The Bride and the Brute

by Laurel O'Donnell

  With a sharp jerk on the reins, Reese turned his horse from Jayce to meet his opponent.

  It wasn’t until Nicole reached out and pushed her hands down that Jayce realized he had coldly dismissed her favor. Jayce stared down at the sheer blue material in her hands for a long moment. Then she lifted her gaze to the combatants.

  A silence spread through the crowd of onlookers as Morse faced Reese across the field. “M’lord!” Morse called. “My fight is not with you.”

  “Lady Jayce is under my protection,” Reese answered in a low timbre that reverberated through the field. “As such she is my responsibility. Since you will not take back your unsavory remarks, I have no choice but to fight for her honor.”

  A lump rose in Jayce’s throat. ‘My responsibility.’ ‘I have no choice.’ He didn’t want to fight for her, anyone could hear that in his speech. “Why even bother?” she mumbled.

  “Hush,” Nicole whispered harshly.

  Reese leveled the long jousting pole at Morse’s mount.

  “As you wish, my brother,” Morse replied, and pulled his visor down over his eyes. He took his lance from his squire and spurred his horse on.

  The two horses thundered down the field toward each other, their riders’ lances pointing skyward, large clumps of dirt spraying out behind them in their wake. The two combatants lowered their weapons, aiming for each other, pushing their steeds on with sharp kicks to their flanks.

  Jayce leaned forward, her fingers gripping the palisade with such force it made her knuckles ache.

  There was a loud crash and Reese jerked back as Morse’s lance struck his shoulder.

  Jayce gasped and pressed her fingers to her lips. Reese wavered on his horse as it continued to gallop to the other side of the field. Her heart froze in her chest.

  Reese clutched the reins of the horse, righting himself. Jayce wasn’t aware she had stopped breathing until she had to draw a large breath. Reese’s steed circled, and the squire handed Reese another lance.

  Again, the two horses raced toward each other, jousting poles leveled.

  Jayce held her breath again as the horses closed on each other. Reese jerked away and just missed being hit in the same shoulder. He turned his lance at the last moment and struck Morse’s stomach. The blow glanced off Morse’s armor as the horses galloped past the viewing platform, but Morse stayed tall in the saddle.

  Reese rode straight to his squire, grabbed the offered lance and whirled, spurring his steed on toward Morse. Morse matched his older brother’s speed, driving his horse on. Reese leveled his lance, again aiming for Morse’s midsection.

  Jayce’s heart pounded as the Harrington brothers collided in a large cloud of dust and a thunderous roar.

  Reese tumbled backward over his horse and fell heavily to the ground.

  For a brief moment, the entire field was silent.

  Jayce ducked beneath the rail to race to Reese’s aid, but something caught her wrist and held her back. She fought against it, tugging at her arm to free it. A frantic second later she realized it was Nicole.

  “Morse fell, too,” she told Jayce breathlessly.

  Jayce scanned the field to find Morse laboriously climbing to his feet. Jayce straightened, leaning toward Reese, silently begging him to get to his feet. The crowd’s returning roar rang in her ears. Finally, Reese pushed himself to a sitting position. He swayed for a moment before reaching up to pull his helmet from his head and toss it aside.

  “Sword!” Morse shouted to his squire.

  Jayce saw Reese clutch his side. His face contorted in a grimace of pain.

  A boy ran up with a large sword, its handle outstretched to Morse.

  Panic welled inside Jayce. No, her mind screamed. He’s hurt. She heard Nicole gasp. Jayce ducked beneath the railing and jumped from the platform to race onto the field, her heart thundering in her chest.

  “Jayce!” Nicole cried.

  Jayce knelt before Reese, scanning his face, her hands splayed before her in helplessness. Agony dulled Reese’s deep blue eyes; his jaw was clenched hard. As he stared at her, Jayce thought she saw a wavering of resolve in his eyes.

  She thought for a moment he was beseeching her. But for what she didn’t know. She glanced over her shoulder and saw Morse approaching, sword in his hand.

  She stood to meet him, “Let him be,” she commanded. “Everything you said was true. He cares nothing for me. I forced myself on him. I knew all about the plan to kidnap Nicole.” As she spoke, tears rose in her eyes. “Let him be,” she repeated, desperation creeping into her voice.

  Morse’s gaze shifted from Reese to pin Jayce where she stood.

  “My honor means nothing,” she proclaimed. “Just don’t hurt him.”

  “You,” Morse growled. He lifted the blade above his head. “I would gladly take your life instead of my brother’s.”

  Jayce winced, stepping back, lifting her hands to block the blow.

  Suddenly, another sword shot forward to intercept Morse’s death blow. Jayce turned to find Reese on his feet, sword clutched in his hand. His blue eyes twinkled at her for a moment before he shifted his gaze to Morse. His hand encircled Jayce’s arm and gently set her aside.

  Morse moved forward with a lightning reaction, arcing his blade high over his head. Reese caught the blow easily, grabbing Morse’s arm. They locked blades, and the sunlight reflected off the crossed weapons and into Jayce’s eyes.

  “Reese,” Morse said, through the crossed swords, “if she means anything to you, admit it and I’ll lower my weapon.”

  Reese tensed, his shoulders stiffening. He stared hard at Morse before shoving away from his brother. He cast a quick glance at Nicole on the platform. But never once did he look at Jayce.

  “I’m fighting for the respect owed my family, Reese. I’m fighting for our honor. It was her father that kidnapped Nicole! It was her family that forced you into marriage. I don’t want to fight my brother.”

  “There is no one left to defend her. She is now my responsibility.”

  “So, you don’t care for her?”

  Jayce tried to close off her emotions. She watched Reese’s back. And prayed for the right answer.

  “No,” he proclaimed.

  Jayce hadn’t realized she had been holding her breath until she released it in a disappointed rush. Humiliation flamed across her cheeks. She wanted to crumple to the ground; she wanted to disappear into the earth so no one could see her. Instead, she stood immobile in the middle of the field of honor, honorless and alone. A crack speared the center of her heart like a fracture in the earth.

  “Then why fight me?” Morse demanded. “This is not your fight.”

  “She is under my protection. She is to be treated as a guest in my castle,” he proclaimed.

  “Then my fight is with you,” Morse replied, and ran at Reese, screaming his rage, his frustration.

  Jayce gasped as Reese stepped into the swing, catching his brother’s sword with his blade. He grabbed Morse’s arm and yanked him to the ground with one pull, stepping on the wrist of his sword arm. Reese pressed the tip of his blade to his brother’s neck. “How many times do I have to warn you about rushing someone in anger without thinking? It’s amazing you’ve survived this long.”

  Morse struggled in frustration.

  “Yield,” Reese urged, pressing the sword closer to Morse’s throat.

  Morse’s fight left him, and he glared at Reese. “I yield to you,” he ground out between clenched teeth.

  “Apologize to Lady Jayce,” Reese encouraged.

  Morse’s dark eyes danced with flames of anger and defiance, as he snarled, “I apologize.”

  Reese withdrew his sword and offered Morse his hand.

  Morse clasped his arm, and Reese pulled him to his feet. Reese shook his head. “After all those years of training, I can’t believe you forgot what I taught you.”

  Morse sneered at Reese, then stormed off toward the castle. Reese watched his brother go, then slowly followed in
his footsteps.

  Jayce saw Reese pause once to glance over his shoulder at her. She felt his eyes on her like the heated sun, felt the confusion in his gaze.

  Around the field of honor, the crowd broke up, heading back to work or returning to the castle. She stood like a statue, willing their sympathetic stares to bounce off her. But somehow they didn’t seem to bounce; she absorbed them, each slashing her heart until it was left in tatters.

  A warm arm draped around her shoulder. “Come on,” Nicole whispered.

  Jayce shrugged off her arm, shaking her head. “No,” she answered, trying to keep the quivering out of her voice. “I think I’ll stay out here for a while.”

  Nicole nodded and moved past her toward the castle, casting Jayce a commiserating look.

  *****

  Morse stomped into his room, ripping the gauntlets from his hands and throwing them on the bed. He thought this time he could defeat his brother, give Reese a taste of the humiliation that had filled his life. Instead, his brother embarrassed him in front of everyone! He took that little wench’s side over his own kin!

  Morse shook his head, pulling the dust-filled tunic over his head and tossing it to the floor. Well, Morse vowed silently, gazing at the flickering flame of the torchlight on the wall, I will see to it the girl will never be a Harrington.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Jayce wandered through the fields closest to the castle. She avoided the peasants and knights, avoided the sympathetic looks they cast her way. Not a wife. Not a guest. She was caught in a tormented limbo.

  As the sun set, Jayce sat beside a wooden fence. She wasn’t exactly sure where she was and didn’t really care. Could it be any less welcoming than the castle she could see in the distance? Than the husband who would never accept her as a wife? And what of the tender touch he had bestowed on her? Jayce was beginning to believe she had imagined it. After all, how could he be so gentle one moment and proclaim to all within earshot she meant nothing to him the next?

  Jayce sighed and leaned back against the fence. What had her father done to her? Why had he forced her on a man who didn’t want her? Surely there had been other lords willing to marry her. She and her father had not been as wealthy or as powerful as Lord Harrington, but they were not poor either.

  Suddenly, behind her, a horse whinnied and a man’s stern voice rang out. Jayce turned her head, peeking through the slats in the fence to see a beautiful black warhorse. The animal snorted and reared slightly. A man, looking very small in stature compared to the magnificent animal, yanked on a rope around the horse’s neck.

  Slowly, Jayce climbed to her feet. The horse snorted again, its thick black mane tossing as it rebelled against the rope. The man pulled hard on the rope, cursing. He raised his hand and Jayce saw a black coiled whip clutched in his fingers. He drew his hand back and the whip unfurled like a thick black snake striking at its prey.

  Jayce jumped as the man brought the whip down hard across the animal’s shoulders. She had believed he was going to crack it in the air, not over the poor animal’s hide!

  “No!” Jayce screamed, and raced for the man. She rounded the fence just as the horse reared, and the man brought the whip down over the animal’s back again.

  The man drew his hand back to deliver yet another blow. Jayce reached out and grabbed the man’s wrist. “No!” she shouted again. “That’s not the way to tame an animal!”

  The man turned angry eyes on her. “Then you tame him,” he commanded, shoving the whip at her.

  Jayce stared at the ugly black coil of rope, then pushed it away in disgust.

  “Lord Reese is going to have him put down soon anyway. No one can tame this one. Not even Lord Reese,” the man told her. “He’s as wild as a ragin’ river.”

  “What’s his name?” Jayce wondered, staring the horse in the eye. It whinnied and tossed its head.

  “Satan,” the man answered with a curt nod. “And not a more befitting name could there be.” The man turned his back on her and moved away.

  Jayce watched the horse as it stared down at her with the blackest eyes she had ever seen, eyes round with fright. “You alone, too, boy?” she asked softly, trying to calm the animal. “They just don’t understand, do they? It takes time, that’s all. You can’t just go in and demand an animal as grand as you behave.” She smiled gently and looked down at her hands. “Did Reese tell you that you mean nothing to him, too? Or does he reserve that humiliation for me?”

  The horse nickered and pranced a few steps away before turning his back to her.

  Jayce sighed slightly. “I won’t give up on you so easily,” she whispered.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Reese sat on the bed in the guest room he planned to occupy until the situation with Jayce was worked out. James bent over at his side, probing a bruise with his fingers. “I told you I’m fine,” Reese growled.

  “Far be it from me to argue, sir,” James mumbled. He straightened and presented Reese with his white tunic.

  Reese snatched it from his hands just as a knock came at the door.

  James moved to answer the knock, but before he reached the door it swung open, and Nicole swept into the room. “Well done, Reese,” Nicole ridiculed.

  Reese grunted.

  “You’ve humiliated both your brother and your wife in one afternoon.”

  “Humiliated?” Reese exploded, pulling the tunic into place. “What has Jayce got to be humiliated about? I gave her a place of honor! She is a guest here.”

  “She is your wife,” Nicole fumed. “She deserves to be recognized as such.”

  “I don’t have a wife.” Yet, even as he said it, he saw a vision of beauty. A chivalrous, brave beauty, rushing to save him on the field of honor. Even though I didn’t need saving, a stubborn voice inside him reminded. Still, what a brave, unselfish act, branding herself honorless to save him.

  “Oh, please. Not that argument again! You treated Jayce deplorably,” Nicole said, intruding on his thoughts.

  He straightened off of the bed. “I protected her honor,” Reese countered. “Even against my own brother.”

  “She gave up her honor because she saw you were hurt. She lied to protect you.”

  “Lied?”

  “You don’t truly think she planned my kidnapping? Don’t be a fool. She knew nothing about it.”

  “She told you this?”

  Nicole shook her head sadly. “She doesn’t need to. And all you could do was embarrass her.”

  “I did not embarrass her.”

  “You said she meant nothing to you.”

  “She doesn’t,” Reese grumbled, but could not meet Nicole’s eyes. He moved to the window to stare out at the darkening sky. Can Nicole be right? Reese wondered. In attempting to make Jayce welcome as a guest at Castle Harrington, have I made matters worse? “Where is she?”

  Nicole raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know.”

  Reese whirled on Nicole. “What do you mean you don’t know?”

  “I haven’t seen her since the joust.”

  Reese marched past his sister and moved toward the door. He threw it open with such force it slammed against the stone wall with a thunderous boom. He strode through the hallways like an ominous storm cloud. Two servants pressed themselves tightly against the wall to give him plenty of room to pass. One of the castle hounds quickly slunk into a side hallway at his approach.

  How dare she twist his generosity into something he should feel guilty about? What did she expect of him? Or was it Nicole making him feel this way? When he found Jayce, he would make it very clear to her that he would never be forced into marriage with a woman he didn’t love. He wanted a happy life, a happy and devoted wife, someone to cherish him and their children. He would make it clear to Jayce he would not feel guilty about his position anymore. And he would make it very clear that she should not look at him with those deep, innocent blue eyes any longer.

  After a quick, fruitless search of the great hall, he headed toward the maste
r bedroom. Jayce must have returned there after the joust. He threw open the door and entered. “I would speak with you---” His voice died like a wavering candle extinguished by a whiplash breeze. The torchlight from the wall flickered over the undisturbed bed. The room was empty.

  The shutters framing the window banged in the breeze, drawing his attention. He moved to the window to gaze out on his lands. Darkness had claimed his domain. An uneasiness snaked its way through his body. She was out there. In unfamiliar lands. Unprotected.

  Reese dashed from the room and raced out into the courtyard, his usual calm gait turning to a run as he sped toward the stables. He reached the building just as the stable master was locking the animals up for the night. With a curt command from Reese, the old man quickly reopened the doors. Reese brushed by him without a word and dashed into the stables. He guided his horse from its stall and pulled himself up onto his back, wasting no time in trying to saddle the animal. He had often ridden bareback when he was a child, enjoying the freedom it gave him. But there was no enjoyment now, only a slowly building panic.

  His stomach twisted as he imagined Jayce lying on the road somewhere, hurt and bleeding. He quickly pushed the thought aside, telling himself this was his village, and no one would dare to harm her. Still, Morse’s hurtful words rose in his mind, and he knew it was not only physical things that could wound her. Guilt rose in Reese’s heart, and he knew if anyone had hurt her, it had been him.

  He spurred the horse on. As he raced toward the village, riding past the enclosure that housed Satan, Reese wondered where to start his search. But then the eerie silence caught his attention. Satan’s incessant snorts and whinnies of disapproval were nowhere to be heard.

  Reese reined in his horse, his gaze scanning the moon-kissed pasture. Where is that infernal beast? he wondered.

  Then, he saw an apparition bathed in the glow of the moon, a ghostly vision floating above the fence surrounding the grazing land. The night’s breeze ruffled her dress and danced through the silken strands of her hair.