“You what?” Roger gasped, his eyes wide.
“I want to marry Mary Montgomery.”
“Marry!” Roger staggered back against a chair. To be allied with a family he considered his enemy! “The woman is of the church, you can’t—”
Brian smiled. “She’s taken no vows. She lives with the nuns as one of them, that’s all. Mary is so gentle. She only wants to help the world.”
The two men were interrupted by Alice’s high laugh. “Well, Roger, you have certainly done well. Your baby brother wants to marry the older sister of the Montgomerys. Tell me, Brian, how old is she? Old enough to be the mother you’ve always wanted?”
Brian had never had any reason to experience rage before. He’d always been protected by Roger from most of the unpleasantries of the world, but now he snarled as he went after Alice.
Roger caught his slight young brother. “There’s no need for that.”
B
rian looked into Roger’s eyes. For the first time in his life Brian didn’t think his brother was perfect. “You’re going to let her say those things?” he asked quietly.
Roger frowned. He didn’t like the way Brian was looking at him, so coldly, as if they weren’t the closest of friends. “Of course, she’s wrong. I just think you haven’t thought about this thoroughly. I know you’re young and you need a wife and—”
Brian jerked away from Roger. “Are you saying I’m too stupid to know what I want?”
Alice screamed with laughter. “Answer him, Roger! Are you going to let your brother marry a Montgomery? I can hear all of England now. They’ll say you couldn’t get Stephen in the back one way so you got him another. They’ll say the Chatworths take only the leavings of the Montgomerys. I couldn’t get Gavin. You couldn’t get Bronwyn, so you sent your crippled brother after their old-maid sister.”
“Shut up!” Roger roared.
“The truth hurts, doesn’t it?” Alice taunted.
Roger clenched his jaw. “My brother will not marry a Montgomery.”
Brian pulled himself up to his full height. He was half the size of Roger. “I will marry Mary,” he said firmly.
Alice laughed again. “You should have put him in charge of the other one. He might have spent his lust on her but at least he wouldn’t be talking of marriage.”
“What are you talking about, you hag?” Brian demanded. “What other one?”
Alice glared at him through her veil. “How dare you?” she gasped. “How dare you call me a hag? My beauty was so great that once I wouldn’t have looked at a crippled weakling like you.”
Roger took a step forward. “Get out of here before I scar your other cheek.”
Alice snarled at him before she turned to leave. “Ask him about Bronwyn upstairs,” she laughed before she hurried from the room.
Roger turned to meet Brian’s cold eyes. He didn’t like the way Brian was looking at him. It was almost as if Brian no longer worshipped his big brother.
“You said you released her,” Brian said flatly. “How many other lies have you told me?”
“Now, Brian,” Roger began in that special tone he always used for his little brother and sister.
Brian moved away from him. “I am not a child and I will not be treated as one! What a fool I’ve been! No wonder the Montgomerys don’t attack us. You hold two of their women, don’t you? How could I have listened to you? I never even questioned that whatever you did was right. I was too happy with Mary to even think for myself. But then I’ve always been too busy to think for myself, haven’t I?”
“Brian, please…”
“No!” Brian shouted. “For once you’re going to listen to me. Tomorrow morning I’m going to take Mary and Bronwyn back to their family.”
Roger could feel the hair rising on the back of his neck. “They are my prisoners and you will do no such thing.”
“Why are they your prisoners?” Brian asked. “Because you attacked Stephen Montgomery’s back? Because you were beaten by him?”
Roger staggered backward. “Brian, how can you talk to me like this? After all I’ve done for you?”