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mouth. By God, she looked beautiful with her hair a wild tangle and her blue eyes raging. Nothing cool or controlled about Lady Gwenyth. Unlike Rowena, his wife had no passion lacking in her blood.
    The very thought heated him. Gripping the cloth in his hand, he stifled a staggering urge to brush the soft strands of hair from her face and kiss her senseless.
    “Tha-thank you,” she replied finally, taking the cup from his hand.
    As their fingers brushed, Aric’s skin burned and desire poured through him. Stunned, he jerked his hand away.
    Lady Gwenyth gazed at him with red-rimmed, cautious eyes, then lifted the cup to her mouth. Closing her eyes, she drank deeply. Aric could scarcely lift his gaze from her beautiful face, red nose and all.
    Finally, she took the cup away from her wide mouth and held it between tense fingers. “I do not understand how he could do this. I am family.”
    For a long moment, Aric said nothing. He did not want to become embroiled in her problems. He cared nothing for the petty baron’s machinations.
    But Gwenyth’s beseeching eyes made it impossible to remain mute. “As I told you, I feared he would not welcome you back.”
    “Aye, you did,” she said, fresh tears flooding her eyes. “I never believed my own uncle would threaten to kill me.”
    Since Aric knew all too painfully the lengths a man would go to further his own ends, family be damned, he was not surprised in the least. But with that thought, came a disturbing certainty: Lady Gwenyth had nowhere else to go. She, along with her passions, her prejudices, and her pulchritude, was here to stay. His new bride certainly did not want to hear that truth any more than he wanted to think it.
    “I know,” he said softly. “Lord Capshaw is a fen-sucked varlet, and I am surprised you have not mentioned such as yet.”
    Gwenyth bit her lip, but a smile crept up her cheeks, until each dimpled most charmingly. Finally, she let out a small laugh that had him smiling in return. “Aye, fen-sucked for sure.”
     

CHAPTER THREE
    A silent evening gave way to a troubled night. Come the bright spring morn, Gwenyth began plotting ways to persuade Aric into lifting the drought. If he had such power, she must cajole him to use it so she might visit Penhurst and win Sir Penley and perhaps even her uncle’s approval. No method came immediately to mind.
    At a sudden, cheerful “hello” from outside the shanty’s window, Gwenyth paused. The greeting had come from a female voice she had not expected to hear again for a long while—if ever.
    Gwenyth rose from her cross-legged position on the little bed and gazed out the window—and into the round face of her cousin Nellwyn.
    Dashing across the room to admit uncle Bardrick’s elder daughter, Gwenyth prayed the woman had some good tidings from Penhurst. Hopeful, she opened the door.
    Nellwyn entered the cottage with a quick glance about. A stilted smile followed. Her cousin’s gown was of the finest silk, though Nellwyn would soon outgrow it because of the babe due three months hence. As she crossed the room, she lifted her skirts so they would not touch the dirt floor.
    Her cousin looked radiant, nearly glowing. Her light brown hair was swept up in curls that framed her pleasant face and pale blue eyes. Gwenyth’s own dress was little better than a dirt-stained rag. She had no others with which to replace it, and Aric did not appear to have the funds to rectify that.
    Then there was Aric himself, a vital flesh-and-blood reminder she held little value to the people of Penhurst. Now that Nellwyn had come, she felt suddenly glad Aric had wandered into the forest, as he often did.
    As was her cousin’s wont, Nellwyn greeted her with a hug. “Oh, Gwenyth, how good it is to see you! My dear husband and I have come to visit on our way to London. Can you imagine? I have never been there, and I think I shall faint from the excitement. We are to stay for Parliament! My dear Sir Rankin says there is much