His Lady Bride (Brothers in Arms)

by Shayla Black

  And why had she suddenly done that?

  Why indeed? What had changed from their days together at the cottage?

  Aric sat up in bed and stared at the tapestry-covered wall, as if it could provide the answers he sought. Well, Gwenyth had said she’d missed him.

  Again, why? She had never wanted him when they first wed, and ’twasn’t as if she had been afflicted by some notion of love inspired by song or poem. Even if he would engage in either of those activities, he had not been here to do so. Until last night, she had fought their marriage and denied him husbandly rights.

  Would that being here troubled you not, my husband, his memory heard her say once more.

  Suddenly, Aric felt certain he knew why.

  Northwell and an earldom. Wealth, status, land. Those things she had sought from marriage. Aye, she had not wanted to share his sheets when she believed him a hermit and a sorcerer. Now that she knew he was a man of consequence, a man with ample funds and ties to the throne… Now she was willing to lay with him and cloud his mind with her sensuality. Gwenyth would likely have offered herself to him sooner if she had not been so angry with him for keeping his title and his past with Rowena from her.

  It seemed so clear now.

  Damn her for lying and for making him crave the very essence of her.

  Pressing his hand to the dull ache in his head, Aric cursed. He could not deny that women everywhere bedded down with men for power and protection. They had few other options. And though it made little sense, the realization Gwenyth had done the same pleased him not.

  Rowena, at least, had childhood hunger and the starvation of her mother to account for her behavior. And he had been more relieved than angered when she had wed his father.

  Gwenyth’s mercenary ways and deception stabbed him like a knife in the gut. Why, he could not say, except that he had somehow expected more of her. Or mayhap his gnawing ache for her simply wanted more satisfaction. ’Twas all foolish. After all, Gwenyth knew that continuing to refuse him his rights as a husband made her position as his wife a weak one, even in the eyes of the Church.

  Aric eased back the sheets and stood. He grabbed his hose from the chair beside his bed and donned them, nearly tripping over a sleeping Dog in the process. Gwenyth’s reasons were common enough, and his foolish displeasure was of no consequence. If Gwenyth wanted to whore herself out to secure her position as his wife, why should he not oblige her? Often.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Gwenyth gasped in shock as Aric rolled her to her stomach in their big bed and covered her body with his. The breadth of his chest seared her shoulders, her back. The insistent length of his manhood glided down her buttocks, to her womanly portal. Did he mean to take her like this? Did he mean to take her yet again this night?

  “Tilt up to me, Gwenyth.” His instruction came in a low voice, raspy against her neck.

  Despite the shock, anticipation slid through her. Three times he had taken her during the night, each time wringing such pleasurable completion from her that she nearly cried.

  Still, this night seemed different than the last, when they had first shared this bed and their bodies. Last night there had been tenderness, even a bit of laughter. Tonight she sensed something different. He seemed remote and unyielding, as if a part of him were not there with her. Though his scent and voice remained the same, something in his touch, in his gaze bespoke an emotion that put her ill at ease. Displeasure? Nay, he had also found completion, and she could not mistake his groans and the passionate desperation in his hands. Anger? Gwenyth frowned. Aye, perhaps that. Aric was tight-lipped and more disinclined than normal to talk. Warmth seemed absent from his deliberate stare.

  And he had yet to kiss her tonight.

  Without a word, Aric fit his hand beneath her belly and tilted her up to him. An instant later, she felt his fingers clasp her pleasure center as he buried his length inside her.

  Again, she gasped, this time in a wash of desire.

  How could a mating that seemed something like a stallion and his mare excite her? Yet it did, his breath upon her neck, fanning her cheek. The tips of his fingers toying with the stiff bud of her need. And the thick length filling every bit of space within her until she felt near bursting.

  But the desire filled more than her body. It seemed to reach somewhere into her heart, and she responded to him with all the joy in it, hoping he would let the warmth soothe him.

  Then he began thrusting, sweeping her up into a mating dark and needy, strong and ravenous. Within minutes, she felt the crest breaking upon her, building, building.

  “Aric…” she moaned, then cried out in satisfaction. “Aric!”

  As she pulsed within, he, too, found release with a last hard thrust and a groan.

  Suddenly, he was gone from her body. Gone from their bed. Startled, she rolled over and watched as he turned his back to her and quietly dressed.

  Again, she frowned. What could be so wrong? Nay, he did not want to live here. And aye, he and Stephen had fought again yesterday over Northwell’s raising of an army for King Richard. But whatever disturbed Aric tonight, whether displeasure or anger, seemed directed at her alone.

  She covered herself with the sheet. “Aric, is all well?”

  “Well enough,” he said as he threw a tunic over his head and marched out of the chamber.

  As he closed the door with a quiet click, Gwenyth frowned, then settled back against the bed. Had he really gone? Had he really taken her body so briskly, then left without a word?

  Indeed.

  Was such normal?

  Uneasy, Gwenyth rose herself and dressed for the day. The sound of surf against the rocks outside Northwell’s walls was a fine accompaniment to her uncertain mood.

  What did you expect? she asked herself. Aric behaved much as Aunt Welsa had described a man would. Yet last night was the first time he had done so. Never once since their marriage had he seemed so unwilling to speak with her, so unwilling to share anything. Except flesh.

  Still, she wanted more—his embrace, his tender gaze, his concern and laughter. Where had they all gone?

  Gwenyth crossed her arms over her chest, as if she could hold back the wistful ache that flooded her. It was impossible. She wanted the warmth in Aric’s eyes once more, longed for their conversation. She needed to believe he shared a bed with her because he desired her. Last night, he had been a thorough lover, but somehow he left her with the feeling she might have been anyone, her identity of no consequence to him.

  While a foolish part of her wanted to claim his heart.

  Once, back at his cottage, he had eased her distress over her family’s desertion, over Nellwyn’s superior life. Now he caused her torment.

  Aye, but those first days of their marriage were gone, replaced by politics, family, and daily duties. As an important earl, he had little time to spend at her side during the day. Such significance was a good part of what she had wanted in a husband, what she had wished of Aric when they wed. Indeed, Nellwyn had been much impressed by Aric’s titles and holdings, based on the letter she had received that very morn. So why did she feel a sense of wretched melancholy?

  Sighing, Gwenyth fled the chamber—and their rumpled bed—to break her fast. She felt no surprise to learn that her husband had left the castle to ride out for the day. He did that frequently enough.

  She sat in the great hall, assuming her place in the chair beside Aric’s empty one. Few milled about the fine room, Aric having taken several of the men with him. The others remained behind for training, led by Lord Stephen.

  Without enthusiasm, she bit into a hunk of bread just delivered by a kitchen maid and washed it down with a thin wine.

  The great hall pleased her. Warmed from the morning’s chill by resplendent tapestries and the crackling roar of an orange-hot fire, Gwenyth settled into her chair and wished she knew what troubled Aric.

  An instant later, Rowena sauntered into the room, looking deceptively waifish in a dress of delicate pink. Gw
enyth would have ignored the other woman, who still played the mistress’s role in the castle, but Rowena settled beside her. When Gwenyth made to leave, the other woman placed a hand over her arm to stay her.

  “What do you seek, Rowena?”

  The blond waif helped herself to a hunk of bread and a bit of cold duck before she spoke. “Though you are Aric’s wife, Lady Gwenyth, do not believe you alone will share his bed.”

  Gwenyth gasped at such direct conversation. Rowena’s tone held no spite or malice, no taunting. She’d spoken as if relating mere fact, like the sun rising in the east.

  Blinking several times to clear the shock, Gwenyth was finally able to speak. “I assure you, I keep Aric much too busy to seek you out.”

  Rowena shrugged as if it were no consequence. “He will tire of you. Aric is a…vigorous man, and thankfully not one whose heart can be touched. Soon, he will harbor no tendency for you and demand you leave his chamber.”

  “And you believe he harbors a tendency for you, you mutton-eyed hoyden?” Gwenyth asked sharply.

  The other woman paused thoughtfully. “Aric and I, we understand one another. I accommodate his healthy male drives, and in return, he allows me to remain here and in control.”

  “What of Stephen?”

  “He is a child. You and I both know that.”

  Gwenyth gaped at the woman, almost feeling sorry for Aric’s younger brother. “A child whose bed you have shared.”

  Rowena lifted a bony shoulder as if that fact had no bearing. “Aric has returned to become Earl of Belford once more.”

  She tried to remember Rowena’s near starvation and find her Christian charity. She fell sadly short. “Rowena, I intend to become the mistress of my husband and his home. I will see that you do not starve, but you need not try to seduce my husband just to ensure your next meal comes.”

  With a faint smile, Rowena rose. “I intend to ensure my own fate. You shall forgive me if I choose not to believe the word of a rival.”

  Then Rowena was gone.

  Gwenyth stared at the empty space after her and willed herself to calm the trembles in her belly. Could Rowena succeed? With Aric in his current state, as if the comfort of one woman over the other mattered not, she feared the woman could—and perhaps seduce Aric away from whatever fragile bond she had once shared with him.

  * * * *

  Aric lay next to a sleeping Gwenyth a week later, aching to touch her—yet loath to do so. ’Twas a bitter draught to swallow that his wife coveted his title enough to invite his touch. Aye, she had accepted him into her body, despite the many ways in which he had tried to take her, to shock her in the past six nights. He hardly knew whether he should be relieved or distressed that she responded to his lovemaking with such abandon.

  More perplexing, why had every encounter with her—except that perfect first—left him with vague dissatisfaction? Because he took her but did not taste her. He lay with her but did not see her. He held himself away from her, bedding her without truly feeling her. He had swived her like he would any wench.

  Such had led to a frustration he could scarce understand.

  She did not turn him away—ever. Despite the fact he had longed for this very access to her body when they had lived at the cottage, now he found it bitter.

  Even worse, Rowena had begun her onslaught, as he had dreaded. At least once a day, she found some reason to speak with him, in private. She invented reasons to touch him. Every day, she told him in her calm, intelligent voice that she desired his presence back in her bed. Nay, that she desired her own presence in his big tester bed while Gwenyth languished elsewhere.

  For the woman he had almost wed, he felt not a stirring of desire. She inspired naught more than irritation. And all the while, he could think of little else but bedding Gwenyth until they neither could think nor breathe.

  By the saints, what ailed him?

  He glanced across the massive bed until his gaze rested on Gwenyth, the black tumble of her hair, the sooty lashes making delicate crescents upon her cheeks, the pert nose and wide mouth of sinful red, his mother’s ruby glinting upon her perfect skin.

  This must cease! He refused to disturb his pittance of harmony with this haunting disquiet her nearness brought. Soon enough, whatever troubled him would pass, and he would bed her again with satisfaction, forgetting peacefully that she wanted him only for his wealth and power. He would soon remember she did only what women must in a man’s world to survive.

  Until then, he was better off to leave her be.

  He rolled away, seeking sleep that offered nothing but dreams of dead children and the tangled lure of Gwenyth’s embrace.

  * * * *

  The next two weeks slid by slowly, as the shimmering heat drew closer to an oppressive August. Temperatures climbed, and the castlefolks’ children took to frolicking about with Dog as dark neared.

  And Aric no longer shared their bed.

  After that last distant morn he had taken her in silence, then leapt from the bed as if she had scalded him, he had not touched her once. Indeed, he often slept in the great hall with the rest of his soldiers, and Gwenyth knew people were beginning to gossip.

  Awakening again to an empty bed, Gwenyth donned her clothes with heavy hands and meandered downstairs.

  Inside the great hall, Rowena chastised a kitchen maid for her idleness, then sent the sniveling girl on her way. Gwenyth resolved to check on the girl later. For even if her skills about the castle weren’t needed, the servants had made it clear they appreciated her occasional kindness and advice. Knowing they liked her and needed her in their own way improved her spirits.

  Rowena always dragged them back down.

  Determined to ignore the other woman, Gwenyth made her way to the raised dais and sat, not looking at the remnants of the morning meal on the table before her.

  The silence in the room deafened her. She knew Rowena watched her and wanted nothing more than to pretend the woman was of no matter, not worth her gaze.

  Gwenyth had never been good at lying to herself.

  She gazed up. The triumph on Rowena’s pale face sent a shock of rage and denial through Gwenyth. Bristling braies! What should she do? Rowena’s look said Aric now found his manly comfort between her skinny thighs. How could the coxcomb want a woman so lacking in heart?

  The resulting vision of her husband and his former lover together made her want to shrink inside herself, even as she longed to punish Rowena, somehow humiliate her and force her to leave the castle.

  Aye, she wanted to confront her wayward husband as well. But on the rare days he did linger within Northwell’s walls, he spared no words for her—only disquieting stares that made her heart ache in a way she could scarce understand.

  A moment later, Stephen entered the room. His forlorn gaze, full of pent-up longing, rested on Rowena and lingered. Gwenyth prayed she did not wear her sentiments so openly within her eyes.

  “Rowena, my darling,” Stephen begged. “Please sit with me—”

  “I’ve no time. My duties await.”

  With that, the waspish waif swept from the room, head held at a regal angle upon her graceful neck.

  Gwenyth turned her gaze on Stephen. His expression seemed nothing short of dejected. Unshed tears glittered in his brown eyes.

  Unfortunately, she knew very much how the boy felt and couldn’t resist making her way to his side to place a comforting hand upon his shoulder.

  He jerked away from her. Gwenyth stared up at him in surprise.

  “’Tis your fault! Why can you not keep Aric in your bed and out of Rowena’s?”

  Gwenyth’s heart shattered at his question. She felt tears sting her own eyes. “I have tried! I vow I have, but any more…’tis as if he sees me not at all.”

  Stephen loosed a crude curse that made Gwenyth wince.

  “You are certain they share a bed again?” she asked, not sure she wished to know the answer.

  “She left my bed over a fortnight ago. Rowena is not a
woman who enjoys being alone. To whom else would she go?”

  Whom else, indeed? Gwenyth closed her eyes, absorbing the pain of Stephen’s observations. God’s nightgown, she hated to believe Aric would prefer the woman who had betrayed him with his own father, desire the woman who cared only for his power and position. But he did. For her familiarity? Her elegant aloofness?

  Mayhap Rowena pleased Aric as a man in ways that Gwenyth, in her inexperience, could not. Though Gwenyth thought she had satisfied his needs, clearly she had been mistaken.

  By damned, what was she to do?

  Ideas raced through her, one discarded as quickly as the next. Seduce Aric? Gwenyth rolled her eyes. What did she know of that? Next to naught. Perhaps confront him? ’Twas likely he would do no more than laugh at her. She sighed, determined to avoid such embarrassment. Well, then, debauch his naked person in sleep? By the moon and the stars, that reeked of desperation. She paced. No matter the means, Gwenyth knew she must make him see her as a woman, as his wife.

  She turned to Stephen. “Tonight, after we sup, you must engage Rowena, occupy her.”

  He frowned, his boyish eyes reflecting confusion. How sad that his loins and heart should be so tangled with an icy wench, one who had bedded both his father and older brother—all to maintain her position, her existence.

  “What will you do?” he asked finally.

  What, indeed? “Pray for strength.”

  * * * *

  Neither Aric nor Rowena appeared at supper. Gwenyth felt their absences acutely as a sharp pain embedded in her chest. She picked at her meal, as did Stephen farther down the lord’s table. All around them, castle servants and Aric’s knights sent her stares ranging from soft pity to hot suggestion.

  All made her want to scream.

  Enough! She would find them now in their lovers’ glen and stop them…somehow.