Page 5 of Suddenly a Bride
Gwyneth felt unreal as she washed her body with tepid water from a basin. She had wanted to bathe and perfume herself, but it was not to be. She could only put on the blue cloth gown over her smock and petticoats and allow Lucy to button it up the front. Before she left London, her mother had cheerfully told her that she’d lowered the square neckline to display the assets Gwyneth was bringing to the wedding, but she had not realized how exposed she would feel. She tried to tuck a piece of lace in her bodice, but with a frown, Lucy removed it and tied a long scarf about her waist.
When they returned to the courtyard, Geoffrey rose from the bench with a smile and motioned for them to sit.
Minutes passed, and Gwyneth’s nerves were stretched taut. Lucy got up to wander through the garden, sniffing roses and daisies. Gwyneth couldn’t move her legs to do the same. Why did Sir Edmund make them wait, if he was in such a hurry?
Wearing a smile, Lucy eventually came back, holding up a circlet of blossoms. “I’ve made ye a garland for your hair, mistress.”
Gwyneth felt foolish tears sting her eyes as she bowed her head and let the girl place the flowers in her hair. “Lucy, please, I’ve been your friend forever. Call me by my name.”
“Soon ye’ll be Lady Blackwell, mistress,” she said soothingly. “Won’t that be fine?”
When she heard a door open at the top of the stairs, Gwyneth shuddered and slowly looked up.
Chapter 2
Sir Edmund Blackwell—for who else could it be?—stood before the doors of the church, clothed in a loose leather tunic, belted at the waist, over plain cloth breeches. A cloak was thrown back on his shoulders. He was taller than any man Gwyneth had ever seen. His shoulders filled the door frame, and surely he’d had to duck to step outside. She didn’t think she could have put her arms around his barrel chest. His devil-black hair was cropped in layers close to his head. His clean-shaven face had the hard, spare lines of a granite cliff, not handsome, but impressively male and darkened by the sun. This was a man who’d seen more of battlefields and death than home and family. There was no welcoming smile or even nervousness. Beneath his frowning brow, pale blue eyes the color of a dawn sky shone out at her, assessing, and maybe finding her lacking.
Gwyneth remembered her manners and slowly rose from the bench. His piercing, uncomfortable gaze slid down her body and back up. She thought of introducing herself, but he never even looked away, as if he just…knew her, knew everything about her.
“You are Mistress Gwyneth Hall.”
It was a statement of fact, said in a deep voice that rumbled through her chest.
“Sir Edmund.” Sweeping into a curtsy, she wanted to breathe a sigh of relief at how normal she sounded.
Still standing at her side, Geoffrey smiled. “My sincerest apologies for not thinking to introduce the two of you,” he said in a voice that sounded strangely cheerful in the tense silence.
But she couldn’t look at Geoffrey for staring at her betrothed.
Edmund reached out a large hand toward her. “Come here, Mistress Hall.”
Gwyneth hesitated only a moment, went up a step, then gave him her hand, dwarfed by the size and heat of his. She knew that her face flamed red as she suddenly imagined that hand touching her in ways her mother had described. He drew her the rest of the way up the stairs until she stood at the top and stared into his massive chest. His fingers firmly took her chin and lifted her face until she had no choice but to meet his pale eyes. There were flecks of darker blue there, and she studied them in wonder.
“You have but a moment, mistress,” he said. “Decide now if you will marry me.”
Could he see into her soul? The whole scene felt unreal, with the midday sun beating down on the garden and courtyard. His soldiers had come from behind the building and now stood watching. But here, in the doorway of the church where she was cast in shadow, the day seemed cold and this man radiated the only heat to be found.
He…tantalized her, awed her, even frightened her, but only because of the way he made her emotions shiver in her chest and weaken her knees. She had never felt this confused before, certainly not on meeting any other man. But he wasn’t just a man. He was an enigma, a challenge. Her life was about to change, and she was ready for it.
“I shall marry you, Sir Edmund.” Her voice rang clearly through the courtyard.
She could hear a sigh of relief spread through the soldiers, and she watched her groom’s eyes look upon her speculatively.
“Have you madeyourdecision then?” she suddenly asked, and almost wished she could bite back her bold words.
Geoffrey chuckled into the silence, but Sir Edmund only continued to stare at her, his hand on her face, each fingertip a hot coal that burned her. Had her words been reckless? Would he even now send her home disgraced and penniless?
Each breath Edmund inhaled seemed to him a struggle of enormous proportions—all because of one small, fragile-looking woman who stood proudly before him.
Gwyneth Hall, his bride.
He had first glimpsed her sitting beside the garden in a shaft of sunlight while he had stood in the cold shadows of the church. Now he kept his fingers on her face because the touch of her warm skin brought to life long-buried emotions, and he needed that reminder of what to guard against.
He’d made his own plans guaranteed to best Earl Langston. He would use the dowry to rebuild his lands, and when he’d earned enough money, he would repay the dowry and annul the marriage, breaking his ties with the Langstons. Seeking an annulment meant he could never bed his bride. He had thought that would be easy if she was anything like her cousin Elizabeth. He had convinced himself that the Langstons would give him a woman past her prime, an ugly cousin whom they’d been unable to marry off.
But instead, Gwyneth was a delicate maiden, her hair hanging freely in golden curls about her shoulders. No strand looked the same shade of yellow, and the differences seemed a riotous blend of color shining about her face. Her skin had seen a touch of the sun which had mellowed an Englishwoman’s usual pasty complexion into a feast of pale peach. Her eyes, so unafraid and bold, were warm brown with the palest hint of gold like her hair.
And when he had looked down her body, his vow of celibacy hit a low blow to his groin. Gwyneth wore a maiden’s gown, cut low to show a groom the wonders that awaited him on the wedding night. The slopes of her breasts were the same mellow peach color, and between them lurked a valley of shadows and promise. She did not have Elizabeth’s ethereal beauty, but Gwyneth Hall was lush in her own delicate way, with an earthy sensuality that made him think of home instead of just a place to live.
