The Bought Bride. Juliet Landon

would leave Eric in a difficult position, but he also knows the man the king is selling me to. He’s one of the worst types. A real ruffian, he says.’

      ‘He told you that? That can hardly have put your mind at rest.’

      ‘I wish I hadn’t gone now. The only helpful thing he said was that he’d try to find a way of getting me out of it, but for the life of me I don’t know what he means.’ It was not the only thing Father Leofric had suggested. The lie had been for modesty’s sake and because she could not repeat to her chaplain exactly what the parish priest had suggested to her, in private. His words still rang in her ears.

      ‘My Lady Rhoese,’ Father Leofric had said to her, not unkindly, ‘I can see a way forward in this. Will you take a beaker of mead with me?’

      He was not physically unattractive, on the young side of middle age, spare and smiling—too smiling?—busy with his hands, which should have been hidden and still. Rhoese did not want the mead, but took it anyway and thanked him, wondering about the way forward.

      ‘Now,’ he said, seating himself just a little too close to her, ‘I’m not a man to mince words, as you know, and my thinking is that, if the king were to be told that you are already married, in secret, you understand, then he’d have to release you from this humiliating sale you’ve told me of. We really cannot allow that to happen. Can we?’ His hand touched hers and withdrew, but that one gesture alerted her to the direction of his mind.