Free The Protector by Madeline Hunter Page B

approached. The middle one would be Gurwant.
    She squinted at him in the afternoon sun.
    The man bore little resemblance to the youth who had stretched up to give her a betrothal kiss. He was as tall as Morvan, a full head higher than his knights, and possessed a breadth of shoulder to match. Pale blond hair swept back from a sharp peak on his forehead and reached to his chin. He was handsome in a forbidding way, his face made harsher by the thin long scar slashing across his left cheek.
    He stopped fifteen paces away. And then she knew that this tree of a man was truly her adversary, for the eyes that surveyed her knights looked pale, blue, and cold as ice.
    Morvan and Haarold stepped their horses forward,and Gurwant's flanking knights did the same. The parlay formed a rough circle.
    “I am Gurwant de Beaumanoir. I have come to speak with the Lady Anna de Leon.”
    Fouke leaned forward in his saddle. “You have brought an army for a conversation? What do you want with the lady?”
    “She is my wife.”
    “She is not. Your betrothal was annulled. Twice. Last by the Pope himself. A copy of the document was sent to you.”
    “I know of no annulment. Is there a witness here to it? Nay? I would speak with the lady. Let me enter or call her out. Tell her that her husband has come for her.”
    Anna lifted her arms and pulled the helmet from her head. Her blond curls tumbled out, the breeze drying their dampness.
    For the briefest moment Gurwant's face showed surprise, then he examined her with narrowed eyes.
    “I did not expect to find you armored. You should be glad that I have come if your brother's death has forced such unnatural behavior on you. When La Roche de Roald has a lord again, you will be free of this.”
    “The steel on my body matches the steel of my resolve that you will never have La Roche de Roald, Gurwant.”
    He moved his horse up beside her. “I will have the castle, Anna. And I will have you.” He reached out and caught one of her flying curls in his gauntlet.
    She sensed her knights moving to protest. She raised her hand to stop them, and extricated her hair from Gurwant's hand.
    Those icy eyes examined her face. “You have changed. Calmer. Beautiful.”
    “As have you.” It annoyed her that he would try to woo her with lies in such a public way. “I see that you've grown.”
    “Aye.” His gaze drifted down her long length. “Enough man even for you.”
    She held her tongue, but the memory of his impotence must have shown in her eyes, for his own narrowed dangerously on her.
    “Yield now. I know that your defenses are pitiful. You can save your people.”
    “Regarding my defenses, things have changed. Look you to the wall, and the number of bows sighted on you now. This castle has never fallen, Gurwant, and it will not fall to you.”
    He smiled. “You will yield. Before the week is out you will be in my bed.”
    His gaze raked the length of her body. He raised his hand and brought it down hard on her armored thigh. The sound of metal impacting metal rang loudly over the cold, silent field. “Look at us, lady. We were born for each other. Think of the sons we will make.”
    He backed up his horse, then turned and rode away with his knights.
    After the evening meal, Anna escaped to her chamber for some solitude. The castle seemed very full to her, what with the additional men in the barracks and Fouke and Haarold crowding the high table. She had grown accustomed to privacy and silence at the abbey, and now found that she could not think clearly without it.
    She sat on her bed and brushed a clump of hair smooth, then rolled it toward her head. Grabbing somepins from a box by her lap, she tried to secure the hair to her scalp.
    She heard a scratch on her chamber door and called back permission to enter. That would be the servant returning to say that she could not find Catherine. Catherine was getting harder and harder to locate these days.
    She continued sticking the pins into her hair,