by Shayla Black
He shrugged. “The war in Spain has been a fervent one.”
Aric felt ten times the displeasure he allowed to show upon his face. “Aye, one likely to see you dead.”
Kieran shrugged. “I cannot let the world pass me by because I fear such—though I do heartily regret this moment of carelessness,” he said, fingering the scar. “It may bode ill for my chances with the ladies.”
Mocking and teasing even the most sacred of subjects. Such was Kieran’s way. Still, Aric wished, as did Guilford and Drake, that the brother of his spirit would treat his life with more care.
“Aric?” Gwenyth’s voice sounded quietly behind him.
He whirled at the sound of his name and found Gwenyth there, the black silk of her hair sweeping with the wild wind about her shoulders and waist. Those entrancing blue-velvet eyes reflected a trace of irritation, uncertainty, and hurt.
With a curse, he resisted the tug of that bright stare. Aric dreaded introducing his past to his present. He took in the measure of her expectancy, knowing he had little choice.
“Gwenyth, meet my good friend, Kieran Broderick.”
Shifting his gaze to Kieran to complete the introduction, Aric noticed his friend’s mischievous blue-green eyes drift over Gwenyth with something more than idle curiosity.
Glaring at Kieran, Aric stepped toward Gwenyth and placed a possessive hand at her waist. Kieran raised an amused brow at the gesture. Aric gritted his teeth.
“You may stop staring at my wife,” he ground out.
Aric could find no reason for his unaccountable irritation. Kieran, though a rogue as lucky with the ladies as he himself was with a sword, had never used his significant charm to win a female either Aric or Drake had fancied. Why did he suddenly feel the need to bind his wife in a habit and send her to a nunnery until Kieran left his cottage?
All pretense of charm fled Kieran’s face, replaced by thunderstruck shock. “Your wife?”
“Aye.”
“As in vows spoken in a church binding you for an eternity wife?”
Well, not in a church, but by a priest just the same. “Aye.”
Suddenly, Kieran smiled and leaned in to give Aric a hearty slap to his shoulder. “And all this time we feared for your sanity, when you merely wanted your bride to yourself. I can see why, for her beauty would make slaves of kings and sultans the world over.”
Aric sent Kieran another warning glare. “I know you mean that as no more than harmless tribute.”
Kieran smiled broadly. “Naturally.”
“As I know neither of you bray-butted imbeciles mean to discuss me as if I weren’t standing at your very feet,” Gwenyth interjected with heat.
Kieran’s smile became a full-blown laugh. Aric resisted the urge to grimace.
“Not a woman of shy virtue, are you?”
Gwenyth’s reply was a snort of disgust.
“My humblest apologies, my lady. I had no intent to offend such a lovely damsel.” Kieran’s apology flowed smoothly from his lips.
Aric gritted his teeth again. He had meant to apologize and wanted to in so gallant a fashion, but Kieran had ever been better with words, which had never come as easily to Aric, particularly not with Gwenyth’s distracting beauty and cutting wit.
“What brings you here?” Aric asked into the still hush.
Kieran turned his full attention to Aric, who found his friend’s face a sudden study of unaccustomed sobriety. “You must come home.”
“Home?” Gwenyth questioned. “Where is your home?”
With a sharp glance, Kieran questioned him silently. Aric answered with a near imperceptible shake of his head. A flash of disapproval lit his friend’s blue-green eyes.
“My home is here now,” Aric said finally, feeling Gwenyth’s curious gaze upon his profile as he returned his friend’s stare. “There is naught I seek I cannot have here.”
Kieran nodded his acknowledgement, regret crossing his features. “’Tis something I see well,” he said, glancing at Gwenyth. “But others need you.”
Aric stared at his friend uneasily. Kieran had been sent to find him. Duty tugged at him, and he tried to ignore its pull.
“Your cousin Anne is dead,” Kieran said softly.
Shock washed through Aric as dismay jerked at his heart. The sweetest of his cousins gone? ’Twas incomprehensible. England’s Queen, Richard’s Neville bride, dead? His late Uncle Warwick, the kingmaker, had fought hard for that match. Now she was no more.
At his side, Gwenyth gasped, placing a comforting hand upon his sleeve. “I am sorry.”
Wading through his shock, he whispered, “How?”
“She had been ill for some months.” Kieran shrugged. But something on the man’s handsome face registered suspicion.
“Yet you suspect foul play?”
Kieran’s stare was measuring. “Some say she was poisoned.”
Poisoned by whom? The answer dawned with awful certainty. If Richard was ruthless enough to kill children, why let a little thing like a sickly wife prevent him and his line from ruling the kingdom forever? But he required heirs, which Anne had been too aged and infirm to give him since the recent death of their only son.
He sighed deeply, feeling suddenly tired and overcome. “By God, she wanted other sons. She would have had them if she could.”
“Aye,” agreed Kieran sadly.
“That is barbaric, to kill a woman simply because she can no longer breed! What manner of man would do such a thing?” Gwenyth demanded.
Damn, they had said too much. Gwenyth didn’t need to know everything—or even anything. Such knowledge was too dangerous, and he was not going back to Northwell.
“Gwenyth,” Aric said with a calm he was far from feeling, “leave us, please.”
His fiery wife anchored small fists upon her hips and stared at him in indignation. “I will not. You have hidden some terrible truth from me since we wed. If I am to stay by your side, I deserve to know something!”
“I agree completely, my lady,” Kieran said, casting a challenging stare at Aric.
“Traitor,” he grumbled.
Kieran ignored him and offered, “Richard seeks you.”
The man was skirting dangerous topics. Though Aric knew of King Richard’s summons already, Kieran should not mention such in front of Gwenyth. Anger began to pound at his temples.
“My brother can handle that now.”
“Can he?” Kieran’s gaze was filled with skeptical challenge.
“’Tis as he desired,” Aric reminded.
“Foolish men always desire what they should not have.”
It was Aric’s turn to shrug. “His foolishness is no longer my concern. I will not return.”
“’Twas not on those grounds that I asked. I must call upon your oath as a blood brother.”
Aric closed his eyes as his heart stopped. Dread slid to his stomach, embedding itself into his gut. As a boy of nine, he had made a vow to Kieran and to Drake, as they had made in return to each other, to protect as need be, as any brother of birth should do.
“If we do not come, Drake will be unjustly hanged for his father’s murder.”
Alarm coursed through Aric as he whipped his sharp gaze to Kieran. “He’s been in Murdoch’s dungeon these seven months?”
“Aye, and every effort Guilford made to win his release was brutally refused.”
“That is terrible!” Gwenyth blurted. “Can nothing be done?”
Stunned, Aric swallowed hard. Emotions, almost too fast to decipher, assailed him at once—fear, fury, reluctance…acceptance.
“Aye, it can, lady.” Kieran turned his attention back to Aric. “Guilford thinks that, together, you and I can do what needs to see Drake free.”
“He is right.” The hoarseness of his own reply shocked Aric, but Kieran said nothing of it. “We shall leave here for Scotland immediately.”
“Have you a steed, armor?”
“Nay,” Aric admitted with reluctance.
“Wo
uld you leave lovely Lady Gwenyth out in the wilds by herself?”
Normally, with family close by, it would present no problem. But Gwenyth’s selfish family had never cared one whit for her. ’Twas a fool’s notion to think they would start now.
He sighed heavily. “Nay.”
“Then you must return home first and take her with you.”
“What of Hartwich Hall? We could gather supplies there and—”
Kieran shook his head. “Aric, Hartwich is too far west. It will waste too much time that may be vital to Drake’s life.”
The truth of that burned in Aric’s mind, in his very gut, along with a realization that he had always known, somewhere deep, he could not run away from his past forever.
Yet Gwenyth would now know the secrets he never intended to share. For the rest of her life, she would have the chance to play grand chatelaine while the forces of greed and war sucked his soul back into oblivion. He held no illusions that after she stayed at Northwell, basked in its wealth and charmed its people, she would return here, willingly or otherwise.
In little more than ten minutes, he had lost the peace that had taken him months to build. Aric frowned against the blade-sharp sense of loss and pain.
Bleakness pervading him, he said finally, “Aye. I will return home.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
“I shall not pack a single garment and follow you until I know where you plan to take me.” Gwenyth planted her feet stubbornly on the cottage’s dirt floor and glared at her husband.
Gritting his teeth, Aric cursed under his breath but said naught else. Kieran stood in the corner, offering no more than a smile in response to her demand.
Rotted swine suckers, both of them! ’Twould fit that such stubborn men would be friends. Gwenyth moved to sit in the room’s lone chair and refused to look at either one of them—no small feat, considering the smallness of the cottage and the breadth of the men. Instead, she directed her stare to her small-heeled slippers and frowned. They were badly in need of repair.
“What do you stare at, Gwenyth?” Aric asked with labored patience as he approached.
“My worn shoes, not that you can be bothered to care. After all, if you will not share your plans or your true home with me, why should a pair of slippers signify?”
Aric gnashed his teeth again. From the corner, Kieran chuckled.
Still, she was no closer to understanding what had happened these past few days. ’Twas clear someone wanted Aric to return to his past life. Had Kieran sent the summons a fortnight ago? Aric’s face, though pensive, held no anger for his friend, so Gwenyth supposed someone else had written the missive. But who wanted Aric so badly? And why?
After heaving a great sigh, he knelt beside Gwenyth. “We return to my home in the north of England. I am needed there to guide my brother and aid my good friend Drake.”
Though Gwenyth knew Aric had just offered more information in a single sentence than he ever had at once, somehow it was not enough.
“Does this home have a name? A village?”
“Gwenyth…” Aric reached for her with a shake of his tawny head, as if seeking patience. “It matters not. Please trust me and do not ask questions. You cannot remain here without me. ’Twould not be safe.”
She jerked away, making an unladylike sound. “Last time I trusted you, I found myself unwillingly wed. Nay, I shall remain here as I please. If you deem me paltry enough that I should not know the name of my new home, then I must decide I am paltry enough to leave behind.”
Again, Kieran’s deep laugh resounded from the corner. “You cannot argue with such logic, my friend.”
Aric rose to his full, towering height and glared at Kieran. “You are lending no aid to my cause.”
“On the contrary. I seek marital harmony so we might be on the road come morn,” Kieran returned.
Ignoring his friend’s response, Aric turned back to Gwenyth. “Damnation, woman! Pack your belongings, or I shall pack them for you.”
The surly simpleton thought throwing a few of her gowns in a bag would force her to journey to a place unknown? Aric had no idea how mistaken he was.
“Pack them, then. Once you are through, I shall take them to London. I could mayhap entice a gentleman of chivalry to lend me some assistance.” Her threat was a hollow one, but he need not know that.
Aric flashed her a steely stare through eyes of molten metal. “No London fop will touch you, let alone lend you any assistance. Your wedded vows bind you to follow me—or do you forget you promised to obey me?”
Obey? Ugh, surely no worse word had ever been invented. “You cannot expect me to keep a vow made under threat of death.”
“A threat of death?” Kieran’s shocked voice rose from the corner. Gwenyth looked up to find his relaxed posture gone and a scowl replacing his usual sprightly expression. “Aric, what the hell—”
“Later, Kieran,” he interrupted. “Right now, I mean to make Gwenyth understand it matters not why she said her wedded vows, simply that she did. I will keep mine, so I expect the same of her.”
An angry flush crept through Gwenyth, heating her cheeks. How could the man speak to her so meanly, as if she were naught more than his property? How could a man who had cared so for her tears suddenly treat her so ill?
“Your man parts will rot and fall off before I will leave here without the truth.”
Again, Kieran laughed.
Aric pounded his sizable fist on the table at her side. “Damnation, you are the most stubborn woman I have ever had the misfortune to encounter.”
“Tell me what I wish to know and you shall find I can be surprisingly sweet of temper.” She flashed him a falsely honeyed smile.
“Aye, your sweetness of temper matches that of a mule.”
Gwenyth’s mouth fell open in ire. That man! He was naught more than a…well, a— “’Tis a mite better to be a mule than a strutting cock.”
“Strutting?” Aric braced his broad arms upon his lean hips and leaned into the fight. “I do not strut, an—”
“Children!” Kieran broke into the fray. “Be silent for a moment. Now, Gwenyth”—he directed a glare at her—“certainly you see if Aric must go, you should stay at his side for protection, if naught else. Vagabonds and worse roam the country looking for sweet morsels like you.”
Then Kieran turned to Aric. “And you must see she deserves the truth. If you wish Gwenyth to live with you as your wife, you cannot deny all you were born to. This foolish bickering must cease. Drake is waiting.”
The reminder of his friend’s peril seemed to sap the anger from Aric in an instant. He turned to her, the wide square of his face somber. “If you will come with me, Gwenyth, I will tell you all.”
She paused, considering. Kieran was right; vagabonds and worse did roam the country between here and London. Without protection, any manner of ill might befall her. Staying here proved no option, either. Who would cook? Chop wood? How would she explain to all at Penhurst why her husband had left her behind?
Given those questions, Gwenyth realized quickly she had little choice but to accept his compromise.
“I will go,” she muttered and rose as regally as a queen.
Because she had few belongings to pack, they were mounted on the horse Kieran had brought and were heading down the road within minutes, Dog trotting behind them. The cottage had scarcely passed from view before Gwenyth turned to her husband with a prompting stare.
“God’s blood, little dragon! Must it be now?”
“Best to end the torment of waiting,” Kieran agreed, then spurred his horse ahead, away from the two of them.
Gwenyth watched Aric’s friend disappear between a green sweep of towering oaks and blooming rhododendrons. She near held her breath, waiting for her husband to speak. What explanation he would provide, however, she had no idea. Again, she heard Kieran’s voice in her head. You cannot deny all you were born to. What in God’s creation did such mean?
Beside her, Aric rode a fine che
stnut with an unconscious grace. The explanation, though, appeared not to come as easily. His face showed his struggle as he grappled for the right words. Gwenyth pursed her lips together to prevent the escape of an impatient demand.
“My name is Aric Neville, Earl of Belford. I hale from Northwell Castle in Northumberland, below the Scottish border.” He paused. “Earl Warwick, the kingmaker, was my uncle.”
Shock drained the blood from Gwenyth’s face. Certainly she had not heard him correctly. Impossible! Aric, an earl? And the once-powerful Warwick’s nephew? Nay, her hearing was suddenly fuzzy. Only that could make her think her hermit husband had told her he was a man of such consequence.
Still, his explanation would account for his well-born English, his battle scars, the funds he had used to purchase her red silk…and the pendant that had once belonged to his mother. Fingering the red ruby and the warm silver against her skin, Gwenyth’s mind raced. Bristling braies, had he perhaps spoken true?
“Ea-Earl of Belford? Warwick’s nephew?”
Aric regarded her, his face bleak, his eyes the color of cold stone in a harsh winter. “Aye.”
She had heard him correctly. By the moon and the stars! “Then…you have had your knight’s training?”
Slowly, he nodded, “I have been called the White Lion.”
“You are he?” Gwenyth had heard of this brave warrior, his prowess and cunning, his strength and bravery. All of England had.
“I am.”
Though Aric’s tone was not welcoming, Gwenyth pressed on, nearly unable to comprehend all he said. Until a new realization dawned…
“Your recently departed cousin Anne—you mean the queen of England!”
He grimaced. “I do.”
“And the Richard who has summoned you? King Richard?”
After a brief hesitation, he gave in. “Aye.”
Gwenyth felt a sudden need to lie down, for her head seemed to spin. Her strong, sensual husband was an earl? Not a sorcerer but an intelligent man who could provide a secure future for her—indeed, in grand style? ’Twas near certain their children would never starve and that she would not worry about having a roof over their heads. Part of her rejoiced.