Lady Thief - By Rizzo Rosko Page 0,3
duties. Perhaps he would not stay angered over this affair for long and they could build a friendship.
Marianne knew it was wishful thinking, but if a marriage based on friendship was the highest she could aspire for then she would snatch it. Most marriages in her class were based on less.
***
William considered her offer with serious scrutiny. With her he could have a wife again, the chance for children and plenty of entertaining nights if she were this feisty all the time.
He stared at her. Not a beauty worthy of poetry, but she was a far cry from hideous.
Her age was better suited for his son, who was eighteen, but he assumed his title would make up for his longer years.
Was she a widow? Could that be why she currently held no husband? Or perhaps her dowry was smaller than she would like him to believe. Either way, he would play her little game for now. He relished the image of having her in his castle and his bed to ease his boredom.
He only wished he could place her in his memory, but if he had ever met her, she had not made an impression then as she was doing now.
“What should happen if I were to refuse to have you for my wife? Surely you have thought of that.”
The hand on his shoulder squeezed, enough to make him flinch. William caught a flash of light beyond the corner of his eye. Before he could recover, the blade of a dagger pressed against his neck.
She came to take all or naught then.
Finally, the man in the worn brown cloak coughed, and both their attentions turned to him. He struggled to hold a large book in his hands.
William made his decision, one he suspected he would live to regret. “Very well, but on one condition,”
“What would that be?” She asked.
He hardened his eyes against her. “I hope for your sake that you have not offered these men any gold that would be received from a marriage between us, because when you are my wife, you shall only hold power that I give to you.”
She clenched her fists and bared her teeth to him as he had done to her.
William could see it on her face how she dearly wished to tell him what she thought of his plan. But when she looked above him to the men who held him, he also saw when she changed her mind.
Curiosity piqued, William wished he knew what these men hid that had their own lady working in their favor.
She raised her chin, commanding the authority back unto her. “I have a condition as well.”
He cocked his head with barely concealed mockery. “Do you? Well, my lady, you have certainly not asked for much as of yet. Pray, what condition do you have?”
She ignored his sarcasm. “When we are wed, you are to forget that these men were ever here. None are to be harmed for what has taken place today.” She raised her arm and pointed her hand to where they were scattered about the church so that there would be no mistaking her.
He shrugged, but before he could respond he felt the blade at his throat shake.
The man behind him was frightened. No doubt the other men were equally in fear of their lives. As they should be.
The only way to prevent the cold metal of that blade from taking a fatal bite out of him was to remain calm and in control. He needed to believe that he did not mind the situation he was in if it were to ring true in his voice.
“I can hardly put a man of God to death for performing the sacred union between a man and a woman, but what of the others? They admitted to being here of their free will. For God’s sake, if you lift your chin any higher you will be staring at Him in the heavens.”
The men behind him laughed.
William smirked. Better to have them at ease and laughing than contemplating their own deaths, and therefore, murdering him to avoid that fate.
Marianne glared at all of them and lowered her nose, though that did not hide the flush that flooded her skin and flowed up her neck.
Her next words silenced the laughter. “They are family men,”
William sputtered. “Family men?”
He turned to look at them. They were no longer laughing or grinning as they had been before when they brought him here, but staring at him with concern for themselves. Concern