The Least Likely Bride

by Jane Feather

  It was hot and quiet in the forest. A deep somnolence had settled over the broad green rides beneath the canopy of giant oaks and beeches. Even the birds were still, their song silenced by the heat. The hunting party gathered in the grove, listening for the horn of a beater that would tell them their quarry had been started.

  “Will there be a boar, mama?” A little girl on a dappled pony spoke in a whisper, hushed and awed by the expectant silence around her. She held a small bow, an arrow already set to the string.

  Guinevere looked down at her elder daughter and smiled. “There should be, Pen. I have spent enough money on stocking the forest to ensure a boar when we want one.”

  “My lady, ’tis a hot day. Boar go to ground in the heat,” the chief huntsman apologized, his distress at the possibility of failing the child clear on his countenance.

  “But it’s my birthday, Greene. You promised me I should shoot a boar on my birthday,” the child protested, still in a whisper.

  “Not even Greene can produce miracles,” her mother said. There was a hint of reproof in her voice and the child immediately nodded and smiled at the huntsman.

  “Of course I understand, Greene. Only …” she added, rather spoiling the gracious effect, “Only I had told my sister I would shoot a boar on my birthday and maybe I won’t, and then she will be bound to shoot one on hers.”

  Knowing the Lady Philippa as he did, the chief huntsman had little doubt that she would indeed succeed where her sister might not and shoot her first boar on her tenth birthday. Fortunately he was spared a response by the sound of a horn, high and commanding, then a great crashing through the underbrush. The hounds leaped forward on their leashes with shrill barks. The horses shifted on the grass, sniffed the wind, tensed in expectation.

  “ ’Tis not one of our horns,” the huntsman said, puzzled.

  “But it’s our boar,” Lady Guinevere stated. “Come, Pen.” She nudged her milk-white mare into action and galloped across the glade towards the trees where the crashing of the undergrowth continued. The child on her pony followed and Greene blew on his horn. The leashed dogs raced forward at the summons, the huntsmen chasing after them.

  They broke through the trees onto a narrow path. The boar, his little red eyes glowing, stood at bay. He snorted and lowered his head with its wickedly sharp tusks.

  Pen raised her bow, her fingers quivering with excitement. The boar charged straight for the child’s pony.

  Guinevere raised her own bow and loosed an arrow just as another flew from along the path ahead of them. The other caught the boar in the back of the neck. Pen in her mingled terror and excitement loosed her own arrow too late and it fell harmlessly to the ground. Her mother’s caught the charging animal in the throat. Despite the two arrows sticking from its body, the boar kept coming under the momentum of his charge. Pen shrieked as the animal leaped, the vicious tusks threatening to drive into her pony’s breast.

  Then another arrow landed in the back of the boar’s neck and it crashed to the ground beneath the pony’s feet. The pony reared in terror and bolted, the child clinging to his mane.

  A horseman broke out of the trees at the side of the ride and grabbed the pony’s reins as it raced past. As the animal reared again, eyes rolling, snorting wildly, the man caught the child up from the saddle just as she was about to shoot backwards to the ground. The pony pawed and stamped. Other men rode out of the trees and gathered on the path facing Guinevere’s party.

  Pen looked up at the man who held her on his saddle. She didn’t think she had ever seen such brilliant blue eyes before.

  “All right?” he asked quietly.

  She nodded, still too shaken and breathless to speak.

  Guinevere rode up to them. “My thanks, sir.” She regarded the man and his party with an air of friendly inquiry. “Who rides on Mallory land?”

  The man leaned over and set Pen back on her now quiet pony. Instead of answering Guinevere’s question, he said, “I assume you are the Lady Guinevere.”

  There was something challenging in his gaze. Guinevere thought, as had her daughter, that she had never seen such brilliant blue eyes, but she read antagonism in the steady look. Her friendly smile faded and her chin lifted in instinctive response. “Yes, although I don’t know how you would know that. You are on my land, sir. And you are shooting my boar.”

  “It seemed you needed help shooting it yourself,” he commented.

  “My aim was true,” she said with an angry glitter in her eye. “I needed no help. And if I did, I have my own huntsmen.”

  The man looked over at the group of men clustered behind her. He shrugged as if dismissing them as not worth consideration.

  Guinevere felt her temper rise. “Who trespasses on Mallory land?” she demanded.

  He turned his bright blue eyes upon her, regarding her thoughtfully. His gaze traveled over her as she sat tall in the saddle. He took in the elegance of her gown of emerald green silk with its raised pattern of gold vine leaves, the stiffened lace collar that rose at her nape to frame her small head, the dark green hood with its jeweled edge set back from her forehead to reveal hair the color of palest wheat. Her eyes were the astounding purple of ripe sloes. The miniature had not done her justice, he thought.

  His gaze turned to the milk-white mare she rode, noticing its bloodlines in the sloping pasterns, the arched neck. A lady of wealth and discrimination, whatever else she might be.

  “Hugh of Beaucaire,” he said almost lazily.

  So he had come in person. No longer satisfied with laying claim to her land by letter, he had come himself. It certainly explained his antagonism. Guinevere contented herself with an ironically-raised eyebrow and returned his stare, seeing in her turn a man in his vigorous prime, square built, square jawed, his thick iron-gray hair cropped short beneath the flat velvet cap, his weathered complexion that of a man who didn’t spend his time skulking with politics in the corners and corridors of palaces.

  “This is my son, Robin.” Hugh gestured and a boy rode out of the group of men behind him and came up beside his father. He had his father’s blue eyes.

  “I claim the lands between Great Longstone and Ward-low for my son,” stated Hugh of Beaucaire.

  “And I deny your claim,” Guinevere replied. “My legal right to the land is indisputable.”

  “Forgive me, but I do dispute it,” he said gently.

  “You are trespassing, Hugh of Beaucaire. You have done my daughter a service and I would hate to drive you off with the dogs, but I will do so if you don’t remove yourself from my lands.” She beckoned the huntsmen to bring up the eager hounds.

  “So you throw down the glove,” he said in musing tone.

  “I have no need to do so. You are trespassing. That is all there is to it.”

  Pen shifted in her saddle. She met the gaze of the boy, Robin. He was looking at least as uncomfortable as she was at this angry exchange between their parents.

  “Greene, let loose the dogs,” Guinevere said coldly.

  Hugh raised an arresting hand. “We will discuss this at some other time, when we are a little more private.” He gathered his reins to turn his horse.

  “There is nothing to discuss.” She gathered up her own reins. “I cannot help but wonder at the sense of a man who would ride this great distance on an idle errand.”

  She gestured back along the path with her whip. “If you ride due west you will leave Mallory land in under an hour. Until some months past, you would have found hospitality at the monastery of Arbor, but it was dissolved in February. The monks seek shelter themselves now.” Her voice dripped contempt.

  “You would question his highness’s wisdom in dissolving the monasteries, madam? I would question your sense, in such a case.”

  “No, I merely point out the inconvenience to benighted travelers,” she said sweetly. “Farewell, Hugh of Beaucaire. Do not be found upon Mallory land two hours hence.”

  She turned her horse on the ride. “Come, Pen. Greene, h
ave the boar prepared for the spit. It will serve to furnish Lady Pen’s birthday feast.”

  “But I didn’t shoot it myself, mama,” Pen said with the air of one steadfastly refusing to take credit that was not her due. Her eyes darted to Robin. The lad smiled.

  “But you shot at it,” he said. “I saw your arrow fly. The boar went for your pony’s throat. You were very brave.”

  “My congratulations on your birthday, Lady Penelope.” Hugh smiled at the child and Guinevere was brought up short. The smile transformed the man, sent all his antagonism scuttling, revealed only a warmth and humor that she would not have believed lay behind the harsh soldierly demeanor. His eyes, brilliant before with challenge and dislike, were now amused and curiously gentle. It was disconcerting.

  “I bid you farewell,” she repeated as coldly as before. “Pen, come.” She reached over and took the child’s reins, turning the pony on the path.

  Pen looked over her shoulder at the boy on his chestnut gelding. She gave him a tentative smile and he half raised a hand in salute.

  Hugh watched Guinevere and her daughter ride off with their escort. The huntsmen followed, the boar slung between two poles.

  The miniature had not done her justice, he reflected again. Those great purple eyes were amazing, bewitching. And her hair, as pale and silvery as ashes! What would it be like released from the coif and hood to tumble unrestrained down her back?

  “Father?”

  Hugh turned at Robin’s hesitant voice. “You found the little maid appealing, Robin?” he teased.

  The boy blushed to the roots of his nut-brown hair. “No … no, indeed not, sir. I was wondering if we were leaving Mallory land now?”

  Hugh shook his head, a smile in his eyes, a curve to his mouth. This was not a particularly pleasant smile. “Oh, no, my son. We have work to do. Lady Mallory has only just made my acquaintance. I foresee that before many hours are up, she will be heartily wishing she had never heard the name of Hugh of Beaucaire.”

  This edition contains the complete text

  of the original hardcover edition.

  NOT ONE WORD HAS BEEN OMITTED. THE LEAST LIKELY BRIDE

  A Bantam Book

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Bantam hardcover edition published January 2000

  Bantam mass market edition / October 2000

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 2000 by Jane Feather.

  Cover art copyright © 2000 by Alan Ayers.

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 99-53477.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-48738-4

  Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of

  Random House, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words

  “Bantam Books” and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered

  in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries.

  Marca Registrada. Random House, Inc., New York, New

  York.

  v3.0