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question gently, but he spoke with a brother’s frankness and with every expectation of an answer.
    “Would that I were so noble,” Gareth said, his countenance grim. There was a ewer of wine on the corner of his table, along with a half-dozen wooden cups. He poured two portions and handed one to Dane.
    Kenbrook took a sip and winced. It was crude and vinegary stuff, after what he’d sampled in France and Italy. “You speak as one who repents of sin,” he said to Gareth. “I am your brother, not your confessor. I make no judgments and dispense no penance.”
    A semblance of a smile played on Gareth’s mouth, and the wine, bad as it was, had restored some of his color. “How is it,” he asked wryly, “that we speak of my marriage, when it is your own that is imperiled?”
    “Gloriana will be happier without me,” Dane said.
    Gareth made a
harumph
sound and looked thoughtful as he refilled his wine cup. “She may kill you, thus ending the dilemma for both of you.”
    Dane chuckled and reached for the ewer. The wine was no better than before, but with each draft, the taste bothered him less and less. The tension in his belly and between his shoulder blades began to ease.
    “She’ll thank me, the fair Gloriana, for my wisdom and foresight,” he said with restored confidence. “If not today, then tomorrow.”
    Gareth arched one eyebrow, and his expression was skeptical. “Just what do you intend to
do
with Gloriana?”
    “There are two choices,” Dane replied. “I can send her to a nunnery or marry her off to someone else.” He paused, frowning. “I don’t care much for that idea, though—getting Gloriana another husband, I mean. Can’t be sure he’d be good to her. But if she became a nun—”
    Gareth laughed outright. “Gloriana?” he marveled. “You have been away too long, brother, and you know little of the ways of women.” He held up one hand when Dane started to protest this last, and effectively silenced him. By then, Gareth’s mirth had subsided to a glimmer in his eyes. “I do not speak of charming the creatures, Dane—I have no doubt that you are an accomplished womanizer. However, it would seem to me that your understanding of how they
think,
these daughters of Eve, is in woeful error. And there is still the matter of the dowry.”
    Dane narrowed his eyes. “The dowry?”
    Gareth leaned against the windowsill, his still-muscular arms folded. “Have you forgotten, Dane? We were given gold when the marriage contract was made, a great deal of it. Gloriana is rich in her own rightshe inherited considerable land, jewels, the house in the village, and several properties in London. Perhaps you are ready to part with your wife’s legacy, but that still leaves the question of the gold. It has gone, Dane, and long since—we spent it, on debts and soldiers, bribes and taxes. If you spurn Gloriana, we must return every penny, in full measure, with interest.”
    Dane sat on the stool again. Gloriana’s fortune was not a consideration and had never been, but the dowry was something else. No honorable man squandered a woman’s bride-price and then put her aside, even when she had other means, both financial and physical, of attracting another husband. The money had to be repaid, and that might take years.
    Gareth came to stand beside Dane, and slapped him on the shoulder. “There’s no sense in worrying about it now,” he said. “You have come home, after too long an absence. Tomorrow, our young brother becomes a knight. There will be time enough later to undo this coil and set matters aright.”
    At length, Dane let out a rough sigh and then nodded. “To the tavern,” he said.
    Gareth grinned and headed for the door. After only a moment’s hesitation, Dane followed.
    Alone in her chamber, Gloriana considered her situation. She had refused Edward’s marriage proposal gently, reminding him that, for all Lord Kenbrook’s obvious shortcomings, the man was her legal husband and that she,