to her. She’s an intelligent woman.”
Stephen relaxed and took his hand off his sword hilt. “Talk to her? How could I speak to a woman who looks like that? Last night I could hardly sleep because she haunted me so. Yes, I’ll take her riding, though perhaps it’s not the kind of riding you mean.”
“Your wedding is set for the day after tomorrow. Leave the girl virgin until then.”
Stephen shrugged. “She’s mine. I’ll do as I will with her.”
Sir Thomas shook his head at the arrogance of the young man. “Come, look at my new hawks.”
“My sister-in-law, Judith, showed Gavin a new lure. Perhaps you’d like to see it.”
They left the garden and walked toward the mews.
As she walked with Roger, Bronwyn kept looking about the garden for the man she’d met the night before. The only stranger she saw was the man with Sir Thomas. The rest of the men were the same, staring at her, laughing in the same derogatory way when she passed.
But none of them resembled the ugly, filthy man she’d been dragged before. Once she glanced over her shoulder to where Sir Thomas had been. Both he and the stranger were gone. The man’s eyes haunted her. They made her want to run away from him yet at the same time kept her from moving. She blinked to clear her vision and turned to someone safer—Roger. His eyes were smiling and kind and not disturbing in any way.
“Tell me, Lord Roger, what else is there to know about Stephen Montgomery besides that he is an ugly man?”
Roger was startled by her question. He wouldn’t have thought a woman introduced to Stephen would think him ugly. Chatworth smiled. “Once the Montgomerys were rich, but their arrogance displeased a king and he took their wealth.”
She frowned. “So now they must marry wealth.”
“The wealthiest women they can find,” he emphasized.
Bronwyn thought of the men who’d died with her father. She would have chosen one of them for her husband, and she would have wed a man who loved her, one who wanted something besides her lands.
