The Bride and the Brute

Wife. The term rocked her body with anxiety. Lord Reese Harrington’s wife. Jayce studied his strong profile, the downward turn of his brooding lips, the slight flaring of his nostrils, his narrowed blue eyes. It should have warmed Jayce’s heart that he had chosen her. But it did not. Something was wrong. He had shown her no more than polite disdain when they had met moments before. As a matter of fact, he had only inclined his head slightly at her in a mockery of a greeting before whirling and preceding her through the chapel doors. Not quite the greeting Jayce had hoped for. What was it she had hoped for? Did she want him to kiss her hand? To smile, perhaps?

Yes! She had wanted to know the man she was marrying was more than the wealthy, powerful, womanizing lord she had heard about. She wanted reassurance that once he came to her bed, there would be no others. She wanted reassurance that her life with him would be a happy one. She dropped her gaze to her clasped hands. That had not happened.

Wealthy. Powerful. Womanizing. That wasn’t all she had heard about Lord Reese. The final piece of gossip that had reached her ears was the most troubling. She had heard he swore off marriage, vowing never to be troubled with a wife. She wondered what had changed his mind. When her father had joyously come to her with Lord Reese’s acceptance of his marriage proposal and told her he was giving his blessing to the union, well, she couldn’t say much. And now, standing before the eyes of God, she could say even less.

Why had he chosen her?

“Get on with it!” Reese rumbled at the chaplain, his voice thundering through the chapel like an angry curse.

Startled, it was all Jayce could do not to jump and flee down the aisle. She turned and cast her father a wary gaze. He sat in the first pew, the only man other than the chaplain and Reese in the chapel. She saw her father’s clenched jaw relax, then he gave her his most reassuring smile.

“Yes, yes,” the chaplain stuttered. He dabbed the top of his head with a cloth he held clutched in a trembling hand. “Well, then, I pronounce you man and wife.”

Jayce started to turn a cheerful smile on Reese, but he seized her wrist, storming down the aisle. She had to run to keep up with him. He flung the doors of the chapel open with an angry shove and moved into the inner ward.

Jayce barely had time to notice the peasants halting their work to glance at them. A man just outside the blacksmith’s shop stopped his hammering to raise his eyes, his tool frozen in mid-strike. He shook his head and continued with his work. An alewife glanced out the window of the brewery, ignoring the amber liquid that had just splashed all over her arm. A small child scampered out of Reese’s path, her large brown eyes wide with fear. For a fleeting instant, Jayce wondered why anyone was working at all; wasn’t it a holiday when the lord married? But embarrassment welled up inside her, forcing the thought aside.

Reese pulled her into the great hall and up a set of spiraling stairs. “Where are we going?” she managed to choke out.

Reese didn’t reply. He kicked open a door, and it banged loudly as it slapped against the wall. He all but hurled her into the dark room. The little bit of sunshine shining into the room through its only window illuminated only a corner of it. Jayce gasped at the sight of a four-poster bed with an enormous mattress filling its wide frame. Rich, blood-red velvet curtains hung from the top, draping down the sides, cloaking the bed’s heart in deeply shadowed mystery. It was a magnificent bed, the biggest she had ever seen.

She whirled to Reese to find him undoing the belt around his waist. Horrified, she looked around nervously, searching the room’s dark shadows as if they could somehow hide her. She knew it was his right to take her, but she had hoped they could get to know each other. She had hoped he would give her time. Now, she knew he would give her nothing.

“Lord Reese...” she ventured, her voice sounding strangely hoarse in her own throat. “Perhaps we could---” Her voice died completely, strangled into silence, as he lifted his eyes to her.

The belt dropped from his fingers to fall to the floor.