The Wild Hunt by Elizabeth Chadwick Read Free Book Online

they would have known instinctively what to say or do, but the former was beyond him for ever and the latter had been summoned to the court by her husband. 'I'll fetch wine,' he muttered, and went to accost a servant.
     
    Alicia drew several deep breaths and controlled herself, aware that Miles was regarding her as he might a skittish horse. If she gained that kind of reputation, she would be shunned or sold off to another marriage and then locked up, conveniently labelled a lackwit like Ralph de Serigny's poor wife.
    Miles returned with the wine. She took it from him and looked out over the assembled guests. 'I am not usually so overwrought,' she said ruefuly.
    'I did not think that you were.'
    'Nevertheless you panicked.'
    Miles laughed and rubbed the back of his neck. 'A little,' he admitted.
    Alicia tasted the wine and set it down. She needed a clear head, for as hostess she was required to mingle among the guests and there was still the bedding ceremony to organise. The humour left her face at the thought and her glance sought out the newly-weds. Melyn had draped herself comfortably around Guyon's neck and half closed her eyes. His hand sat lightly at Judith's waist. She was saying something to him and his head was cocked attentively, although his gaze was elsewhere, sifting and assessing, paring down, focusing on Walter de Lacey and Arnulf of Pembroke even as he answered Judith with a smile. Alicia shivered and offered up a silent prayer. A leopard by the tail indeed.
     
    * * *
    Judith stood obediently calm, raising and lowering her limbs as Agnes dictated until she stood naked in the bedchamber that had belonged to her parents. The bed had been aired and made up with crisp new linen sheets. Dried herbs to perfume the clothes and promote fertility had been liberally strewn over the bed and the priest had sprinkled holy water everywhere. The droplets on her body made her shiver. Agnes finished combing down Judith's hair and draped a bedrobe around her shoulders.
    The female guests crooned and clucked around the bride, turning the room into a hen house.
     
    Judith stared at the wall , feeling as numb as the coffer across which her clothes had been draped.
    Someone giggled a piece of advice in her ear.
    Someone else of a more practical mind thrust a pot of dead nettle salve into her hand, an ointment used to soothe the female passage after childbed and other rough treatment.
    'I won't need this,' she said and looked round in surprise at the laughter. Fear returned to claim her, and uncertainty. She did not know if she could trust Guyon. What if he went back on his word? What if he used her as brutally as her father had been wont to use her mother? Men lied. She couldn't help the whimper that escaped from her throat.
    As her mother tried to comfort her the curtain was flurried aside and the room was suddenly full of men, most of them less than sober, their jokes bawdy, crude and raucous. Judith withdrew into the mist again. She did not hear the jests. She did not feel them removing her bedrobe and tugging her to the bed, nor the cup of spiced hippocras that was pressed into her hand to replace the pot of salve. The pink silk of her mother's embrace was a haven but as she tried to cling to it, it was abruptly gone with a sound very much like a sob. Sounds faded to silence.
    She stared at the wall . The cup of hippocras shook in her hand.
    Leaning over, Guyon gently removed the cup.
    Judith blinked and refocused. Like herself he was naked, his torso lean but powerfully muscled and marked with minor battle scars. Her gaze skimmed over and fled from the curling mat of dark hair at his groin and its nestling occupants.
    He set the cup down beside the pot of salve, quirking a brow at the latter, then swung on his heel and padded to the curtain. She heard him speak a command in Welsh and then an endearment and her interest sharpened.
    'Cadi might hate cats, but she makes an excellent guard dog,' he explained with a grin as he