Dryden's Bride by Margo Maguire Page A

to carry the wrath of God with it. “Lightning? Floods?”
    “Could be,” Hugh said absently. “But it could blow over. Or change direction.”
    Siân was not reassured. She shivered suddenly, violently, and backed away from the open window, holding the infant more closely. “We should go down,” she said.
    “Not yet,” Hugh replied, just now realizing Siân’s fear. “This will let up in a few minutes, then I’ll escort you down,” he said to reassure her.
    Siân glanced out the doorway, and Hugh could see that the fool woman was considering whether to make a run for it through the rain to get to lower ground. Haste would likely make her slip on the wet stone and injure herself, perhaps even drop the child. He could not let her go.
    “Lady Siân,” he said, attempting to mask his exasperation, “the storm is in the distant hills. You need not be concerned for your safety.”
    Siân wasn’t so sure. Lightning had struck the church tower in Pwll many years before, and that was a memory she would never lose. She did not care to be high up in the castle turret when the worst of this storm struck, although a run through the cold rain was not appealing, either. She knew the earl was right—that there was time before the storm worsened—but still, it was difficult to remain calm.
    Stiffening her backbone, Siân strove to rein in her anxiety. She was a grown woman, not some child tobe ruled by her fears. “I’ve seen storms,” she said, “that— Och! ”
    A fierce arc of lightning lit up the near sky, then instantly a bone-rattling thunderclap sounded. Siân jumped. At the same time, Hugh turned to reassure her, but somehow drew her into his arms, surprising them both, and waking the babe Siân held. The wound in Hugh’s upper arm began to bleed, which Siân noticed as they broke apart.
    Over the infant’s crying, Siân exclaimed, “You’re hurt!”
    “’Tis naught,” he replied. “I’ll tend it when we go down.”
    “But it’s bleeding badly,” she told him. Hugh’s need momentarily surpassed Siân’s fear. She looked around to see if there was a cloth to be used to stanch the flow of blood, but there was nothing. Her mind off the storm for the moment, Siân went to the doorway and looked for a guard.
    They must all have taken cover from the rain.
    “Here,” she said, handing the infant to him to hold with his unhurt arm. “Take her for a moment.”
    Hugh felt an instant of shock when she shoved the child at him. He held the babe awkwardly with his uninjured arm, and watched as Siân turned around, then bent over and pulled up the hem of the ugly, dark over-kirtle she wore, to expose the fine, white linen gown underneath. A smooth, elegant length of leg was exposed, as well, and Hugh’s mouth went dry as he turned quickly away from her inadvertent display.
    He heard the tearing of cloth, then suddenly she was there, taking the babe from him, pressing the clean linen to the wound near his shoulder, stanching the flow of blood.
    “You should have this attended to, my lord,” Siân admonished severely. She could not see the wound through his light tunic, but by the volume of blood staining the cloth, she knew it was long and deep. “You might well lose your arm with a wound this severe.”
    “And what would you know of lost limbs?” Hugh answered with derision.
    Siân froze. His tone of voice had changed. Now he sounded just like all the other haughty Saxons she’d recently met. For all she knew, he could have been one of the Saxon soldiers who’d repeatedly harassed Pwll and the other Welsh border villages in retribution after the Glendower revolt. She should have known better than to allow herself any warm feelings for a Saxon aristocrat.
    They were all the same.
    What did she know of lost limbs, this earl wanted to know? Siân didn’t care to recount the terrible price of those bloody raids on her people—the lost lives , as well as lost limbs. Nor did she want to recall the