The Dragon Lord's Daughters by Bertrice Small

towards you at having made the error he made?” Gorawen persisted. “Often a man will make a mistake where a woman is concerned, and then he will blame her for his blunder. Has this been the case with you and Rhys FitzHugh?”
    â€œNay,” Averil said slowly. “I believe he has come to terms with what he has done. He speaks fairly to me, and has not censured me for his fault.”
    â€œGood, good!” Gorawen said, but she thought to herself that she would watch this new son they had obtained most carefully. Averil had not her experience where human nature was concerned.
    Averil kissed her mother’s cheek, and then turned to curtsey to her father’s wife.
    Argel took the girl by her shoulders and kissed her on both cheeks. “Welcome home, Averil,” she said. “I am happy that all has worked out well for you.”
    â€œThank you, lady,” Averil replied sweetly. “Now, my sister Maia must have a husband of her own. But let him be near, lady, so we do not lose one another.”
    â€œAnd then my daughter must be matched,” Ysbail said sharply.
    â€œJunia has several years before she should wed,” Merin Pendragon said.
    â€œBut he must be as fine a gentleman as is chosen for Maia,” Ysbail persisted. “Not some poor bailiff such as Averil has wed, though I will admit he is handsome.”
    â€œAye, aye!” the Dragon Lord said impatiently.
    Now it was the sisters’ turn to greet the returning Averil. They rushed her with little shrieks and giggles, hugging their eldest sibling.
    â€œWhat is it like?” Maia demanded.
    Averil shook her head at Maia. “The hall is hardly the place to speak on such things,” she said, reluctant that her sisters know she was still a virgin.
    â€œHe is very handsome, as my mother says,” Junia remarked.
    â€œIs he?” Averil turned and looked at her husband. “Aye, I suppose he is.”
    â€œHow could you not notice?” Junia said.
    Averil grinned. “A man should never be told how beautiful he is, little one. They are vain enough about everything else.”
    â€œI wonder if my husband will be handsome,” Junia replied.
    â€œYour husband must be a man of some property, and good family,” Maia told the youngest of the trio. “Handsome does not count. Wealth and family are the only important factors in a marriage. You are a descendant of the great Arthur, no matter you were born on the wrong side of the blanket, sister.”
    â€œBut Averil said she would wed a great lord, and Rhys FitzHugh is hardly a great lord. He doesn’t even have lands of his own,” Junia noted.
    â€œHe is bailiff of a great manor,” Maia replied quickly. She did not want Junia pointing out that their eldest sister, indeed the most beautiful of them all, had married badly and beneath her, though certainly through no fault of her own. Why, if Averil had not protected her two sisters that day, Maia thought, it might be her now wed to a bailiff. She shuddered delicately at the idea. Rhys FitzHugh was certainly not the man of her dreams. The man of her dreams was tall, dark and dangerously handsome with an air of mystery about him. She just didn’t know who he was yet.
    â€œRhys tells me there is a stone bailiff’s cottage if we wish it,” Averil said. The truth of innocent Junia’s words had not been lost on her.
    â€œBut you’ve lived in a keep all of your life,” Junia said. “Will not a cottage seem small to you, sister?”
    â€œMayhap it is a big cottage,” Maia suggested. She glared at Junia. Would the brat not be silent? Could she not comprehend the awful truth of the situation?
    Averil laughed softly. “Perhaps he will become a great lord one day,” she said, a twinkle in her light green eyes.
    â€œOh, sister, I am sorry!” Maia replied low.
    â€œDo not be,” Averil responded. “I have had the many weeks we