Free Chosen for the Marriage Bed by Anne O'Brien Page A

his betrothed? Well, more than he had received. She had scowled at him when he left and scowled when he returned. His tardiness was not entirely his fault, but Elizabeth de Lacy had not bothered to discover the reason before putting him in the wrong. His temper began to simmer again, and Richard Malinder was aware of a level of disappointment that the under standing they seemed to have achieved in their battlement discussion had vanished in his absence.
    Since it was not in his nature to leave it like this between them, Richard followed her into his home, catching up with her in the Great Hall. ‘Madam!’ His commanding voice, brooking no refusal, stopped her as she placed her foot on the first stair. Elizabeth turned.
    ‘My lord.’
    With long strides he caught up with her. ‘When I return to my home, I expect to find a gracious and welcoming wife waiting for me, not a sharp-voiced shrew. I will not have my people entertained and intrigued by your lack of propriety and good breeding. My lateness was not of my doing, nor should you as my wife question it.’ He found his irritation in full flow and did not consider the force or direction of his words. ‘I had hoped the tales in the March of your wilfulness and lack of courtesy were mere gossip and exaggeration.’
    He saw her hands clench, her lips whiten with pressure, her face grow pale, and watched curiously as she took a breath under the onslaught of his words. Her eyes, suddenly dark with unknown anxieties, held his and he could not fault her courage. Unnerved by the grief, even pain in her face, still he was driven to make his point or what respect would there be in this marriage? ‘There is no excuse for rank bad manners in my house hold, lady.’
    Her eyes fell. ‘No, my lord. There is no excuse.’
    ‘I expect you to receive me and my guests graciously.’
    ‘Yes, my lord. Forgive me. I was at fault.’
    ‘Then we have an understanding.’
    ‘Yes, my lord. I will not be guilty of…of graceless ill manners again.’
    He waited to see if she would say more, surprised by her acquiescence. When she merely stood, head bent, because he could think of nothing more to say and was now perhaps regretting his choice of words, Richard left her.
    Through her lashes Elizabeth watched him go. She had been entirely at fault, but how could she tell him of her fears that made her lash out? Of seeing herself in comparison with the achingly beautiful Anne Malinder, who undoubtedly schemed to become the equally lovely Gwladys’s successor. Of fearing his attachment to the lover in Hereford. Embarrassment, slick and cold, coated her from head to toe. She had undoubtedly been in the wrong—what was it he had said? A sharp-voiced shrew?—and she had no idea how to make amends. Despair washed through her. Still she forced herself to walk up the stair with magnificent dignity.
    To meet Anne Malinder, watching, waiting, at the top, her perfect teeth glinting in a smile of sheer delight.
    ‘I see dear Richard is returned. Have you fallen out with him already?’
    ‘No. We under stand each other perfectly.’
    The girl leaned close. ‘He’ll go back to Mistress Joanna soon enough if you quarrel with him.’ A trill of laughter. ‘His mood is not sweet for a bride groom. I will go and talk to him for you. I could always wind Richard round my fingers, even as a child. Now I am a child no longer. Don’t worry, Elizabeth. I will see to his needs.’
    ‘I am sure you will!’
    It was the final straw. Elizabeth brushed past her nemesis and shut herself in her bedchamber, regretting the mistakes she had made, unable to see any way forwards.
    Whilst Richard, back in the court yard, wallowing in the lost sadness in a pair of deep blue eyes, was finding it difficult not to regret his in tem per ate words. His impatience flared when Mistress Bringsty placed her stout figure in his path.
    ‘I need to speak with you, my lord.’
    ‘I don’t have time for this.’ He would have stepped