Susan Paul - The Captive Bride

“I cannot see Mistress Magan bowing to you for any reason,”Aric said irately. “She’s a stubborn, meantempered little wench. Put her elbow in my stomach when I merely tried to set her on my horse, so she did.”He rubbed the offended area and cast a look at the female in question. She took note and gazed back at him with narrowed eyes.

“Clarise returns,”Kayne said, drawing the attention of them all toward the stairs. “Alone.”

Concern was written on the delicate girl’s face as she hurriedly moved toward them. Senet didn’t wait for her to cross the great hall, where all those waiting had turned to watch her, but rose and strode to meet her halfway. He took her hand before she could speak and led her back toward the stairs.

“Lady Katharine will not come,”the girl said breathlessly, in French. “She would not even dress. When I tried to speak to her, she threatened to—”

“I’ll deal with her.”Senet cut her off in a low voice, striving to maintain his outward calm for the benefit of their avid audience. “You need never be afraid of Lady Katharine, Clarise. I promise you this on my honor.”

Kayne and Eric had joined them, and he set Clarise’s hand on Kayne’s arm. “Take Mistresses Ariette and Magan to the solar and wait for me there. I will bring Lady Katharine.”He began to ascend the stairs. “And bid Father Aelnoth to prepare himself. We will begin the ceremony shortly.”

Guards stood at the door of the chamber in which he’d locked his bride. At the sight of him, they stood aside and let him enter. The first thing Senet saw, apart from Katharine standing by the room’s small, lone window, yet dressed in her chemise, was the expensive gown he’d brought her as a wedding gift—lying on the floor.

“We will have an understanding regarding Mademoiselle Clarise,”he said, shutting the door behind him.

Katharine lifted her chin and folded her arms. “Will we?”she asked insolently.

“Indeed, my lady, we will. She is to be treated as an honored guest at Lomas, by yourself, as my wife, and by every other person who bides on my lands, including your ladies. I will not tolerate the least slight toward her, and if she should even once be driven to tears—”

“Never have I met such a hypocrite,”Katharine said, sneering. “Only a few hours ago you spoke so sweetly of the eternal love you bear for your departed betrothed, yet now you trumpet openly an even sweeter concern for your French whore. If you love her so well, Senet Gaillard, then pray, marry her.”

He moved toward her slowly. She stood her ground, eyeing him with defiance. She was, he thought, a beautiful creature, with her long red—gold hair unbound, flowing down the length of her shapely body and past her hips. The chemise she wore was thin enough to tease and entice. He felt a shocking, overwhelming lust for hersomething he’d not felt with the myriad other women who’d tempted him before. But just as he’d not let other women rule him during the past ten years, with passion or lust or anything so foolish, he would not let her do so either. He would be master at Lomas, and the sooner she learned that, the better for all concerned. Especially for her.

“If Mademoiselle Clarise should shed even one tear because of you, Katharine,”he repeated, moving until he stood directly in front of her, “I will turn you over my knee and punish you.”

She pressed her face closer to his, unafraid and daring. “If you think I should deign to waste my time in tormenting your witless little whore, then you greatly mistake the character of my mind. I would rather labor in the kitchens, on my knees, yet, than lower myself to so much as countenance her existence. Keep her away from me, and we shall have no quarrel.”

He shook his head. “Such a sharp tongue you possess, Katharine.”Setting a finger beneath her chin, he lifted it even higher. “No soft and gentle wife will you be, I vow.”

She slapped his hand away. “No wife will I be. I will not wed you!”

“I will give you a choice,”he continued in the same calm tone. “You may don the wedding gown I have brought—”he nodded at the heap on the floor “—or you may be married as you are, in your chemise.”

“You are deaf, dumb, blind and senseless!”she shouted furiously, her hands balling into fists at her sides. “I will not wed you!”

“I give you the span of a minute to make your decision.”

“You would not humiliate me so,”she said with disdain. “You, a knight of the realm? You would not parade any woman before her own people so nearly undressed. And certainly not the woman you mean to have as a wife.”

Senet felt the sharp truth of her words deeply, as if they were knives striking a wound. It would be the meanest manner of torment, especially for a proud woman like Katharine.

“Nay, I would not subject you to such a humiliation, but if you are determined, so be it. You are the one who will conclude the outcome. Quickly, now, Katharine, for we will be wed, even if 1 must carry you naked before all those assembled below.”

“So be it,”she said in a low, heated tone. “I take no responsibility for what you have forced me to, and my people will know the full of it. You may carry me naked before them and stand me in front of a priest, but I will not say the words, Senet Gaillard. I will not.”

He didn’t think he had ever admired a woman so completely before now—certainly not since Odelyn had died, and never in this manner. Katharine was fierce as any warrior, her spirit strong and her determination true. The knowledge that she would be his filled him with exultation. Bending, he looped an arm about her legs and, ignoring her cry of surprise, lifted her over his shoulder. Senet walked out of the chamber and toward the stairs, deaf to his bride’s loud fury and the ungentle blows she struck upon his back.

The great hall was filled to overflowing, Katharine saw as she descended the stairs carried like a sack of grain over Senet Gaillard’s shoulder. And every single person present watched as he made his way, with her all but naked save for the thin chemise she wore. Gritting her teeth she put every ounce of strength she possessed into the fists she flung at him.

“Bastard!”she shouted furiously. “Bastard! Bastard! Oh, God.”She gave up when they reached the bottom of the stairs, and sank her aching fingers into her unbound hair, letting herself go limp against the bouncing rhythm of his stride, wishing that she could somehow disappear. That her people should witness her shame was beyond repair. She would never forgive him. A loud murmuring rose up, and from somewhere to her left she could hear Father Aelnoth making a feeble protest. Katharine shut her eyes tightly against all of it.

He carried her to the small garden solar just off the hall, where her ladies spent many hours plying their needles in the greater sunlight that the chamber’s tall paned windows provided. He set her on the floor, and Katharine barely had a moment to collect herself and push her hair from her face before Ariette and Magan threw themselves at her.

“Oh, my lady!”Magan cried. “We’ve been so worried for you.”

“Are you well, Lady Katharine?”Ariette asked. “Oh, here, please—”She began to pull the hair covering from her head, in order to set it over Katharine’s shoulders.

“Nay, Ariette.”Katharine stopped her. “Senet Gaillard wishes to humiliate me openly. Let him do so and prove what manner of lord he intends to be.”She gave that man a defiant glare.

“Lady Katharine, you are overset,”Sir Kayne said gently, untying the elegant cape about his massive shoulders. “None of us would ever allow such a thing.”Keeping his eyes lowered, he quickly set the garment about her. No sooner had he done so than Senet grasped it and tossed it back to his friend.