When Stephen recovered enough to finally realize that Roger Chatworth walked beside the woman he was to marry, he growled low in his throat and took a step forward.
Sir Thomas caught his arm. “Don’t go after him like that. I’m sure Roger would like nothing better than a fight. And for that matter, so would Bronwyn.”
“I may give it to them both!”
“Stephen! Listen to me. You’ve hurt the girl. You were late, you sent no message. She is a proud woman, more proud than a woman has a right to be. Her father did that when he made her his heir. Give her time. Take her riding tomorrow and talk to her. She’s an intelligent woman.”
Stephen relaxed and took his hand off his sword hilt. “Talk to her? How could I speak to a woman who looks like that? Last night I could hardly sleep because she haunted me so. Yes, I’ll take her riding, though perhaps it’s not the kind of riding you mean.”
“Your wedding is set for the day after tomorrow. Leave the girl virgin until then.”
Stephen shrugged. “She’s mine. I’ll do as I will with her.”
Sir Thomas shook his head at the arrogance of the young man. “Come, look at my new hawks.”
“My sister-in-law, Judith, showed Gavin a new lure. Perhaps you’d like to see it.”
They left the garden and walked toward the mews.
As she walked with Roger, Bronwyn kept looking about the garden for the man she’d met the night before. The only stranger she saw was the man with Sir Thomas. The rest of the men were the same, staring at her, laughing in the same derogatory way when she passed.
But none of them resembled the ugly, filthy man she’d been dragged before. Once she glanced over her shoulder to where Sir Thomas had been. Both he and the stranger were gone. The man?
?s eyes haunted her. They made her want to run away from him yet at the same time kept her from moving. She blinked to clear her vision and turned to someone safer—Roger. His eyes were smiling and kind and not disturbing in any way.
“Tell me, Lord Roger, what else is there to know about Stephen Montgomery besides that he is an ugly man?”
Roger was startled by her question. He wouldn’t have thought a woman introduced to Stephen would think him ugly. Chatworth smiled. “Once the Montgomerys were rich, but their arrogance displeased a king and he took their wealth.”
She frowned. “So now they must marry wealth.”
“The wealthiest women they can find,” he emphasized.
Bronwyn thought of the men who’d died with her father. She would have chosen one of them for her husband, and she would have wed a man who loved her, one who wanted something besides her lands.
As Morag pulled a bucket of water from the well, her eyes never left the quiet young man who leaned against the garden wall. For the last several days Morag had never been too far from Bronwyn’s side, though the girl was often unaware of Morag’s presence. She didn’t like the way Bronwyn was flaunting herself with this Roger Chatworth. Nor did Morag like Chatworth, a man who’d court a woman a few days before she was to marry another.
Morag had heard Bronwyn’s ravings the night she’d returned from meeting Stephen Montgomery. She’d heard what a leering, drooling idiot Montgomery was. Bronwyn screamed that she’d never marry him, that he was vile, repulsive.
Morag set the water bucket on the ground. For nearly an hour she’d been watching the blue-eyed man stare at Bronwyn as she sang to a tune Roger was playing on a lute. The stranger had hardly even blinked. Just stood and watched her.
“So ye’re the one she’s to marry,” Morag said loudly.
Stephen had difficulty looking away. He peered down at the gnarled woman and smiled. “How did you know?”
“It’s the way ye’re lookin’ at her, like ye already own her.”
Stephen laughed.
“She said ye were the ugliest man created.”
Stephen’s eyes sparkled. “And what do you think?”
Morag grunted. “Ye’ll do. And don’t try to get compliments out of me.”
“Now that I’ve been put in my place, perhaps you’ll tell me who you are. I take it by your accent that you’re a Scot like my Bronwyn.”
“I’m Morag of MacArran.”