The Bride Gift Read Online Free Page B

‘Scourge of Faringdon.’
    And lived.

 
    Chapter 4
    Helena stood on the ramparts as the small party of armed knights drew rein before the gate. Her hands clenched into fists. The party below them was travel-stained and the horses bore signs of having been ridden fast and hard.
    The lead knight didn’t dismount immediately. Helena followed the direction of his gaze. A pennant snapped in the stiff breeze—
    A lone wolf rampant on Guls. Not Roger’s colours, but those of the new lord.
    Beside her, Ewayne stirred restlessly.
    “Who put that there?” she asked.
    “You know who put that there, Lady Nell,” he replied in the same even tone he’d been using on her since she was a child.
    Though Helena fumed, the men at her gate posed a bigger problem than an unwelcome pennant.
    Then below, the lead knight took off his helm. Ranulf .
    “How dare he come here?” Helena glared down. Anger simmered inside her. Were she a man she would draw her sword and cut the cur from his horse.
    Helena motioned toward an archer. She could picture the arrow, arcing through the air, carried swift and true on the back of her vengeance to pierce his black heart.
    The archer nodded and nocked an arrow.
    I can have it put through Ranulf right this moment .
    “Do not, my lady.” Ewayne’s glance strayed to the archer.
    “What does he think to gain by being here?”
    “He thinks to catch you unprotected.” Ewayne’s face grew taut with disapproval.
    Helena deduced he still smarted from their skirmish about her decision to bar the keep. He’d protested loud and long about her instruction to the archer. Three times he’d reminded her that it could be construed an act of war.
    She didn’t care. Ewayne fretted as an old woman and Ranulf of Dartmoore wouldn’t put foot in her keep. Not whilst she had breath in her body.
    “Mayhap,” he ventured, “we should ask Sir—”
    “If you suggest that one more time, Ewayne, I shall scream.” God’s wounds. “That man has barely been here one full day and already you doubt my abilities to run this keep.”
    “Lady Nell—”
    “Who would you ask if he were not here?”
    Ewayne gave her a hard look. “I would be asking you.”
    Ranulf was surveying the gate calmly.
    The archer raised his bow.
    “Lady?” Anger vibrated through Ewayne’s voice.
    “Hail, the castle!” Ranulf yelled toward the gatehouse. The sunlight burnished his hair golden. He was beautiful, the lines of his face strong and pure as if carved with loving care by his Maker.
    It made Helena feel ill to look at him.
    “Answer him,” she told the porter, standing awkwardly and looking from her to Ewayne and back to the figure on the ground.
    The rippling creak of the bowman drawing his bow sent the porter scurrying to the edge of the ramparts.
    Before he could part his lips to speak, another gruff voice broke in. “Who goes there?”
    Helena uttered an oath under her breath. What in the name of all holy was Sir Guy doing here?
    As the porter froze, the bowman’s eyes flitted from his target to her.
    Sir Guy’s boots rapped against the stone of the ramparts.
    Helena glared at Ewayne accusingly at such betrayal and took bitter note of his refusal to meet her eyes.
    Their enemy called, “Ranulf of Dartmoore. Newly come from court and passing by on our way homeward.” Ranulf’s glance swung upward. He gave her a lavish bow. “My Lady Helena.”
    The hair on the back of her neck rose. She wanted to scrub his gaze from her skin. She motioned for the bowman to shoot.
    Sir Guy’s arm lashed out. He snatched the bow from the man’s hand. The archer backed away.
    “Stand,” Helena hissed at him.
    “Open the gate.” Sir Guy tossed the bow to the stones at his feet.
    Helena lunged for it. She would shoot the bastard herself before she allowed him to step foot in her keep.
    Guy placed his boot over the bow. He shifted and the yew split beneath his weight.
    “Nay.” Ranulf would never enter her keep.
    The porter was