Impostress by Lisa Jackson

his body.
    He glanced to the far end of the table where Baron Llwyd's youngest daughter, Penelope, sat. But she'd moved and was talking to the serving girl ... with the wine. When she caught him staring at her, Penelope quickly ducked her head and scurried from the great hall. Kelan felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise in warning, but he didn't know why.
    Tadd, seated on the other side of the bride's empty chair, leaned closer. He was picking his teeth with a small rabbit bone and motioned to the vacant space with the cleanly picked rib. "Already scared her off, have you, brother?" he asked.
    "I told you she's not feeling well."
    "A bloody excuse."
    On the other side of Tadd, Orvis, eavesdropping, grinned widely. "A case of the marriage bed jitters. It happens."
    "Not to me it won't," Tadd said as his gaze traveled quickly from one serving maid to the next.
    " 'Cuz no one would marry ye, that's why." Orvis guffawed at his own joke.
    "Nay, 'tis because I keep my women satisfied." To prove his point, he winked at the serving girl named Zelda. She was a pretty lass with pillowy breasts and sly, dark eyes. Lifting an interested eyebrow in Tadd's direction, she stuck out her lower lip almost petulantly, then twirled away, her skirts swishing loudly as she scuttled behind a curtain.
    Orvis snorted and stuck his nose in his mazer. "Not all women, it seems."
    "She'll be back." Tadd's confidence didn't falter a bit. "But what about your wife, Kelan?" Tadd couldn't hide his amusement at his brother's discomfiture. "Is it not time to bed the lady?"
    "Soon."
    "If I were you, I'd already be up the stairs. I caught only a slight glimpse of her face, but she's a comely one, your new bride."
    Kelan glowered angrily and tried to pay attention to a singer who had joined the piper in the musician's alcove.
    "Ah, to have a glimpse of that chamber tonight." Tadd's eyes glinted.
    Better you than me,
Kelan thought with disgust. He had no need of the stubborn, disrespectful woman. He wouldn't admit, not even to himself, that the kiss at the altar had caught him off guard, and the shadows in her green eyes when he'd lifted her veil had disturbed him. He'd expected cool disdain in her lips, but he'd experienced something more, something vexing. Something he didn't want to consider. "Have you not anything better to do?" he asked his brother.
    The saucy serving maid returned with another jug of wine, and though she tried to hide it, she slid a cunning glance in Tadd's direction. Orvis caught the look and muttered, "Bah" before plowing his nose into his cup again.
    "Aye, Kelan," Tadd said, smiling wickedly, "as luck would have it, it seems i might have something better. Something much, much better."
    * * * * *
    Nothing good will come of this.
    Hildy threw the stones, and her handful of colored pebbles tumbled noisily across the scarred wooden table to land in a beam of moonlight cast through the open window.
    'Tis the devil's work.
    Her old heart knocked painfully and she rubbed one spotted hand over the other. From the keep came the sounds of rowdy laughter, faint music, and the pulse of deceit. How had she let this happen? She glanced at the stones again and swallowed hard. She'd failed.
    The promise she'd vowed to Lady Twyla as she'd lain upon her deathbed had been broken. Had been destined to break.
    "Take care of my girls, Hildy," the lady had begged in the barest of whispers as a rattling cough had overtaken her thin, bony form. "Promise me that you'll see them all happily wed, that they will have children of their own."
    "I will, m'lady," Hildy had sworn in the flickering half-light of a few sparse candles.
    There had been a faraway look in the lady's green eyes. Her white skin had been thin, nearly translucent, as it stretched tautly over high cheekbones and a strong, pointed chin. Her chemise had been wet with sweat, her hair in damp ringlets despite the cool cloth Hildy had pressed to her forehead. The lady had fingered the cross she'd