Glancing again toward Marion, Dunstan saw the wariness in her eyes, and he wanted to smash Peasely’s face in with his bare fist. Maybe he would. He imagined breaking the man’s bulbous nose and what pleasure that would give him. Then he caught Geoffrey’s frown of warning and remembered that Peasely’s soldiers still camped outside. With a grunt, he curbed his urge to violence—just barely.
“I would retire now,” Marion said, rising and whispering excuses. At her words, Dunstan nodded, moving swiftly to his feet. Although he would have liked to stay in the hall to keep an eye upon his enemy, he did not want to let Marion out of his sight, especially after Peasely had bearded her in their chamber this afternoon. When she darted across the tiles like a frightened mouse, he moved to follow.
Their attempted departure did not go unnoticed, however. “Marion!” Peasely shouted. “Surely you would not leave us yet? The night is young, and there is much to discuss.”
“You can talk tomorrow, Peasely,” Dunstan growled, turning toward his guest.
“But I would talknow,” Peasely snapped. And, in response, Marion swiftly sat down upon the nearest bench, lowering her face in that submissive way that hit Dunstan like a blow to the gut. “I would talk about why a man with naught but a small and poor holding would marry the heiress to Baddersly.”
Ignoring the hush that fell over the room, Peasely lurched to his feet. “He wanted a rich wife so badly that he sold himself to this sniveling creature,” he said, waving his arm toward his niece.
With a contemptuous sneer, Peasely swaggered over to Marion. “I have seen the way the famous Wolf of Wessex dances around his wealthy bride, and I think it is pathetic!” he shouted. “She snaps her fingers, and he jumps. She speaks, and he follows her around like a dog, waiting for a bone!”
Dunstan heard Nicholas’s outraged gasp and silenced him with a glance. This was between Peasely and himself, and he was more than ready to finish it. He stared stonily at his guest, his hand drifting to rest on the hilt of his sword, while Marion’s uncle continued ranting.
Peasely’s face was red and mottled as he swung toward his niece. “Methinks my little Marion has tamed the Wolf with her inheritance,” he spat out. “But I am not so easily bought, my lord. Women were not created as our equals—they are to be little seen and little heard. And I would teach this one her place.”
To Dunstan’s shock, Peasely lifted his hand to strike Marion, who sat, still as a statue, to accept it. Too late, Dunstan realized just how far away from his wife he was, with Peasely standing between them. With a roar, he bounded forward, but just as he did Marion screamed,“No!”The single, defiant shout was so loud that Peasely hesitated, and she lifted her arms to block his blow easily. Then, instead of cowering, she leaped at her uncle, spewing oaths and clawing at his eyes.
Unsteady from drink, Peasely fell to the floor, with Marion atop him, kicking and gouging him with her tiny nails like some kind of wild animal. For a long moment, everyone stared in stunned surprise, then the entire hall exploded as all the de Burghs rushed to Marion’s aid.
Dunstan, who was the closest, was struck with a kind of relief to see that his spirited wife was back, but then he saw the flash of silver that told him Peasely had a dagger. And in that instant, Dunstan discovered just what his wife meant to him. It came to him like a wound to his chest, sharp and clean and painful—and straight to the heart. He loved. He loved her.
And Peasely was cutting her. Dunstan saw the blade slice her arm and the blood spill, bright red upon the pale yellow of her sleeve. His vision was blurred briefly with a hot flood of dizzying anger such as he had never known. Then, with a great growl of rage, Dunstan threw himself across the rushes in a desperate reach for Peasely’s wrist.
At the last minute, his quarry twisted, however, and whether by accident or intention, the dagger gored Dunstan’s chest. He faltered in dazed surprise for a brief moment that could well have finished him, if Peasely had been quicker. But Marion’s uncle had been slowed by drink and stunned by his niece’s attack. He struggled under Dunstan’s great weight, and when Marion rolled away to the safety of Geoffrey’s waiting arms, he was distracted. Dunstan seized his chance, closing his fingers around Peasely’s hand in a deadly grip. The two men struggled for possession of the knife as everyone in the hall looked on in hushed silence.
Emboldened by wine, Peasely thought himself invincible, but he was no match for the Wolf, who bettered him in size and strength. Dunstan was a fierce fighter, known to ignore his own injuries, and tonight he was consumed with a blood lust that blinded him to all else but the man who had threatened his wife.
“I warned you,” Dunstan snarled, when he wrested the weapon away. His lips pulled back from his teeth in a feral grimace of victory, and he saw the mocking contempt in Peasely’s eyes replaced by fear, raw and real, before he buried the dagger deep in the man’s heart.
Heaving a great sigh, Dunstan staggered to his feet. In the stark quiet of the hall, he could hear Marion weeping, and he turned toward the sound. She was kneeling not far away, sobbing beside Geoffrey, who was trying vainly to get a look at her cut. At the sight of her blood, Dunstan wanted to howl out a protest, but instead he fell down beside her and took her in his arms.
“Ah, wren,” he whispered. “What a fierce falcon you were tonight.”
* * *
“‘Tis but a scratch,” Dunstan protested.
“A scratch that has reopened the wound Fitzhugh gave you,” his wife answered. She pursed that lovely, wide mouth of hers in such a pretty way that Dunstan wanted to kiss it. Instead, he sighed and let her wrap the cut with clean linen. He had seen her own injury attended first, but then Marion had insisted on bathing his chest and rubbing on ointments and propping him up on thick pillows and…fussing over him.
He reveled in it.
“I swear, Dunstan, you are the worst patient I have ever had,” she scolded, playing along with him as a good wife should.
“I am theonlypatient you have ever had!”
“That is not true. I was able to help a few of my people at Baddersly, when I had a chance, and some at Campion. Now I will take my place here as a healer.”
Dunstan grunted and watched her hide her amusement. He had a healthy suspicion that Marion knew exactly how much he enjoyed her ministrations. She was a clever one, he was aware of that, and she seemed to know whatever he wanted, whatever he needed, without words passing between them.
That suited him to perfection, for he was not a talker. He was heartily relieved that she was not the kind of woman who begged for compliments and gifts or whined for proof of his affection. In truth, she had never mentioned love since the day of their wedding, though he found himself wishing that she would. Suddenly, knowing that he returned the emotion, he would like to hear her speak of it again, perhaps in that breathy whisper he so enjoyed, or mayhap in that high cry she released when she came in his arms…Dunstan felt himself stir beneath the sheet at the thought.
“There.” She finished with the bindings, laid her hand over his heart and looked at him, her huge eyes filled with tenderness and concern. Now that Dunstan knew just how much she meant to him, this business of love seemed crystal clear. Had he not been drawn to her from the first? Well, very nearly.
And the attraction had grown until he had to have her, not only physically, but with him, body and soul. Still, he had refused to believe the inevitable, even during his stay in the dungeon when thoughts of her were what kept him alive, and afterward, when that time without her made him painfully aware of his need for her.
“Now, drink this, for it will ease the ache and make you sleep,” Marion said. She reached out for a cup beside the bed, but his fingers closed around her wrist, stopping her. The last thing he wanted to do tonight was to drug himself into some senseless state. “Nay, I want no potions, wren. You may cease coddling me now.”
