A Kingdom of Dreams Read online

  "I have already been tortured to the full limits, by that horse," he stated dryly, then he sobered. "However, I shouldn't think I'll be killed. 'Twould be foolhardy, and I don't think your husband is a fool. Reckless, yes. Foolish, no."

  "Then you aren't concerned for your life?" Jenny asked, studying the friar with new respect as she recalled her own terror at her first sight of the Black Wolf.

  Friar Gregory shook his head. "From the three words that blond giant over there allotted me, I gather that I'm to be taken with you to bear witness to the inevitable inquiry that is bound to take place on the matter of whether you are well and truly married. You see," he admitted ruefully, "As I explained to you at the priory, I was merely a visitor there; the prior himself and all the friars having gone into a nearby village to minister to the poor in spirit. Had I left on the morn, as I meant to do, there would have been no one to attest to the vows you spoke."

  A brief flair of blazing anger pierced Jenny's weary mind. "If he"—she glanced furiously at her husband, who was near the fire, his knee bent as he tossed more logs onto the blaze—"wanted witnesses to the marriage, he had only to leave me in peace and wait until today when Friar Benedict would have married us."

  "Yes, I know, and it seems odd he didn't do that. 'Tis known from England to Scotland that he was reluctant, no, violently opposed, to the idea of wedding you."

  Shame made Jenny look away, feigning interest in the wet leaves beside her as she traced her finger on their veined surface. Beside her, Friar Gregory said gently, "I speak plainly to you, because I sensed from our first meeting at the priory that you are not fainthearted and would prefer to know the truth."

  Jenny swallowed the lump of humiliation in her throat and nodded, cringing inside at the realization that everyone of importance in two countries evidently knew she was an unwanted bride. Moreover an unvirginal one. She felt unclean and humiliated beyond words—humbled and brought to her knees before the populace of two entire countries. Angrily she said, "I don't think his actions of the past two days will go unpunished. He snatched me from my bed and hauled me out a tower window and down a rope. Now he's snatched you! I think the MacPherson and all the other clans may well break the truce and attack him!" she said with morbid satisfaction.

  "Oh, I doubt there'll be much in the way of official retaliation; 'tis said Henry commanded him to wed you posthaste. Lord Westmoreland—er—his grace, has certainly complied with that, although there's bound to be a bit of an outcry from James to Henry over the way he did it. However, at least in theory, the duke obeyed Henry to the letter, so perhaps Henry will be merely amused by all this."

  Jenny looked at him in humiliated fury. "Amused!"

  "Possibly," Friar Gregory said. "For, like the Wolf, Henry has technically fulfilled the agreement he made with James to the very letter. His vassal, the duke, has wed you, and wed you with all haste. And in the process, he evidently breached your castle, which was doubtlessly heavily guarded, and snatched you right from your family's midst. Yes," he continued more to himself than to her, as if impartially considering a question of dogmatic theory, "I can see that the English may find all this highly entertaining."

  Bile surged in Jenny's throat, almost choking her as she recalled all that had happened last night in the hall, and realized the priest was right. The hated English had been wagering amongst themselves, actually wagering in the hall at Merrick, that her husband would soon bring her to her knees, while her kinsmen could do naught but look at her—look at her with their proud, set faces, as they bore her shame as their own. But they were hoping, depending upon her, to redeem herself and all of them by never yielding.

  "Although," Friar Gregory said more to himself than to her, "I cannot ken why he would have put himself to such risk and trouble."

  "He raves about some plot," Jenny said in a suffocated whisper. "How do you know so much about us—about everything that's been happening?"

  "News of famous people flies from castle to castle often with surprising speed. As a friar of Saint Dominic, 'tis my duty and my privilege to go among our Lord's people on foot," he emphasized wryly. "Whilst my time is spent among the poor, the poor live in villages. And where there are villages, there are castles; news filters down from lord's solar to villein's hut—particularly when that news concerns a man who is a legend, like the Wolf."

  "So my shame is known to all," Jenny said chokily.

  " 'Tis not a secret," he admitted. "But neither is it your shame, to my thinking. You mustn't blame yourself for—" Friar Gregory saw her piteous expression and was instantly consumed with contrition. "My dear child, I beg your forgiveness. Instead of talking to you about forgiveness and peace, I'm discussing shame and causing bitterness."

  "You've no need to apologize," Jenny said in a shaky voice. "After all, you, too have been taken captive by that—that monster—forced, dragged from your priory, as I was dragged from my bed, and—"

  "Now, now," he soothed, sensing she was teetering between hysteria and exhaustion, "I wouldn't say I was taken captive. Not really. Nor dragged from the priory. It was more a matter that I was invited to come along by the most enormous man I've ever beheld, who also happens to carry a war axe in his belt with a handle nearly the size of a tree trunk. So when he graciously thundered, 'Come. No harm,' I accepted his invitation without delay."

  "I hate him, too!" Jenny cried softly, watching Arik stroll out of the woods holding two plump rabbits he'd beheaded with a throw of his axe.

  "Really?" Friar Gregory looked nonplused and fascinated. " 'Tis hard to hate a man who doesn't speak. Is he always so stingy with words?"

  "Yes!" Jenny said vengefully. "All he nee-needs to do"—the tears she was fighting to hold back clogged her voice—"is look at y-you with those freezing cold blue eyes of his and you j-just know what he wants you to do, and y-you d-do it, because he's a m-monster, too." Friar Gregory put his arm around her shoulders and Jenny, who was more accustomed to adversity than sympathy, especially of late, turned her face into his sleeve. "I hate him!" she cried brokenly, heedless of Friar Gregory's warning squeeze on her arm. "I hate him, I hate him!"

  Fighting for control, she moved away from him. As she did so, her eyes riveted on the pair of black boots planted firmly in front of her, and she followed them the full distance up Royce's muscled legs and thighs, his narrow waist and wide chest, until she finally met his hooded gaze. "I hate you," she said straight to his face.

  Royce studied her in impassive silence, then he transferred his contemptuous gaze to the friar. Sarcastically, he asked, "Tending to your flock, Friar? Preaching love and forgiveness?"

  To Jenny's amazement, Friar Gregory took no offence at this biting criticism, but instead looked abashed. "I greatly fear," he admitted ruefully as he awkwardly and unsteadily came to his feet, "that I may be no better at that than I am at riding horses. The Lady Jennifer is one of my first 'flocks,' you see. I've only been about the Lord's work a short time."

  "You're not very good at it," Royce stated flatly. "Is it not your goal to console rather than incite? Or is it to line your purse and grow fat on your patron's good graces? If the latter is the case, you'd be wise to counsel my wife to try to please me, rather than encourage her to tell me of her hatred."

  At that moment, Jenny would have given her very life to have Friar Benedict standing here instead of Friar Gregory, for she would have relished seeing Royce Westmoreland receive the sort of thundering tirade that Friar Benedict would have launched at the insolent duke.

  In that respect, however, she had misjudged the young friar again. Although he did not rise to the Black Wolf's verbal attack, neither did he retreat or cower before his daunting adversary. "I gather that you do not hold those of us who wear these robes in very high regard?"

  "None whatsoever," Royce snapped.

  In her mind, Jenny wistfully envisioned Friar Benedict in this clearing, his eyes bulging with fury as he advanced on Royce Westmoreland like the angel of death. But, regretfully, Friar Gre