Chosen for the Marriage Bed. Anne O'Brien

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      Elizabeth arrived at her new home in the middle of a thunderstorm. The expected guests erupted without ceremony, horses and riders, into the outer courtyard in a chaotic flurry of hooves and mud and a downpour of rain. Richard turned his face up to the heavens. Grey clouds pressed down. If he had been a man of superstition, he thought, he would have seen this as a sign of ill omen. All he needed was a pair of passing ravens to croak their disapproval.

      Then the gates creaked and thudded shut behind them. Servants emerged to see to the comfort of the travellers. Two young men, unrecognisable in cloaks and hoods, issued orders. Elizabeth de Lacy’s brothers, Richard decided. They swung down from their horses and would have gone to the aid of the women, but Richard forestalled them. His eye had sought and found the younger of the two female forms, well muffled against the storm. As a gesture of greeting he waded through the wet to help his betrothed to dismount.

      ‘Come, lady. Hardly the welcome I would have wished for you. Let me help you…’

      She did not reply. Her face was shadowed by her deep hood. He stood beside her weary horse, raised his arms to place his hands firmly around her waist to lift her down from the saddle. Only to be answered by a sharp hiss from within her cloak. A flash of dark fur and lethal claws. A shallow but bloody scratch appeared along the length of Richard’s hand.

      Startled into immobility, Richard stared at the blood, his hiss of surprise as much as pain echoing that of the cat sheltered within the folds of Elizabeth’s cloak. He looked up, to find two pairs of eyes fixed on him. One feline and definitely displeased, golden and unblinking from the confines of the cloak. The other dark and watching him equally intently from within the hood, as a wild animal might watch a hunter, he thought, from the safety of its lair. Wary, uncertain, but with a strong streak of defiance, both mistress and cat surveyed him.

      Elizabeth de Lacy found her voice first. ‘Forgive me, my lord. You surprised her.’

      Richard’s words of welcome had dissolved in the deluge. ‘I surprised her? You’re travelling from Llanwardine with a cat in your lap?’

      ‘I had to bring her. There was no other way.’

      For a long moment their gazes held, his astonished, hers defensive. Then Elizabeth blinked the rain from her lashes and the contact was broken.

      ‘Never mind,’ Richard forestalled any further conversation as thunder rolled overhead. ‘Let’s all get in out of this infernal weather. Including that animal. If you could prevent her from mauling me further, I would help you down.’

      Grasping Elizabeth de Lacy firmly—and the struggling cat—he lifted and deposited her on her feet, aware of her lightness, relieved when the girl thrust the cat into the arms of her serving woman. So Richard took her arm to lead her into the Hall where there would be a small reception awaiting them. He was conscious of her drawing back, a definite reluctance, but why? She had seemed neither shy nor lacking in confidence in that first brief connection. Her eyes had met and held his with not a little self-worth, so why hang back now? This was not the reaction of a forthright, headstrong young woman, as Elizabeth de Lacy had been painted. Richard Malinder frowned. She would be his wife and Lady of Ledenshall so he would not allow her to succumb to foolish reticence, but pulled her forwards into the light and warmth. Servants removed and carried off sodden cloaks. A fire was burning towards which all gravitated. Wine was brought.

      For better or worse, his bride had come home.

      But first things first. Richard sought out Elizabeth’s elder brother in the throng. It was not difficult. The de Lacy stature and colouring was clearly marked on both of Sir John’s nephews. Richard drew Lewis, a rangy young man in his early twenties with a not-quite-hostile expression on his face, aside. Now was the time to build some bridges between the two families.

      ‘I owe you my thanks for escorting your sister here.’ Richard clasped the hand of Lewis de Lacy, forcing a courteous exchange.

      ‘I was given no choice, my lord. Sir John ordered it.’

      ‘But you are safely here. A bad day for such a lengthy journey.’ Both were uncomfortably aware of the political divide between Malinder and de Lacy, but for the occasion it was pushed aside by tacit and common consent. ‘Some refreshment, I think.’ Richard beckoned one of the maids, who promptly handed a tankard to the young man.

      Lewis accepted and drank, dry humour surfacing under the influence of the warmth and ale. ‘My sister will be relieved to have arrived. Postponing the journey was not something we discussed. I doubt I could have persuaded her to remain at Llanwardine another night. Perhaps I should introduce you formally,’ he suggested.

      ‘I have had a painful meeting already!’ Richard responded to the humour, pleased to see the boy relax, and flexed his hand where the scratch stung. ‘I’ll live. Not sure about the cat though.’

      ‘Ha! Vicious and unpredictable—but much loved by Mistress Bringsty and so untouchable.’

      ‘Do you say?’ Richard smiled.

      ‘I would not risk it! But Elizabeth is more amenable than the cat,’ Lewis ventured, before adding with a quick and engaging grin, ‘or most of the time. But I would watch Mistress Bringsty, if I were you.’

      Richard’s brows snapped into a dark bar as he followed the direction of Lewis’s glance across the room towards the woman who stood at Elizabeth de Lacy’s shoulder in a position of support and protection. Then his mouth curved and his eyes warmed in reply. ‘The voice of experience. I’m grateful for the warning.’ He began to move in the direction of the two women, until a hand grasped his sleeve.

      ‘One СКАЧАТЬ