Dryden's Bride by Margo Maguire

Alldale’s lands were prosperous. No reasonable man could be dissatisfied with the holding. And there was peace in Alldale. No borders to protect, no marauders to overcome.
    No killing to carry out.
    The clouds thickened and obscured the moonlight, and night intensified around Hugh. Deep in shadow, he sat still, preoccupied with his ruminations, hardly aware of the gathering storm or anything else going on around him.
    When Siân inadvertently tripped over Hugh’s feet, itwas only because of his quick reflexes that she did not drop the babe she carried and fall on her face.
    “Och!” she cried as the infant took up howling again. “I am sorry, my lord! I did not see you there in the dark.” She felt like a fool. Always awkward, forever clumsy—especially around Alldale. He must think her an absolute dolt. As did Owen. As did everyone she met.
    “It is nothing, Siân,” he said darkly, holding her arms to steady her, “do not fret so.”
    “You are kind, my lo—” But before Siân completed her thought, the infant belched loudly and spit a goodly amount of mother’s milk onto the shoulder of her bodice and down one sleeve. Siân wanted to crawl into a cave and hide.
    Hugh’s brows rose.
    Siân stifled a groan. Truly he did think her an idiot, and with good reason. She had plenty of experience with babies, yet she had wandered away unprepared, without so much as a cloth to clean the babe if necessary.
    Siân shook her head in dismay just as fat droplets of rain began to shower them. Hugh quickly pulled her and the child into the shelter of the nearby turret and watched as the clouds opened up. There was soon a curtain of rain all around them, with ominous rumbles of thunder and shimmering bolts of lightning in the distance. The infant settled down, and drowsed on Siân’s shoulder.
    Siân looked around the dark and empty turret. She knew she should not be alone with the earl, for there were proprieties to observe, her innocence to preserve. She was pledged to St. Ann’s, but looking at him now…the breadth of his chest, the strength of hishands, the power in his thighs…Siân suppressed a shiver that had nothing to do with the chill in the air, and everything to do with the way he’d touched her the night before, how he’d stood up for her to Owen, and kissed her hand.
    “Perhaps, genethig ,” Siân said to the babe, turning her attention from the kind and competent man standing next to her, “it was not a new tooth at all, but rather a sour stomach that caused your troubles.”
    Hugh Dryden wreaked havoc on her equilibrium. Working to regain her composure, she spoke softly to the babe in Welsh. Siân knew she looked awful, as Owen had told her so not long ago, and now she smelled like sour milk, too. Very impressive.
    “I—I had no time to change…” she offered lamely. She knew she must look like a troll.
    “Clearly, there was further need of your skills amongst the villagers,” Hugh said offhandedly as he peered out the narrow window of the turret.
    This Saxon earl cut an imposing figure, Siân thought wistfully. Wearing a light tunic and dark chausses, he stood tall and quiet in the faint light of the turret. He truly was the hero of Clairmont, Siân thought, just as the people were saying.
    Lightning flashed again, and thunder rumbled in the distance, giving Siân a new reason to be uneasy. Her brow creased in concern. “Will we be safe up here?”
    Hugh nodded in reply, and Siân realized that she could see him better now. The low rumbles and faraway flashes of light had become almost constant; their faces were illuminated often, as if by an unearthly, flickering fire. She tried to make herself relax, but the fierceness of the storm was beginning to frighten her.
    “The worst of it is still in the distance,” he said.
    “Will it get worse here?” Siân asked, gazing worriedly through the narrow window at the driving rain outside. Violent storms always frightened her, and this one seemed