The Virgin Proxy(9)
It was distressing to see her countrymen cowering to the filthy Norman pigs. Surely someone here was secretly stirring rebellion, or had things changed so much during her years stuck in that convent? It was, after all, fifteen years since she was shut away from the world, and fourteen years since William the Bastard of Normandy vanquished King Harold of Britain at the Battle of Hastings. Perhaps, in most folk’s minds, war was over and the Normans had won.
Well, not as far as Deorwynn of Wexford was concerned. Other people could lay down and be conquered; she’d be the last one still fighting if need be. The fact that she hadn’t seen the outside world in so many long years hardly mattered. It couldn’t have altered that much since she was six. Could it?
Sauntering back to the steps of the unfinished chapel where Sybilia waited impatiently, she suddenly—for no reason—looked across the yard, shielded her eyes from a glare of winter light with one hand, and saw him.
Today he was clean shaven, his face washed. His skin looked even darker in daylight, his eyes more startlingly blue. He wore a surcoat and fur-trimmed mantle. When a spark from that harsh sun caught on the sword and scabbard hanging at his side, she was momentarily blinded.
“Here he comes,” Sybilia whispered through her voluminous bridal veil. “That must be him. Devaux.”
Her sight cleared. He crossed the yard toward them with another soldier at his side, this one fair-headed and smiling. Deorwynn’s throat tightened, a hot curse choking inside, stalled on her tongue. Oh no. This could not be.
Surely Sybilia meant the man with the lighter hair.
But even as she thought that, she knew the dreadful truth. There was a powerful confidence in the dark one’s stride. His face was grim, his demeanor that of a man accustomed to getting his own way. He let the fair-headed man talk and perhaps he listened, but it was clear he had other things on his mind.
They halted and bowed. She was thankful for the sudden breeze that picked up her long hair and blew it across her face. Her heart thumped too hard, like a desperate beggar at an almshouse door in the snows of winter.
Devaux. He was a Norman and the enemy.
And she was the unluckiest girl in the world. Always suspecting this to be the case, now she knew it was true. This gorgeous man, revealed to her last night by some mischievous, wicked demon, was not only her enemy; he was marrying another.
* * * *
Guy’s gaze fixed upon the woman in the light green, woolen gown that clung to her breathtaking form as if wet, but Thierry ignored her, introducing him instead to the woman in the veil.
His bathing beauty was not to be his bride. A mistake had been made. A very bad mistake. Since Guy Devaux, Bear of Brittany, did not make mistakes, he could only lay the blame at this woman’s feet. He’d planned to surprise her, yet he was the one surprised.
She blushed furiously, biting her lip, still looking away across the yard. A guilty face if ever he saw one.
It took a moment.
His anger was very rarely restrained once it reached boiling point, but he caught this and trapped it. Did it matter—their encounter in the cookhouse? Any woman on his manor was fair game, simply another of his possessions, like a horse or pack mule. If he wanted her, he would have her and marriage to another—hers or his—would not be a barrier
Yet last night he’d thought she was to be his bride, not just his bedmate. It had pleased him. Today, finding this was not the case, he suffered an inconvenient disappointment somewhere under his ribcage.
The damned wench was just as tempting today as she was last night. Splinters of reluctant winter sunlight snagged in her hair as it tumbled in heavy locks over her rounded breasts. She wore no wimple, just a circlet of holly and mistletoe entwined. Some berries had fallen loose, tangled up in that thick, soft mass like rubies and pearls.
Alone in his bed last night, he’d laid awake, thinking of the girl in the bath, marveling over his unbelievable good fortune. Looking at the empty bed beside him, he’d thought with excitement of having her in it. He’d imagined them rolling together, his cock finally piercing her maidenhead as she held his shoulders and gasped out his name. He’d even imagined her pink lips forming the word “love”.
Love? Now he laughed at his own foolishness.
The wedding party looked at him. He knew they must be wondering what had amused the Bear of Brittany—the man who seldom laughed.
The chapel was already prepared, the monk inside, the feast laid out, and a group of traveling players were hired to perform in the great hall that evening. Guy could do nothing today but marry Sybilia Senclere and lay claim to her fat dowry. He may be an uneducated son of a whore, but three things he knew well—never turn your back on the enemy, never sleep without your sword nearby and never look a gift horse in the mouth.