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  “She won’t be harmed,” Roger said. “I promise you I won’t harm her.”

  “Then why hold her? Release her now before there is a full-scale war.”

  “It’s too late for that now.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Roger looked back at his little brother. “Raine Montgomery was leading several hundred of the king’s soldiers to Wales when he heard I had Mary. He turned the men and led them toward here to attack us.”

  “What! We are about to be attacked? We have no defenses. Doesn’t he know he can’t lead men like that in these days? We have courts and laws to protect us from attack.”

  “The king met Raine before he could get to us. The king was so angry at Raine’s use of his men in a personal fight that King Henry declared Raine an outlaw. He has retreated to the forest to live.”

  “Good God!” Brian breathed, easing himself into a chair. “We have no defenses such as that massive fortress of the Montgomerys’. If we release Mary—”

  Roger looked at his brother in admiration. “I had not meant to include you in this feud. You must leave here. Go and stay at one of my other estates. I will come to you soon.”

  “No!” Brian said firmly. “We must settle this quarrel. We will send messages to the king and to the Montgomerys. Until then I will personally look out for Mary.” He stood and limped from the room.

  Roger glared at the door after Brian closed it. He ground his teeth in anger, then grabbed a war axe from the wall. He slung the weapon across the room, where it sank into the oak door. “Damn all the Montgomerys,” he cursed. He was glad the king was angry at them. They did nothing but take. They’d taken his sister-in-law’s beauty and half her mind as well. They’d taken all those lands in Scotland that should have been his. And now they worked to take away his brother’s admiration. Brian had never before defied Roger, had never done anything to contradict him. Now Brian thought he could make decisions and tell Roger what to do.

  The door opened and Alice entered. Her gown was of emerald-green satin trimmed with rabbit fur that had been dyed yellow. A veil of tissue-thin silk covered her face. “I just saw Brian,” she said in a quarrelsome voice. “He was helping that Montgomery woman up the stairs. How can you order her from the cellar? A woman like that should be thrown to the dogs.”

  “Brian found her on his own. It was his decision to care for her.”

  “Care for her!” Alice screeched. “You mean you’re going to treat her like a guest like that one upstairs?” She smirked in laughter. “Or are you no longer giving the orders in this house? It looks like Brian is the man of this household now.”

  “You should know all the men, shouldn’t you? From all reports, you’ve had all of them.”

  Alice smiled at him. “Are you jealous? I heard you sent Stephen’s wife from your room last night. Couldn’t you ‘perform’ with her?” she taunted. “Perhaps you should send Brian to do that for you too.”

  “Get out!” Roger said in a low voice that left no doubt of his meaning.

  Bronwyn stared out the window at the snow in the courtyard below. She had been Roger Chatworth’s prisoner for a month, and in that time she saw no one except a maid or two. They brought her food, firewood, clean linen. Her room was cleaned, the chamberpot emptied, but she spoke to no one. She tried to ask the maids questions, but they looked at her with great fear and tiptoed from the room.

  There hadn’t been a method she hadn’t used in attempting to escape. She’d tied sheets together and let herself down the side of the house. But Roger’s guards had caught her when she reached the ground. The next day a man had come and put bars over the window.

  She’d even started a fire to create a diversion, but the guards held her as they put the fire out. She’d made a weapon from the handle of a pewter pitcher and wounded one guard. The two guards were replaced with three, and Roger came and said he’d tie her if she caused him any more problems. She begged Roger for news of Mary. Did the Montgomery brothers know the women were being held captive?

  Roger answered none of her questions.

  Bronwyn sank back into her loneliness. The only thing she had to occupy herself was her memory of Stephen. She had time to go over every moment of their life together, and she knew where she’d make changes. She should have realized a whole race of people couldn’t be as bad as the men who ogled her at Sir Thomas’s house. She shouldn’t have been so angry because Stephen was so interested in her person and not in her clan. She shouldn’t have trusted Roger’s stories so completely.

  No wonder Stephen had said she was selfish. She always seemed to see just one side of a problem. She thought of Stephen with his king, and she knew that when—if—she left Roger Chatworth’s alive, she would go to Kirsty and try to arrange peace with the MacGregor. She owed that to Stephen.

  “Brian, they’re lovely,” Mary smiled, accepting the little leather shoes from him. “You spoil me.”

  Brian looked at her, and the love poured from his eyes. They’d spent most of the last month together. He’d never again asked Roger to release Mary, because Brian didn’t want to see her go. For Mary took away the loneliness in his life. Too often Roger was off to some tournament, and Elizabeth was always locked away in her convent. As for the other women, Brian had long ago learned that women made him feel shy and awkward. Mary was ten years older than he and as unworldly as he. Mary never giggled or asked him to dance or expected him to chase her around the rosebushes. Mary was quiet and simple, demanding nothing from him. They spent the days playing a lute, and sometimes Brian told stories, stories that had always been in his head but he’d never told anyone. Mary always listened and always made him feel strong and protective, something more than just a younger brother.

  It was this new feeling of protectiveness that kept him from telling her that Bronwyn had also been taken as a prisoner. He wasn’t as blindly trustful of his brother as he once was, and he asked the servants questions, wanting to know what went on in his own house. He’d immediately demanded Bronwyn’s release, and Roger had quickly obliged. Now only Mary was held captive.

  “No one could spoil you enough,” he smiled.

  Mary blushed prettily and lowered her lashes. “Come and sit by me. Have you heard any news?”

  “No, nothing,” Brian lied. He knew Raine was still outlawed, still living in a forest somewhere, the head of a gang of ruffians if Alice was to be believed. But Brian never told Mary of Raine’s plight. “It turned colder last night,” he said, warming his hands at the fire in her room. By mutual agreement they never mentioned Roger or Alice. They were two lonely people who came together out of mutual need. Their world consisted of one large, pleasant room on the top floor of the Chatworth house. They had music and art and joy in each other, and neither of them had ever been happier.

  Brian lay back against the cushions of a chair before the fire and thought for the thousandth time how he’d like this to go on always. He never wanted Mary to return to her “other” family.

  It was that evening that Brian spoke of his dreams to Roger.

  “You what?” Roger gasped, his eyes wide.

  “I want to marry Mary Montgomery.”

  “Marry!” Roger staggered back against a chair. To be allied with a family he considered his enemy! “The woman is of the church, you can’t—”

  Brian smiled. “She’s taken no vows. She lives with the nuns as one of them, that’s all. Mary is so gentle. She only wants to help the world.”

  The two men were interrupted by Alice’s high laugh. “Well, Roger, you have certainly done well. Your baby brother wants to marry the older sister of the Montgomerys. Tell me, Brian, how old is she? Old enough to be the mother you’ve always wanted?”

  Brian had never had any reason to experience rage before. He’d always been protected by Roger from most of the unpleasantries of the world, but now he snarled as he went after Alice.

  Roger caught his slight young brother. “There’s no need for that.”

  B