His brothers stood in place with their mouths gaping open like baby birds.
“Ye brought your best clothes, as I ordered?” he asked.
“You’re marrying her?” Robbie asked, his eyebrows almost reaching his hairline. “Why?”
“’Tis all part of the plan,” David said, and waved for them to follow him.
“But isn’t she old?” Robbie asked as the two boys trotted beside him across the courtyard. “Ach, I’ll wager she’s ugly as well.”
“If David wants to wed her,” Will said, “she must be verra pretty—and kind, too.”
Shemust be kind? Where in the hell did Will get these notions?
“You’re to be courteous to Lady Alison and her daughters,” he warned his brothers as he charged up the steps. “Don’t behave like ill-bred heathens.”
“We’re not ill-bred heathens,” Robbie said.
“Just pretend your mother is watching,” he said, “and act accordingly.”
David was going to follow his own advice and be goddamned pleasant.
CHAPTER 9
“I hate stitching,” Beatrix said. “Why can’t we leave our chamber?”
“Needlework is an important skill,” Alison said, doing her best to hide her anxiety behind a smile. “And I’ve already told ye that I cannot allow ye to run loose with all the strange men in the castle.”
She was finding it increasingly difficult to divert the girls, and it did not help that she was exhausted after lying awake all night trying to think of a way to escape the castle—and Wedderburn. By dawn, she had come to the conclusion that her only hope was to delay the marriage long enough to be rescued.
“How much longer will the strange men be here?” Beatrix asked, resting a plump cheek on the heel of her hand.
“I don’t know, sweetling,” Alison said. “Not long, I hope.”
Panic closed her throat when she considered just long it could take Archie to settle his dispute with the queen. She forced herself to push the thought aside. She must hold out hope.
At the sound of a knock on the door, she bolted to her feet, sending her needlework tumbling to the floor.
“My brothers have arrived,” Wedderburn’s deep voice came through the door. “I’ve brought them to meet ye.”
Her heart raced as she imagined being encircled by half a dozen warriors in Wedderburn’s image. If she did not unbar the door, which had just been repaired, he would only break it down again. At least he had made a pretense of knocking this time.
After drawing a deep breath, she shoved the bar back and opened the door. She barely had time to step aside before Wedderburn strode into the room.
His physical presence overwhelmed her. Though he was a young man, perhaps in his mid-twenties, he exuded an air of authority that made him seem even larger than he was. And he was a big man, a foot taller than she was, muscular, and broad-shouldered.
It was a long moment before she noticed the two others who came into the room behind him. Instead of the dangerous-looking warriors she expected, all she saw was a pair of lads.
“These are my brothers, Robert and William,” Wedderburn said.
Neither bore a strong resemblance to him, though the older lad had something of Wedderburn’s fierceness in his eyes and stance. The younger one was still a child and had warm brown eyes.
“Robbie is fourteen, and Will is ten,” Wedderburn said, pointing at each in turn.
“Ye look like a fairy queen,” Will said, and gave her an open smile that was hard to resist. “I told Robbie you’d be pretty.”
Before she could respond, Robbie jabbed an elbow into his side.
“But she is!” Will said.
