Lady Thief - By Rizzo Rosko Page 0,6
after her but she refused to stop. She ran for the horses, mounted, and kicked off.
Miserable tears stung her eyes but were dried by the whipping wind, and her race to safety was filled with self belittlement.
How could she be so stupid? Archer and his men kidnapped the wrong man. She’d married the wrong man!
Chapter Three
William peered out of the arrow loop in his tallest tower. A caravan resembling a stream of ants approached his castle on a brown ribbon of road.
One of those ants was his new bride. From his position she would not see him watching as she came closer. He didn’t want her knowing, yet, of his eagerness to have her.
At last. The thought brought a vicious smile to his lips and made his hand clench into a fist. Now that she had come she would know the humiliation he suffered at her hands.
His footman knocked and entered the bare, drafty room. This tower room was only useful when enemies approached and he needed to survey every available space around his castle and lands. But the last attack had been when he was barely able to ride his first horse, and now he used it to think quietly, and watch for his wife.
Adam, a young man with hair and eyes matching the mud on the road outside was one of the few still loyally willing to jump and run at William’s commands. “Milord, they are arriving.”
William kept his eyes on the road, his hand scratching his neck where the scratch from the blade recently healed. “Aye, I see them.”
“Shall I prepare the servants to greet her?”
William half turned his head to tell him not to, but thought better of it. Her father would be escorting her, and he would not want to give reason to insult the man, even though he had raised an impudent daughter.
“Yes, do that. I will be down shortly, and Adam?”
Adam turned when he called.
William’s eyes were sharp. “Be sure that my son is not among the greeters.”
Adam cast him a curious glance before he scurried back down the spiral stone stairway to do as he was bid.
William turned back to the scenery of grey skies, wet landscape and fresh winds, a sharp change from the cheerful weather outside the withering church on his wedding day.
His palms were flat on the damp stone window as he leaned forward to watch the ants turn into small men, horses, and pack mules.
For a split second in that church he felt a swell of respect for the woman. The moment he discovered she had erred, did not even know his true identity before marrying him, it disappeared like the sun in those miserable grey clouds outside.
She throttled his head with the club of stupidity.
He should have known better, really. Perhaps boredom could be blamed for his own faulty judgment that day.
William’s fingers twitched. He wanted to go down there and teach his new wife a few lessons about her brash personality, something he craved since their wedding a fortnight ago.
That thought in mind, William descended the stairs to greet his bride.
***
‘Twas finally happening. Now was the time to reap what she had sewn and face her victim. Face her punishment.
Her husband.
The entire ride Marianne twitched, itched, and waited for the journey to end so she could put herself at ease.
Her father was no comfort to her apprehension as he remained silent the whole way. Hardly sparing her a glance but to tell her with his eyes what a disappointment he thought of her.
Marianne clutched her father’s hand as he helped her descend from her mare, and when her feet were safely on the squishing ground, she did not let him go.
Regardless of her bundled nerves, her eyes were not on him, they were on the line of servants at the front doors waiting to greet her.
Maids with their hands clasped together in front of their worn gowns and men with their hands behind their backs, all with their heads respectively bent, and none with the air of delight at her arrival.
They were just recently brought from whatever task they had been doing. She could tell because some of the boys had dirt smudges on their faces and bits of straw poking out of their clothes.
Occasionally they snuck their heads up, enough so they might inspect their new mistress.
Marianne could not see him anywhere. Though which him would displease her more, Blaise or William Gray—her husband—Marianne was not sure.
She lifted her head to stare at the tall,