Seated in the wagon that held all of their belongings, Ebba’s plain face was aglow with excitement. An excitement most likely born of the fact that they would no longer be sleeping in the open, Iliana thought with a sigh, but she could not blame the other woman. They had been riding from dawn to well into the evenings, and camping in two inches of mud, for over a week.

“Of course, you do not know either,” the maid murmured apologetically when her mistress remained silent.

“Nay,” Iliana admitted faintly, her now troubled gaze returning to the men in question. She had assumed that the younger of the two was to be her husband, but now realized that she could be wrong. Young women were married off to old men all the time, but she had not even considered that. Not once during the long, dreary trip here had she thought to ask what her betrothed was like. If he was cruel or kind. Strong in battle or not. If he had all his teeth and was healthy.

Sighing, she shook her head in self-disgust at her own oversight. And oversight it had surely been. Though to be fair, she had been slightly distracted of late, what with her father’s death and her mother’s predicament. Between one worry and another, she had quite neglected to consider the possibility that her husband might be much older than herself. Considering that possibility now, she began to nibble at her lip anxiously.

Both men were attractive in their own way. ’Twas obvious they were father and son. The son appeared to be in his late twenties, while the father was at least fifty. The son’s hair was a reddish brown and long and wavy. The father’s hair was a mass of wiry white strings that shot in every direction from his head. The son’s face was hard and strong, all planes and edges like the land they had crossed to reach him. The father’s, just so, but with lines of character to soften it. Both men had generous mouths, strong noses, and eyes she suspected could be both hard and gentle. They were also both tall and hard and lean of body.

“’Tis the younger one,” Bishop Wykeham murmured from where he rode at her other side, drawing a grateful smile from Iliana that lingered until they reached the base of the steps. Then she got her first really good look at the two men. Her smile was immediately replaced with a frown of dismay as she took in their tattered garments and filthy faces.