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The young virgins gasped. The widowed and discarded didn’t even try to hide their laughter.

Another call echoed through the square. All the banns had been called. Only the ceremony of marriage itself remained.

They hurried now, placing a wimple of lace on Edlyn’s head and leaving her hair down as a sign that, although she wasn’t a virgin, she was still a virtuous lady. Quite a difference from a few hours ago, she noted bitterly. She had been rescued from her state of sin by a lord with unsubstantiated claims of loyalty and nobility.

The thin hose were white, the shoes of painted leather were too large but very tooled and detailed, so the nuns ignored her complaint and stuffed bits of cloth in the toes. Then she was ready for the ceremony that would mark her as a man’s chattel once more.

As they had done in her two previous marriages, they gave her a bouquet of myrtle and rosemary to hold. This time, she threw it down.

“An inauspicious beginning,” one of the nuns muttered.

“’Tis not flowers Lord Hugh wants of her.” Lady Neville adjusted Edlyn’s wimple. “But he’ll have to work for what he wants. It’s good for a man to have to concentrate on his woman.”

The afternoon sun lashed at Edlyn’s eyes as she stepped outside. She blinked and raised her hand to her face until she had adjusted to the glare, and when she lowered her hand, she wished she hadn’t. Everyone stood in that square. They’d formed a path through the midst of them that led right to the church steps, where the abbot, Wharton, and Hugh stood waiting.

What irked Edlyn was that Hugh had obviously remained calm throughout the afternoon’s preparations. He never had a doubt she would do what he desired, and it made her wish she’d held on to the flowers so she could publicly toss them in the dirt. Her impulsiveness had cost her a grand gesture.

Someone nudged her in the back. She didn’t move, so someone pushed her, and she stumbled over her own feet as she started down the aisle of watching eyes and grinning mouths.

“I don’t want to,” she whispered to herself. “I don’t want to, I don’t want to.”

Her rebelliousness reminded her of that first wedding to the old duke. She’d been young and frightened that day, aware she had no choice and helpless to stop the events. Now she felt the same except she wasn’t frightened, but the helplessness drove her to glare at Hugh with all the venom she could muster.

His expression, one of carefully maintained affability, retreated to gravity, and he seemed to gain some sense of the task he’d set for himself. How would he placate his bride?

He wouldn’t, because she was determined not to be placated. Mounting the stairs, she let her steps drag in obvious protest. He smiled faintly. When she reached him, he took her hands—empty of flowers—nodded to the abbot, and the swearing ceremony began.

When Hugh vowed to care for her even after his death, her toes curled in her too-large shoes.

A warrior. He was a warrior. And he would die like all the rest. Like all the young men Robin had gathered around him. Like Robin himself.

She whispered her vows, and they were wed. A cheer rippled through the crowd, growing as Hugh freed her hands, but only so he could wrap his arms around her waist and bring her close.

“Edlyn.” He bent his head and brought his mouth close for the kiss of peace. “Stop pouting,” he whispered.

She wasn’t pouting. She was crying, and he saw the welling of tears.

“Sweeting, what’s wrong?”

He could afford to croon now. He had won everything.

“Sweeting?”

The cheers had subsided to buoyant babblings, but one sharp voice soared above the rest. “My lord, I want to be the first to congratulate you.”

It was Baron Sadynton, his meager mouth pinched into an affected smile, and Hugh raised his head like a wolf sniffing danger.

“It’s extraordinarily compassionate of you to marry this woman, especially after your actions of last summer. The king must be proud of your peaceful overtures.”

Edlyn didn’t like Sadynton. Had never liked him. Thought him a whiner and a troublemaker, and she knew he held her responsible for denying him his syrup of poppies. But his satisfaction in this instance made her more than uneasy. It made her ill. She clutched at Hugh’s arms, unaware that alarm encouraged her to hold him as he wished.

When Wharton headed toward Sadynton with his fists clenched, she clutched Hugh even harder.

Sadynton backed up and talked faster. “I never thought to see the day the widow of the earl of Jagger would marry the earl of Roxford.”

Her hands fell to her sides.

“It’s not often a woman will wed the man who hanged her husband.”