“You should know all the men, shouldn’t you? From all reports, you’ve had all of them.”
Alice smiled at him. “Are you jealous? I heard you sent Stephen’s wife from your room last night. Couldn’t you ‘perform’ with her?” she taunted. “Perhaps you should send Brian to do that for you too.”
“Get out!” Roger said in a low voice that left no doubt of his meaning.
•••
Bronwyn stared out the window at the snow in the courtyard below. She had been Roger Chatworth’s prisoner for a month, and in that time she saw no one except a maid or two. They brought her food, firewood, clean linen. Her room was cleaned, the chamberpot emptied, but she spoke to no one. She tried to ask the maids questions, but they looked at her with great fear and tiptoed from the room.
There hadn’t been a method she hadn’t used in attempting to escape. She’d tied sheets together and let herself down the side of the house. But Roger’s guards had caught her when she reached the ground. The next day a man had come and put bars over the window.
She’d even started a fire to create a diversion, but the guards held her as they put the fire out. She’d made a weapon from the handle of a pewter pitcher and wounded one guard. The two guards were replaced with three, and Roger came and said he’d tie her if she caused him any more problems. She begged Roger for news of Mary. Did the Montgomery brothers know the women were being held captive?
Roger answered none of her questions.
Bronwyn sank back into her loneliness. The only thing she had to occupy herself was her memory of Stephen. She had time to go over every moment of their life together, and she knew where she’d make changes. She should have realized a whole race of people couldn’t be as bad as the men who ogled her at Sir Thomas’s house. She shouldn’t have been so angry because Stephen was so interested in her person and not in her clan. She shouldn’t have trusted Roger’s stories so completely.
No wonder Stephen had said she was selfish. She always seemed to see just one side of a problem. She thought of Stephen with his king, and she knew that when—if—she left Roger Chatworth’s alive, she would go to Kirsty and try to arrange peace with the MacGregor. She owed that to Stephen.
•••
“Brian, they’re lovely,” Mary smiled, accepting the little leather shoes from him. “You spoil me.”
Brian looked at her, and the love poured from his eyes. They’d spent most of the last month together. He’d never again asked Roger to release Mary, because Brian didn’t want to see her go. For Mary took away the loneliness in his life. Too often Roger was off to some tournament, and Elizabeth was always locked away in her convent. As for the other women, Brian had long ago learned that women made him feel shy and awkward. Mary was ten years older than he and as unworldly as he. Mary never giggled or asked him to dance or expected him to chase her around the rosebushes. Mary was quiet and simple, demanding nothing from him. They spent the days playing a lute, and sometimes Brian told stories, stories that had always been in his head but he’d never told anyone. Mary always listened and always made him feel strong and protective, something more than just a younger brother.
It was this new feeling of protectiveness that kept him from telling her that Bronwyn had also been taken as a prisoner. He wasn’t as blindly trustful of his brother as he once was, and he asked the servants questions, wanting to know what went on in his own house. He’d immediately demanded Bronwyn’s release, and Roger had quickly obliged. Now only Mary was held captive.
“No one could spoil you enough,” he smiled.
Mary blushed prettily and lowered her lashes. “Come and sit by me. Have you heard any news?”
“No, nothing,” Brian lied. He knew Raine was still outlawed, still living in a forest somewhere, the head of a gang of ruffians if Alice was to be believed. But Brian never told Mary of Raine’s plight. “It turned colder last night,” he said, warming his hands at the fire in her room. By mutual agreement they never mentioned Roger or Alice. They were two lonely people who came together out of mutual need. Their world consisted of one large, pleasant room on the top floor of the Chatworth house. They had music and art and joy in each other, and neither of them had ever been happier.
Brian lay back against the cushions of a chair before the fire and thought for the thousandth time how he’d like this to go on always. He never wanted Mary to return to her “other” family.
It was that evening that Brian spoke of his dreams to Roger.
“You what?” Roger gasped, his eyes wide.
“I want to marry Mary Montgomery.”
“Marry!” Roger staggered back against a chair. To be allied with a family he considered his enemy! “The woman is of the church, you can’t—”
Brian smiled. “She’s taken no vows. She lives with the nuns as one of them, that’s all. Mary is so gentle. She only wants to help the world.”
The two men were interrupted by Alice’s high laugh. “Well, Roger, you have certainly done well. Your baby brother wants to marry the older sister of the Montgomerys. Tell me, Brian, how old is she? Old enough to be the mother you’ve always wanted?”
Brian had never had any reason to experience rage before. He’d always been protected by Roger from most of the unpleasantries of the world, but now he snarled as he went after Alice.
Roger caught his slight young brother. “There’s no need for that.”
Brian looked into Roger’s eyes. For the first time in his life Brian didn’t think his brother was perfect. “You’re going to let her say those things?” he asked quietly.
Roger frowned. He didn’t like the way Brian was looking at him, so coldly, as if they weren’t the closest of friends. “Of course, she’s wrong. I just think you haven’t thought about this thoroughly. I know you’re young and you need a wife and—”
Brian jerked away from Roger. “Are you saying I’m too stupid to know what I want?”
Alice screamed with laughter. “Answer him, Roger! Are you going to let your brother marry a Montgomery? I can hear all of England now. They’ll say you couldn’t get Stephen in the back one way so you got him another. They’ll say the Chatworths take only the leavings of the Montgomerys. I couldn’t get Gavin. You couldn’t get Bronwyn, so you sent your crippled brother after their old-maid sister.”
