Free The Maiden Bride by Rexanne Becnel

Linnea—I mean Lady Beatrix,” Norma swiftly corrected herself.
    Linnea did not need to be told twice. But before they could begin the descent to the main floor, the door to the lord’s chamber flung wide, and her demon bridegroom emerged.
    He was buckling on a wide leather girdle over a red knee-length tunic, so he did not at first see them. When Norma nudged Linnea, however, and they both hurried to catch the others, he looked up sharply.
    That was all the glimpse Linnea had of him before the solid walls mercifully blocked her view. But as they flew down the steep steps, then weaved carefully through the throng of soldiers sleeping off the night’s excess in the hall and hurried to the barracks, that one brief glimpse of Axton de la Manse stayed fixed in Linnea’s mind.
    Yesterday when she’d first laid eyes on him, he’d been weary and dirty, his cropped hair sweaty and plastered to his skull, his expression triumphant yet nonetheless grim. This morning, however, he was clean and refreshed. His night-dark hair had glinted in the erratic light of the wall-mounted torches. His eyes had been clear and bright.
    He was a reasonably handsome man, she grudgingly admitted. Comely in the hard way some men were wont to be. But he possessed a hardness beyond that even of Maynard. It had sent a shiver of awareness through her that yet lingered in the pit of her stomach. For he had looked precisely as he proclaimed himself to be: Lord of Maidenstone.
    And he’d looked at her, in that fleeting exchange, with the confidence of a man who ruled all he saw. Including her.
    Especially her.
    As if he’d seen beyond her wrinkled gown and inadequate ablutions, he’d marked her with those ice-cold eyes as his. God help her, but before this day was done it would be so!
    Her limbs were awkward with fear as she scuttled along the dim barracks corridor behind Lady Harriet. What if he had confronted her then? What if he had addressed her as Beatrix, the woman he meant to wed? With only that one piercing glance he’d left her petrified. What if she had collapsed in fear and admitted the truth?
    Linnea paused outside the curtained off area that served as Maynard’s sickroom. You must collect your wits , she told herself. You make more of him than he is. After all, he is only a mortal man. And she was the only chance her family had to hold onto its home. The only chance Beatrix had to keep her safe from that giant of a knight who would use her to guarantee his position at Maidenstone. She, Linnea, the reviled second twin, had been given this opportunity. She was the sole hope of her people now, and she could not let something as paltry as fear sway her in her mission!
    “Beatrix. What gains you this delay? Your ailing brother awaits.”
    Linnea was slow to respond to her grandmother’s sharp words, for her thoughts were so tangled up in her fear. When Beatrix—that is, Dorcas—tugged at her sleeve, however, she realized with a start that her grandmother was calling to her , the new Beatrix. The Beatrix who must learn to respond faster when addressed by that name.
    “Yes, Grandmother. I am here.”
    “He lies insensible still. What gave you him that he lies the night through in such a stupor?”
    Linnea bent over her brother. Maynard’s eyes were closed, one of them swollen and dark with ugly bruises. As she removed the compress from his head, she could feel the heat that consumed him. “I’ll need water—several buckets—to bathe and cool his body.” As if awaiting any excuse to be away from such depressing surroundings, the squire Frayne, who’d stayed the whole night at his liege lord’s side, jumped from his place in the corner to do her bidding. Linnea began then to check Maynard’s wounded side, but before she could do much, her grandmother’s hand clamped down on her shoulder like a bony claw. “Will he live?”
    Linnea looked up from her crouched position next to Maynard. “I hope so,” she said, not nearly as sure