His Lady Bride (Brothers in Arms) (22 page)

“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.

Rising, Gwenyth leaned toward her brother-in-law and patted his shoulder. He looked up at her with sorrowful eyes, which quickly became hopeful pools of brown.

She let that—and her anger—fortify her as she left the great hall to find her husband and his wench of a lover.

Why his having a leman should disturb her, she did not know. Climbing the stairs to the solar, Gwenyth knew ’twas not as if she was devoted to him. Her heart did not pine for him. Did it? Nay. Such foolishness made her frown. She simply did not wish to be ignored, to be the object of servants’ sympathy and knights’ speculation.

As she approached the solar, which contained their bedchamber, Gwenyth found herself wishing with each beat of her heart that she would find it empty.

Such was not the case.

Seeing the door ajar, she entered the series of rooms without a sound. Thankfully, the bed lay empty.

But she heard the murmur of Rowena’s voice, followed by the rumble of Aric’s, behind the treasury door.

Damn them both!

Gwenyth clenched her fists as anger assailed her in hot waves that urged her to recklessness. The pain beneath prodded her as well. If they wished to fornicate, they would not do so in her rooms, so near her bed!

She marched past the large tester, past the cool, blackened hearth and trestle table, until she reached the door. Upon taking the latch in her hand, she yanked the heavy wooden door open.

Aric and Rowena stood inside alone. Together.

Nay, they were not taking a tumble at the moment, but Rowena’s gown revealed enough breast to tempt a holy man. The wench had her hand upon Aric’s shoulder. She leaned into him, inviting him. By the moon and stars, he did not look to be declining her enticement, not with his head bent toward her and some taut expression on his face.

The guilty pair looked up at her with surprise. Rowena sent her a faint smile and a shrug. Aric’s expression showed nothing.

Gwenyth felt like exploding.

She stalked forward and grabbed Rowena by the arm. “Out!”

Rowena tried to break free. Gwenyth gripped tighter, refusing to let the bony bitch get the best of her.

“Aric and I are simply…talking,” Rowena protested, though without much force.

Resisting the urge to put her hands around Rowena’s neck and squeeze, Gwenyth gave the woman’s arm a good yank and led her toward the door. “I should hardly care if you elected to lift your skirts and hump a butter churn, you milk-livered strumpet. But whatever you’re about, you will not do it here!”

Though Rowena resisted being dragged out of the treasury and through the bedchamber, it did little good. Within moments, she gave the smaller woman a shove into the hall, slammed the door, and barred it against further entry.

Then she turned to her errant husband, hands on her hips, poised for battle.

He stood there with a smile.

Oh, how he must like this. He probably thought her jealous. The swine.

“A butter churn?” he asked. “’Twould hurt a mite, I fear.”

“And ’tis clear you care, you pox-mettled rogue. Saints thunder upon us if Rowena should bruise the flesh you choose to plough.”

Aric frowned, his face a fine imitation of confusion. She did not believe it for an instant. Hadn’t Aunt Welsa always said men would lie to any woman for or about sex?

“What?”
He glared at her.

Gwenyth cast her gaze upward, striving for patience. But she could find none this eve.

She let out a frustrated groan. “I see it suits you to pretend innocence, you urchin-snouted lewdster. Very well. What I cannot understand is why you sniff after her skirts. Have I lately denied you
any
husbandly demand you have made upon me? Nay. In sharing your bed, have I ever said nay to anything you have wished of me, of my body? Not once.”

His silver eyes turned flat, icy. “As you say, not once.”

A muscle worked at the side of his jaw, and his large body turned tense. What had he to be angry about? That she had broken up his tryst with the scrawny harlot, most like.

Her temper rose another notch, until she thought anger would burst from the top of her head.

“I scarce understand—” She broke off, too furious to find words. “If you wish to bed a wench who wants you only for your money and title, so be it, you ill-bred idlehead!”

With that, she turned for the door, determined to leave before he could see the tears threatening her eyes.