“What’s upsetting ye?” Morag demanded so loudly that Rab gave a little bark of concern. She stopped, and the wrinkles in her face rearranged themselves. Her voice became quieter. “Is it tonight?”
Bronwyn looked at Morag with such a bleak expression that Morag gave a snort of laughter.
“So ye are a virgin! I was never sure what with the way the laird let ye run wild with the young men.”
“I was always protected. You know that.”
“Sometimes a young man isn’t the best protector of a young woman’s virtue.” She smiled. “Now stop yer frettin’. ’Tis an enjoyable experience ahead of ye; and unless I miss my guess, this Stephen knows how to make a woman’s first time easier.”
Bronwyn walked to the window. “I imagine he does. If I believed the way he acts, I’d think he’s bedded half of England.”
Morag looked at Bronwyn’s back. “Are ye afraid yer inexperience will displease him?”
Bronwyn whirled about. “No pale Englishwoman can compete with a Scotswoman!”
Morag chuckled. “Yer color’s comin’ back. Now out of that dress, and let’s get ye in yer weddin’ dress. It’s only a few more hours before ye go to the kirk.”
Bronwyn’s face lost its color again, and with resignation she set about the long process of changing.
•••
Stephen sat buried up to his neck in a tub of very hot water. His leg and shoulder burned from the blows Roger had given him. His eyes were closed as he heard the door open and shut. “Go away!” he growled. “I’ll call when I need you.”
“And what will you call?” came an amused, familiar voice.
Stephen’s eyes flew open, and the next minute he was bounding across the room, nude, dripping water. “Chris!” he laughed as he clasped his friend to him.
Christopher Audley returned the greeting briefly, then pushed Stephen away. “You’re soaking me, and I don’t want to have to change again for your wedding. I haven’t missed it, have I?”
Stephen stepped back into the tub. “Sit over there so I can see you. You’ve lost weight again. Didn’t France agree with you?”
“It agreed too well. The women nearly wore me away with their demands.” He set a chair by the tub. He was a short, thin, dark man with a small nose and chin and a short, well-trimmed beard. His eyes were brown and large, rather like a doe’s. He used his soft, expressive eyes to their best advantage in bringing women to him.
He nodded toward Stephen’s shoulder and the bruise. “Is that a new wound? I didn’t know you’d been fighting lately.”
Stephen dipped a handful of water over the injury. “I had to fight Roger Chatworth for the woman I’m to wed.”
“Fight?” Chris said in astonishment. “I spoke to Gavin before I left, and he said you were almost sick at the prospect of the marriage.” He smiled. “I saw that wife of Gavin’s. She’s a beauty, but from what I hear she’s a hellion. She had the whole court agog with her escapades.”
Stephen waved his hand in dismissal. “Judith’s calm compared to Bronwyn.”
“Is Bronwyn the heiress you’re to marry? Gavin said she was fat and ugly.”
Stephen chuckled as he soaped his legs. “You won’t believe Bronwyn when you see her. She has hair so black that it almost makes a mirror. The sun flashes off of it. She has blue eyes and a chin that juts out in defiance every time I speak to her.”
“And the rest of her?”
Stephen sighed. “Magnificent!”
Chris laughed at Stephen’s tone. “Two brothers couldn’t be as fortunate as you and Gavin. But why did you have to fight for her? I thought King Henry gave her to you.”
Stephen stood up and caught the towel Chris tossed him. “I was four days late to the wedding, and I’m afraid Bronwyn has taken a…disliking to me. She has some absurd idea that if I marry her I must become a Scot, even change my name. I don’t know for sure, but I think Chatworth may have hinted that he’d do anything she wanted if she married him.”
Chris snorted. “And no doubt she believed him. Roger always could charm the women, but I’ve never trusted him.”
“We jousted for her, but when I tossed him in the dirt, he came at my back with a war club.”
“The bastard! I always wondered how much of his brother was in him. Edmund was a vile man. I guess you won the fight.”
