The Pleasures of Sin. Jessica TrappЧитать онлайн книгу.
do it again.”
Clad only in her shift, Gwyneth reminded Brenna of a specter. A specter of her past.
Brenna had a new life awaiting her in Italy. Glancing at the open door, she thought of her satchel beneath the bed.
“Oh, curse it all to the devil. This battle is not my concern,” she said. She needed to leave. She could not spend her life rescuing her sister from one suitor or the next. “Marry the man and he’ll set Father free. With your looks, you’ll be able to bend him to your will.”
At that moment, thunderous footsteps clamored up the stairs of the tower.
The chamber door banged open.
The three sisters gasped. The dogs barked, and St. Paul bolted beneath the bed.
The largest pair of men Brenna had ever seen stepped inside the room. They were fully clad in chain mail and armor and seemed to be at least seven feet in height.
One had eyes so blue they glowed like the coals of hell beneath his full-face helm. He carried a large broadsword. The other held a crossbow at the ready. They seemed to scrutinize the bed, the trunks, the table-desk, and the paintings before gazing intently at Brenna and her sisters.
Gwyneth, still in her shift, tried to hide behind Brenna and Adele.
The mastiff barked wildly, rearing upward. Adele held him by the collar, bracing her booted feet against the floor. Her hennin bobbed. The terrier leapt into the window embrasure seat and growled low.
“Call him off,” the crossbow-man commanded, swinging his weapon around to the mastiff. He was a tall, dangerous looking brute with a missing finger.
Gwyneth grasped Brenna’s hand in a clammy grip.
With a few whispered words, Adele calmed Panthos. Duncan tucked his tail and bolted beneath the bed with St. Paul.
“I am here to collect my bride. Which of you is she?” the man with the wicked blue eyes asked. He swung around to Gwyneth, seeming to take in her sunshine-like beauty.
Chain mail clinked as he reached for her, more beast than man. Huge hands. Brawny shoulders. An arrogant masculine presence. Bloody hell.
He was worse even than Lord Brice.
He’d eat her sister alive.
Gwyneth gave Brenna a look of pleading desperation as the man’s brutish hand touched the pristine linen of her shift. Her pulse fluttered in her neck.
With one last glance at the satchel under the bed, Brenna stepped forward, pushed Gwyneth firmly behind herself, and faced off the monster. She could not leave her sister to be raped and ravished by this fiend. Her skill with a knife would have to be enough.
She said a silent prayer of thanksgiving that Gwyneth had shoved the veil on her head so that her scar was partially hidden and the man would not see her unevenly chopped locks.
“I am your bride, my lord. Just give me a moment to change into my wedding gown.” And hide the dagger.
Chapter Two
He would have revenge.
Through the eye slits in his helmet, James of Montgomery glowered at the hostile crowd gathered near the steps of the chapel for the wedding. Lecrow, the lord of this keep and the bastard who had ambushed him this morn, knelt between two guards, tied in place by ropes. He was a squirrelly, gray-bearded man with fanatical eyes. James vowed silently to see the man beaten and made a public example of in the streets of London.
“Easier to keep guard inside,” he said to his men as he flung open the church doors and led them into the darkened sanctuary. His position as an earl allowed him to be married near the altar instead of on the outer steps. He latched his hand firmly around his wife-to-be’s wrist and dragged her in his wake.
“Bring her father to the front to witness the ceremony,” he barked at the two men holding Lecrow.
His duty was to bring peace to the region and he intended to crush the fight out of the old man by showing him that despite his little ambush, the wedding would go on. Just as the king had commanded. The town’s prized port—currently under the command of the Baron of Windrose, but spelled out in the wedding contract to be turned over to James—would be a huge boon to his shipping trade.
He paced past the rows of pews. The others followed. They prodded Lecrow with the point of a sword, and he shuffled forward on his knees.
“You won’t get awa—” Baron Lecrow started.
One of James’s men drew a dagger and held it to Lecrow’s throat, effectively silencing him.
James nodded approval and turned to the woman he was to marry.
Thankfully, his new wife was the strong, stubborn one instead of the weepy, teary-eyed blonde, as he had feared. This one may not enjoy being married to him, but at least he doubted he’d have to listen to tedious pleas for mercy on the wedding night. He had no use for the sniveling cries of women. And he had no intention of granting mercy.
Three of his men lay dead from this morn’s attack.
Jacob, Robert, and Collin. Good men all.
Guilt ate at him that he had led them to their deaths like defenseless sheep.
’Twas his duty to enforce the king’s law and bring to heel the rebels who threatened the peace of England. The port was being used to smuggle in wine and weapons and needed tighter control. The wedding was arranged to bring stability to the region: both this woman and the prized port would be his.
The king had warned him of possible treachery, but he had not expected an outright attack.
Anger curled through him like a living demon as he thought of the price his men had paid.
The ambush had been a betrayal of the lowest kind. Her father had beguiled him to come here to Windrose, rather than his grander castle at Montgomery. His bride-to-be had sent him a sweet perfumed message.
And it all had been a ruse to kill him.
He could scarcely imagine this warrior-like queen standing beside him would write something so flowery and delicate.
Tightening his grip on his bride-to-be’s wrist, he vowed by all that was holy that both she and her family would learn what it meant to bow to his rule. To live under The Enforcer.
Every step down the chapel’s aisle sent another shot of fury pulsating through him.
“Slow down,” the woman beside him whispered. Her enormous silver-blue gown rustled. “My slipper—oh, drat it all to hell—” She stumbled slightly, kicked off one of her pointed velvet slippers and righted herself.
The bride-to-be’s father glared at him with narrowed eyes. He strained against the ropes.
The urge to take the man by the tunic and hang him from the large oak just on the other side of the sanctuary door snaked fiercely through James. But, nay. The man was a political prisoner, and the king himself must deal with his treason.
His hand tarried to the hilt of his sword, in case her tripping was a ruse to get him off guard so her father could attack. He would not be caught unaware again.
A heavy veil obscured her features, but he could feel her glowering at him. “I am coming. There is no need to drag me.”
“Mind your tongue, wife.”
She propped one hand on her hip, causing her enormous butterfly headdress to tilt and ruin the serene loveliness of the silver-blue gown. “I am not your wife yet.”
He bared his teeth at her, vowing both the stubborn old man and his rebellious daughter would be cowed afore this was over.
“You will be, wench.” Squeezing her wrist, he pulled her the last few feet down the aisle. Did none in this family know when they had been squarely defeated and have the sense to submit?
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