The Warlord's Bride

She paid no heed to Lord Madoc’s uncle, nor did she slacken her pace. He must have been in on this…this disgusting exhibition, and here she’d been thinking him a kindly old man, who was perhaps a little too keen on his nephew remarrying and overly fond of drink.

“My lady, please! Stop and let me explain!” Lloyd called, panting.

He sounded as if he could scarcely draw breath, and while she didn’t think any explanation could ever excuse what had just happened, she would not have him fall ill, no matter what he’d done.

As she waited, arms crossed, foot tapping impatiently, Lloyd came to a stop, breathing hard, his hand on his chest. “No need to rush off so, my lady! An accident, is all.”

So he said, but the laughter in his eyes betrayed him.

“Hear this,” she said. “This is the second time you’ve played me for a fool, and it will be the last. And if you and your nephew think seeing him naked is going to make me more keen to marry him, you’re wrong. Wimarc de Werre was as handsome as any maiden’s dream and he was the most evil, cruel, corrupt man in England. I will never again be swayed by such considerations.”

“Madoc had no hand in this, I promise you!” Lloyd protested, apparently aghast. “It was all my doing.”

She imperiously raised a brow. “He didn’t send you to bring me to the river so that I could see his exposed magnificence, such as it is?”

“No. It was all my own idea, my lady. He came home hot and sweaty and needed a wash, so I suggested the river and I thought you…” He paused and took a deep breath. “Look you, my lady, he’s been alone too long. He needs a wife, my lady, and he likes you.”

“No doubt my dowry won’t come amiss, either.”

“I’d be lying if I said it wouldn’t be welcome, but money or not, I’ve never seen him look at a woman the way he looks at you. And a woman could do a lot worse than my nephew. You’ve got to admit, he’s a fine figure of a man.”

“He could be another Apollo and that would matter less to me than how he treats the lowliest servant in his castle.”

Lloyd’s eyes lit up like a torch. “Ah! Well, then, my lady—”

“Uncle!”

Madoc came striding toward them over the uneven ground. His wet hair dampened the shoulders of his leather tunic. The shirt beneath was open at the neck, and his swordbelt was slung low about his narrow hips, as if he’d dressed in a hurry. “What is Lady Roslynn doing here?”

Regardless of the ire in his eyes, she faced him squarely. “I was asked to come to the river by your uncle—to talk to you, he said. Apparently he was under the mistaken impression that I would be anxious to marry you if I saw you naked. Let me assure you, my lord, lest you harbor any similar notions, that how my prospective husband looks—dressed or otherwise—is among the least of my concerns.”

“And I assure you, my lady,” the lord of Llanpowell growled, his face reddening, “that had I known what my uncle intended, I would never have gone in the river.”

Lord Madoc’s glance darted to his uncle, who had started to sidle backward toward the castle. “Where are you going, Uncle?”

Lloyd stopped and spread his hands placatingly. “Why, back to the hall, of course, so you two can have a little time alone without that gloomy Norman watching over you like a crow in a treetop. You’re an honorable man and she’s an honorable lady, so why not use this opportunity to have a little chat? It’s not as if you’ll be slipping away for a romantic rendezvous, although—”

“Uncle,” Lord Madoc warned.

“Until later, then,” Lloyd said, and in spite of their anger, he gave them a grin and a shrug before he hurried away with absolutely no hint that he was short of breath.

The sly trickster! Roslynn thought. He’d only pretended to be winded so that she would stop and listen to him.

Fortunately, Lord Madoc seemed as annoyed by her arrival as she was at discovering him naked, so perhaps it had been Lloyd’s idea alone to bring her to the riverbank.

As she reached that conclusion, her anger began to diminish. It lessened even more when Lord Madoc gravely said, “He’s my uncle and I love him, but he can be aggravation in the flesh when he gets an idea. He likes you, my lady, and wants us to wed and no doubt thought this a good way to encourage us. But believe me, that was his idea alone, not mine. If I’d had any inkling, I wouldn’t have been…”

He flushed. “I wouldn’t have been in the river,” he finished almost defiantly, as if daring her to contradict him. “I’m no peacock to be preening as God made me, my lady.”

He was so annoyed and flustered, her heart went out to him. She could well imagine how she would feel if the situations had been reversed and Lord Madoc had come upon her bathing in the river, naked, water streaming down her…

“I believe you, my lord,” she said after inwardly giving her head a shake. “I can tell you’re no jack-a-dandy.”

Certainly he dressed nothing like the vain men of the king’s court, or her late, conceited husband.

Lord Madoc’s broad shoulders relaxed. “Then I’ll forgive him.”

She suspected Lord Madoc had forgiven his uncle many things and many times. That would be a promising sign for a happy marriage—if she were staying.

Then he smiled, a warm, open smile that heated her even more than the sight of his naked body—although the memory of his body was more than enough to warm her, too.

“Shall we return to the hall?” he inquired, holding out his arm and nodding toward the castle walls.

“Yes,” she agreed, lightly laying her fingertips on his strong forearm.

She could feel his muscle and realized the Bear of Brecon was a robust man, indeed.

“Unfortunately, my uncle’s taken a notion into his head that I’m never going to be happy again until I take another wife,” Lord Madoc said, his voice both apologetic and frustrated as they walked side by side. “Yet I think you, of all women, can appreciate that I would rather live as I do now than be miserably wed.”

“I agree that it is better to be alone than to be bound to a person you can neither like nor respect.”

“Aye. That’s a whole different kind of loneliness.”

He spoke as if he had intimate knowledge of that state, and she began to suspect his first marriage hadn’t been a happy one.

If so, how much easier it would be for her to win his affections…if she were staying. If she could even consider marrying again, and a man like him.

They continued in silence until they neared the village. Sliding Lord Madoc a glance, she wondered what the villagers would think when they saw them thus, then decided it didn’t matter. They were simply walking together. What worse scandal could come of that than that which she had already endured?

“My uncle said he told you a bit about my trouble with my brother.”

“A little,” she replied.

“Trefor thinks I did him a great wrong and so seeks to punish me in return.”

Even if she wasn’t staying, she wanted to know what had brought brothers to such a pass. “Did you?”

Madoc stopped beside a low stone fence bordering a farmyard. Within its confines lay a small cottage, with a lazy trail of smoke rising from an opening in the slate roof. Close to an outbuilding, chickens scratched in the dirt. A dog tied to the door rose, growling, then seemed to think better of it and returned to its slumber.

Meanwhile, Lord Madoc rested his hips against the enclosure and looked off into the distance. “My elder brother was in the wrong, without doubt, but he doesn’t see it that way. All Trefor sees is that I wed the woman he was to marry, and became the heir of Llanpowell instead of him.”

He had married a bride intended for another? Willingly? Or for some other reason that would have made for an unhappy union?

And how did he become the heir, if his older brother still lived?

However it happened, those were causes for enmity indeed.

“It was his fault,” Lord Madoc said. “Trefor came to his wedding so drunk he could hardly stand. That would have been bad enough, but he started bragging about what else he’d been up to the night before, with a harlot. I tried to get him out of the hall, but I wasn’t quick enough. They all heard him—the bride, her parents, my parents, our families, the guests, the servants.