Page 119 of Bride of Ice
“Isabel, I’m busy,” Hallie said, distracted. She called out to a servant, “Mind the hounds! See you don’t trample the pups.”
“That’s who you’re going to be stuck with,” Isabel said.
“What are you talking about?” Hallie frowned at a maid balancing too many loaves of bread in her arms. “Someone help her! Aye, Abygail, good!”
“I got his name from Feiyan,” Isabel said. “She said to ask Aunt Miriel, who said to ask Aunt Helena, who said to ask Ma.”
What Isabel was blathering on about, Hallie didn’t know. But when it came to making siege preparations, the lass had responsibilities as well. “Aren’t you supposed to be gathering the children in the chapel?”
“Fine,” Isabel said, but she spat out her parting words again with a shudder of disgust. “Archibald Scott, Hallie! Ugh.”
Isabel’s words echoed meaninglessly in her brain. But a few moments later, a tremor of recognition shivered up Hallie’s spine. Archibald Scott. She knew that name. What was it Isabel had said? That he was the one she’d bestuckwith?
Her betrothed. Isabel must have been talking about the man she was to marry.
Her heart dropped.
She remembered Archibald Scott. He’d come to Rivenloch years ago, when Hallie was a child and Archie was a young man a decade older.
She and her cousins had secretly mused that he had a willow branch in place of a spine, for it seemed he was afraid of everything. Swords. Spiders. The dark. He’d never learned to ride a horse or wield a blade or fish in the loch. To the cousins, he seemed utterly useless.
It appeared that now, however, the king had found a use for him.
Hallie swallowed down bitter resignation.
She’d hoped to be saddled with a man she could—if not love—at least respect. Now a happy marriage seemed even further from her grasp.
Still, Jenefer’s inheritance depended upon Hallie obeying the king’s will. So she would marry the coward.
She supposed there were good things about wedding a timid man. Archie would never beat her. And it would be useful to have a husband who was afraid to question her commands.
While she stewed in discontent, her cousin Feiyan swept across the great hall toward her in a purposeful swirl of black, looking none the worse for her captivity.
“’Tis time,” Feiyan said. “Are you ready?”
Hallie gave the hall a final perusal. Preparations were well underway. She was no longer needed here.
She hopped down from the table, and they proceeded together to the armory. Even if Feiyan had disobeyed Hallie’s orders by fleeing Creagor, Hallie was grateful to have her skillful cousin fighting beside her.
“How many English are there?” she asked.
“’Tis Firthgate. Nothing we can’t handle.”
“Good.”
“But the English are the least of our troubles.”
Hallie frowned. “What do you mean?”
From out of nowhere, Isabel suddenly intruded upon their conversation. “She means the marriage arrangements. There’s a problem.”
“Don’t say another word, Isabel,” Feiyan scolded. “But aye,” she admitted, “if what my mother says about the king’s decree is true, there are going to be…complications.”
“What complications?” It was bad enough to be cursed with wedding a man who was whey-faced and faint of heart. Was there worse news?
Isabel edged in close and whispered, “Yours is not the only marriage that’s been arranged.”
“What?”
