open spaces, providing each soldier with something to hide behind during attack. The men looked at her with astonishment. Curan spun about to shoot a deadly glare at her.
“You do not belong on this battlement, madam. Ever.”
All traces of the playful man who had been kissing her vanished. She faced the impenetrable commander who had taken her from her home. He flicked two fingers, and she felt her forearms grasped from behind.
That infuriated her beyond every lesson in poise she had ever learned. “I can remove myself, my lord.”
Shrugging off the hands, she turned without looking to see what sort of response her words gained her. She refused to care. The man was callous beyond endurance.
Which made it pure torment to know how well he could control that brute strength when they were in private. May was waiting at the bottom of the stairs, her hands twisting her apron.
“My lady, you must never go up onto the battlements.”
“So I have just been told.”
The housekeeper was startled, but she recovered quickly, her face becoming stern. “As it should be. Lord Ryppon is thinking of your safety. You cannot take offense at that.”
Bridget bit her lip. Yet another thing that she must not take offense over. God, she was sick unto death of should nots and could nots. The look on May’s face, however, drew her attention.
“What is it?”
The housekeeper tried to herd her through the doorway and into the hallway instead of answering.
“May, I asked you a question. I see that something is troubling you.”
May clasped her hands so tightly her fingers turned white.
“I suppose there is no keeping it from you.” She huffed before drawing in a deep breath and pegging Bridget with a direct stare.”The Lady Justina is … or I should say
Bridget felt the blood freeze in her veins. She stared at May and knew that she was gaping at the woman but couldn’t seem to correct herself. The housekeeper looked flustered, wringing her apron between nervous fingers.
“Of course, Lady Justina is a widow, which does not make it respectable, but she isn’t an adulteress at least.” The housekeeper seemed exasperated and at a loss as to what to say further. She sighed before reaching out to pat Bridget on the shoulder.
“I am sure Lord Ryppon will make it clear that you are mistress here.”
But nothing further than that, and she had no one to blame save herself if he sought out another woman’s bed. It was entirely possible that Curan had sent for Justina. Cold and bitter, the truth stuck in Bridget’s throat. The sound of the gate being raised sent a chill down her back. She rubbed her hands along her arms as she felt her skin growing colder.
She could and then what? Discover herself chasing the man as his mistress was now doing? Doomed to be gossiped about even as she hoped for shelter in that same house?
That was the plight her mother was attempting to save her from.
“May, go and tell everyone else to begin their supper without Lord Ryppon. It appears he has a guest to attend to.”
The housekeeper offered a slight curtsy before moving away. She looked relieved to do so, for it was an awkward moment. Bridget breathed a sigh of relief, too. She needed no one witnessing how unhappy she was.
She shouldn’t be.
And still her heart ached. It was there, in her chest, an agony that refused to listen to logic. There was no denying the fact that she was jealous. She wouldn’t be the first bride who shared her home with her husband’s leman.
She was quite sure, however, that she would be the most unhappy out of the three of them.
Supper no longer interested her. The light was fading rapidly and the hallways becoming dark corridors that looked more friendly to specters than the living. Bridget moved toward the wide double doors she had entered the first tower through and watched Curan stride across the cobblestones of the inner yard toward the arriving party. Lady Justina pushed back her cloak’s hood to reveal a face that was quite pretty. Her hair was the lightest blond and her teeth even when she smiled.
Bridget was too far away to hear what they said, but Lady Justina’s features remained radiant. She never frowned or even lost the curve of her lips. She reached out and laid a familiar hand on Curan’s forearm without a care for any stares directed at her. Instead the lady kept her eyes on the man in front of her, just as intently as Marie had done with Tomas.
Bridget turned her back. She did not have the right to watch, not if she intended to leave. Drawing in a stiff breath, she went searching for the supper hall. There would be no escaping without food in her belly. Even if her appetite had vanished, she needed to be practical.
Practical … dutiful … she hated the world and all of its rules. Yet most of all she hated the fact that Curan was welcoming another woman that held the dear, so very dear, option of choosing whom she would lay with.
May bustled about the chamber where she had taken Bridget after supper was finished.
“Of course, we didn’t think to ready a separate chamber for you, seeing as how you are so newly wed, but I run a good house, and everything you need for the night should be here.”
It was a good-size room with a solid door and even two windows that had glass set into them. May pulled large sheets off the bed and handed them to two maids who stood nearby. If there was any dust, Bridget couldn’t see it in the candlelit room. May was clearly not lax in making sure that the maids were cleaning all the rooms assigned to
