grabbed her shoulders and in that moment, she saw the man his opponents in battle feared—the fierce, determined warrior who had survived when so many others had fallen.
“Are you forgetting who paid to keep you in that convent?” he demanded. “Do you think staying there came cheap? We may be nobly born, but our family’s poor and has been for years, since before our parents died.”
Refusing to believe him, she twisted out of his grasp. “You’re lying. You’re lying to try to get me to do what you want. I’d remember if we’d been poor.”
“It’s the truth, Marianne. You just didn’t know it. Our parents sent you away so you wouldn’t suffer, and sacrificed much to keep you there, as I did, because before they died they made me promise I would. I kept that promise, and while you were sleeping on clean sheets and eating like a princess, I was risking my neck and killing other men before they could kill me. Wearing secondhand armor. Sleeping in stables rather than pay for a place at an inn. Going hungry more times than I can count. And now I’ve arranged it so that you’ll never suffer from want, keeping my promise still, for which you should be grateful.”
Marianne stared at him, aghast, hearing the truth in his angry words. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I’m telling you now. Scot or not, Hamish Mac Glogan is rich. You’ll be living in luxury, while I try to get some income out of this place.”
She went to him and put a placating hand on his powerful forearm. “Nicholas, I’m truly sorry you suffered for my sake, and I wish I’d known and been able to do something to help, but please, don’t make me repay you with this marriage. Don’t make me suffer for the rest of my life because of your ambitions. I can’t live in this country.”
“You can’t!” he scoffed, wrenching his arm from her grasp. He strode across the room, then turned to face her. “Maybe that’s what I should have said when it came time to send the annual fee to the convent, instead of going without meals and decent armor and a bed to sleep in. ‘I can’t pay it, Reverend Mother. Throw her out into the streets and let her fend for herself.”’
Marianne clasped her hands together, beseeching and desperate. “Nicholas, please, I’m begging you. I’ll marry any Norman nobleman you like. Surely there must be one who’ll want me, one just as rich and powerful as that ancient Scot.”
Nicholas’s expression altered to a sarcastic smirk. “You haven’t met many Norman nobles, have you, sister? If so, you’d know they’d try to bed you, but they’d never wed you. You see, my dear beautiful sister, you have no dowry.”
She couldn’t believe it. “Even if we’re not rich, surely there must be something. Why, you’ve got this estate, this castle.”
“That doesn’t mean I intend to waste another ha’penny on you,” Nicholas replied as he crossed his arms. “What money I have will be used to build and maintain this castle, and my garrison and household as befits my rank. I’ve spent all that I care to—and more than I could afford—on you already.”
“But—”
“But nothing!” he roared, his temper breaking. “I’ve found a rich, titled man who’ll take you without a dowry and by God, woman, you’ll wed him and like it! And if you’re as clever as the nuns said—although they didn’t mean it as a compliment—you’ll give the old goat a son or two before he dies. Then you’ll have a claim to his wealth and his property.”
Her stomach churning, Marianne envisioned a life as the bride of Hamish Mac Glogan. Sharing his bed in a frigid hut somewhere. Eating rock-hard bread. Bearing his children in the mud like some sort of animal. Treated worse than a dog.
A cry sounded from the gates.
“Out of my way,” Nicholas snarled as he went to the window. He looked out and muttered a soldier’s earthy curse.
“What is it? What’s happening?” Marianne asked, fearing some new and different trouble.
“Nothing that need concern you,” he retorted as he gave her a scornful look. “We’ll speak of your betrothal later, when you’ve had time to calm yourself and think about where your obligations lie.”
Then he went out, slamming the door behind him.
Marianne sat heavily on her bed. No matter what she owed to Nicholas, she wasn’t willing to sacrifice her entire life to repay him for what he’d done for her.
Nevertheless, she wished she’d known of his suffering sooner. She could have left the convent and…what?
Perhaps she could have found a husband on her own somehow. A brother of one of her friends, perhaps. She was a beautiful woman, after all, and that was obviously worth something. She’d also been taught all the duties and skills of a chatelaine by the good sisters, and a Norman nobleman would appreciate that, if Nicholas did not.
Yet the chance to find a husband for herself among her friends had passed, and now she was facing a marriage to a Scot.
Telling herself there must be something she could do to prevent the marriage, trying not to give in to despair, she rose and went to the window.
A mounted party of unfamiliar Scots entered the courtyard through the thick oaken gates bossed with bronze. The man leading them had hair white as freshly fallen snow, and his garment’s colors were a reddish brown like dried blood and a green reminiscent of moss. Beside him rode another Scot. He was taller and younger than the other man, with long, dark-brown hair that spread over his broad shoulders, except for two narrow braids that framed his clean-shaven and surprisingly handsome face.
Handsome for a Scot, she mentally clarified. And although his nose was straight, his chin strong and his lips full, he wore that outlandish garment that didn’t cover his bare, muscular legs. His sleeveless shirt revealed arms just as powerful. She was relieved to see that he carried no sword or other weapons, yet she suspected he could uproot a small tree with his bare hands, or kill a man with a blow.
Even more unnerving than the physical power of the Scot was his expression as he looked around the courtyard. He was so grimly malevolent, she could believe he wanted to torch everything he saw, and attack every soldier single-handed.
It was no mystery now why her brother had cursed, and she was surprised he had allowed this band of Scots to enter Beauxville at all—unless he hadn’t realized the old man had brought his fiercest warrior with him.
Marianne drew back out of sight as the savage warrior continued to scan the yard and surrounding buildings. She didn’t want to encounter his venomous gaze directly. She’d endured enough lustful looks from men during her journey here to last a lifetime, and she was quite sure this barbarian would react to her beauty like the uncivilized beast he was.
Even so, and in spite of the dread and disgust he inspired, her heartbeat quickened and her body warmed as she continued to watch him. Against her will, she remembered that day she’d climbed the tree and looked over the convent wall. A well-formed young man, wearing only his breeches, and one of the girls from the village had stopped beside a tree near the side of the road, in a spot not easily seen unless one was looking down from a tree. There they’d kissed, in such a way that she’d felt as hot as if the sun was shining directly on her and could melt her like butter.
She hadn’t known then what she was feeling, but she did now: lust. And she must truly be losing her mind if she could lust after a brutal, barbarian
