He slid a glance at Morgana and found green eyes that held mystery and promise. If nothing else, Morgana of Wenlock was a free spirit, a woman who could enchant a man with a wistful look or flay his pride to ribbons with her whiplike tongue.
“Come,” he said, pulling on her hand and following after his cousin. “Strahan is right. ’Tis time you took your place by his side.”
“I’ll not—”
“Don’t argue with me, woman,” he growled, angrier at himself than at her protest.
She yanked back her hand and glared up at him. “You would not so easily accept marriage to one you distrusted, m’lord.”
“I would do as my king asked.”
“Then pray that Edward is a kind man who will not ask you to marry an ugly, barren Scottish lady who would hate the very sight of you and would rather slit your throat than lie with you.”
He grabbed her then and forced her up against the wall. “Perhaps you’d best send up a prayer of thanks that you are to marry Strahan and not me, for I swear that if I were wed to a woman whose tongue was as cutting as a butcher’s blade, I’d find a way to tame her!”
“What if she would not be tamed?” Morgana asked, barely daring to breath, her back rigid against the stone wall. Her breasts were rising and falling, their peaks pushing against the cloth that separated his body from hers, and yet her breath came shallow and fast. She knew she was being willful and defiant, arguing with a baron much more powerful than her father, a man known for his black moods and vengeful ways, a lord who had the king’s ear, and yet she could not stop the challenging words from spewing from her mouth.
“I would find a way,” Garrick insisted, his body pressed hard against hers. “Now, no more arguments.” Taking her roughly by the elbow, he again started for the stairs. “Come,” he whispered as his breath caressed the shell of her ear. “Your beloved awaits.”
Chapter Eleven
“Remember,” Garrick muttered to Morgana as they started down the stairs, “everyone here knows you claim to be a sorceress—”
“I made no such claim!”
“—so be on your best behavior.” He cast her a look then a kinder glance than any he’d offered her so far. The hint of a smile flashed against his dark skin, and Morgana caught a glimpse of the man he’d been before tragedy had robbed him of all that he held dear. She wondered what Maginnis would have been like if his wife had not died and his child had not vanished. She couldn’t help but think that buried deep behind his fierce exterior was a gentler, more thoughtful man.
As they climbed down the stairs, Garrick’s touch was warm. The hand on her elbow seemed possessive, though she knew she was imagining that thought, just as she had imagined that he wanted to kiss her in his chamber. He was guiding her to her betrothed. And to her doom.
In the great hall bustling serv
ants carried trays laden with cups of ale and wine. Musicians played their lutes and pipes, and pages attended the raised table where household members and honored guests were already seated, drinking wine and talking among themselves. Morgana caught Strahan’s eye as he lifted his cup, then drank slowly, his throat working. His gaze, over the rim of the cup, was almost mocking as he stared at her.
Morgana resisted the urge to flee — not that she could have with Garrick’s firm grip on her arm. She tossed back her hair and took in the surroundings, purposely avoiding Strahan’s smoldering gaze.
Garrick introduced her to his sister, a tall, regally built woman with large gray eyes that seemed to stare into Morgana’s very soul. Her tunic was gold brocade, and an elegant necklace of emeralds encircled her long neck. Clare’s smile was warm, and though she cast her brother a look of disapproval that Morgana didn’t understand, the smile she offered Morgana seemed genuine. There was a pride in Clare’s bearing, and Morgana guessed that though Garrick was lord of the manor, his sister ran the household.
Garrick’s younger brother, Ware, was seated beside Clare. A striking boy with black hair and eyes the color of the sea, he blushed when he was introduced to Morgana, and from the stubborn set of his mouth, she guessed that he and Garrick were often on opposite sides in an argument. Ware’s eyes lingered a little too long on the swell of Morgana’s breasts before he forced his gaze back to the musicians at the far end of the hall in the minstrel gallery high over the screens separating the corridor from the great room. Music rose with smoke and laughter to the lofty ceiling and everyone, save Garrick and Morgana, seemed in a festive mood.
Strahan stood as she approached. His smile dazzling, his brown eyes gleaming as if with mischief, he took her hand, kissed it, and offered her a seat next to him. “You’re more beautiful than I remember,” he said, his voice soft and pleasant, before shooting his cousin a hard glance. But Garrick was already seating himself, as if he cared not about Strahan and his bride to be.
They drank of the wine set before them, and to Morgana’s ultimate humiliation, Garrick announced to all the others in the great hall that she and Strahan were to be wed.
Though she forced a smile, her innards withered and she visibly cringed. Strahan grinned broadly and leaned close to talk to her as a trumpet sounded and the first course was carried in on silver platters: boiled mutton served with a pudding and spiced sauce, a pike stuffed with almonds, pheasants, and a baked custard in pastry. Strahan was a gentlemen, sharing his trencher and cutting the meat before offering her the choicest morsels, but Morgana could barely swallow.
She suspected that beneath his manners and courtly charm, Strahan’s heart beat as black as a raven’s wing. There was no gentleness about him, only an honored manner that hid the cruelty in his soul. She closed her eyes, sending up a prayer for divine intervention, hoping that God would see fit to untie the knot of the matrimonial noose Lord Garrick had strung about her neck.
“A prayer, m’lady?” Strahan asked, his thin lips twisting in amusement. He knifed a joint of pheasant and wiped his fingers on his beard.
“Of thanks,” she lied, hoping God wouldn’t strike her dead for lying just yet.
“So you are pleased by my offer of marriage?”
“Pleased?” she repeated, then decided the truth might be the best measure. Strahan was a prideful man. Perhaps he was vain enough to think that any woman would want him, including her. There was a chance that, knowing her feelings, he would decide to call off the wedding. “Nay, I’m not pleased.”
Slowly he licked the edge of his knife, and she wondered if he might cut his tongue. “Many woman would kiss the ground should they be chosen to be my bride.”
“I am not many.”