A Warrior's Bride

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“Your father did not join us, either,” he noted.

“No,” she said with a frown. “Apparently he has gone after poachers. He won’t be back until the evening.”

“I pity the man who dares to poach on his lands.”

“So you should,” she answered coolly.

“If you excuse me, I’ll fetch my horse.” Before he could enter the stable, however, a groom came out leading his own stallion, a brown horse nearly a hand smaller than Demon. “This is Apollo,” he said by way of introduction as he swung himself into the saddle. “Shall we?”

“By all means,” Aileas replied, and then she punched her heels into the sides of her horse, which leapt into a gallop.

George stared, dumbfounded, as she rode out of the gate at a breakneck pace, soldiers and servants scattering in her path. Then, with a determined expression, he urged his own horse forward, calling out his apologies to the people as he galloped after her.

Aileas led him a merry chase, first along the main road through the village, sending the villagers running as she had those in the castle, then across the muddy fields, where peasants were sowing the first crops, before galloping along a woodland path that bordered the river.

Despite her horse’s speed and the rough course, she kept glancing over her shoulder, obviously seeing if he was keeping up. He was—barely.

They crossed a large meadow on the side of a hill where several sheep were grazing, until the progress of the two riders interrupted them. The animals bleated in alarm and scattered. A young shepherd, startled out of an afternoon’s slumber, jumped to his feet and stared at them.

Aileas and her horse plunged into a wood at the top of the hill. As George and Apollo entered the sheltered gloom, George told himself this chase was madness. He was risking his horse and his neck following the headstrong Aileas, who obviously knew the terrain well. If she wanted to behave in such an immature way, he decided as he pulled his horse to a halt, let her. As for him, he was getting hot and upset, two states he deplored.

Then he saw Aileas’s horse slow. She slipped from its back and, with a challenging glance, led it into a group of willow trees, beside a stream or creek, no doubt.

He was thirsty, he realized, and a cool drink would do wonders toward restoring his equanimity, so he, too, dismounted and followed her through the trees. There was indeed a babbling brook there, and he saw her horse drinking. Tethering Apollo to one of the willows where he could still reach the brook, George looked around for her.

“You ride well.”

Startled by the voice coming from behind him, he turned to find her leaning against one of the willows, her face slightly hidden by the slender, budding branches, her arms crossed and her expression as disgruntled as her tone had been.

“So do you, but I don’t think the guards, the villagers or the peasants trying to sow their crop would appreciate that fact.”

She scowled as she pushed herself from the tree and came toward him, moving aside the curtain of branches. “I don’t want to marry you,” she announced.

“Really?” he replied with a calmness distinctly at odds with the way he felt.

“No, I don’t,” she said firmly, planting herself defiantly in front of him.

“Well, I certainly cannot accuse you of playing the flirtatious maid with me. Might I inquire why my proposal is to be rejected before I even make it?”

“Isn’t it enough that I don’t want you?”

He fought to subdue his anger at her sarcastic tone. “Your father approves of the match and there are certain facts in my favor,” he remarked, turning away from her and going to the brook. He picked up some pebbles and tossed them into the water as he counted off the reasons why she should want him. “I am wealthy. I am generous. I would treat you well. I am on good terms with several powerful lords. I am not without some personal attributes that I have been told women find appealing.”

“Don’t forget vain and dissolute,” she said with a sternness that would have done credit to her father as she came to stand beside him.

He raised his eyebrows in a gesture of surprise that masked his growing vexation. “These are serious charges, my lady. I suppose you think me vain because I like fine clothes, and dissolute because I prefer to make my surroundings as pleasing to the eye and comfortable to the body as possible. If your family prefers a spartan existence, that is their right, just as it is mine to spend my money how I choose.

“While I see no reason to justify how I spend my money to you if we are not to marry, I will say, in my defense, that I never exceed my income, I always pay whatever taxes my overlord and the king require of me, and I have never been in debt.”

Her gaze faltered for the briefest of moments, then she raised her chin to glare at him again. “I think the way you waste your money is a sin!”

“Think what you will, my lady,” he said, facing the defiant, passionate woman who did not want him. “But, pray tell me, what is it you do want in a husband? Breadth? Height? Arms as thick as tree trunks? The manners of a boar? Red hair?”

She sucked in her breath and crossed her arms defensively as he continued to stare at her. “I want a man, not a conceited clown!”

“I am a man.”

She sniffed disdainfully. “I suppose you have the necessary physical attributes—but that is all.”

“For most women, that and what I have said before, would be more than sufficient.”

“Well, not for me! I want a man I can respect. A man I can admire. Why, I ride better than you, can surely loose an arrow better than you, and with more accuracy. I daresay I could even wrestle better than you, if I had to.”

“That may be true, my lady,” he replied coldly, “but I smell better than you.”

She gaped at him in outraged shock.

He leaned his weight casually on one leg and surveyed her slowly. Impertinently. “Let me guess the kind of man you think you would like for a husband. He will be admirably strong and a champion in the manly arts, as long as brute force is the main requirement. Such force is what he will bring to everything he does, including the marriage bed. Force, not pleasure. Not tenderness.

“At first, you will indeed respect him, until you realize that he gives you the same respect he gives his horse or his dog.” She looked about to speak, but he did not give her the chance. “I have seen what happens when a woman is forced into marriage too many times to wish to experience it myself. So calm yourself, my fiery Aileas. If you do not wish to marry me, simply tell your father so, and that will be the end of it.

“And as for that redheaded brute you seem to find so fascinating, I regret that the feeling is not reciprocated. He has left you.”

“What?”

“He left Dugall Castle immediately after the noon meal.” With that, George marched to his horse and took hold of the reins. He glanced back to look at her once more.

She stood motionless, no longer defiant, her expression one of surprise and dismay.

A primitive urge unlike any he had ever felt enveloped him, and suddenly, George’s veneer of elegance and breeding dissolved. He strode across the space between them and tugged Aileas into his arms, pressing a hot kiss onto her tempting lips.

Desire, raw and needy, coursed through his veins the moment he touched her, and when she seemed to melt into his arms, offering no resistance, he held her tighter, leaning into her and pushing his tongue into her yielding mouth.

But it was not George’s way to take without asking, or to behave with callous disregard, whatever his emotions, so his kiss changed, became gentler, more tender, yet still with the promise of that more powerful passion waiting to be released again-Her response startled and delighted him, for she began to return his passion, kissing him as if she desired him with a yearning equal to his own.

What was happening? He didn’t know. He could barely think, for he was overwhelmed and uncertain—

He broke away and, using every ounce of self-control he possessed, put a casual expression on his face as he looked into her desire-darkened eyes while she gasped for breath. “Go, Aileas, and tell your father that we shall not marry.”

She swallowed and backed away, nearly stumbling. Her fingertips touched her lips for a moment. Then she reached for her horse’s reins and yanked the unwilling beast out of the water. Still without speaking, she mounted swiftly and kicked her horse into a gallop. In another moment, she was on the other side of the trees, and then she was gone.

George sighed and slumped onto the ground near the banks of the brook. What had just happened here? What had he done?

He had never experienced anything like the sudden, wild, passionate desire he had felt for Aileas Dugall, and he could no more have prevented himself from kissing her than he could hold his breath for a day.

To what end?

How could he force his kiss on her like the worst of brigands, he who knew the price such unthinking, intense actions could exact?

Surely it was just as well that she didn’t want to be his wife. No other person had ever stripped away his self-control as she just had.

He would find someone else. Someone calm and pliant, who did not rouse him so. A gentle woman, who would not inflame him.

That was the kind of wife he needed.

Chapter Five

Aileas angrily swiped her eyes with the back of her hand, and then her nose. She wasn’t going to cry. Not over anything Sir George de Gramercie had said to her. And not over Rufus, either, if he could leave without so much as a farewell

She wrapped her arms tightly around the apple tree’s slender trunk and pressed her face against the rough bark.

Why would he go, and so abruptly? Did her hint of marriage to him strike him with such abhorrence that he had to flee?

“Aileas! Get down from there, now!”

Aileas gasped and Loosened her hold, looking down through the budding branches to see her father, who was standing at the base of the tree glaring at her, his hands on his hips, his gray brows lowered in annoyance and his lips turned down in a frown that always filled her with dread. He was rarely this angry, and it was very tempting to remain above him in the tree. “What is it, Father?”

“Get down!”

She dutifully obeyed, albeit slowly, and stood staring at the ground. One of the stable hands must have told him she had returned.

“What in God’s name did you say to Sir George?” he demanded.

No, not a stable hand. Sir George had returned and spoken to her father. She should have expected that, if she had been able to think clearly and logically. However, since their meeting by the brook, all she had wanted to do was get away from him and try to figure out why Rufus had gone away. She had been trying not to think about Sir George’s remarks or his astonishing, unexpected and completely overwhelming kiss.

It had not been easy.

“Well? Tell me—for he says that he doesn’t think you two should be wed. God’s holy heart, why not?”

“Did he give no reason?”

“No. He just smiled that damned smile of his and said I should talk to you.”

It took some firmness of purpose to refuse one of her father’s requests, but she was fast learning that Sir George was not all manners and charm.

No wonder her father was angry. Not only was his plan for her marriage being thwarted, but Sir George had refused to explain. That type of response always angered her father beyond measure.

“I suppose he feels we would not suit,” she murmured, realizing that when it came to facing her father’s wrath, she was not as brave as Sir George.

“Not suit? What kind of modern nonsense is this? It would be a good match for both of you, as any fool could see.”

“But if he has second thoughts, should we not respect them? After all, he is not a boy who cannot be credited with knowing his own mind.”

Her father’s eyes narrowed shrewdly. “Nor is he a girl who doesn’t understand what’s best for her.”

“Father, I—”

“He is rich, he has powerful friends, he has a fine estate and the best stewards in the south of England to run it.” Her father made a slightly scornful face. “He is good-looking, as far as that goes. What more do you want?”

Aileas rubbed her toe in the dirt and shrugged sullenly.

Sir Thomas’s expression softened a little. “Daughter, I know he is different from what you are used to, but so would be many another knight who asked for your hand. And those who have, have been a damned sight worse.”

Aileas looked at him, dumbfounded. “Other men have asked for my hand in marriage?”

“One or two,” he admitted gruffly.

“Was Rufus one of the few?” she asked, her heart beating fast with hope.

Her father eyed her warily. “No.” Disappointment pricked her bubble of excited expectation, and then her father burst it. “Speaking of Rufus, before he left, he asked me to tell you that he was very sorry if he had led you to believe...” His expression grew more stern. “Have I anything to worry about, daughter?”

She knew what he meant and answered in a low, but firm, voice. “No.” She was a virgin still.

“Good. Besides, even if he had asked, I would have refused him my permission.”

“Why?” Aileas demanded, even more surprised.

“He’s a good man and a fine soldier—and the kind of fellow who will always be seeking adventure. He will not be content to stay at home. He would leave you often, for long, lonely days.”

While she could appreciate the truth of her father’s words—more so than she could credit Sir George’s description of the type of husband Rufus would make—she was not content to have him discounted as a possibility. “Sir George has traveled much,” she reminded her father.