LITMIR.BIZ

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them. But, though honesty forced Elizabeth to admit her own guilt in the matter, there was little else she could do at this juncture.

      If only in name, they were well and truly wed.

      What she could do was try to heal the breach between them. Raynor was her husband, and she did not wish to spend her future years bemoaning her fate. All her life Elizabeth had been a doer, a fixer. It was not like her to just accept defeat. And she could not do so now.

      With the example of her parents' joyous marriage to lead her, Elizabeth knew she did not wish to settle for what existed between her and Raynor now. It was up to her to try and make things better. Mayhap if she tried, Raynor would unbend and see that they must make the best of their lot.

      And she knew this was the most she could hope for. Not for a moment did she believe that Raynor would ever love her as her father had her mother, or even as her brother Henry loved his beloved wife, Aileen.

      Firmly she stifled any hint of loneliness at the thought.

      Such was not for her. The best she could achieve was a truce. Looking to Raynor’s unyieldingly broad back, she had no idea how that was to come about. Yet try she must.

      She was a Clayburn, and thus would show no sign of giving up, despite the adversity. Elizabeth straightened her spine, determined to present a brave front, no matter the sadness that tightened her throat.

      Looking up to see Olwyn studying her with that worried expression again, Elizabeth moved to the side of the wagon.

      She had made the decision to go forward with courage. Now she must begin to act upon it. No more would she avoid conversing with Olwyn, though she would draw the line at anything concerning her relationship with Raynor. What was between them was between them.

      But Olwyn was an important part of her life, and Elizabeth would not forgo her friendship with her woman out of her own ridiculous ill humor.

      From the front of the little troop, where Raynor rode beside Bronic, he was not able to look back at Elizabeth without being obvious. But he made much of keeping an eye on the wagons. Surreptitiously his gaze sought his wife.

      Raynor watched as she moved up beside the first wagon and began talking to her woman. She laughed at something the other said, the sound pleasant and throaty, unwittingly drawing several pairs of male eyes. He frowned, feeling even more irritated with her.

      Quickly he turned away.

      How could she appear so unconcerned, when his own stomach was a coil of knotted frustration due to the events of the past two days?

      He didn’t want to believe she had deliberately set out to force him into a marriage. But the evidence was there. Why else would she have arranged for them to be alone, shown such pleasure in his company, convinced him to stay when he discovered Stephen was not there? Even at the time, he’d wondered about her overt interest in him. He cursed himself for being fool enough to disregard his misgivings, even as he remembered how her regard had warmed him. As Raynor’s mother had been, Elizabeth was adept at getting what she desired without thought of the cost to others.

      He’d seen his mother completely destroy his father with her manipulations. When Raynor was only an infant, Robert Warwicke had been called to serve his king in France. He had returned home two years later to discover that his wife had not only betrayed him with another man, but had bore that other a son, as well. Too much in love with her to cast his faithless spouse aside, Robert had forgiven her. Yet his compassion had not moved his wife to display any measure of gratitude or loyalty. She had seemed to see his kindness as a sign of weakness and disdain him for it. Completely in love with her, he had outwardly taken her manipulations with little or no demur. But over the years, Raynor had seen how deep the hurt had cut.

      Elizabeth was obviously of the same manipulative bent, and had acted accordingly when she wanted a husband. Though why she had chosen him, Raynor had still to discern. The most logical explanation was that she was too accustomed to having her way, and he had denied her. Thus becoming a challenge. 'Twas the only thing that made any sense.

      Yet even as these thoughts ran through his mind, he knew doubt. She had seemed as displeased as he at Stephen’s decision that they must wed, had gone through with the wedding white-faced and silent as snow. And her sorrow at parting with her brother this morning had appeared unfeigned.

      An act, he told himself angrily.

      Else why was she laughing and smiling unconcernedly with her maid, when he could think of nothing but the quagmire his life had become? The complication of a wife was one he had not needed at this point. Worry over what new devilment Harrington might get up to was already piled atop his usual concerns about the running of his lands and Willow’s. He had enough problems to occupy his every waking hour without Elizabeth to plague him.

      And plague him she did.

      Every time he was near her, including the few moments they had spent together becoming man and wife, he had relived over and over that kiss. That dratted moment when he had abandoned all rational thought and taken her in his arms. That cursed moment when he felt his gentler feelings stir for the first time in years.

      Repeatedly he told himself the event could not have been the way he recalled. No single kiss could be so moving. But every time he looked at her, his heart remembered, and a warm, liquid feeling suffused his chest.

      He glanced behind him, his gaze flicking from his wife to the second wagon, where that enormous bed reposed under a protective covering. Elizabeth’s bed. Raynor nearly gasped aloud as an image of Elizabeth naked, her blue eyes heavy with desire, sprang unbidden to his mind.

      By the true cross, what was wrong with him?

      He became aware of Bronic asking him a question. “What say you, Raynor?”

      “Say?” he asked hurriedly, puzzled and trying to cover the fact that he had not been attending.

      Bronic’s blue eyes studied him. “As to Harrington? Think you he will leave well enough alone, now that King Edward has upheld your claim to the child?”

      Raynor ran a hand through his already tousled dark hair. Guilt stabbed at him for worrying over Elizabeth when he had other, more pressing matters to attend. “Nay.” His voice was hard. “He will not. The man’s greed is too big to let go. He will not stop here. Harrington has already bled his tenants dry to fund his extravagant ways. He can get no more from that quarter. With Willow in his control, he would have access to her fortune.”

      A frown crossed Bronic’s strongly handsome face. “You do not think he would try to reach Warwicke and take her before we can return?”

      Raynor felt a moment of painful unease, then stifled it. He shook his head. “Nay, methinks not. Harrington is not a man to discommode himself by sleeping in tents, as we will. He will stay at every hostelry and monastery along the route north. Besides,” he added as much to reassure himself as much as Bronic, “you know I have left word that Harrington is to be killed on sight if he tries to so much as approach Warwicke in my absence. And he would not have time to gather an army to lay siege before we can return.”

      Raynor turned to survey the two wagons behind them, his gaze going once more to Elizabeth. She laughed again, seemingly oblivious of him, and a black scowl darkened his brow. He turned back to the other man. “I had no concern before of beating Harrington back to Warwicke, but with these wagons, our progress will be slowed greatly. You, myself and the other four men could have been happily returned to Warwicke in half the time it will now take.”

      Bronic swung around to look at the two women, Elizabeth on her white palfrey, Olwyn in the wagon. His tone was thoughtful as he answered, “We have made surprisingly good time thus far. The women have been of little trouble. Though we have been traveling for hours, neither has so much as offered a word of complaint.”

      “Thus far,” Raynor reminded him.

      “Soon we must begin to think about stopping for the meal.” Bronic looked at him with long-suffering patience. “The women are likely tired, despite their lack of complaint.”

      Raynor

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