LITMIR.BIZ

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at it, wildly furious at whoever had marred such perfection. A shallow knife wound, he determined from the evenness of the cut, not deep enough for stitching. Not accidentally done, either, for the depth would have varied over the prominent cheekbone. Some cruel hand had taken a blade and set out to mark her.

      A brutal master? He would challenge the man to the death! Or was it a husband? He would kill the knave outright without a hearing!

      Only when she turned straight on to face him again did he realize he must have hurt her himself with his foolish gaping.

      In truth, the line of the scar did not look awful at all. But that someone had disfigured her apurpose horrified him. Richard swallowed hard and lowered his eyes to her graceful, expressive hands, which were twisting nervously about the drinking cup.

      “Who are you?” he asked gently.

      One corner of that malleable mouth kicked up as did both dark eyebrows. “Well, sir, I might as well tell you now whilst you lie there unable to throttle me for it.” After a deep, fortifying breath she announced quietly, “I am Sara of Fernstowe, your wife.”

      Richard closed his eyes again. He might as well shut them, he thought, since he was still asleep and possessed by feverish visions. Just like a disordered mind seeking comfort to conjure up a wife the total opposite of his first.

      Evaline was, after all, his worst nightmare.

      The memory of her petite, ethereal figure and angelic face flitted behind his eyelids and dissolved into the skeletal corpse she was when last he saw her.

      Feelings ripped through him, far less welcome than more arrows; anguish at the untimely death of one so young, sorrow for his son who grieved despite hardly knowing his mother, and most shameful of all, his own relief. Try as he might, Richard could not banish that despised reaction and it near killed him.

      He groaned and shuddered violently, welcoming the pain it caused him. Glad of that or any other thing that would distract him from his dark guilt about Evaline’s demise.

      “Good sir, hateful as it must seem to you, I swear I speak the truth,” declared the velvety voice of the woman. “We are wed.”

      Richard decided to rejoin the object of this disturbing illusion and play it out, though his mind had begun dancing again like a leaf caught in a swirling current.

      At least dwelling on this nonsense would remove Evaline from his thoughts before he slept again. Or was he sleeping still? Of course, he must be.

      “Wed? The devil you say.”

      She smiled apologetically and glanced away from his sleepy regard. “Aye. The king approved and witnessed the event before he left.”

      Richard chuckled lazily. This made no sense, but often dreams were like that.

      Then she ducked her head, appearing somewhat shy. “I promise you’ll not regret it, sir. No more than you obviously do now. Aside from my ugliness, I have all good wifely attributes.”

      “Mmm-hmm,” he muttered, “Attibutes.” She’d given him something in that drink….

      “Aye. My housekeeping skills are excellent, as you will soon see. I read, I write, and most consider me a healer of some talent. I healed you when the physician gave you up.”

      “And modest,” he suggested ruefully.

      She laughed at herself, a low-pitched and soothing sound. “Oh, ’tis my most laudable trait, that one!”

      His cursed chest throbbed dully but incessantly, and Richard tired of this dream. He wanted only to sink back into the nothingness of deeper sleep and escape the discomfort.

      “Leave me now,” he grumbled, and closed his eyes.

      “Of course, husband. But when you wake again, you must try to eat a little.”

      “A little what?” he asked with a dry half laugh, imagining some small animal squirming on a trencher. His mind floated pleasantly, only a corner of it noting the pulsing pain in his chest.

      “I shall have gruel for you. And egg pudding with nutmeg, if you like.”

      “Nutmeg,” he whispered. “A rich fantasy…indeed.”

      Her silken laughter trailed out of his hearing and he thought he heard the shutting of a door.

      For an unknown space of time, he slept again, but awareness returned eventually and Richard woke anew. She was here again.

      The woman he remembered sat nearby in a large padded chair, stitching something on a small hooped frame.

      Through lowered lashes, Richard watched her poke the needle in and out, curse under her breath as the thread knotted, and then put it aside on the floor.

      How terribly sad she looked, too morose for tears. She leaned forward, her elbows on her knees and her beautiful, long-fingered hands clasped beneath her chin.

      “Please,” she whispered, “Please do not let him hate me. I will do anything—”

      “Come here,” he ordered, curtly interrupting her prayer.

      Perfectly lucid now, his dream did not seem a dream at all. He said a quick prayer himself that their former conversation had been a daft imagining. Still, he feared it was not so.

      Her words just now did not bode well at all. There must be a reason she would be praying for him not to hate her.

      She complied with his summons immediately, all but leaping from the chair to answer it. “Have you hunger now? Darcy is on her way with your food.”

      “A plague on the food! Did you or did you not speak to me earlier? What did you say then? Who in God’s name are you, woman, and where am I?” he demanded, piercing her with his most threatening glare.

      She raised her chin and squarely met his glare with the glowing amber of her own. “Aye, we did speak. I told you that I am Sara, Lady of Fernstowe. That is where you are, sir. Castle Fernstowe, near the northern border of England.”

      “Yes, yes, I recall your name now,” he grumbled impatiently. “But I imagined you said another thing, that we—”

      “Are wed, sir. Aye, we are that.”

      What was this nonsense? She stood near, but far enough away that he could not reach to shake the truth from her.

      Richard forced a laugh. “I wed once and vowed never to do so again. If you think you can make me believe you are my wife, you must be mad.”

      “Nay, not mad. I needed a husband and here you were. The king agreed readily enough. He loaned his priest. He stood by you and assisted you in signing the—”

      “He did no such thing! Whatever your game, it will not play, madam!” With all his shouting, Richard’s voice quickly receded to a painful whisper. “It will not play.”

      “We are wed, I tell you. I have the documents if you would see them.” She threw out her hands in a gesture of frustration and spun around, giving him her back.

      Richard squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his head back against the pillow until his neck cramped.

      “No!” he said through gritted teeth. “I sleep. I sleep and am cursed by a fevered nightmare. When I wake, ’twill be to feel the earth beneath me where I fell.”

      “Would it were so if you’re fool enough to wish it!”

      “Or my sins were greater than I thought and this is hell,” he muttered, throwing his arm over his eyes. “I save a king and this is my thanks?” He scoffed. “Virago.”

      “Oh, you are most welcome, husband! Welcome to this bed and for my care, you ungrateful wretch!”

      “For God’s sweet sake, woman,” he shouted hoarsely, “would you leave me alone and let me rest in peace!”

      “Well, I should have done!”

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