His Lady Bride (Brothers in Arms) Read Online Free PDF Page B

passage until her feet touched the ground. Cool, dark, and musty—just as she remembered—the tunnel soon became narrow and short, forcing her to crawl. Firm damp earth filtered through her fingers and no doubt soiled the knees of yesterday’s gown. Goodness, she would look a fright when she saw her uncle, which would no doubt displease him.
    At the tunnel’s end, Gwenyth found herself behind the chapel. The stairs to her right would lead her to the solar and her uncle.
    Dusting herself off as best she could, Gwenyth turned to the stairs, only to find Sir Penley striding toward her, his face a mask of surprise. His sandy, shorn hair was unmoving in the breeze, which she knew would lift the glinting strands of Aric’s golden mane.
    Nay! Now was not the time to think of her surly husband.
    “My Lady Gwenyth.” He took her hands in his, concern furrowing his pleasing features. “You have returned, and worse for the wear,” he said, frowning at her tousled appearance. “Lord Capshaw told me you had gone away to wed. Is that so?”
    Certainty that her uncle had indeed ordered her gone muted the joy of Sir Penley’s concern. But she would fix it, by the moon and the stars!
    “I but went away to visit a…friend. An ailing friend. I’m up to see my uncle now.”
    Relief crossed Sir Penley’s smooth features. “Joyous news. Not that your friend is ailing, of course, but that you have come back. I will see you later?”
    Gwenyth’s heart sighed. Sir Penley was so eager to see her, so tender with his words. He had actually been worried about her wedding another. ’Twas a good sign, so long as she could rid herself of the roughhewn hermit she had wed.
    “I vow you shall see me the moment I am done with my uncle.”
    Sir Penley smiled. “After you, I shall speak to him, so that I may talk to you of a very important matter.”
    Gwenyth knew what those words meant. He wanted to marry her! Of that she was certain. Though she was no longer the baron’s daughter, Sir Penley had chosen her . Joyous news, indeed! Now she must see her uncle and convince him to help her have this marriage annulled.
    “Then I shall return with all haste,” she vowed.
    “And I shall count the moments.” His soft blue eyes probed hers as he lifted her hands to his mouth. Upon seeing the dirt there, however, he merely smiled and released her. “I await you.”
    Nodding, Gwenyth dashed to the stairs and rushed up to the solar door. There she took a deep breath to still the trembling of her stomach, then pushed her way inside.
    In a chair beside the window, her uncle sat drinking from a tankard of ale. At her entrance, he glanced up from the account books before him. His eyes narrowed in anger when he saw her hovering just inside the door.
    “I thought I made it clear you are no longer welcome at Penhurst.”
    Gwenyth closed her eyes for a moment, fighting a wave of grief. She had always known that Uncle Bardrick had little heart, but to cast her from the only home she had ever known without so much as a word… She battled tears.
    “Why?” She hated the fact her voice shook. “I have always done as you asked, worked in the kitchens, slept in the straw. I endeavored never to be in your way.”
    Bardrick stood to his full height—five inches over five feet—and settled his arms across his round stomach. “Gwenyth, my brother and his slut of a wife spoiled you, gave you the finest clothes, the finest home, and educated you, though for what purpose I cannot fathom. You are willful, too spirited by half. Opinions fly unheeded from your mind to your mouth. And ’tis a foul mouth, full of naught but curses and slurs.”
    The aging man turned his back to her and cast his gaze out the window to the inner bailey below. “I could find clever enough ways to ignore you until Sir Penley came. He would be Lyssa’s husband, but she does not have your beauty or wit.”
    Gwenyth gasped. Nay! Her future, her dreams, given to her timid younger