Fire Song
Fire Song
Catherine Archer
Table of Contents
Cover Page (#ud8c7b661-158d-515e-9eeb-2992d6afb6df)
Praise (#u884b00af-fb90-57ef-8273-e0faaae66b93)
Title Page (#ua9338d4f-d5f1-549d-9157-3dd1aa05a7f8)
Dedication (#u19d4f31d-8b3e-50b6-9e6a-342152d900c2)
Excerpt (#ua0a9cd14-5f71-5ed4-ae2e-82d169b23172)
Chapter One (#u5e0a5b89-c400-537e-bf28-9a4d1b4b8472)
Chapter Two (#u9acc6ea7-7c46-5a8c-9bb6-29468def7e33)
Chapter Three (#uf751274a-bf48-5225-8633-9fec893e3ac9)
Chapter Four (#ub299d2a5-56de-5e03-bcec-9d61a3662847)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
10
ANNIVERSARY
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Fire Song
Catherine Archer
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
This book is for Sandi DeGuilio, who helped give Meredyth life one afternoon while we waited for her doctor’s appointment. It is also for Kathy Rung Misener and Kathy Gill. I am greatly blessed to call three such special women “friend.”
“Is it the custom of the Chalmers family to send the sister of the bride to the bridal bed?”
Roland asked.
Meredyth gasped and pushed at him with all her might. To her surprise he gave way immediately. She slipped from beneath him, dragging the cover with her as she moved to stand at the foot of the enormous bed.
Desperately she clutched the blanket against her bosom, realizing that she had to somehow find the words to explain what had happened. It was understandable that the man would be angry, searching for an explanation.
Meredyth glanced toward him, where he waited, now sitting with his back against the carved headboard, his bronze chest bare. She was assaulted by images of how his strong arms had lifted her against him. Heat suffused her, and she had to look away.
“Well,” he prompted, “I am sorely in need of an explanation. Enlighten me, Meredyth Chalmers, as to why you are here and my bride is not.”
Chapter One (#ulink_c81f7686-04bd-53a3-ae1f-628bdd4d7eab)
Roland St. Sebastian, Baron of Kirkland, leaned forward in the front pew of the chapel at Penacre. He was of no mind to appreciate the pattern of rich color that passed through the large stained-glass window behind the altar and lit the well-scrubbed stone floor. Roland was more concerned with watching as it lengthened with the passage of time. He willed himself to hide any sign of his growing irritation as he leaned his chin against his steepled fingers. But he could not completely disguise the impatience and displeasure in his narrowed blue gaze as he surveyed the other two occupants of the long narrow chamber.
Where was his bride?
The aforementioned bride’s father, Hugh Chalmers, Baron of Penacre, a tall slender man with much gray in his dark blond hair stood silent and withdrawn in front of the altar, which was draped in rich red velvet and bore two ornate golden candle holders. Beside him stood the equally richly garbed and clearly uncomfortable priest.
As the priest leaned close to him and murmured a comment, Hugh made only the barest of replies. His lean body was held stiffly in his long blue tunic and a fine damask cyclas of darker blue. But Roland saw his gaze flick to the open door at the end of the room.
It remained vacant.
Obviously Penacre, too, was growing impatient for his daughter to arrive. Roland knew he had not wanted the match, but this waiting served no one.
King John had decreed the marriage would take place. Plainly the king had decided the feuding between the houses of Penacre and Kirkland had gone on long enough when one of Roland’s smaller keeps had been destroyed and many stores with it. The stores were sorely needed in this time of shortage after the wars in the Holy Land.
Roland grimaced, and raked a hand through his black hair. He had even less desire to remind himself of the war in the Holy Land than he did to be married. It had claimed his elder brother, Geoffrey, who should have been the baron on their father’s death. Roland was still not quite easy with his position as his father’s heir, even though he had, in essence, been acting as overlord to the lands for some time before his father’s passing the previous year, in 1200, just one year after King Richard had met his end at Châlus-Chabrol. If not for a series of tragic events he would bear no more exalted title than that of youngest son.
He would concentrate instead on his coming nuptials to Celeste Chalmers. Though the daughter of his enemy and not a bride he would have chosen for himself, she was quite exquisite. He had seen her only once from across the king’s audience chamber, but when John had announced that he felt a marriage was the best solution to their difficulties, Roland had felt that she would do well enough.
Celeste Chalmers was only a means to an end. He wanted peace and prosperity on his lands. Her rich dower would greatly assist him in his efforts to bring the estates back to the abundance they had known before his father’s descent into the hell of drink. Beyond that this wedding would change his life in no great measure. A wife’s place was to do nothing more than warm her husband’s bed and produce a legitimate heir. She would grace his table with her beauty and attend to his needs when he required it.
Roland would not make the mistake of putting all his faith in a woman as his father had. It had been his downfall.
Love was highly overrated. It had driven his father to his knees when his wife left him, and again when he had allowed it to come between himself and his eldest son.
Roland shook his head and straightened. He would not think on these things. Again he looked toward the open door of the chapel with impatience.
Where was the wench and what did she think to keep them waiting so? She need not think her beauty would protect her from obeying Roland once she was his wife. He cast Penacre an assessing glance, saw the older man’s growing frustration in the tight line of his lips. He had thought better of the man than that he would allow a mere slip of a girl to try him thus. Once they set out for Kirkland in the morn she would soon learn her place.
He’d arrived at Penacre’s castle only hours ago with no more than four of his most trusted knights in attendance. Roland had been correct in thinking he would not meet with perfidy. Neither was there any warm welcome, but this he had known as well.
They had been met by Penacre and led to the hall. After a brief time, Roland had been asked to leave his men and come to the chapel where the girl was expected to be waiting.
Penacre had volunteered, as they went to the chapel at the far end of the keep, that his daughter had requested that no one but the bridegroom, her father and the priest attend the ceremony. Roland had thought it odd to coddle the girl so, but he would not tell Penacre what to do in his own household.
As two hours had passed, Roland had grown more and more to wonder if his father-in-law was a weak fool. It amazed him that this was the same man who had been feuding against him with such determination in recent times. The two families had long been enemies, being often on opposing sides of political conflict, but in the past year the vehemence of Penacre’s attacks had seemed almost personal. Only two short months after Roland’s father’s death a man had entered the castle grounds at Kirkland by stealth and managed to steal his father’s favorite horse. They had only discovered that the deed was wrought by Penacre’s own man because he had thrown off his cape as he rode away, displaying Penacre’s colors of yellow and green. That it was his recently deceased father’s horse that had been taken Roland had told himself was mere chance, but the incident had enraged him.
The very thought of it now raised his ire to such a degree that he could no longer sit silent. “I grow tired of waiting. Where is your daughter?” A full hour had passed since the last time Penacre had very calmly sent someone from among the servants who waited outside in the hallway to inquire as to the time of his daughter’s arrival.
Hugh Chalmers, who it seemed, might have finally reached the end of his patience at this prodding from Roland, turned and strode down the aisle. This time he spoke gruffly. “Go and see what on earth is keeping my daughter.”
Meredyth Chalmers looked at the serving man, Max, with regret. “Tell Father I am trying.” She turned to her sister’s closed chamber door. Nothing any of them, not even her sister’s personal maid, Agnes, had done or said in the past hours had drawn Celeste from her room. The door remained bolted.
She took a deep breath. “Celeste, please, you must let me in. I will try my utmost to understand whatever is frightening you.” Meredyth could only think that her sister had been overcome with terror at the thought of marrying this stranger. Mayhap if she would speak of it the fear might ease.
To her utter surprise and relief she heard the bolt slide open with a slight creak. For a long moment, Meredyth simply stood there, unsure now that the opportunity was upon her as to what she would say to her sister. Then taking another breath in an effort to appear calm and patient, Meredyth opened the door.
Her worried gaze quickly found Celeste where she had gone to sit near the window. She was dressed in her wedding gown of ivory. The gold embroidery that decorated the long sleeves and the full skirt glowed in the last dying rays of the sunlight coming through the open window. It shone on the gold veil that covered Celeste’s pale blond hair, which hung loose to her waist. Her face, every feature in perfect harmony with the next, was also outlined in this luminous light. Though Meredyth had lived with her sister her whole life, she found her breath catching in wonder. Celeste was like the angels she had seen on the illuminated pages of religious texts the priest had taught them to read from.
Her loveliness found a perfect setting in the sumptuously furnished chamber, with its thick eastern carpet and richly colored tapestries. The huge dark-stained bed with its heavy sapphire hangings bore a gilt impression of the Penacre griffin, and seemed a fitting place for a creature of such perfection as Celeste to find her rest.
The words Celeste spoke without looking away from her contemplation of her slender white hands drove every other thought from Meredyth’s mind. “I cannot marry Kirkland. I am in love with another.”
Meredyth Chalmers stared at her sister with dawning horror. “You are in love with another? Celeste, who could you be in love with?” A sudden impossible thought occurred to her. “It is not the earl’s son, Orin? He is hardly more than a boy.”
Celeste gazed at her, her guileless blue eyes wide with amazement. “Nay, why ever would you think such a thing? As you say, he is a boy.”
Meredyth felt relief but only in small measure, yet she tried to appear assured. “That eases my mind. His adoration for you is no secret to anyone else with eyes in their head and he gets along with no one other than Sir Giles.” At least Celeste was not so foolish as to return the troubled young man’s feelings. Meredyth rambled on in her agitation. “They are of a pair, those two, in ways I cannot explain. Both make me uncomfortable.”
Her words were met with a heavy silence.
Meredyth looked up, realizing even in her troubled state that her sister seemed to have grown very still at the mention of Sir Giles—too still. Meredyth whispered. “Do not tell me it is…”
Celeste raised pale blue eyes to her sister’s face. “Yes. I am in love with Sir Giles.” For a moment her voice seemed filled with relief at having said the words aloud, before it was again overlaid with sadness. “I thought…hoped he might say something to Father…make some move to halt the marriage to St. Sebastian before it was too late. That he might have changed his mind about…”
Meredyth frowned at this. “Changed his mind?”
Celeste started and for a brief moment, Meredyth thought she saw fear in those blue eyes, but the impression was quickly forgotten as Celeste shook her head fiercely. “I am driven so near madness I know not what I say. Even as you came in just now I prayed it would be word that he…but…What am I to do?” She put her head down and began to cry, great racking sobs that shook her slender frame.
Meredyth ran a nervous hand over her samite-covered midriff, the very feel of her own new cote reminding her that Celeste’s groom awaited her. “Sweet Jesu, Celeste, they are waiting in the chapel. For the second time Father has sent someone to find out what is taking so long. Your reluctance for this marriage has been obvious, but I had not expected this.”
The sobbing only became louder. In the weeks since her father and sister had returned from court Celeste had been extremely reticent But she was always quiet, and she had certainly said nothing to indicate that she was not willing to go through with the marriage. She had simply watched, ever beautiful and remote as her new gowns were fitted and chests of linens and other household goods were prepared. It was true that she had left the choosing of these goods to her younger sister, but Meredyth was accustomed to looking after the majority of domestic tasks at Penacre. Although she was the elder by one year, Celeste had never shown any interest in running the keep.
And she was not required to do so. Her elegant and delicate loveliness, the silver-bell perfection of her voice seemed to please their father more than all Meredyth could do to keep him comfortable, fed and warm. Meredyth wished she, too, would see that light of adoration in their father’s eyes.
Not that Meredyth resented her sister. She loved Celeste. It would be difficult not to. She exuded a gentle sweetness that drew people to her and seemed completely unspoiled by her extraordinary beauty. She was fragile and in need of more care than others, including Meredyth herself.
Suddenly she wondered if Sir Giles, whom Meredyth had not fully trusted since his coming to Penacre some three years past, had taken advantage of her sister’s delicate disposition. Quickly Meredyth told herself that he would surely not go so far, but her unease did not dissipate. There was a burning fire in the tall spare knight’s blue eyes that made her decidedly uncomfortable. Softly, she said, “Celeste, Sir Giles, he has not…forced you?”
Celeste looked up in shock, her blue eyes mirroring her sorrow and another emotion Meredyth did not wish to read as guilt. “He has not.”
Meredyth could hear the distress in her sister’s voice, thus was little relieved by this assurance. Reluctantly she forced herself to go on, though it pained her to think of the delicate Celeste with that hard-natured man. “Does he return your affection?”
The blue eyes were stricken. “Clearly he does not. I had thought that my love was great enough for two, yet…”
Meredyth closed her own lids, unable to bear the raw desolation in that gaze. If this were the way love made one behave, then better that she never have any part of it, she told herself. Not that that seemed likely ever to come about. Her position as chatelaine in her father’s household seemed assured for all time to come.
She pushed aside her own petty concerns to concentrate on her sister. “How could you love a man who does not love you?”
Celeste raised slender hands to her breast. “I only know that I do. Can’t you see that if I marry this man, this Roland St. Sebastian, there is no chance that we will ever be together. And I know that we could be, Meredyth. Giles could love me, if given enough time. He could come to see that there is no other way than for us to be together, that any other scheme is unthinkable.”
Meredyth stood, shaking her head in helpless confusion. Again Celeste’s choice of words seemed odd. Yet Meredyth would not be distracted from the problem at hand. “But you are promised to St. Sebastian.”
Celeste leaped up and leaned against the open sill, her expression wild with grief and determination. “I will throw myself from these heights, Meredyth. I will.”
Her heart thudding with fear, Meredyth whispered, “You cannot do that, Celeste.”
The elder girl’s raised chin showed a stubborn determination that surprised Meredyth. “I cannot marry him.”
“We…will simply have to think of something,” Meredyth said earnestly.
She grew somewhat relieved when Celeste leaned back from the open window, obviously less desperate now that she saw her sister was starting to take her seriously. Yet Meredyth could not stop herself from shaking her head, as she thought aloud. “But what? To not obey the king’s order—what would happen?”
“I do not care, Meredyth. I only know that I love Giles. You do not understand because you have never felt that way about someone. I watch him throughout the days. I burn for him in the darkness of night.”
Meredyth blushed. This talk was far beyond her experience, yet she could not ignore her sister’s distress. “You are correct in saying I have never felt that way but I do have some sympathy for your sorrow. If there was any way I could help you, Celeste, I would. Alas, what can I do?”
Celeste looked at her, some of her anguish seeming to have evaporated as she spoke with unmistakable optimism. “St. Sebastian does not care for me. He weds me only on the king’s decree, to settle the differences between our families.” She paused for a moment, biting her full lower lip thoughtfully as she studied her sister.
Meredyth felt a twinge of unrest as Celeste went on, her voice pleading. “Haps there is something you can do, Meredyth. You said yourself that you care for no one. I do not see why I have to be the one to wed this man. What is required is an alliance between our houses. Who the bride is matters not at all. I am certain King John only chose me because I am the eldest daughter. It is the usual custom for the eldest to marry first, but it is not law.”
Now both hands came up to cover her midriff as Meredyth gasped in shocked amazement “You want me to marry him in your stead? But I cannot do that. This man will not take me in your place. What reason would Father give for asking him to do so? That you love another is unlikely to bear any weight with him. He is Father’s enemy—thus our enemy. He and his men have wreaked havoc on our lands.”
Celeste hesitated for no more than a moment before her expression brightened. “Which is why we will not inform the Baron of Kirkland until it is too late. And we could not tell Father because we would not wish for him to be held responsible.”
Meredyth shook her head in confusion. “Not tell? What can you mean?” She made a sweeping gesture to indicate her own diminutive form. “You cannot imagine that I could be mistaken for you, Celeste. Even if it were not for the difference in our height, look at your own hair and mine.” Meredyth reached back and pulled the weight of her own fiery braid forward over her shoulder. “There can be no hope of succeeding in this.”
Celeste moved toward her, her eyes pleading again. “But we can do it. We must do it, Meredyth. I…I am no virgin, and St. Sebastian would as lief kill as forgive me when he found out. You said yourself that he is our enemy. Think you he would treat me with kindness?”
Meredyth gasped, her mind churning. “But you said…”
“I said he did not force me.” High color rode her creamy cheeks.
Heaven, but this changed all. Meredyth knew that what Celeste said was very likely true. St. Sebastian might well kill her if he learned she was not chaste. “I cannot sit by and allow you to come to such an end, but…this…” She put her hands to her head, trying to think past the shock of what she had just learned and her concern for her sister.
Celeste changed her tone to one of cajoling. “Meredyth, I have seen this man. Even though he is our family’s enemy I could not but see that he is not ill-favored. St. Sebastian is tall and strong and handsome in a fearsome way. I heard other maids at court speak of him with some longing. If I were not in love with another…” She did not meet Meredyth’s gaze.
Meredyth could only stare at her in amazement. “The man’s good appearance or lack of such is the least of my concerns in this matter.”
The elder girl flushed, then pressed on. “Please, you are my only hope.”
When Meredyth made no demur, simply raising tormented eyes to her sister’s face, the blond woman began to remove her wedding gown. She spoke matterof-factly now. “I have a veil that would cover you from head to waist. You shall wear my new cotehardie, and…”
“But we shall be found out. We are not of a height. There must be at least four inches difference between us.” Yet even as she replied Meredyth was unaccountably reminded of her sister’s account of Kirkland—“tall, strong, and fearsome.” Had Celeste really thought to reassure her with that description? And that other maids might find him appealing was of no consequence to her.
Celeste was clearly oblivious to her reaction and did not stop removing her garments as she motioned briefly toward the window. “It has nearly grown dark. In the light of the candles none will guess your identity if you wear my clothing. Men do not take note of such things. It is not in their nature. You know I have asked that none besides the priest, St. Sebastian and Father attend the ceremony. Father is so upset at the marriage that he will not realize. And the baron has only seen me once from across a crowded antechamber. You may be assured that he will not recall any detail of my appearance.”
Meredyth did not believe this for a moment. Any man who once set eyes upon Celeste would certainly remember her. But that knowledge was overridden by the hurtful realization that her father was indeed so distraught over Celeste’s marriage to this man that he might not take heed of what was going on around him.
Even as these thoughts ran through Meredyth’s mind, Celeste dropped the last of her outer garments on the floor. She stepped forward and put her hands to the shoulders of Meredyth’s burgundy damask cotehardie. “Let me help you to change. This is your wedding day.”
Her throat tight and dry with anxiety, Meredyth made her way to the chapel on shaking legs. Everyone she met along the way seemed only relieved to see her finally going there. No one, not even her father himself as she arrived in the entrance to the chapel, appeared to realize that she was Meredyth, not Celeste. He simply hurried down the aisle to urge her forward. It was only after taking a deep breath and forcing herself to recall that she might indeed be saving her sister’s life, that she was able to go on.
Her heart felt painfully large in her chest as she moved down the aisle toward the large shadowy figure of the man she had never even seen before. The man who would be her husband.
Meredyth nearly tripped over the hem of the ivory samite skirt. They had been forced to hike up the skirt with a girdle of gold lengths, and still it was long. Her knee-length hair they had twined around her head, then wrapped in ivory fabric to disguise the color. The carefully piled hair had also served to give her the appearance of more height. And finally, the heavy veil of gold sendal she wore covered her from head to waist, both back and front.
She looked neither right nor left, keeping her mind centered on simply putting one foot in front of the other. When she stopped at the front of the altar, Meredyth was too agitated to even look at the man who stood beside her. She had an impression of height, of immense strength and a simmering unrest
The priest spoke with obvious relief, drawing her gaze to him. “I will light the candles.”
Meredyth took a quick breath, and begged, “Please, do not.” She was almost glad that her throat was so tight, her voice so husky with anxiety that no one would recognize it. “I…”
The man beside her seemed to stiffen even more as he made a gesture of impatience, cutting her off. “Do not bother with the candles, priest. Let us see this done as quickly as possible.”
If she was relieved by his concordance with her own wishes, Meredyth was too far beyond reason to feel it.
Her fear of being discovered kept her from focusing on anything else as the priest led them through their vows. The deep sound of his voice seemed filtered through a dense fog, as did the voice of the man at her side, but she was not completely deaf to the impatience in his tone.
The sound of her pounding heart prevented her from hearing her own whispered replies. It seemed in fact so loud she feared more than once that the man at her side must surely hear it too.
Only when the priest fell silent did Meredyth realize it was over. She had married this man in her sister’s stead.
St. Sebastian reached down with a possessiveness that even she could recognize and took her hand in his warm one. A hot streak of surprise and another unexpected sensation that she could not quite name raced through her. Inexplicably that sensation made her pulse quicken all the more.
Meredyth tried to concentrate as he spoke to her, his deep voice husky with an oddly sensuous note now that the wedding was completed. “Might I not at least look upon my beautiful bride?”
A shiver of apprehension shot down her spine as Meredyth whispered. “Nay, my lord, please. I ask you to understand that I am shy of you…of this marriage.”
He leaned over her, so close that even through the heavy sendal of the veil she could feel his warm breath against her ear as he spoke. “There is no need to fear me, my little bride.”
Again Meredyth shivered but this time it was not totally due to apprehension. She forced herself to think, to ignore the tingling along her nape, and replied in a desperate whisper. “Nonetheless I am frightened.” He would never know what the admission cost her. Never in her life had Meredyth felt so terrified of anyone or anything. Nor would she have admitted it if she had been. Having spent her life with the realization that she would never be adored as was her sister, Meredyth had long ago learned to hide her emotions behind a wall of dignity.
She could not allow him to unmask her here and now. What would he do, this fierce warrior, if the fact that he had taken the wrong bride was made known in this public way?
She and Celeste had been addled to think they would ever succeed in this madness. Somehow she felt her only hope of rectifying the situation was to explain to St. Sebastian that they had made a foolish mistake before anyone else discovered the truth. That meant she must do her utmost to conceal her identity until she had an opportunity to be alone with him. Yet Meredyth knew she would not be alone with him until this very night after the bedding ceremony. The very thought made her nape prickle again.
Desperately she whispered, “Might I ask a boon of you, my lord?”
His breath stirred her veil as he replied, his voice noncommittal. “Aye, and what be that, damsel?”
Her tone softened more at her own temerity even as she realized this was her only hope. “I ask that you forgo the bedding ceremony, as I do not think…that I could go forward with…after everyone had looked at…”
There was a long silence. Then her father’s voice came, the regret in it clear to even her muddled ears. “Celeste, my daughter. I feel for your reticence but you have no right to ask this of your husband—”
St. Sebastian spoke, abruptly interrupting him. “Say no more, Penacre. The woman is now my concern. Methinks I will agree to this strange request. I have seen Celeste and believe I will find no fault with her. I would not have her too agitated to…well…” Meredyth knew he shrugged, though she still did not look up at him. “I would have my wedding night be one to remember.”
Her breath caught at his words. Dear heaven, dear heaven, she thought, fighting down panic and a strange stirring that she could not understand. St. Sebastian made his desire plain enough for even her inexperienced ears. And for some reason his words struck a heretofore long-buried chord within herself. Meredyth had barely allowed herself to think of the “wedding night” and what might occur during it, even in her most secret moments.
Without another word, Meredyth turned and ran. She had no care of what he or her father might think. She simply knew she had to get away, away from his too powerful presence, away from the huskiness of his sensuous voice and the things he had said, away from the things they made her feel.
But as she hurried toward not her own chamber but her sister’s, Meredyth told herself she was reacting like a child. She would not be bedding this man. It would not go so very far as that.
She rubbed damp palms on the skirt of her borrowed gown. In fact, Meredyth realized as she made her way to Celeste’s chamber, they need tell Kirkland nothing. Celeste would simply take the place she had been meant to. Meredyth had married the man using her sister’s name. No one need be the wiser.
As far as Celeste’s unchaste state was concerned…well…surely she must have some idea of what she might do to fool her husband into thinking she was a virgin. Meredyth had heard that such things were possible.
As she reached the door to her sister’s room, Meredyth threw it open in relief, knowing things would soon be set to rights. But she stopped on the threshold. Celeste was not there.
A prickling sense of unease made Meredyth search out her sister’s cloak where it usually lay in the top of her clothing chest. It was not there. She bit her lip, turning to survey the rest of the chamber. It was then that her eyes lit upon a small scrap of parchment on the table near the bed. Hurriedly Meredyth rushed to take it up, and read the words scrawled there in her sister’s childish hand:
I will return on the morrow, when all is done. I have told no one, not even Agnes, and neither must you. My thanks and love. Celeste.
Meredyth crumbled the scrap in her trembling fingers. She had been left to face St. Sebastian alone.
Whatever was she to say to him? “Forgive me, my lord, my sister is in love with another and I took her place.”
’Twas unlikely that any man would be satisfied with such a substitution. Celeste was an acclaimed beauty, known for her grace and lovely voice. Meredyth was, well, simply herself, small, scarlet haired, with a sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her nose. She was in no way a replacement for a woman like Celeste. Though she did not believe she was completely without charms of her own, no man had ever been able to see far enough beyond her sister to notice.
Just as that thought passed through her mind the door opened and Agnes appeared. She hesitated there, bearing a laden tray. Her gray eyes were filled with concern as she came inside. “I have brought food and wine, my lady.”
Meredyth felt her heart rise up in her throat as she clutched the crumpled note close against her midriff. Her voice was a hoarse whisper. “I have need of nothing.”
The maid scowled with worry. “But you must take something. You have not eaten all this long day.” She moved to place the tray upon the table. Agnes then swung around and pointed toward the nightdress that lay across the foot of the bed. “I will help my lady to disrobe.”
“Nay,” Meredyth cried, stepping backward.
The woman looked closely at her. “Is there something wrong with my lady’s voice? You sound…strange.”
Turning her back as panic gripped her, Meredyth spoke in that low husky tone again. “There is nothing wrong other than the obvious. I have just married Father’s enemy. Please leave me alone. I do not wish to see anyone right now. I will see to my own needs.”
“But…” Agnes started forward, her hand outstretched with sympathy.
Meredyth stopped the maid by swinging to face her with a determined shake of her veiled head. “Nay. I beg you to leave me some small amount of dignity. I will see to myself.”
The maid seemed less than content with this, as her eyes remained filled with concern. Then her shoulders slumped as she moved toward the door. Meredyth was sympathetic to the other’s sadness, knowing how the maid cared for her sister, but she could not relent.
Agnes opened the door then halted for a brief moment. “I will stay by, my lady, in case you have need of me.”
Meredyth nodded, but said nothing. She sighed with abject relief as the door closed behind her, her throat dry with anxiety at the possibility of being discovered. Immediately she went to the table and poured herself a glass of the wine. She drained it quickly. This whole day she had been too occupied to consume more than a cup of water and the wine soothed her tight throat.
That had been too close. She took another cup, this time sipping more slowly as she told herself to think clearly.
Meredyth realized she must pretend to be her sister until she had an opportunity to speak to Kirkland. It was her only hope of making sure that he was the first one to learn what had occurred.
Meredyth squared her shoulders with determination, as she took another long sip of wine. First things first, she told herself, as a feeling of relaxation began to ease her tense muscles. She could not chance another meeting with Agnes. Her gaze came to rest on the new gossamer-thin night rail that had been laid across the end of the bed. She would change into the gown, climb into the bed and wait for St. Sebastian to arrive. That way if Agnes came again she would see that her charge was already abed and she would leave. The discarded wedding clothes would be proof that she needed no assistance.
The idea seemed quite clever even if she did say so herself. Quickly Meredyth began to disrobe.
Chapter Two (#ulink_1b590db2-0309-5b4d-bf48-b1307b362ed9)
Roland turned to the serving woman, who had moved between himself and his new father by marriage to refill their cups. He reached out and took the full pitcher from her hands. Startled, she backed away as he placed it before himself at the high table. Penacre said nothing, but Roland could feel his disapproving gaze.
Ignoring him as well, he poured out for himself. Roland then raised his glass as he surveyed the occupants of the great hall with only half his attention. He was more fully occupied with asking himself why he had agreed to forgo the bedding ceremony. Surely it was because the girl had seemed much more terrified than willful. Her small hand had been like ice, the fingers trembling in his, her voice a hoarse anxious whisper.
He did not wish to acknowledge the strange ripple of sympathy he had felt as he held those tiny fingers in his own. Under no circumstances did he mean to begin allowing his wife her way with him. Firmly Roland told himself he had acquiesced simply because he did not want the woman frightened out of her wits this night.
His sudden concern for her had to do with his own, as yet unslaked, desire. It had been some weeks since he had last bedded Einid at Kirkland. Much longer than was his wont. Not that he felt he owed his former mistress any loyalty in that respect. Both of them had been quite aware that theirs was an arrangement of convenience for each. He enjoyed her beauty and body—she enjoyed his protection and the pleasure of their couplings.
Even now he felt a stirring at the thought of the bed sport he and Celeste Chalmers would enjoy this night. His instincts as a lover told him that with care she could be brought to respond to him. For this too he had sensed in her trembling form.
A sudden burst of harsh laughter drew his attention back to the room before him. The trestle tables groaned under the weight of the roast, breads, stews and other fare that had been prepared. Yet from what he could see Roland did not think that much of the food had been consumed. It was the free-flowing wine that was disappearing from the many flasks that had been set about the tables. If he did not miss his guess there was not one completely sober man in the room, himself included. The wine seemed only to have heightened the sullen atmosphere rather than lightening it.
He looked to his bride’s father. That man seemed even less inclined to revelry than his folk. His man, Sir Giles, looked the same. Sir Giles had been introduced to Roland as Penacre’s most trusted knight and even now sat at his other side.
Something about the fellow prodded at Roland, though he could not say what. The knight was a tall spare man, lean muscled and hard. His skin was dark and his cheeks sunken over a heavy black beard.
Then even as Roland made to turn away, Sir Giles raised his head and met his gaze with his own. Roland was surprised at the depth of animosity and ill will he saw there. It was a look of such malice that his hand found the well-known curve of his sword hilt. Immediately he withdrew his too hasty fingers. The knight had done nothing beyond look at him. This night, his wedding night, he would ignore the man’s ill will.
He had not expected to find friends here.
His eyes lit immediately on another face that glared back at him, that of young Orin, offspring to the Earl of Hampstead. No friends indeed.
The pale scar that traced the length of the lad’s cheek was obvious even across the room. Now, Roland was not surprised by this one’s attitude toward him. Neither was he completely unmoved by it.
His father had once been the boy’s foster father. Roland had been set the task of teaching him the ways of knighthood. But Orin had not taken well to instruction. Roland had done his best to teach the boy to use his sword properly, had taught him over and over again not to duck his head behind his sword arm when attacking. It had been Orin’s own fault that Roland’s sword had slid along the dangling length of his own, the blade grazing the lad’s cheek deeply.
Orin’s father had angrily fetched his son home. That had been when King Richard was still alive and Roland’s family was known to be favored by the king. Roland had always wondered as to the earl’s loyalty to Richard, having heard rumors that Hampstead had secretly supported John in his efforts to keep Richard from returning to England. His father had refused to listen to such speculation, had been angry with Roland over his suspicions and even more so after the incident in which Orin was disfigured. Until this day, Roland had not known that Orin was now receiving his training in the home of his enemy, who also was a staunch supporter of the recently crowned King John.
Roland corrected himself. “Former enemy.” The king’s decree of a marriage had ended the feuding between their families.
Since his father’s death the previous year Roland had been well occupied in running the varied estates that had fallen to him along with the title of Baron of Kirkland. Neither Albert St. Sebastian nor Roland had ever quite forgotten that Geoffrey was the son who should have been his heir. That it was their father’s own act of banishment that had changed that did not lessen the pain of the outcome.
Having had enough of these thoughts, Roland stood. He had a lovely, if somewhat reticent, bride waiting for him.
The noisy assemblage grew quiet, all eyes turning to study him. “I am for bed,” he said, being as deliberately casual as he could under the circumstances.
A shout of encouragement rang out from his men. Brian, his squire and the youngest, called out, “We’ll soon be hearing her cries of pleasure from here. No woman can resist you, Lord Roland.”
Roland shrugged and cast him an indulgent smile. Being more than slightly drunk, the boy was making no effort at subtlety.
The baron, Sir Giles and the rest of the company were conspicuously silent Sir Giles stared down at his gloved fists with those intense burning blue eyes of his and Penacre raised his cup to drain it.
After first taking another glass of the cool wine for courage, Meredyth lay back in the depths of the huge dark-stained bed. She had pulled the bed curtains all around so that anyone coming into the room would not be able to see her. She did not trust the maid to stay away. There had been too much concern in the older woman’s voice when she repeatedly asked after her charge’s well-being.
But it was not to Meredyth’s liking to lie there all alone in the darkness. As time passed she only seemed to become more and more apprehensive and confused about what she might say to the baron. She now realized she should not have drank the wine, for it had only eased her for a time. She felt more than slightly befuddled.
What was she going to say to St. Sebastian when he came to this room expecting to find Celeste? She could only pray that the words would come, that he would not become completely enraged before she could make him understand.
The fire died down, but Meredyth had neither the heart nor the energy to rise and tend it. All her being was centered on clearing her mind and finding the words to make Roland St. Sebastian understand that she had not meant to do anything against him, that she was simply trying to help her sister.
Meredyth tried to imagine what he might say, how she might answer him. The thoughts swirled in her mind until they became less and less coherent, until nothing remained but a circle of confusion.
To her utter surprise Meredyth felt tears sting her eyes. She was not one to cry, did not feel that there was any honor in tears. Yet the day’s events had taken their toll and she was crying. Meredyth could not seem to stop, once begun.
She curled around the aching ball of loneliness in her chest and buried her face in the pillow. How had this happened? Why had she allow Celeste to convince her to do this mad thing?
Because she was Celeste.
All her life Meredyth had been accustomed to thinking her sister needed more looking after, even though she was the elder by a year. When Meredyth was six and Celeste seven they had been playing in the clearing near the castle. Celeste had been picking flowers and had begun to wander further into the wood. Meredyth had told her she should not, that Agnes had said they must stay within sight of the walls. Celeste had replied by taunting her to come along. Meredyth had remained where she was, and when Agnes had come to fetch them she had been horrified at realizing that her elder charge was indeed gone. Celeste had not been found for hours, as she had tripped, hurting her ankle in the dense forest, and been unable to walk back.
The thing that Meredyth would never forget was her father’s surprising anger toward herself. He had said that Meredyth should not have allowed Celeste to go off alone, that she was never to abandon her sister again. Did Meredyth not realize her sister was of a delicate, fanciful nature and therefore must be cared for?
There had been no words of comfort for Meredyth, who had feared for her sister. No words of praise for having obeyed Agnes’s instructions. From that day Meredyth had understood that to keep her father’s love she must protect Celeste, who was dearest to him of all things.
It had been a hard lesson to bear, but bear it she had, and without tears, until now.
How long she cried, Meredyth did not know; only when she was physically exhausted did the sobbing cease. She lay there drained, her lids heavy over swollen and gritty eyes. She closed them, needing to rest, to regain her courage, to ready herself…
Roland followed the directions that had been given to him by the serving woman. This was the most peculiar marriage he had ever heard of, to say the least—the groom expected simply to present himself to his bride with none of the accustomed preliminaries.
Yet the closer Roland got to his destination, which purportedly lay at the top of the tower steps, the less concern it gave him. He could think only of the beautiful woman who awaited him. He knew she was frightened and inexperienced, as was evidenced by her fearful manner toward him. Yet he recalled again the trembling of her body when he had touched her hand. Surely his instincts did not play him false and there was passion in his bride.
He was not a selfish bedmate and even took pleasure from giving satisfaction to the women he bedded. He had noted that doing so made a woman much more malleable and eager to please him, not just in bed, but in other ways as well.
He told himself that to begin thus with his wife would only be wise.
Roland reached the top step, and opened the door, surprised to be greeted by a darkness that was only slightly alleviated by the bed of glowing coals in the hearth. Quietly Roland stepped inside, his warrior’s reflexes always at the ready for danger. This was, after all, the home of the Chalmerses, enemies to his family for several generations. He stood still, giving his eyes a moment to adjust to the dim interior. But he soon realized there was no threat here. There were no skulking shadows, no unusual sounds. Most telling of all, there was no lurking heaviness, the kind that always accompanied danger.
He allowed himself to relax somewhat. Eagerly now, Roland looked about the chamber, but was unable to locate his bride.
He was just beginning to believe the room might not be occupied at all when he heard the sound of a soft breath. Gauging the direction immediately, he moved to the bed. He was surprised, having thought her fear too great for her to await him there. He was also pleased. Perhaps the maid was not as frightened as he had thought.
He made his way to the huge shadow of the bed. Quickly Roland removed his garments. He then drew open the heavy hangings and climbed inside.
Roland reached out a seeking hand and came into contact with the delicate curve of a hip. His bride. His loins tightened at the memory of her beauty. Though his desire stirred he knew he must go slowly to bring her a pleasure to match his own. But he had no wish to speak with anything but his body. That they were strangers could not truly be changed in moments. Yet tonight they would form a bond of pleasure taken and given. This bond Roland trusted more than any ones of an emotional nature.
Sensing rather than seeing the shape of her form beneath him, Roland moved up to lean over her. Her breath was sweet and warm on his face and he felt that stirring again. Slowly he bent over and placed his lips to his bride’s.
She gave a slight start and reared up beneath him. He continued to press his mouth gently to hers and in a moment felt a stab of satisfaction as her small hand came up to curl in the dark patch of hair on his chest. He continued to ply her mouth with his own, nipping and sucking at hers and soon she reached up with the other to hold the back of his head.
Roland laughed deep in his throat, pleased with her reaction to his kiss. He felt a rising satisfaction and growing ardor of his own as he realized he had not been wrong in thinking she would respond. His ardent mouth moved from hers to trail over her soft cheeks and then down the delicate line of her throat.
Meredyth had been dreaming of lying upon an enormous soft bed. It was so soft that she had the sensation of floating in a peaceful sea of white linens and light. Nothing could trouble her here, where she was safe and warm and content.
Slowly she became aware of the lips that touched hers, and it seemed at first as if they too belonged to the dream. They were firm yet gentle, and oh so very certain. It seemed they heightened that sense of floating in warmth and light.
Then as she drifted more fully into semiwakefulness she felt another odd sort of tingling in her belly that also seemed brought by the confident and knowing urgency of the lips on hers. Her hands acted of their own accord as they searched instinctively for the source of that sweetly rousing pressure.
She came into contact with smooth bare flesh over hard muscle. Meredyth moaned at the immediate quickening of her pulse as the lips left hers to press hot gentle kisses to her face and neck. Meredyth had dreamed of such things before, had woken feeling guilty at her own responses and unaccountably sad that it was not real. Yet her dreams of being kissed, touched, of touching in return, had never gone so far. She could not find the strength to pull herself away. She was too lost in her own responses. By whatever means this specter had entered her slumber, it had come to banish some of the aching loneliness she felt.
Her heart thudded in her breast as the warm sensations turned liquid and seemed to find their way to her lower belly. Meredyth had never felt so…so very…Her hips arched as if her body understood far more of what was happening than did she. Her hands seemed to grasp the source of her pleasure to her with a will all their own.
Roland felt himself harden even more at her touch, at her nearness. There was something about this woman, her delicate warm woman scent, the velvet of her skin. He had not thought to respond so fully, so quickly.
He rose up above her, his hands unexpectedly unsteady as he gently drew her slender legs apart. His fingers found her. He swallowed hard at finding her already damp, and an irrefutably fierce driving need such as he had never experienced coursed through him. “So beautiful, Celeste,” he whispered, even as he knew he could wait no more.
Meredyth felt the hands on her body, heard her sister’s name with a shock of horrid realization. Dear heaven, this was not a dream. It was none other than Roland St. Sebastian whose smooth skin lay beneath her eager fingers, whose mouth teased her to such a fierce response. Even through the fog of her awakening desire she knew that this was wrong. This man was not meant for her.
The woman beneath him gave a start and reared up beneath him. Her voice emerged in a husky whisper. “My lord, I am not…” His mouth found hers, stilling the words. He did not wish to debate or argue. He had meant this time to be more, and was in no small measure surprised with himself for not having more control. Yet he could not wait. Her obvious response to him made it impossible.
Without breaking the contact of their mouths, he knelt between those silken thighs and found the moistness of her immediately. With only the briefest of hesitations her maidenhood was breached. She gasped, as he did, when his mouth left hers.
Convulsively her body tightened on him. Calling on all the will he possessed, Roland lay still, allowing her to become accustomed to him as he rested there in the velvety warmth of her body. He might not have been able to restrain himself enough to pleasure her first as he wished to, but he would not cause her hurt.
As Meredyth felt Roland St. Sebastian enter the private depths of her being, she realized it was too late now. There was no going back. Roland St. Sebastian had made her his woman, though she had tried to tell him the truth that she was not Celeste. Yet as he lay above her, his manhood filling the deepest core of herself, Meredyth felt an unexpected yearning ache stir again in her own body. When he began to move inside her, her breath quickened as that ache began to grow more pronounced.
Only when Roland felt a slight restless stirring of her own slender form beneath him did he go on. Only then did Roland give in to the passion that made him feel as if he would surely burst, the passion that quickly grew to a fierce white point of unutterable pleasure.
When he stiffened and arched against her, Meredyth felt her own body press against him. She somehow knew that he had gone to some place that she could only begin to imagine, and that she had been the one to take him there. It was awesome, that this strong commanding man had been moved beyond himself because of her—Meredyth.
Yet uppermost in her thoughts was the knowledge that what they had just done had awakened some slumbering force inside herself. She could even now feel the way her body held him to her as if it had some instinctive claim to the feel of his flesh, his touch, to him. Even the ragged sound of his hot breath against her ear was strangely thrilling.
Her own hands lay along the hard curves of his shoulders. Unable to stop herself, Meredyth slipped one hand to his chest and over that tantalizing firm flesh, across a corded neck. She tangled her fingers in thick coarse hair. A low sensuous chuckle was her reward, for it did feel like such when the sound made every fine hair on her body stand up as if in reply.
Roland knew he had not fulfilled her, but he was now more than ready to rectify that. He rolled to his side, his mouth finding hers to cover a sigh of what sounded to his ears like disappointment. Deliberately he smoothed a hand from her hip up across delicate fabric, tracing pleasingly rounded curves and valleys. The thin cloth of her night rail did nothing to disguise the firmness of the flesh beneath, and Roland was well pleased. He went on, encouraged by the fluttering of her belly against his palm, finally closing his fingers with firm but gentle pressure over one rounded breast.
Meredyth’s mind swirled anew as that touch sent a shaft of heat directly to that most intimate place betwixt her thighs. Her head fell backward, breaking the contact of those supple lips and she gasped aloud.
She gasped again as his mouth began to mark a trail over her chin, then down the tender exposed flesh of her throat.
When his mouth closed over the bare tip of her other breast, Meredyth was lost in the surging sensations that made her limbs tremble, her breath come more quickly.
As those lips tugged at her nipple, she reached out to hold him near with both hands, arching her back as another shaft of sweet hot longing raced through her core. As the thumb of the other hand began to circle the other nub, Meredyth arched again, her knees clamping tightly to try to relieve the pressure building inside her.
She found no relief, knowing instinctively that the release she so blindly sought was to be found in the body of this night warrior. He had drawn her to this state of heady frustration. Only he could soothe it.
His manhood reared in response to her reaction to his caresses. Roland reached down. With a skill born of instinct and experience, he gently but firmly cupped his palm against the gentle mound of her womanhood. She clamped her thighs around him, her breathing ragged.
He traced his other hand back down those pleasing curves until he reached the hem of her nightdress. He leaned back slightly to remove it and she came after him. Her sweet mouth moved over his bare flesh, making him close his eyes at the throb of heat it brought about. The heavy tangle of her hair seemed to cling to his sweat-dampened flesh, seemed to bind him wantonly in the intimate darkness.
Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, Roland told himself he would not be unmanned again. Gently he held her away from him, determined to see her brought to her own pleasure no matter what it cost him in self-control.
Quickly he raised the delicate barrier of her night rail up and over her head. Her hands came back to him immediately, and he leaned his own head back as he slid along her body feeling her cool flesh next to his. Roland lifted her for a moment, feeling the surprisingly small but womanly form against the length of his own heated skin before he laid her back against the pillows.
She sighed as his hands again found her breasts, which were so full and aching from his touch. Unable to stop herself, she whispered insistently, “Please, oh please, help me. I do not know what to do.”
Roland knew he need wait no more. He murmured softly, “I do.”
Gently he reached to again part her thighs. She offered no resistance, only sobbing with an urgency of her own. He took a long deep breath as he positioned himself over her, meaning to go slowly, to take her with tender care. But as the tip of his manhood prodded against the moist honeyed sweetness of her, she rose to meet him and he was once again buried deeply in that golden warmth.
He ground his teeth together, lying stiffly above her, his arms supporting his weight as he fought for control. For Roland again found himself drowning in the sensations she awakened in him with her own unbridled reactions. Never had he suspected the depth of pleasure he would find in this woman.
When she began to writhe beneath him, her soft hands reaching out to grasp his hips, Roland released the rein on the passion burning in his belly.
Meredyth felt the sensations build inside her to a fine point of unfathomable sweetness. It seemed as if all of her consciousness was centered on that one area at the joining of their bodies. Her head fell back and her breath came between dry lips as she found the rhythm that made that pleasure so intense. And then, just when it seemed there could be no more—there was. The pleasure burst inside her, closing over her, encompassing everything that was Meredyth. In that moment she was whole, mind, body and soul, all the parts of her brought together in white-hot perfection.
As the pulsing eased, Meredyth sighed. She had been so worried and tense and was now completely limp from utter fulfillment. Her eyes slipped closed.
Slowly Meredyth roused from a deep sleep, opening her lids almost reluctantly when the light probed them.
Instantly her gaze grew wide with shock. From scant inches above her a pair of startlingly cobalt-blue eyes, surrounded by a thick fringe of black lashes, regarded her speculatively. Those orbs seemed to see right into her, to hold her captive in their unfathmonable depths.
St. Sebastian. Her husband.
For a moment she was held immobile as she finally saw him for the first time—saw him with wondrous amazement. He was much more handsome than anything she had imagined from Celeste’s description. She had in fact given little more thought to his appearance in the midst of the events of yestereve. Meredyth had been too caught up in the passion she had known in his arms to think about such things. Now, with growing dismay, she let her gaze trace a perfectly formed lean jaw, high sculpted cheekbones and sensuous lower lip. He was surely too handsome for any mortal man, too much the fantasy of every young maid who dreamed of fairy tales and legends coming true.
Meredyth felt an unreasonable thrill course through her blood at the intensity of his blue gaze. Her eyes went back to those lips as a brilliant flash of them pulling hungrily on her right nipple filled her mind.
A gasp escaped her as a whole flood of memories raced though her and with them a hot flush that traveled from her head to her toes. The things they had done!
He continued to watch her with speculation and some other unnamable expression that made heat spread over her anew. His deep voice startled her as he said, “And who might you be?”
Meredyth started to sit up, her own bare breasts coming into direct contact with the hard wall of his chest. She jerked backward as a bolt of heat pierced her belly, and she raised her hands to shield her bosom. Desperately she said, gasping, “Please, allow me to rise.”
St. Sebastian reached out and briefly lifted a red curl from the back of one of the hands covering her breast and she shivered with awareness at the glazing touch. She was grateful that he seemed completely oblivious to her reaction when he shook his head deliberately.
As he replied there was a cool ruthless quality to his tone that made her think she would not wish to fall on the hard side of this man. “Not until you explain who you are and what you are doing in my marriage bed.” His gaze raked her from the top of her tousled head to the tip of her slight form that lay beneath the bedcover. “You are not the lovely Celeste Chalmers.”
She stiffened, stung by the harsh comment, though she knew it was foolish, having been unfavorably compared to her sister her whole life. But she was not about to let him see that he had wounded her. She raised her chin. “I am Meredyth Chalmers. Her sister.”
His hand slid beneath her protectively crossed arms and closed over her breast deftly. Meredyth’s heart thudded as it swelled beneath the weight of his hand in spite of the anxiety she felt at facing him—at having to tell him the truth. He leaned closer, his breath brushing her mouth. “Is it the custom of the Chalmerses then to send the sister of the bride to the bridal bed? Very interesting, if so.”
Meredyth gasped and pushed at him with all her might. To her surprise he gave way immediately. She did not wait to question this but slipped from beneath him, dragging the cover with her as she moved to stand at the foot of the enormous bed.
Desperately she clutched the blanket against her bosom, realizing that she had to think clearly, to somehow find the words to explain what had happened. It was actually quite understandable that the man would be angry, searching for an explanation.
Meredyth glanced toward him where he waited, now sitting with his back against the carved headboard, his wide, bronze chest bare. He raised a hand to rake it through his ink-black hair and the muscle in his forearm flexed and hardened. She was assaulted by images of how his strong arms had lifted her against him, as if her weight were nothing to his strength.
Heat suffused her and she had to look away. She took a deep breath. You must think clearly, she told herself.
“Well,” he prompted “I am sorely in need of an explanation here. Enlighten me, Meredyth Chalmers, as to why you are here and my bride is not.”
She forced herself to face him. Would he ever now believe that she had meant only to wait and tell him the truth. Judging by his expression it seemed doubtful. “I am not here in your bride’s place. Well, not in the way you have imagined.” Her pleading gaze met his as she hoped for his understanding. Surely after what had passed between them he might…well she could hope. “You see, I am your bride. It was I who married you, not my sister.”
His shock was nearly comic, his blue eyes rounding to the point of amazement. But Meredyth did not laugh as he said, “What is this nonsense you spout? King John himself ordered the marriage to Celeste Chalmers. It is well-known that your father is a stalwart supporter of John. Why would he disobey him?”
She stiffened, stung from her concerns of the moment by his obvious implied criticism of her parent. “My father has not disobeyed the king, as he should not. John was rightfully named heir by King Richard himself.” She had heard her father say that the rumors of John’s disloyalty to his brother were false, and felt the very fact of King Richard’s naming him as heir was proof of that.
When he folded his arms and stared at her with condescendingly raised brows, she decided to let that matter rest. “I must make you understand what has happened.” She turned away from the condemnation she saw in that blue gaze. “I married you in Celeste’s stead. I meant to tell you last night, but you came late and I had fallen asleep and we…”
“God’s blood,” he shouted as realization clearly dawned, tossing the remaining cover back and leaping from the bed. Meredyth’s mouth dropped open and she swung away, but not before she had a thoroughly thought-provoking view of the very same weapon that had so pleasured her during the night.
Roland St. Sebastian appeared not to notice her interest as he bent to gather his clothing from the floor. As he drew on his garments he spoke with cold disdain. “I shall see justice done. I will not be duped by your father into taking less than was promised to me by the king himself.”
Meredyth felt the words slash into her like a dull blade. To continue to compare her so brutally to the woman he had thought to have, after the things he had done and said to her in this very bed, seemed churlish.
But she would not let him see her pain. Dragging the edges of her shattered emotions about her like a shield, she faced him. Meredyth was not going to take his insults in silence. Rage rose to cover her hurt. “How dare you! You…you knave.” One hand went to her slender hip, the other continuing to hold the coverlet over her nakedness as he swung around to face her, seeming little moved by her outrage if his implacable expression was anything to go by. Yet she went on. “My father knew nothing of this. My sister and I acted alone.”
One moment he was standing next to the fireplace, his arms folded across his wide chest, the next he was bending over her, having crossed the room too quickly, too gracefully for such a big man. Her palms grew damp as she glared up into his angry face, which was still distractingly handsome despite his fury. Annoyed with herself for thinking such a thing, Meredyth also realized that the top of her head did not reach his shoulder. If she stared up at him this way for long she would soon have more than a slight discomfort in her neck. But she did not look away—would not.
Meredyth did her utmost to hide any reaction as he spoke, his blue eyes hard. “Do you expect me to believe that?”
She answered defiantly. “I do, because it is truth and nothing less.”
His face remained hard, and she could tell that he did not expect her to say anything that would convince him, even as he asked, “Tell me then, Meredyth Chalmers, why you and your sister have done this.”
Meredyth frowned, caught off guard by the question, though she knew she should not have been. “I…that is something I cannot tell you.” She could not betray Celeste by telling her secrets. It would gain her nothing to do so now and might cause Celeste great harm.
His tone was calm, too calm, as he replied. “And with those words as explanation you expect me to believe that you and your sister have, for some reasons of your own, decided to defy King John. And without your father’s knowledge. Oh, of a surety, then all is most well, and I should be content.”
Clamping her jaw in reaction to his sarcasm, Meredyth replied with forced aplomb. “Your contentment, or lack of such, is not my concern, my lord.”
Chapter Three (#ulink_a8386fa6-868f-58b3-b5bb-c55113d3634b)
Roland felt the muscles in his jaw flex with nearpainful intensity as he worked to control his anger. How dare the defiant minx speak so to him after what she had done? And did she actually expect him to believe her extremely suspect assurances that her father had not known?
If the outraged honor in her jade-green eyes was any indication, that was exactly what she did expect.
His gaze raked her from the top of her tousled red head to the soles of her incredibly small bare feet. How could he have been foolish enough to believe her to be Celeste Chalmers? She was tiny and delicate where her sister was taller and lithe. His gaze was caught momentarily as he took in the tangle of scarlet curls that tumbled about her. When she turned her back to him and began to pace the oaken floor in agitation, still clutching the bedcover to her bosom, he saw that the flame cascade reached to her knees in back.
He was suddenly struck by an image of that hair draped across his chest as she kissed him with all the fervor of an experienced woman. But he reminded himself that she had not been. There was no mistaking the fact that he and he alone had breached the barrier of her womanhood. Even as he looked at her, the evidence of this stained the edge of the covering she used to shield herself from him.
Why? Why, if her father had not been trying to outwit him in some way, had they done this thing? He would soon be past caring how much rage showed in his voice, if he did not receive an explanation. “If you did not do this at your father’s urging, why have you done it…Meredyth?” Her name felt somewhat strange to his lips, though he had to admit, however reluctantly, that he liked the soft hard sound of it.
He brushed the thought aside. The woman’s name was of no consequence, nor were the memories of how she had returned his passion with an enthusiasm that had surprised and pleased him. Traces of an extremely unpleasant supposition were forming in his mind. Could it be perhaps that Hugh Penacre had thought to somehow cheat him of the heavy dower that had come with his eldest daughter?
Roland was determined that this was not going to happen. He glared at the woman before him through narrowed eyes as he tried not to see that she was quite beautiful, with her cheeks flushed and her eyes bright with animosity. Certainly, he admitted, not in the way of her sister, but in a way all her own. She reminded him of an angry ginger kitten, all eyes and flashing claws.
She tapped one tiny bare foot as she said, “I cannot tell you the answer to that question. Suffice it to say that the secret is not mine to reveal. You must simply trust that I am telling you the truth.”
He threw up his hands in disbelief at her continued pose of outraged dignity. “Again you ask me to believe you, woman. You who have married me under false pretenses.”
He knew his accusation was louder than he had meant it to be, but Roland was losing his temper with this audacious spitfire. And this did not please him. He prided himself on being a man who could remain in control in any situation, no matter how difficult. He did not allow passion to guide him into doing or saying anything he would be sorry for.
He would not make his father’s mistakes.
Yet with this woman he had already lost that tight hold on his emotions. What would happen if they ended in living together? Which, he realized, was what might well happen. He had bedded her.
By trickery he reminded himself. Again he thought of those dower lands.
Yet before he could speak of his suspicions, he was distracted by the movement of the chamber door as it slid open by the merest of inches. In raced a small hairy object that Roland suspected was a dog, pushing the portal wide as it came. The dog immediately ran to Meredyth Chalmers’s feet. After one quick sniff of the woman, it turned and scurried toward Roland, yapping in an extremely high-pitched way that made him want to choke the life from it.
At the sound of a gasp, his frowning gaze went to the plump, dark-haired young woman who stood in the doorway, her eyes growing round with shock as she looked from Roland to Meredyth. The woman, who was obviously a maid if her rough spun brown gown and simple leather boots were any indication, put her hand to her cheek. “Lady Meredyth? I…I could not fathom why Sweeting was hovering about my lady’s doorway. But now I see it was you he…” She focused for a long moment on Roland, before turning back to Meredyth. “Forgive me, Lady Meredyth…I…” She halted, obviously at a loss for words.
Roland looked to Meredyth Chalmers as she came forward and took the still yapping dog from beneath his feet. When she bent forward, Roland saw the way the maid’s gaze focused on the bloodstained sheet He met her troubled eyes with his own noncommittal ones.
Meredyth had not taken note of this, for she was occupied in fussing with that ridiculous excuse for a dog, which had not ceased its yapping. “There is no need to apologize, Agnes. You obviously expected Celeste to be here. Clearly you would not be able to tell me where she is then.”
The woman could no longer withhold her understandable curiosity. “No, my lady, I fear I cannot. And yes, I am surprised at seeing you here. I thought Lady Celeste…” Her brows arched in confusion. “Was not Lady Celeste to marry my lord Kirkland?”
Meredyth scowled, biting her lip. “Uh…aye, but there has been a change of plans.”
Roland could not restrain a grunt as he interjected, his voice rife with sarcasm, “Oh, yes, a change of plans indeed.”
Meredyth’s disapproving scowl, the maid’s continued shock and the insistent barking of the dog made Roland realize he could not hope to get anywhere here. With a growl of anger, he stalked toward the maid. “Where is your master?”
She gawked up at him, “In the great hall, my lord, when last I saw him.”
Roland dodged around the maid and out into the corridor. He would get to the bottom of this. If Penacre had not known what his daughters were about, which Roland seriously doubted, he soon would.
When Roland stepped into the corridor he stopped short at seeing Penacre’s knight, Giles, standing just a few feet away. The man’s expression was one of strange satisfaction as he watched Roland come through the doorway. With a sardonic smile Roland bowed. “Is there something I can do to assist you, Sir Giles?” He paused then, moving closer to the man as he gazed into a pair of burning eyes that were on a level with his own. “Or perhaps you might be of assistance to me?”
Roland gestured to where Meredyth now stood in the doorway of the bedchamber. She glared at him, her green eyes dark with defiance as he addressed the other knight. “Were you a part of this charade that has seen me married to the wrong sister?”
As Sir Giles’s gaze followed his direction, his eyes grew round with shock and horror. Immediately Roland realized he could not have known. His horrified reply was further proof. “Married to the wrong sister? Do you mean to say that you have married Meredyth instead of Celeste?”
When Roland nodded, Sir Giles shook his head, his gaze vacant with confusion. “But how could this happen?”
Roland shrugged, feeling his own anger rise anew as he pondered that same question yet again. “You would be a more knowledgeable man than myself if you were able to discover the answer to that question.”
Looking at the man, Roland could see that Sir Giles was not listening. He seemed completely overcome as he clearly forgot all thought of good sense or formality, striding past him to stand frowning down at the diminutive Meredyth as he barked, “Where is your sister?”
Meredyth seemed surprised at the degree of Sir Giles’s reaction. She recovered quickly, clearly not willing to allow him to speak thus to her. As she rose to her full height, Roland could not help noting, with an odd stab of protectiveness, that her head did not even reach the level of the dark knight’s shoulder.
“I do not know where Celeste is,” came her haughty reply, “and I will thank you, Sir Giles, to keep a civil tone when speaking to me.” Roland’s protectiveness turned to an even more surprising feeling of respect as he watched her face the fiercesome knight so regally.
In spite of his unexpected reactions to Meredyth, Roland could not help seeing that the man appeared so distressed by her reply that he did not heed her words. Instead he went so far as to reach out and place a detaining gloved hand upon her arm when she made to turn away, speaking to her hoarsely. “Meredyth, you do not know what the two of you have done.”
Roland felt an incredibly powerful wave of possessiveness streak through him at seeing that large hand on Meredyth’s small bare arm. The sheer depth of the reaction left him feeling as if he had been broadsided by a battering ram. Yet even as he sprang forward, he told himself that his degree of vehemence was simply brought on by the fact that Meredyth was his wife, wanted or not. No other man had the right to touch her.
He was at Sir Giles’s side instantly, his fingers closing on his wrist. “Take your hand from my wife.”
Sir Giles looked up at him with dawning clarity as if he, too, were surprised by his own temerity. Then even as Roland watched, his gaze became hard and guarded as he said, “Very well, Lord Roland. I can see that no one is allowed to trespass upon what belongs to you.”
Roland did not waver in his regard of the other man. “No one.”
Sir Giles looked as if he wished to say more. Then unexpectedly he swung around and strode away from them without a backward glance.
Feeling Meredyth’s gaze upon him, Roland faced her. Her small chin was raised in stubborn defiance. She spoke, with regal conviction. “I did not require your assistance in this, my lord. I am more than capable of rebuffing that oaf.”
Roland felt another unexpected surge of respect for her self-assurance. He quickly pushed it aside, telling himself that respect was not an emotion he wished to feel in connection with any woman—and most definitely not this one. She and her sister had had no right to dupe him. He would make his own position quite clear. “I have neither need nor desire for you to protect yourself, Lady Kirkland. I hold well what belongs to me.”
Outrage darkened her green eyes to jade. Roland had no wish for further debate. She would soon come to understand that his position as her overlord and husband was absolute. He turned and strode down the corridor without another word.
It was clear that his abrupt and obvious dismissal did not please her, for he heard a loud gasp of outrage, then the slamming of a door. A cool smile played about his lips as he heard this. That wench was sadly in need of lessoning, and learn she would, did they remain wed. There could be but one master in his household.
Her capitulation last night had been complete and gratifying. It would be so again, in bed and out. He felt an unexpected stirring in his blood.
Quickly Roland pushed aside all pleasurable thoughts of his bride. He had another matter to attend to. That of ensuring the dower he had been promised.
No woman would sway him from his purpose, no matter how delightful a night in her arms might have been. And Jesu help him, his far too vivid recollections of the evening told him it had been delightful, more so than he would ever have expected. He set his shoulders with determination. Did the dower not come with Meredyth, he would not have her.
Impatiently Roland found himself brushing aside an unwelcome and unanticipated sense of disappointment at his own decision.
He found Penacre in the great hall, where he was just finishing his morning meal. The older man’s gaze was not welcoming as he saw his new son by marriage coming toward him where he sat at the head table.
Roland lost no time in stating his demand. “Penacre, I would have a private audience with you, immediately.” He meant to find out first if Penacre had indeed known of his daughters’ trickery, and second, if he thought to withhold the dower.
Clearly the elder man did not care for Roland’s tone, for he raised a haughty silver brow. “You are free to speak here.” He made a sweeping gesture to indicate the others who were partaking of the morning meal.
“Nay,” Roland replied, “I will converse with you and only you. If your daughter speaks truth you will be glad I have afforded both her and you the courtesy of telling you what I have to say in private.”
Penacre stood, frowning. “As you wish.” Without waiting to see if Roland was indeed following, he strode from the hall. Roland went after him, feeling many sets of unfriendly eyes upon his back. It was obvious that those who had overheard his brusque words to their master did not approve. Roland gave a mental shrug. He had no care for what the folk of Penacre thought of him. He was the one who had been wronged here.
He was led to a small chamber that contained several tables and two chairs. The tables seemed to groan under the weight of the ledgers that rested atop each. Peripherally he found himself thinking that Penacre must have a care with his holdings to keep such detailed records. Then he quickly told himself that Penacre was likely only being miserly. Yet he could not help knowing that Penacre’s home was finely furnished and his daughter richly garbed.
With a wry twist of his lips, Roland told himself it did no ill to Penacre’s lot to be good friend to King John. What matter was it to him now, whom the man supported? Richard was dead.
Roland concentrated on the baron’s possible duplicity toward himself. Penacre made no motion for him to sit, nor did he do so, which was fine with Roland. He had no wish to affect any facade of polite civility.
Roland got to the point immediately. “Lord Penacre, your daughter has assured me that you had no knowledge of what she was about. That is the only reason I am even here discussing this with you rather than with the king himself.”
Penacre’s already stiff expression became even more so. “What are you jabbering about, Kirkland? What has Celeste told you that would make you go to King John in complaint?”
Roland watched the man closely. There was no indication that he was hiding anything, but Roland was not finished. “Not Celeste—Meredyth.”
“Why would Meredyth offer you offense?” The older man shook his head in obvious bafflement. “You have no cause to speak to Meredyth. Have had no need for contact with her of any kind. I’ll thank you to stay away from her.” The pain in his voice was clear as he said, “You’ve already taken the one person who means most to me and will have no more.”
Roland thought this a most odd thing to say, but pushed it aside. He could not be distracted. He continued to study Penacre for any sign of treachery as he said, “Oh, I have had opportunity for the most intimate of contacts with the lady Meredyth. You see it is she who passed the night in my arms.”
Penacre started toward him, his face a mask of anger and confusion. “You had best explain yourself, Kirkland, for I’ve no more patience in me.”
Unmoved by this and determined to learn the truth, Roland said. “It is Meredyth Chalmers who married me in the chapel last eve, Meredyth who is my wife.”
Even Roland could not doubt the utter shock and amazement that drained Hugh Chalmers’s face of all color. As Roland moved to help the older man into a chair, he could not explain the strange sense of relief he felt on finding out his wife had not lied to him on this matter, at least.
He quickly dismissed it. Betrayal was the way of women; his own mother had lessoned them in that when she had abandoned her husband and children by running away with his father’s squire. Even these more than twenty years later the memory had the power to squeeze his heart in a painful grip.
Learning that Meredyth Chalmers had told the truth of this one small matter did not change the fact that she had tricked him into marriage. In fact, it made her reason for doing so even more of a mystery. If not in some attempt to cheat him of the dower, then why indeed?
Meredyth had long since retreated to her own chamber. Nothing more could be gained by staying in Celeste’s. The truth was revealed. She knew that Roland had confronted her father, because he had come to her demanding an explanation, no more than an hour past.
Though it troubled Meredyth greatly to defy her father’s demands for information, she had refused to tell him. Celeste’s secret would not become known through her and Celeste herself had as yet to return to the keep. Her father’s men were at this moment searching for her.
Hugh Chalmers had gone back to St. Sebastian none the wiser, his parting stony stare a clear sign of his disapproval of Meredyth. She could only believe that did he know the truth he would wish for her to protect Celeste. Only that certainty kept her from blurting out all. That and the fact that she could read his illdisguised relief that Celeste had not been the one to marry Kirkland.
Meredyth looked up from her unhappy thoughts as her door opened. It was her maid, Jolie, who stood in the doorway. Her cloud of dark curls surrounded a pale face and troubled brown eyes. “My lady, he is here.”
“He…?” Meredyth asked in a ragged whisper, though she had a very uncomfortable feeling that she already knew what he the maid was referring to.
Before Jolie could say any more, the man in question pushed the door open wide with his broad shoulders. St. Sebastian then dismissed the maid without taking his narrowed cobalt gaze from Meredyth. “You may go.”
Jolie hesitated, her brow creased with concern, and Meredyth knew sympathy for her. The girl was quite young and had only been in her service for three short months. She was not accustomed to dealing with men like Roland St. Sebastian. Nor for that matter was Meredyth, but she nodded reassuringly. “All will be well, Jolie. Lord Kirkland is my…husband. I have nothing to fear from him.”
But even as a clearly reluctant Jolie dipped a curtsy and left, Meredyth wondered if he would continue to be her husband. Would he somehow find a way to set her aside? She supposed the church would allow it, considering the circumstances. Yet she could not help wondering what would then happen to her. She was no longer a virgin and surely all in the keep must know that After Roland had left her in Celeste’s chamber, Meredyth had become aware of the blood on the sheet she used as covering and the fact that Agnes seemed equally aware of it.
No other man would wish to have St. Sebastian’s leavings. Meredyth had thought she was resigned to being her father’s chatelaine, to never having a home and family of her own. But the sheer inescapability of this future should Kirkland refuse to remain wed to her was devastating.
She did not wish for him to know how very much this thought disturbed her. Surely having no husband would be preferable to being this man’s wife. Meredyth squared her shoulders and looked directly into those startlingly blue eyes. “Well?”
Roland St. Sebastian smiled but there was no pleasure in it and a sense of greater unease came over her. “Well, wife. It seems I am to keep you.” Before she could contemplate whether this revelation came as relief or curse, he continued, “Your father seems to have no more understanding of what has made you and your sister act so rashly than I. Furthermore, he has agreed that you shall have the same dower that Celeste would have brought to Kirkland.”
He shrugged. “As I have decided not to contest the fact that you wed me using your sister’s name, the matter is to be overlooked by the priest. We shall change the name on the marriage contract and notify the king of the situation, but I can see little chance of his caring greatly when he has the bulk of his attention set on his own recent marriage to Isabella of Angouleme. He has gained his end in seeing our two houses united. One Chalmers bride is as another.”
Meredyth hardly knew what to reply. His coldness toward her was not surprising, though unexpectedly painful. She pushed this hurt aside to concentrate on the rest of what he had said. The shock of learning that the marriage would be honored by Kirkland was amazing, not to mention the fact that he had just told her that she had attained a dower worth thousands of pounds.
Not that the properties and gold would be available to her. They belonged to the man before her. It was the furniture and linens, the huge copper tub, the bolts of fabric, all the household items they had gathered for Celeste’s marriage. All were now hers.
The thought was so overwhelming that it was a moment before Meredyth realized he was speaking again. “Your father will provide the men to drive the wagons, and I shall leave two of the four I have brought with me to Penacre. They will escort you to Kirkland in the morning. I assume you will be safe upon your own father’s lands. And after that you will be upon mine.”
She frowned. “They will escort me…?”
He raised a brow that was as black as a raven’s wing. “I have other matters to attend to. I shall follow in perhaps a week.”
She took a deep breath. She was to go to Kirkland, the home of her family’s enemy, alone. Meredyth met his gaze with her own deliberately cool one, though it cost her dear. “As you will.” If he thought he would see her beg him to attend her he was greatly mistaken. She would ask for nothing. Better to burn in hell than ask for this oaf’s protection.
Meredyth could not stop herself from saying as much. “If you imagine I shall beg you to act the proper husband to me, St. Sebastian, you may now learn that I will never do so. Not now, and not in the future.” She turned her back to him in dismissal.
It was with complete surprise that she heard his voice so close behind her only a moment later. Dear Lord, he had made not a sound. Meredyth was only just able to keep herself from giving a physical start, as she closed her eyes and willed her racing heartbeat to slow.
His words did nothing to assist her efforts. “Have no fear, wench, I shall act the proper husband to you when required. There will be no need to beg.”
There was no mistaking what he was referring to. The words had the effect of sending a shiver of awareness down her spine. Meredyth was appalled at her own reaction after the way he was now treating her. Even as she struggled with her own feelings, something told her that she must never allow this man to know how greatly he affected her. Calling upon all her reserves of self-preservation, Meredyth swung around to face him. “I have no fear of that or anything else about you, my lord. And allow me to tell you one more truth. You think this marriage has made me yours to command. I am not. I will act by my own wishes.”
As she looked at him, she thought for the briefest moment that she saw admiration light those compelling eyes. But the impression was short-lived, for she could see he was very obviously looking at her with that now accustomed superior expression of his. “Oh, you are mine to command and for whatever act I desire. Mark me.” Without another word he turned on his heel and was gone.
Meredyth passed through the great curtain wall at Kirkland with her head held high. What the occupants of the keep might make of the fact that she was arriving without their lord, she refused to contemplate. She had no more intention of allowing St. Sebastian’s folk to know how dazed she was by the changes that had occurred in her life over the past two days than the man himself.
That not all the changes had been disastrous did not lessen her distress one jot.
She cast a disbelieving glance backward over the two wagonloads of linens, furniture, cloth and other effects. They were hers, all hers, each and every item belonged to her, Meredyth. Never in her life had she thought to have so much.
The only items that had been taken from the chests were the clothing that had already been made up for Celeste, who had finally returned to the keep many hours after the worst of the chaos had died down. She had been summoned to their father, but emerged defiant a short time later, refusing to say where she had been or why she and Meredyth had switched places. Only to Meredyth had she admitted to passing a night in an abandoned forester’s cottage. She had then indicated that her confidence that all would turn out well between Meredyth and Roland had been justified.
An amazed Meredyth had not bothered to plague her with the unpleasant truth. She ignored the throb in her chest at remembering how cool the blackguard had been as he told her that he was sending her on to Kirkland without him.
Determinedly she told herself what he thought mattered very little. What did matter was that she could now set up her own home. Use things that were hers to do with as she pleased. Meredyth much doubted St. Sebastian would remain interested in her for long. He had no real feelings for her. Mayhap he would soon ignore her to the extent that he would leave her to do as she pleased about the keep so long as she did not interfere with him directly. He was a warrior. What true interest could he have in how she ran the household?
For reasons unknown to her the thought of his ignoring her completely was not as soothing as she would have wished. She told herself not to be foolish, even as a sudden and quite unwanted memory of the feel of the man’s tongue against her breast made her flush with heat.
Blushing furiously and angry with herself for such a thought, Meredyth looked about, glad that none here could read her mind. In spite of St. Sebastian’s overconfident parting words, Meredyth had no intention of being intimate with him.
The two men Roland had left behind to escort her sat silent atop their horses where they rode just ahead. They had said barely a word to her or her maid, Jolie, throughout the long day. Neither of the young men had even bothered to mention their names, nor had Roland before he galloped away from Penacre as if he could no longer bear to be there. Of course, she told herself, attempting to be fair-minded, the steadily falling drizzle might have had some bearing on the situation.
Now that they were within the castle walls, Meredyth felt many pairs of eyes upon her. She continued to hold her head high, refusing to give in to the urge to look more closely at the gathering crowd, to see if the people resented their lord’s marriage to his enemy’s daughter as much as she feared. She could only believe they must, and her position was made doubly difficult by Roland’s very conspicuous absence.
Knowing she could change none of this, Meredyth did her utmost to concentrate on surveying her new home. The keep was a large, square, two-story structure with a square tower on each of the four corners. A crenellated walkway ran the length of the four walls. A sturdy log bridge connected the outer wall to the top of the keep. In the event of an attack where the outer wall must be abandoned men would be able to fall back to the protection of the inner keep along this route and burn it behind them so as not to give access to the enemy. She suspected that there were others like it that were not visible to her from this vantage.
Obviously Kirkland took the security of his castle very seriously. Her lips twisted in irony. It did not completely surprise her that such a disagreeable man might indeed have enough enemies to make such precautions necessary.
Not that she felt her own father was lax. But he certainly did not go to such lengths to ensure the peace at Penacre. It had not been needed.
The wagons came to a halt in the center of the courtyard, yet no one moved.
After what seemed an eternity, Meredyth took a deep breath and told herself that she must be the one to do something if no one else intended to. Squaring her shoulders for courage, she slid to the hard-packed ground.
To her relief she saw a man leave the group on the steps of the keep and move toward her. With careful dignity Meredyth waited for him to come to her.
He was a tall man, as tall as St. Sebastian himself, but not quite as broad of shoulder, and his ash-blond hair was cut short He stopped before her with a polite if somewhat stiff bow. “I take it you are my lord’s new wife, the lady Celeste. I am Sir Simon, left in charge of the keep in my lord’s absence. But I am sure he has told you that.”
Meredyth could not hold back a scowl of chagrin. Roland had told her nothing. Worse than that, this man had called her Celeste. Then she chided herself for her own unpreparedness. Of course they were expecting Celeste, not having been told otherwise. Well, she had no intention of explaining anything. She simply replied. “I am your lord’s wife, the lady Meredyth.”
Sir Simon blinked, but she rushed on before anything could be said. “My maid and I are fatigued. It has been quite a long day.”
He cleared his throat. “Ah, of a certainty. And I take it Lord Roland is to follow.”
She did not meet his perplexed and questioning gray gaze. “My lord had other matters to attend to. He is to follow in a few days.”
“Ah, I see,” he replied, though it was quite clear that he did not see.
Meredyth ignored this. She would answer no more questions. She motioned to Jolie. “Come, Sir Simon will show us the way.” She looked to him even as she began to move toward the keep. “I take it rooms have been prepared for me.”
He had no real choice but to come along as he replied, “We thought that you would be sharing Lord Roland’s…”
She stopped him then, with an emphatic shake of her head. Meredyth wanted to tell this man that she would as lief bathe in boiling tar as share a room with Roland St. Sebastian. She uttered none of that, but could not refrain from gasping, “Nay.” Immediately realizing the amazed reaction of the man before her, Meredyth willed herself! to a more moderate manner and tone as she said, “Oh, that would not do. I fear I have many belongings and I would not wish to plague my husband by taking over his chambers.”
She motioned to the heaped wagons. “I will require rooms of my own, most definitely a large bedchamber and a solar.” She attempted a confident and reassuring smile, though she was not at all certain of its effectiveness, considering her current state of disquiet.
The tall knight looked at her closely. “Roland left no specific instructions. We had thought he would be returning here with—”
Gently but deliberately she interrupted, doing her utmost to keep the desperation from her voice. “Then all is well. You will not be countermanding any order given you. Obviously your lord expected me to do as I desired, or he would have accompanied me himself, would he not?”
At last he seemed at a loss for words, for what could he reply to such logic? Only Meredyth was aware of the truth, that Roland had left her at Penacre in anger. But he was not here. What he would say to her actions when he did return, she did not know. She only knew that she would not, could not, share a room with a man who had made his disregard for her so abundantly clear.
Not even when his touch had lit a fire in her like none she had ever imagined.
Forcing such thoughts away, she saw that they had now reached the steps of the keep. Two men and three women stood on the stoop, but she did not look at them directly, simply holding her head high as she fought the uncertainty inside her. To her utter relief no one spoke, simply stepping back to allow her to pass.
As Meredyth entered the great hall at Kirkland and looked about, her already heavy heart sank like a stone in a rain barrel. All during the journey from Penacre she had tried to keep from acknowledging the loneliness and hurt she was feeling, had tried to imagine making a home for herself in spite of the poor beginning with her husband.
Now, seeing the appalling condition of the keep, it was all she could do to prevent the despair that swept over her in a painful wave from showing on her face. The air was gray with smoke from a chimney that obviously needed cleaning. The rushes underfoot smelled stale and sour as she moved farther into the large, rectangular chamber. Several enormous dogs loped about her in open curiosity, making her glad that Sweeting was safely ensconced in the basket in the front of the lead wagon.
The trestle tables, which had not yet been taken down, had been set up in no particular order. The only indication that there was a high table were the two large chairs that rested behind the table closest to the inside wall. At least she thought, attempting to cheer herself, the surfaces had been washed after a fashion, for there were wipe marks in the grease.
She found no comfort in this. Meredyth could not face any more this day. She turned and saw that not only Sir Simon but the others had followed her the length of the room. Still working to hide her disappointment, Meredyth addressed the oldest of the three women, who seemed to display a modicum of intelligence, if the shame in her brown eyes was any indication. “Who is in charge of the household?”
The woman looked to Sir Simon, who blanched. He shrugged. “This is not my area of expertise. Tell her, Anne.”
Anne shifted her sturdy frame. “Einid has the keys at the moment.”
Meredyth closed her eyes, feeling a shooting pain behind the right one. “And what would ‘at the moment’ mean?”
“She is not the chatelaine. There is no one who actually occupies that place. She is…” The woman blushed deeply.
“What?” Meredyth could not completely keep the impatience from her voice. She desperately wished to find some private portion of this terrible place to hide before she broke down before them all.
Anne flushed more deeply. “She is Lord Roland’s…They always take the keys to the keep, while they are in favor…”
The shock of realizing what was being said was numbing. But thankfully that numbness carried her through without breaking. “Roland’s mistress has the keys to the keep?”
Both Sir Simon and Anne blanched now.
Anger surged inside Meredyth’s breast. How dare he send her to this…! To attempt to place her beneath the thumb of his mistress! He would do well to think again.
This Meredyth would rectify immediately. She was quite accustomed to running a castle and commanding servants. She would not stand for such foolishness. Under no. circumstances would she allow herself to be second to her husband’s leman.
Meredyth spoke in her most autocratic tone. “Bring her here to me.”
Anne obeyed immediately, rushing toward a narrow door in the outside wall. She emerged only a moment later with a tall, blond, voluptuous beauty whose enormous blue eyes viewed Meredyth with unmistakable resentment.
Meredyth knew a brief moment’s sadness. If this was the type of woman her husband preferred, it was not a surprise that he found her lacking. What he would say to her actions when he returned she dreaded to contemplate.
Yet she could not relent. She was defining her very position in this household now. How she began was the way things would go forward. She must take control of the household, and without any hint of uncertainty. St. Sebastian must be dealt with when the time came. The very notion caused a quiver in her belly. Quickly she pushed the thought aside. She would not worry about such things now.
She held out her hand and was gladdened to see how steady it was. “Give me the keys.”
The woman bit her lip, looking to Sir Simon for assistance. He offered none, remaining silent as his assessing eyes watched Meredyth. She dismissed his interest. She cared not one jot what he thought as long as he did not impede her.
Reluctantly Einid reached to the belt that rode her lustily curved hips. She took the keys and put them into Meredyth’s hand. “And now,” Meredyth told her calmly and with unshakable authority, though she knew her own temerity was great in making this last declaration, “You may find your way to whence you came. Your services will no longer be required at Kirkland.”
Again the woman called Einid looked to Sir Simon, and again there was no assistance forthcoming. She turned on her heels and ran from the room. Meredyth could not deny the stab of sympathy she felt for the other woman.
Surprising herself, she turned to Sir Simon. “Does she have somewhere to go?”
He answered with studied courtesy, but she sensed some hint of disapproval in his tone. “I believe she does, my lady. It is my understanding that her family lives in the next village over from Kirkland.”
Meredyth told herself she did not care what he thought of her, what any of them thought of her, as long as they showed her the respect her position demanded. She motioned in the direction the girl had gone. “Go after her and see that she arrives there safely.”
His eyes widened. “I am not to leave the keep, my lady.”
She shrugged. “You will not be gone long.”
He made no more demur, only bowed, before adding, “If I may be so bold, you show much kindness in looking after her welfare, my lady. It does you credit. I will give her some time to gather her belongs if that meets with your approval.”
Meredyth nodded. She had no words to answer to this unexpected approval. She had simply spoken from the fairness of her own mind. It was not Einid’s fault that Roland was unthinking.
Yet again, she had no intention of discussing her feelings about her husband. Better to concentrate on things she could change.
She turned to Anne. “Can you do better than this?” Her condemning gaze swept the room.
“I can, my lady. And the time for it is well past due.”
Meredyth handed her the ring of keys. “Now take me to a suitable chamber. As soon as I have approved of the accommodation, you may send—” she motioned to the servants who hovered in the dimness behind them “—these men to unload the wagons and the women to clean my chambers.”
Anne nodded. Like Sir Simon’s her gaze was thoughtful and assessing as she watched Meredyth. “There are chambers in the tower. They were occupied by Lord Roland’s mother, the lady Jane, before she…died. There is a large bedchamber, a room for a lady’s women and a comfortable solar. But I do not know if Lord Roland would wish for me to—”
Meredyth was not deaf to the odd hesitation in the serving woman’s voice as she spoke of Roland St. Sebastian’s mother, yet she could not find the necessary energy to think on this at the moment. There were already too many troubles crowding her mind. Meredyth interrupted her, evenly, quietly, unwaveringly. “Please take me to those chambers.” She was silently glad that her agitation was not reflected in her tone.
The serving woman lowered her gaze. “Of course, my lady.”
Chapter Four (#ulink_2f160be6-8bec-544c-a469-6b879a7de519)
Roland strode through the outer door to the great hall, and halted in the act of removing his gauntlets. His amazed gaze swept the wide stone chamber once, then again.
As he shifted to take in every corner of the room, the rushes beneath his feet gave off the fresh sweet scent of wild mint. The trestle tables that had been set up for the evening meal had not yet been removed. For the first time in his memory they seemed to be completely cleaned of grease and food stains. His dogs, which usually raced to great him the moment he entered the hall, were chained near the hearth, which was conspicuously devoid of the drifting smoke he had become accustomed to.
If he had not seen the familiar faces of his own men, he would surely have wondered if he might have stumbled into the wrong keep. Yet he did recognize the few still scattered about the hall, most assuredly Sir Simon, who sat gaming with several of the men at the far corner of the room. None of them seemed concerned with the alterations. They did, in fact, appear quite relaxed and contented as they jested amongst themselves.
His gaze swept the room again.
These changes could have been wrought by only one person, his wife. That they were an improvement was irrelevant.
What right had she to come into his home and rearrange all to suit herself? Remembering her open defiance as he had left her, Roland knew he should not be so very surprised. He very pointedly disregarded the fact that he could also recall feeling admiration of her strength of spirit. Strength was not a trait he desired in a wife. Quite the opposite was true. His mother had been known to be a woman of spirit, and that spiritedness had led her to seek adventure in the arms of a man who was not her husband. Roland brushed the old familiar ache away without thinking, so accustomed was he to doing it after all these years.
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Catherine Archer
Table of Contents
Cover Page (#ud8c7b661-158d-515e-9eeb-2992d6afb6df)
Praise (#u884b00af-fb90-57ef-8273-e0faaae66b93)
Title Page (#ua9338d4f-d5f1-549d-9157-3dd1aa05a7f8)
Dedication (#u19d4f31d-8b3e-50b6-9e6a-342152d900c2)
Excerpt (#ua0a9cd14-5f71-5ed4-ae2e-82d169b23172)
Chapter One (#u5e0a5b89-c400-537e-bf28-9a4d1b4b8472)
Chapter Two (#u9acc6ea7-7c46-5a8c-9bb6-29468def7e33)
Chapter Three (#uf751274a-bf48-5225-8633-9fec893e3ac9)
Chapter Four (#ub299d2a5-56de-5e03-bcec-9d61a3662847)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
10
ANNIVERSARY
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Fire Song
Catherine Archer
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
This book is for Sandi DeGuilio, who helped give Meredyth life one afternoon while we waited for her doctor’s appointment. It is also for Kathy Rung Misener and Kathy Gill. I am greatly blessed to call three such special women “friend.”
“Is it the custom of the Chalmers family to send the sister of the bride to the bridal bed?”
Roland asked.
Meredyth gasped and pushed at him with all her might. To her surprise he gave way immediately. She slipped from beneath him, dragging the cover with her as she moved to stand at the foot of the enormous bed.
Desperately she clutched the blanket against her bosom, realizing that she had to somehow find the words to explain what had happened. It was understandable that the man would be angry, searching for an explanation.
Meredyth glanced toward him, where he waited, now sitting with his back against the carved headboard, his bronze chest bare. She was assaulted by images of how his strong arms had lifted her against him. Heat suffused her, and she had to look away.
“Well,” he prompted, “I am sorely in need of an explanation. Enlighten me, Meredyth Chalmers, as to why you are here and my bride is not.”
Chapter One (#ulink_c81f7686-04bd-53a3-ae1f-628bdd4d7eab)
Roland St. Sebastian, Baron of Kirkland, leaned forward in the front pew of the chapel at Penacre. He was of no mind to appreciate the pattern of rich color that passed through the large stained-glass window behind the altar and lit the well-scrubbed stone floor. Roland was more concerned with watching as it lengthened with the passage of time. He willed himself to hide any sign of his growing irritation as he leaned his chin against his steepled fingers. But he could not completely disguise the impatience and displeasure in his narrowed blue gaze as he surveyed the other two occupants of the long narrow chamber.
Where was his bride?
The aforementioned bride’s father, Hugh Chalmers, Baron of Penacre, a tall slender man with much gray in his dark blond hair stood silent and withdrawn in front of the altar, which was draped in rich red velvet and bore two ornate golden candle holders. Beside him stood the equally richly garbed and clearly uncomfortable priest.
As the priest leaned close to him and murmured a comment, Hugh made only the barest of replies. His lean body was held stiffly in his long blue tunic and a fine damask cyclas of darker blue. But Roland saw his gaze flick to the open door at the end of the room.
It remained vacant.
Obviously Penacre, too, was growing impatient for his daughter to arrive. Roland knew he had not wanted the match, but this waiting served no one.
King John had decreed the marriage would take place. Plainly the king had decided the feuding between the houses of Penacre and Kirkland had gone on long enough when one of Roland’s smaller keeps had been destroyed and many stores with it. The stores were sorely needed in this time of shortage after the wars in the Holy Land.
Roland grimaced, and raked a hand through his black hair. He had even less desire to remind himself of the war in the Holy Land than he did to be married. It had claimed his elder brother, Geoffrey, who should have been the baron on their father’s death. Roland was still not quite easy with his position as his father’s heir, even though he had, in essence, been acting as overlord to the lands for some time before his father’s passing the previous year, in 1200, just one year after King Richard had met his end at Châlus-Chabrol. If not for a series of tragic events he would bear no more exalted title than that of youngest son.
He would concentrate instead on his coming nuptials to Celeste Chalmers. Though the daughter of his enemy and not a bride he would have chosen for himself, she was quite exquisite. He had seen her only once from across the king’s audience chamber, but when John had announced that he felt a marriage was the best solution to their difficulties, Roland had felt that she would do well enough.
Celeste Chalmers was only a means to an end. He wanted peace and prosperity on his lands. Her rich dower would greatly assist him in his efforts to bring the estates back to the abundance they had known before his father’s descent into the hell of drink. Beyond that this wedding would change his life in no great measure. A wife’s place was to do nothing more than warm her husband’s bed and produce a legitimate heir. She would grace his table with her beauty and attend to his needs when he required it.
Roland would not make the mistake of putting all his faith in a woman as his father had. It had been his downfall.
Love was highly overrated. It had driven his father to his knees when his wife left him, and again when he had allowed it to come between himself and his eldest son.
Roland shook his head and straightened. He would not think on these things. Again he looked toward the open door of the chapel with impatience.
Where was the wench and what did she think to keep them waiting so? She need not think her beauty would protect her from obeying Roland once she was his wife. He cast Penacre an assessing glance, saw the older man’s growing frustration in the tight line of his lips. He had thought better of the man than that he would allow a mere slip of a girl to try him thus. Once they set out for Kirkland in the morn she would soon learn her place.
He’d arrived at Penacre’s castle only hours ago with no more than four of his most trusted knights in attendance. Roland had been correct in thinking he would not meet with perfidy. Neither was there any warm welcome, but this he had known as well.
They had been met by Penacre and led to the hall. After a brief time, Roland had been asked to leave his men and come to the chapel where the girl was expected to be waiting.
Penacre had volunteered, as they went to the chapel at the far end of the keep, that his daughter had requested that no one but the bridegroom, her father and the priest attend the ceremony. Roland had thought it odd to coddle the girl so, but he would not tell Penacre what to do in his own household.
As two hours had passed, Roland had grown more and more to wonder if his father-in-law was a weak fool. It amazed him that this was the same man who had been feuding against him with such determination in recent times. The two families had long been enemies, being often on opposing sides of political conflict, but in the past year the vehemence of Penacre’s attacks had seemed almost personal. Only two short months after Roland’s father’s death a man had entered the castle grounds at Kirkland by stealth and managed to steal his father’s favorite horse. They had only discovered that the deed was wrought by Penacre’s own man because he had thrown off his cape as he rode away, displaying Penacre’s colors of yellow and green. That it was his recently deceased father’s horse that had been taken Roland had told himself was mere chance, but the incident had enraged him.
The very thought of it now raised his ire to such a degree that he could no longer sit silent. “I grow tired of waiting. Where is your daughter?” A full hour had passed since the last time Penacre had very calmly sent someone from among the servants who waited outside in the hallway to inquire as to the time of his daughter’s arrival.
Hugh Chalmers, who it seemed, might have finally reached the end of his patience at this prodding from Roland, turned and strode down the aisle. This time he spoke gruffly. “Go and see what on earth is keeping my daughter.”
Meredyth Chalmers looked at the serving man, Max, with regret. “Tell Father I am trying.” She turned to her sister’s closed chamber door. Nothing any of them, not even her sister’s personal maid, Agnes, had done or said in the past hours had drawn Celeste from her room. The door remained bolted.
She took a deep breath. “Celeste, please, you must let me in. I will try my utmost to understand whatever is frightening you.” Meredyth could only think that her sister had been overcome with terror at the thought of marrying this stranger. Mayhap if she would speak of it the fear might ease.
To her utter surprise and relief she heard the bolt slide open with a slight creak. For a long moment, Meredyth simply stood there, unsure now that the opportunity was upon her as to what she would say to her sister. Then taking another breath in an effort to appear calm and patient, Meredyth opened the door.
Her worried gaze quickly found Celeste where she had gone to sit near the window. She was dressed in her wedding gown of ivory. The gold embroidery that decorated the long sleeves and the full skirt glowed in the last dying rays of the sunlight coming through the open window. It shone on the gold veil that covered Celeste’s pale blond hair, which hung loose to her waist. Her face, every feature in perfect harmony with the next, was also outlined in this luminous light. Though Meredyth had lived with her sister her whole life, she found her breath catching in wonder. Celeste was like the angels she had seen on the illuminated pages of religious texts the priest had taught them to read from.
Her loveliness found a perfect setting in the sumptuously furnished chamber, with its thick eastern carpet and richly colored tapestries. The huge dark-stained bed with its heavy sapphire hangings bore a gilt impression of the Penacre griffin, and seemed a fitting place for a creature of such perfection as Celeste to find her rest.
The words Celeste spoke without looking away from her contemplation of her slender white hands drove every other thought from Meredyth’s mind. “I cannot marry Kirkland. I am in love with another.”
Meredyth Chalmers stared at her sister with dawning horror. “You are in love with another? Celeste, who could you be in love with?” A sudden impossible thought occurred to her. “It is not the earl’s son, Orin? He is hardly more than a boy.”
Celeste gazed at her, her guileless blue eyes wide with amazement. “Nay, why ever would you think such a thing? As you say, he is a boy.”
Meredyth felt relief but only in small measure, yet she tried to appear assured. “That eases my mind. His adoration for you is no secret to anyone else with eyes in their head and he gets along with no one other than Sir Giles.” At least Celeste was not so foolish as to return the troubled young man’s feelings. Meredyth rambled on in her agitation. “They are of a pair, those two, in ways I cannot explain. Both make me uncomfortable.”
Her words were met with a heavy silence.
Meredyth looked up, realizing even in her troubled state that her sister seemed to have grown very still at the mention of Sir Giles—too still. Meredyth whispered. “Do not tell me it is…”
Celeste raised pale blue eyes to her sister’s face. “Yes. I am in love with Sir Giles.” For a moment her voice seemed filled with relief at having said the words aloud, before it was again overlaid with sadness. “I thought…hoped he might say something to Father…make some move to halt the marriage to St. Sebastian before it was too late. That he might have changed his mind about…”
Meredyth frowned at this. “Changed his mind?”
Celeste started and for a brief moment, Meredyth thought she saw fear in those blue eyes, but the impression was quickly forgotten as Celeste shook her head fiercely. “I am driven so near madness I know not what I say. Even as you came in just now I prayed it would be word that he…but…What am I to do?” She put her head down and began to cry, great racking sobs that shook her slender frame.
Meredyth ran a nervous hand over her samite-covered midriff, the very feel of her own new cote reminding her that Celeste’s groom awaited her. “Sweet Jesu, Celeste, they are waiting in the chapel. For the second time Father has sent someone to find out what is taking so long. Your reluctance for this marriage has been obvious, but I had not expected this.”
The sobbing only became louder. In the weeks since her father and sister had returned from court Celeste had been extremely reticent But she was always quiet, and she had certainly said nothing to indicate that she was not willing to go through with the marriage. She had simply watched, ever beautiful and remote as her new gowns were fitted and chests of linens and other household goods were prepared. It was true that she had left the choosing of these goods to her younger sister, but Meredyth was accustomed to looking after the majority of domestic tasks at Penacre. Although she was the elder by one year, Celeste had never shown any interest in running the keep.
And she was not required to do so. Her elegant and delicate loveliness, the silver-bell perfection of her voice seemed to please their father more than all Meredyth could do to keep him comfortable, fed and warm. Meredyth wished she, too, would see that light of adoration in their father’s eyes.
Not that Meredyth resented her sister. She loved Celeste. It would be difficult not to. She exuded a gentle sweetness that drew people to her and seemed completely unspoiled by her extraordinary beauty. She was fragile and in need of more care than others, including Meredyth herself.
Suddenly she wondered if Sir Giles, whom Meredyth had not fully trusted since his coming to Penacre some three years past, had taken advantage of her sister’s delicate disposition. Quickly Meredyth told herself that he would surely not go so far, but her unease did not dissipate. There was a burning fire in the tall spare knight’s blue eyes that made her decidedly uncomfortable. Softly, she said, “Celeste, Sir Giles, he has not…forced you?”
Celeste looked up in shock, her blue eyes mirroring her sorrow and another emotion Meredyth did not wish to read as guilt. “He has not.”
Meredyth could hear the distress in her sister’s voice, thus was little relieved by this assurance. Reluctantly she forced herself to go on, though it pained her to think of the delicate Celeste with that hard-natured man. “Does he return your affection?”
The blue eyes were stricken. “Clearly he does not. I had thought that my love was great enough for two, yet…”
Meredyth closed her own lids, unable to bear the raw desolation in that gaze. If this were the way love made one behave, then better that she never have any part of it, she told herself. Not that that seemed likely ever to come about. Her position as chatelaine in her father’s household seemed assured for all time to come.
She pushed aside her own petty concerns to concentrate on her sister. “How could you love a man who does not love you?”
Celeste raised slender hands to her breast. “I only know that I do. Can’t you see that if I marry this man, this Roland St. Sebastian, there is no chance that we will ever be together. And I know that we could be, Meredyth. Giles could love me, if given enough time. He could come to see that there is no other way than for us to be together, that any other scheme is unthinkable.”
Meredyth stood, shaking her head in helpless confusion. Again Celeste’s choice of words seemed odd. Yet Meredyth would not be distracted from the problem at hand. “But you are promised to St. Sebastian.”
Celeste leaped up and leaned against the open sill, her expression wild with grief and determination. “I will throw myself from these heights, Meredyth. I will.”
Her heart thudding with fear, Meredyth whispered, “You cannot do that, Celeste.”
The elder girl’s raised chin showed a stubborn determination that surprised Meredyth. “I cannot marry him.”
“We…will simply have to think of something,” Meredyth said earnestly.
She grew somewhat relieved when Celeste leaned back from the open window, obviously less desperate now that she saw her sister was starting to take her seriously. Yet Meredyth could not stop herself from shaking her head, as she thought aloud. “But what? To not obey the king’s order—what would happen?”
“I do not care, Meredyth. I only know that I love Giles. You do not understand because you have never felt that way about someone. I watch him throughout the days. I burn for him in the darkness of night.”
Meredyth blushed. This talk was far beyond her experience, yet she could not ignore her sister’s distress. “You are correct in saying I have never felt that way but I do have some sympathy for your sorrow. If there was any way I could help you, Celeste, I would. Alas, what can I do?”
Celeste looked at her, some of her anguish seeming to have evaporated as she spoke with unmistakable optimism. “St. Sebastian does not care for me. He weds me only on the king’s decree, to settle the differences between our families.” She paused for a moment, biting her full lower lip thoughtfully as she studied her sister.
Meredyth felt a twinge of unrest as Celeste went on, her voice pleading. “Haps there is something you can do, Meredyth. You said yourself that you care for no one. I do not see why I have to be the one to wed this man. What is required is an alliance between our houses. Who the bride is matters not at all. I am certain King John only chose me because I am the eldest daughter. It is the usual custom for the eldest to marry first, but it is not law.”
Now both hands came up to cover her midriff as Meredyth gasped in shocked amazement “You want me to marry him in your stead? But I cannot do that. This man will not take me in your place. What reason would Father give for asking him to do so? That you love another is unlikely to bear any weight with him. He is Father’s enemy—thus our enemy. He and his men have wreaked havoc on our lands.”
Celeste hesitated for no more than a moment before her expression brightened. “Which is why we will not inform the Baron of Kirkland until it is too late. And we could not tell Father because we would not wish for him to be held responsible.”
Meredyth shook her head in confusion. “Not tell? What can you mean?” She made a sweeping gesture to indicate her own diminutive form. “You cannot imagine that I could be mistaken for you, Celeste. Even if it were not for the difference in our height, look at your own hair and mine.” Meredyth reached back and pulled the weight of her own fiery braid forward over her shoulder. “There can be no hope of succeeding in this.”
Celeste moved toward her, her eyes pleading again. “But we can do it. We must do it, Meredyth. I…I am no virgin, and St. Sebastian would as lief kill as forgive me when he found out. You said yourself that he is our enemy. Think you he would treat me with kindness?”
Meredyth gasped, her mind churning. “But you said…”
“I said he did not force me.” High color rode her creamy cheeks.
Heaven, but this changed all. Meredyth knew that what Celeste said was very likely true. St. Sebastian might well kill her if he learned she was not chaste. “I cannot sit by and allow you to come to such an end, but…this…” She put her hands to her head, trying to think past the shock of what she had just learned and her concern for her sister.
Celeste changed her tone to one of cajoling. “Meredyth, I have seen this man. Even though he is our family’s enemy I could not but see that he is not ill-favored. St. Sebastian is tall and strong and handsome in a fearsome way. I heard other maids at court speak of him with some longing. If I were not in love with another…” She did not meet Meredyth’s gaze.
Meredyth could only stare at her in amazement. “The man’s good appearance or lack of such is the least of my concerns in this matter.”
The elder girl flushed, then pressed on. “Please, you are my only hope.”
When Meredyth made no demur, simply raising tormented eyes to her sister’s face, the blond woman began to remove her wedding gown. She spoke matterof-factly now. “I have a veil that would cover you from head to waist. You shall wear my new cotehardie, and…”
“But we shall be found out. We are not of a height. There must be at least four inches difference between us.” Yet even as she replied Meredyth was unaccountably reminded of her sister’s account of Kirkland—“tall, strong, and fearsome.” Had Celeste really thought to reassure her with that description? And that other maids might find him appealing was of no consequence to her.
Celeste was clearly oblivious to her reaction and did not stop removing her garments as she motioned briefly toward the window. “It has nearly grown dark. In the light of the candles none will guess your identity if you wear my clothing. Men do not take note of such things. It is not in their nature. You know I have asked that none besides the priest, St. Sebastian and Father attend the ceremony. Father is so upset at the marriage that he will not realize. And the baron has only seen me once from across a crowded antechamber. You may be assured that he will not recall any detail of my appearance.”
Meredyth did not believe this for a moment. Any man who once set eyes upon Celeste would certainly remember her. But that knowledge was overridden by the hurtful realization that her father was indeed so distraught over Celeste’s marriage to this man that he might not take heed of what was going on around him.
Even as these thoughts ran through Meredyth’s mind, Celeste dropped the last of her outer garments on the floor. She stepped forward and put her hands to the shoulders of Meredyth’s burgundy damask cotehardie. “Let me help you to change. This is your wedding day.”
Her throat tight and dry with anxiety, Meredyth made her way to the chapel on shaking legs. Everyone she met along the way seemed only relieved to see her finally going there. No one, not even her father himself as she arrived in the entrance to the chapel, appeared to realize that she was Meredyth, not Celeste. He simply hurried down the aisle to urge her forward. It was only after taking a deep breath and forcing herself to recall that she might indeed be saving her sister’s life, that she was able to go on.
Her heart felt painfully large in her chest as she moved down the aisle toward the large shadowy figure of the man she had never even seen before. The man who would be her husband.
Meredyth nearly tripped over the hem of the ivory samite skirt. They had been forced to hike up the skirt with a girdle of gold lengths, and still it was long. Her knee-length hair they had twined around her head, then wrapped in ivory fabric to disguise the color. The carefully piled hair had also served to give her the appearance of more height. And finally, the heavy veil of gold sendal she wore covered her from head to waist, both back and front.
She looked neither right nor left, keeping her mind centered on simply putting one foot in front of the other. When she stopped at the front of the altar, Meredyth was too agitated to even look at the man who stood beside her. She had an impression of height, of immense strength and a simmering unrest
The priest spoke with obvious relief, drawing her gaze to him. “I will light the candles.”
Meredyth took a quick breath, and begged, “Please, do not.” She was almost glad that her throat was so tight, her voice so husky with anxiety that no one would recognize it. “I…”
The man beside her seemed to stiffen even more as he made a gesture of impatience, cutting her off. “Do not bother with the candles, priest. Let us see this done as quickly as possible.”
If she was relieved by his concordance with her own wishes, Meredyth was too far beyond reason to feel it.
Her fear of being discovered kept her from focusing on anything else as the priest led them through their vows. The deep sound of his voice seemed filtered through a dense fog, as did the voice of the man at her side, but she was not completely deaf to the impatience in his tone.
The sound of her pounding heart prevented her from hearing her own whispered replies. It seemed in fact so loud she feared more than once that the man at her side must surely hear it too.
Only when the priest fell silent did Meredyth realize it was over. She had married this man in her sister’s stead.
St. Sebastian reached down with a possessiveness that even she could recognize and took her hand in his warm one. A hot streak of surprise and another unexpected sensation that she could not quite name raced through her. Inexplicably that sensation made her pulse quicken all the more.
Meredyth tried to concentrate as he spoke to her, his deep voice husky with an oddly sensuous note now that the wedding was completed. “Might I not at least look upon my beautiful bride?”
A shiver of apprehension shot down her spine as Meredyth whispered. “Nay, my lord, please. I ask you to understand that I am shy of you…of this marriage.”
He leaned over her, so close that even through the heavy sendal of the veil she could feel his warm breath against her ear as he spoke. “There is no need to fear me, my little bride.”
Again Meredyth shivered but this time it was not totally due to apprehension. She forced herself to think, to ignore the tingling along her nape, and replied in a desperate whisper. “Nonetheless I am frightened.” He would never know what the admission cost her. Never in her life had Meredyth felt so terrified of anyone or anything. Nor would she have admitted it if she had been. Having spent her life with the realization that she would never be adored as was her sister, Meredyth had long ago learned to hide her emotions behind a wall of dignity.
She could not allow him to unmask her here and now. What would he do, this fierce warrior, if the fact that he had taken the wrong bride was made known in this public way?
She and Celeste had been addled to think they would ever succeed in this madness. Somehow she felt her only hope of rectifying the situation was to explain to St. Sebastian that they had made a foolish mistake before anyone else discovered the truth. That meant she must do her utmost to conceal her identity until she had an opportunity to be alone with him. Yet Meredyth knew she would not be alone with him until this very night after the bedding ceremony. The very thought made her nape prickle again.
Desperately she whispered, “Might I ask a boon of you, my lord?”
His breath stirred her veil as he replied, his voice noncommittal. “Aye, and what be that, damsel?”
Her tone softened more at her own temerity even as she realized this was her only hope. “I ask that you forgo the bedding ceremony, as I do not think…that I could go forward with…after everyone had looked at…”
There was a long silence. Then her father’s voice came, the regret in it clear to even her muddled ears. “Celeste, my daughter. I feel for your reticence but you have no right to ask this of your husband—”
St. Sebastian spoke, abruptly interrupting him. “Say no more, Penacre. The woman is now my concern. Methinks I will agree to this strange request. I have seen Celeste and believe I will find no fault with her. I would not have her too agitated to…well…” Meredyth knew he shrugged, though she still did not look up at him. “I would have my wedding night be one to remember.”
Her breath caught at his words. Dear heaven, dear heaven, she thought, fighting down panic and a strange stirring that she could not understand. St. Sebastian made his desire plain enough for even her inexperienced ears. And for some reason his words struck a heretofore long-buried chord within herself. Meredyth had barely allowed herself to think of the “wedding night” and what might occur during it, even in her most secret moments.
Without another word, Meredyth turned and ran. She had no care of what he or her father might think. She simply knew she had to get away, away from his too powerful presence, away from the huskiness of his sensuous voice and the things he had said, away from the things they made her feel.
But as she hurried toward not her own chamber but her sister’s, Meredyth told herself she was reacting like a child. She would not be bedding this man. It would not go so very far as that.
She rubbed damp palms on the skirt of her borrowed gown. In fact, Meredyth realized as she made her way to Celeste’s chamber, they need tell Kirkland nothing. Celeste would simply take the place she had been meant to. Meredyth had married the man using her sister’s name. No one need be the wiser.
As far as Celeste’s unchaste state was concerned…well…surely she must have some idea of what she might do to fool her husband into thinking she was a virgin. Meredyth had heard that such things were possible.
As she reached the door to her sister’s room, Meredyth threw it open in relief, knowing things would soon be set to rights. But she stopped on the threshold. Celeste was not there.
A prickling sense of unease made Meredyth search out her sister’s cloak where it usually lay in the top of her clothing chest. It was not there. She bit her lip, turning to survey the rest of the chamber. It was then that her eyes lit upon a small scrap of parchment on the table near the bed. Hurriedly Meredyth rushed to take it up, and read the words scrawled there in her sister’s childish hand:
I will return on the morrow, when all is done. I have told no one, not even Agnes, and neither must you. My thanks and love. Celeste.
Meredyth crumbled the scrap in her trembling fingers. She had been left to face St. Sebastian alone.
Whatever was she to say to him? “Forgive me, my lord, my sister is in love with another and I took her place.”
’Twas unlikely that any man would be satisfied with such a substitution. Celeste was an acclaimed beauty, known for her grace and lovely voice. Meredyth was, well, simply herself, small, scarlet haired, with a sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her nose. She was in no way a replacement for a woman like Celeste. Though she did not believe she was completely without charms of her own, no man had ever been able to see far enough beyond her sister to notice.
Just as that thought passed through her mind the door opened and Agnes appeared. She hesitated there, bearing a laden tray. Her gray eyes were filled with concern as she came inside. “I have brought food and wine, my lady.”
Meredyth felt her heart rise up in her throat as she clutched the crumpled note close against her midriff. Her voice was a hoarse whisper. “I have need of nothing.”
The maid scowled with worry. “But you must take something. You have not eaten all this long day.” She moved to place the tray upon the table. Agnes then swung around and pointed toward the nightdress that lay across the foot of the bed. “I will help my lady to disrobe.”
“Nay,” Meredyth cried, stepping backward.
The woman looked closely at her. “Is there something wrong with my lady’s voice? You sound…strange.”
Turning her back as panic gripped her, Meredyth spoke in that low husky tone again. “There is nothing wrong other than the obvious. I have just married Father’s enemy. Please leave me alone. I do not wish to see anyone right now. I will see to my own needs.”
“But…” Agnes started forward, her hand outstretched with sympathy.
Meredyth stopped the maid by swinging to face her with a determined shake of her veiled head. “Nay. I beg you to leave me some small amount of dignity. I will see to myself.”
The maid seemed less than content with this, as her eyes remained filled with concern. Then her shoulders slumped as she moved toward the door. Meredyth was sympathetic to the other’s sadness, knowing how the maid cared for her sister, but she could not relent.
Agnes opened the door then halted for a brief moment. “I will stay by, my lady, in case you have need of me.”
Meredyth nodded, but said nothing. She sighed with abject relief as the door closed behind her, her throat dry with anxiety at the possibility of being discovered. Immediately she went to the table and poured herself a glass of the wine. She drained it quickly. This whole day she had been too occupied to consume more than a cup of water and the wine soothed her tight throat.
That had been too close. She took another cup, this time sipping more slowly as she told herself to think clearly.
Meredyth realized she must pretend to be her sister until she had an opportunity to speak to Kirkland. It was her only hope of making sure that he was the first one to learn what had occurred.
Meredyth squared her shoulders with determination, as she took another long sip of wine. First things first, she told herself, as a feeling of relaxation began to ease her tense muscles. She could not chance another meeting with Agnes. Her gaze came to rest on the new gossamer-thin night rail that had been laid across the end of the bed. She would change into the gown, climb into the bed and wait for St. Sebastian to arrive. That way if Agnes came again she would see that her charge was already abed and she would leave. The discarded wedding clothes would be proof that she needed no assistance.
The idea seemed quite clever even if she did say so herself. Quickly Meredyth began to disrobe.
Chapter Two (#ulink_1b590db2-0309-5b4d-bf48-b1307b362ed9)
Roland turned to the serving woman, who had moved between himself and his new father by marriage to refill their cups. He reached out and took the full pitcher from her hands. Startled, she backed away as he placed it before himself at the high table. Penacre said nothing, but Roland could feel his disapproving gaze.
Ignoring him as well, he poured out for himself. Roland then raised his glass as he surveyed the occupants of the great hall with only half his attention. He was more fully occupied with asking himself why he had agreed to forgo the bedding ceremony. Surely it was because the girl had seemed much more terrified than willful. Her small hand had been like ice, the fingers trembling in his, her voice a hoarse anxious whisper.
He did not wish to acknowledge the strange ripple of sympathy he had felt as he held those tiny fingers in his own. Under no circumstances did he mean to begin allowing his wife her way with him. Firmly Roland told himself he had acquiesced simply because he did not want the woman frightened out of her wits this night.
His sudden concern for her had to do with his own, as yet unslaked, desire. It had been some weeks since he had last bedded Einid at Kirkland. Much longer than was his wont. Not that he felt he owed his former mistress any loyalty in that respect. Both of them had been quite aware that theirs was an arrangement of convenience for each. He enjoyed her beauty and body—she enjoyed his protection and the pleasure of their couplings.
Even now he felt a stirring at the thought of the bed sport he and Celeste Chalmers would enjoy this night. His instincts as a lover told him that with care she could be brought to respond to him. For this too he had sensed in her trembling form.
A sudden burst of harsh laughter drew his attention back to the room before him. The trestle tables groaned under the weight of the roast, breads, stews and other fare that had been prepared. Yet from what he could see Roland did not think that much of the food had been consumed. It was the free-flowing wine that was disappearing from the many flasks that had been set about the tables. If he did not miss his guess there was not one completely sober man in the room, himself included. The wine seemed only to have heightened the sullen atmosphere rather than lightening it.
He looked to his bride’s father. That man seemed even less inclined to revelry than his folk. His man, Sir Giles, looked the same. Sir Giles had been introduced to Roland as Penacre’s most trusted knight and even now sat at his other side.
Something about the fellow prodded at Roland, though he could not say what. The knight was a tall spare man, lean muscled and hard. His skin was dark and his cheeks sunken over a heavy black beard.
Then even as Roland made to turn away, Sir Giles raised his head and met his gaze with his own. Roland was surprised at the depth of animosity and ill will he saw there. It was a look of such malice that his hand found the well-known curve of his sword hilt. Immediately he withdrew his too hasty fingers. The knight had done nothing beyond look at him. This night, his wedding night, he would ignore the man’s ill will.
He had not expected to find friends here.
His eyes lit immediately on another face that glared back at him, that of young Orin, offspring to the Earl of Hampstead. No friends indeed.
The pale scar that traced the length of the lad’s cheek was obvious even across the room. Now, Roland was not surprised by this one’s attitude toward him. Neither was he completely unmoved by it.
His father had once been the boy’s foster father. Roland had been set the task of teaching him the ways of knighthood. But Orin had not taken well to instruction. Roland had done his best to teach the boy to use his sword properly, had taught him over and over again not to duck his head behind his sword arm when attacking. It had been Orin’s own fault that Roland’s sword had slid along the dangling length of his own, the blade grazing the lad’s cheek deeply.
Orin’s father had angrily fetched his son home. That had been when King Richard was still alive and Roland’s family was known to be favored by the king. Roland had always wondered as to the earl’s loyalty to Richard, having heard rumors that Hampstead had secretly supported John in his efforts to keep Richard from returning to England. His father had refused to listen to such speculation, had been angry with Roland over his suspicions and even more so after the incident in which Orin was disfigured. Until this day, Roland had not known that Orin was now receiving his training in the home of his enemy, who also was a staunch supporter of the recently crowned King John.
Roland corrected himself. “Former enemy.” The king’s decree of a marriage had ended the feuding between their families.
Since his father’s death the previous year Roland had been well occupied in running the varied estates that had fallen to him along with the title of Baron of Kirkland. Neither Albert St. Sebastian nor Roland had ever quite forgotten that Geoffrey was the son who should have been his heir. That it was their father’s own act of banishment that had changed that did not lessen the pain of the outcome.
Having had enough of these thoughts, Roland stood. He had a lovely, if somewhat reticent, bride waiting for him.
The noisy assemblage grew quiet, all eyes turning to study him. “I am for bed,” he said, being as deliberately casual as he could under the circumstances.
A shout of encouragement rang out from his men. Brian, his squire and the youngest, called out, “We’ll soon be hearing her cries of pleasure from here. No woman can resist you, Lord Roland.”
Roland shrugged and cast him an indulgent smile. Being more than slightly drunk, the boy was making no effort at subtlety.
The baron, Sir Giles and the rest of the company were conspicuously silent Sir Giles stared down at his gloved fists with those intense burning blue eyes of his and Penacre raised his cup to drain it.
After first taking another glass of the cool wine for courage, Meredyth lay back in the depths of the huge dark-stained bed. She had pulled the bed curtains all around so that anyone coming into the room would not be able to see her. She did not trust the maid to stay away. There had been too much concern in the older woman’s voice when she repeatedly asked after her charge’s well-being.
But it was not to Meredyth’s liking to lie there all alone in the darkness. As time passed she only seemed to become more and more apprehensive and confused about what she might say to the baron. She now realized she should not have drank the wine, for it had only eased her for a time. She felt more than slightly befuddled.
What was she going to say to St. Sebastian when he came to this room expecting to find Celeste? She could only pray that the words would come, that he would not become completely enraged before she could make him understand.
The fire died down, but Meredyth had neither the heart nor the energy to rise and tend it. All her being was centered on clearing her mind and finding the words to make Roland St. Sebastian understand that she had not meant to do anything against him, that she was simply trying to help her sister.
Meredyth tried to imagine what he might say, how she might answer him. The thoughts swirled in her mind until they became less and less coherent, until nothing remained but a circle of confusion.
To her utter surprise Meredyth felt tears sting her eyes. She was not one to cry, did not feel that there was any honor in tears. Yet the day’s events had taken their toll and she was crying. Meredyth could not seem to stop, once begun.
She curled around the aching ball of loneliness in her chest and buried her face in the pillow. How had this happened? Why had she allow Celeste to convince her to do this mad thing?
Because she was Celeste.
All her life Meredyth had been accustomed to thinking her sister needed more looking after, even though she was the elder by a year. When Meredyth was six and Celeste seven they had been playing in the clearing near the castle. Celeste had been picking flowers and had begun to wander further into the wood. Meredyth had told her she should not, that Agnes had said they must stay within sight of the walls. Celeste had replied by taunting her to come along. Meredyth had remained where she was, and when Agnes had come to fetch them she had been horrified at realizing that her elder charge was indeed gone. Celeste had not been found for hours, as she had tripped, hurting her ankle in the dense forest, and been unable to walk back.
The thing that Meredyth would never forget was her father’s surprising anger toward herself. He had said that Meredyth should not have allowed Celeste to go off alone, that she was never to abandon her sister again. Did Meredyth not realize her sister was of a delicate, fanciful nature and therefore must be cared for?
There had been no words of comfort for Meredyth, who had feared for her sister. No words of praise for having obeyed Agnes’s instructions. From that day Meredyth had understood that to keep her father’s love she must protect Celeste, who was dearest to him of all things.
It had been a hard lesson to bear, but bear it she had, and without tears, until now.
How long she cried, Meredyth did not know; only when she was physically exhausted did the sobbing cease. She lay there drained, her lids heavy over swollen and gritty eyes. She closed them, needing to rest, to regain her courage, to ready herself…
Roland followed the directions that had been given to him by the serving woman. This was the most peculiar marriage he had ever heard of, to say the least—the groom expected simply to present himself to his bride with none of the accustomed preliminaries.
Yet the closer Roland got to his destination, which purportedly lay at the top of the tower steps, the less concern it gave him. He could think only of the beautiful woman who awaited him. He knew she was frightened and inexperienced, as was evidenced by her fearful manner toward him. Yet he recalled again the trembling of her body when he had touched her hand. Surely his instincts did not play him false and there was passion in his bride.
He was not a selfish bedmate and even took pleasure from giving satisfaction to the women he bedded. He had noted that doing so made a woman much more malleable and eager to please him, not just in bed, but in other ways as well.
He told himself that to begin thus with his wife would only be wise.
Roland reached the top step, and opened the door, surprised to be greeted by a darkness that was only slightly alleviated by the bed of glowing coals in the hearth. Quietly Roland stepped inside, his warrior’s reflexes always at the ready for danger. This was, after all, the home of the Chalmerses, enemies to his family for several generations. He stood still, giving his eyes a moment to adjust to the dim interior. But he soon realized there was no threat here. There were no skulking shadows, no unusual sounds. Most telling of all, there was no lurking heaviness, the kind that always accompanied danger.
He allowed himself to relax somewhat. Eagerly now, Roland looked about the chamber, but was unable to locate his bride.
He was just beginning to believe the room might not be occupied at all when he heard the sound of a soft breath. Gauging the direction immediately, he moved to the bed. He was surprised, having thought her fear too great for her to await him there. He was also pleased. Perhaps the maid was not as frightened as he had thought.
He made his way to the huge shadow of the bed. Quickly Roland removed his garments. He then drew open the heavy hangings and climbed inside.
Roland reached out a seeking hand and came into contact with the delicate curve of a hip. His bride. His loins tightened at the memory of her beauty. Though his desire stirred he knew he must go slowly to bring her a pleasure to match his own. But he had no wish to speak with anything but his body. That they were strangers could not truly be changed in moments. Yet tonight they would form a bond of pleasure taken and given. This bond Roland trusted more than any ones of an emotional nature.
Sensing rather than seeing the shape of her form beneath him, Roland moved up to lean over her. Her breath was sweet and warm on his face and he felt that stirring again. Slowly he bent over and placed his lips to his bride’s.
She gave a slight start and reared up beneath him. He continued to press his mouth gently to hers and in a moment felt a stab of satisfaction as her small hand came up to curl in the dark patch of hair on his chest. He continued to ply her mouth with his own, nipping and sucking at hers and soon she reached up with the other to hold the back of his head.
Roland laughed deep in his throat, pleased with her reaction to his kiss. He felt a rising satisfaction and growing ardor of his own as he realized he had not been wrong in thinking she would respond. His ardent mouth moved from hers to trail over her soft cheeks and then down the delicate line of her throat.
Meredyth had been dreaming of lying upon an enormous soft bed. It was so soft that she had the sensation of floating in a peaceful sea of white linens and light. Nothing could trouble her here, where she was safe and warm and content.
Slowly she became aware of the lips that touched hers, and it seemed at first as if they too belonged to the dream. They were firm yet gentle, and oh so very certain. It seemed they heightened that sense of floating in warmth and light.
Then as she drifted more fully into semiwakefulness she felt another odd sort of tingling in her belly that also seemed brought by the confident and knowing urgency of the lips on hers. Her hands acted of their own accord as they searched instinctively for the source of that sweetly rousing pressure.
She came into contact with smooth bare flesh over hard muscle. Meredyth moaned at the immediate quickening of her pulse as the lips left hers to press hot gentle kisses to her face and neck. Meredyth had dreamed of such things before, had woken feeling guilty at her own responses and unaccountably sad that it was not real. Yet her dreams of being kissed, touched, of touching in return, had never gone so far. She could not find the strength to pull herself away. She was too lost in her own responses. By whatever means this specter had entered her slumber, it had come to banish some of the aching loneliness she felt.
Her heart thudded in her breast as the warm sensations turned liquid and seemed to find their way to her lower belly. Meredyth had never felt so…so very…Her hips arched as if her body understood far more of what was happening than did she. Her hands seemed to grasp the source of her pleasure to her with a will all their own.
Roland felt himself harden even more at her touch, at her nearness. There was something about this woman, her delicate warm woman scent, the velvet of her skin. He had not thought to respond so fully, so quickly.
He rose up above her, his hands unexpectedly unsteady as he gently drew her slender legs apart. His fingers found her. He swallowed hard at finding her already damp, and an irrefutably fierce driving need such as he had never experienced coursed through him. “So beautiful, Celeste,” he whispered, even as he knew he could wait no more.
Meredyth felt the hands on her body, heard her sister’s name with a shock of horrid realization. Dear heaven, this was not a dream. It was none other than Roland St. Sebastian whose smooth skin lay beneath her eager fingers, whose mouth teased her to such a fierce response. Even through the fog of her awakening desire she knew that this was wrong. This man was not meant for her.
The woman beneath him gave a start and reared up beneath him. Her voice emerged in a husky whisper. “My lord, I am not…” His mouth found hers, stilling the words. He did not wish to debate or argue. He had meant this time to be more, and was in no small measure surprised with himself for not having more control. Yet he could not wait. Her obvious response to him made it impossible.
Without breaking the contact of their mouths, he knelt between those silken thighs and found the moistness of her immediately. With only the briefest of hesitations her maidenhood was breached. She gasped, as he did, when his mouth left hers.
Convulsively her body tightened on him. Calling on all the will he possessed, Roland lay still, allowing her to become accustomed to him as he rested there in the velvety warmth of her body. He might not have been able to restrain himself enough to pleasure her first as he wished to, but he would not cause her hurt.
As Meredyth felt Roland St. Sebastian enter the private depths of her being, she realized it was too late now. There was no going back. Roland St. Sebastian had made her his woman, though she had tried to tell him the truth that she was not Celeste. Yet as he lay above her, his manhood filling the deepest core of herself, Meredyth felt an unexpected yearning ache stir again in her own body. When he began to move inside her, her breath quickened as that ache began to grow more pronounced.
Only when Roland felt a slight restless stirring of her own slender form beneath him did he go on. Only then did Roland give in to the passion that made him feel as if he would surely burst, the passion that quickly grew to a fierce white point of unutterable pleasure.
When he stiffened and arched against her, Meredyth felt her own body press against him. She somehow knew that he had gone to some place that she could only begin to imagine, and that she had been the one to take him there. It was awesome, that this strong commanding man had been moved beyond himself because of her—Meredyth.
Yet uppermost in her thoughts was the knowledge that what they had just done had awakened some slumbering force inside herself. She could even now feel the way her body held him to her as if it had some instinctive claim to the feel of his flesh, his touch, to him. Even the ragged sound of his hot breath against her ear was strangely thrilling.
Her own hands lay along the hard curves of his shoulders. Unable to stop herself, Meredyth slipped one hand to his chest and over that tantalizing firm flesh, across a corded neck. She tangled her fingers in thick coarse hair. A low sensuous chuckle was her reward, for it did feel like such when the sound made every fine hair on her body stand up as if in reply.
Roland knew he had not fulfilled her, but he was now more than ready to rectify that. He rolled to his side, his mouth finding hers to cover a sigh of what sounded to his ears like disappointment. Deliberately he smoothed a hand from her hip up across delicate fabric, tracing pleasingly rounded curves and valleys. The thin cloth of her night rail did nothing to disguise the firmness of the flesh beneath, and Roland was well pleased. He went on, encouraged by the fluttering of her belly against his palm, finally closing his fingers with firm but gentle pressure over one rounded breast.
Meredyth’s mind swirled anew as that touch sent a shaft of heat directly to that most intimate place betwixt her thighs. Her head fell backward, breaking the contact of those supple lips and she gasped aloud.
She gasped again as his mouth began to mark a trail over her chin, then down the tender exposed flesh of her throat.
When his mouth closed over the bare tip of her other breast, Meredyth was lost in the surging sensations that made her limbs tremble, her breath come more quickly.
As those lips tugged at her nipple, she reached out to hold him near with both hands, arching her back as another shaft of sweet hot longing raced through her core. As the thumb of the other hand began to circle the other nub, Meredyth arched again, her knees clamping tightly to try to relieve the pressure building inside her.
She found no relief, knowing instinctively that the release she so blindly sought was to be found in the body of this night warrior. He had drawn her to this state of heady frustration. Only he could soothe it.
His manhood reared in response to her reaction to his caresses. Roland reached down. With a skill born of instinct and experience, he gently but firmly cupped his palm against the gentle mound of her womanhood. She clamped her thighs around him, her breathing ragged.
He traced his other hand back down those pleasing curves until he reached the hem of her nightdress. He leaned back slightly to remove it and she came after him. Her sweet mouth moved over his bare flesh, making him close his eyes at the throb of heat it brought about. The heavy tangle of her hair seemed to cling to his sweat-dampened flesh, seemed to bind him wantonly in the intimate darkness.
Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, Roland told himself he would not be unmanned again. Gently he held her away from him, determined to see her brought to her own pleasure no matter what it cost him in self-control.
Quickly he raised the delicate barrier of her night rail up and over her head. Her hands came back to him immediately, and he leaned his own head back as he slid along her body feeling her cool flesh next to his. Roland lifted her for a moment, feeling the surprisingly small but womanly form against the length of his own heated skin before he laid her back against the pillows.
She sighed as his hands again found her breasts, which were so full and aching from his touch. Unable to stop herself, she whispered insistently, “Please, oh please, help me. I do not know what to do.”
Roland knew he need wait no more. He murmured softly, “I do.”
Gently he reached to again part her thighs. She offered no resistance, only sobbing with an urgency of her own. He took a long deep breath as he positioned himself over her, meaning to go slowly, to take her with tender care. But as the tip of his manhood prodded against the moist honeyed sweetness of her, she rose to meet him and he was once again buried deeply in that golden warmth.
He ground his teeth together, lying stiffly above her, his arms supporting his weight as he fought for control. For Roland again found himself drowning in the sensations she awakened in him with her own unbridled reactions. Never had he suspected the depth of pleasure he would find in this woman.
When she began to writhe beneath him, her soft hands reaching out to grasp his hips, Roland released the rein on the passion burning in his belly.
Meredyth felt the sensations build inside her to a fine point of unfathomable sweetness. It seemed as if all of her consciousness was centered on that one area at the joining of their bodies. Her head fell back and her breath came between dry lips as she found the rhythm that made that pleasure so intense. And then, just when it seemed there could be no more—there was. The pleasure burst inside her, closing over her, encompassing everything that was Meredyth. In that moment she was whole, mind, body and soul, all the parts of her brought together in white-hot perfection.
As the pulsing eased, Meredyth sighed. She had been so worried and tense and was now completely limp from utter fulfillment. Her eyes slipped closed.
Slowly Meredyth roused from a deep sleep, opening her lids almost reluctantly when the light probed them.
Instantly her gaze grew wide with shock. From scant inches above her a pair of startlingly cobalt-blue eyes, surrounded by a thick fringe of black lashes, regarded her speculatively. Those orbs seemed to see right into her, to hold her captive in their unfathmonable depths.
St. Sebastian. Her husband.
For a moment she was held immobile as she finally saw him for the first time—saw him with wondrous amazement. He was much more handsome than anything she had imagined from Celeste’s description. She had in fact given little more thought to his appearance in the midst of the events of yestereve. Meredyth had been too caught up in the passion she had known in his arms to think about such things. Now, with growing dismay, she let her gaze trace a perfectly formed lean jaw, high sculpted cheekbones and sensuous lower lip. He was surely too handsome for any mortal man, too much the fantasy of every young maid who dreamed of fairy tales and legends coming true.
Meredyth felt an unreasonable thrill course through her blood at the intensity of his blue gaze. Her eyes went back to those lips as a brilliant flash of them pulling hungrily on her right nipple filled her mind.
A gasp escaped her as a whole flood of memories raced though her and with them a hot flush that traveled from her head to her toes. The things they had done!
He continued to watch her with speculation and some other unnamable expression that made heat spread over her anew. His deep voice startled her as he said, “And who might you be?”
Meredyth started to sit up, her own bare breasts coming into direct contact with the hard wall of his chest. She jerked backward as a bolt of heat pierced her belly, and she raised her hands to shield her bosom. Desperately she said, gasping, “Please, allow me to rise.”
St. Sebastian reached out and briefly lifted a red curl from the back of one of the hands covering her breast and she shivered with awareness at the glazing touch. She was grateful that he seemed completely oblivious to her reaction when he shook his head deliberately.
As he replied there was a cool ruthless quality to his tone that made her think she would not wish to fall on the hard side of this man. “Not until you explain who you are and what you are doing in my marriage bed.” His gaze raked her from the top of her tousled head to the tip of her slight form that lay beneath the bedcover. “You are not the lovely Celeste Chalmers.”
She stiffened, stung by the harsh comment, though she knew it was foolish, having been unfavorably compared to her sister her whole life. But she was not about to let him see that he had wounded her. She raised her chin. “I am Meredyth Chalmers. Her sister.”
His hand slid beneath her protectively crossed arms and closed over her breast deftly. Meredyth’s heart thudded as it swelled beneath the weight of his hand in spite of the anxiety she felt at facing him—at having to tell him the truth. He leaned closer, his breath brushing her mouth. “Is it the custom of the Chalmerses then to send the sister of the bride to the bridal bed? Very interesting, if so.”
Meredyth gasped and pushed at him with all her might. To her surprise he gave way immediately. She did not wait to question this but slipped from beneath him, dragging the cover with her as she moved to stand at the foot of the enormous bed.
Desperately she clutched the blanket against her bosom, realizing that she had to think clearly, to somehow find the words to explain what had happened. It was actually quite understandable that the man would be angry, searching for an explanation.
Meredyth glanced toward him where he waited, now sitting with his back against the carved headboard, his wide, bronze chest bare. He raised a hand to rake it through his ink-black hair and the muscle in his forearm flexed and hardened. She was assaulted by images of how his strong arms had lifted her against him, as if her weight were nothing to his strength.
Heat suffused her and she had to look away. She took a deep breath. You must think clearly, she told herself.
“Well,” he prompted “I am sorely in need of an explanation here. Enlighten me, Meredyth Chalmers, as to why you are here and my bride is not.”
She forced herself to face him. Would he ever now believe that she had meant only to wait and tell him the truth. Judging by his expression it seemed doubtful. “I am not here in your bride’s place. Well, not in the way you have imagined.” Her pleading gaze met his as she hoped for his understanding. Surely after what had passed between them he might…well she could hope. “You see, I am your bride. It was I who married you, not my sister.”
His shock was nearly comic, his blue eyes rounding to the point of amazement. But Meredyth did not laugh as he said, “What is this nonsense you spout? King John himself ordered the marriage to Celeste Chalmers. It is well-known that your father is a stalwart supporter of John. Why would he disobey him?”
She stiffened, stung from her concerns of the moment by his obvious implied criticism of her parent. “My father has not disobeyed the king, as he should not. John was rightfully named heir by King Richard himself.” She had heard her father say that the rumors of John’s disloyalty to his brother were false, and felt the very fact of King Richard’s naming him as heir was proof of that.
When he folded his arms and stared at her with condescendingly raised brows, she decided to let that matter rest. “I must make you understand what has happened.” She turned away from the condemnation she saw in that blue gaze. “I married you in Celeste’s stead. I meant to tell you last night, but you came late and I had fallen asleep and we…”
“God’s blood,” he shouted as realization clearly dawned, tossing the remaining cover back and leaping from the bed. Meredyth’s mouth dropped open and she swung away, but not before she had a thoroughly thought-provoking view of the very same weapon that had so pleasured her during the night.
Roland St. Sebastian appeared not to notice her interest as he bent to gather his clothing from the floor. As he drew on his garments he spoke with cold disdain. “I shall see justice done. I will not be duped by your father into taking less than was promised to me by the king himself.”
Meredyth felt the words slash into her like a dull blade. To continue to compare her so brutally to the woman he had thought to have, after the things he had done and said to her in this very bed, seemed churlish.
But she would not let him see her pain. Dragging the edges of her shattered emotions about her like a shield, she faced him. Meredyth was not going to take his insults in silence. Rage rose to cover her hurt. “How dare you! You…you knave.” One hand went to her slender hip, the other continuing to hold the coverlet over her nakedness as he swung around to face her, seeming little moved by her outrage if his implacable expression was anything to go by. Yet she went on. “My father knew nothing of this. My sister and I acted alone.”
One moment he was standing next to the fireplace, his arms folded across his wide chest, the next he was bending over her, having crossed the room too quickly, too gracefully for such a big man. Her palms grew damp as she glared up into his angry face, which was still distractingly handsome despite his fury. Annoyed with herself for thinking such a thing, Meredyth also realized that the top of her head did not reach his shoulder. If she stared up at him this way for long she would soon have more than a slight discomfort in her neck. But she did not look away—would not.
Meredyth did her utmost to hide any reaction as he spoke, his blue eyes hard. “Do you expect me to believe that?”
She answered defiantly. “I do, because it is truth and nothing less.”
His face remained hard, and she could tell that he did not expect her to say anything that would convince him, even as he asked, “Tell me then, Meredyth Chalmers, why you and your sister have done this.”
Meredyth frowned, caught off guard by the question, though she knew she should not have been. “I…that is something I cannot tell you.” She could not betray Celeste by telling her secrets. It would gain her nothing to do so now and might cause Celeste great harm.
His tone was calm, too calm, as he replied. “And with those words as explanation you expect me to believe that you and your sister have, for some reasons of your own, decided to defy King John. And without your father’s knowledge. Oh, of a surety, then all is most well, and I should be content.”
Clamping her jaw in reaction to his sarcasm, Meredyth replied with forced aplomb. “Your contentment, or lack of such, is not my concern, my lord.”
Chapter Three (#ulink_a8386fa6-868f-58b3-b5bb-c55113d3634b)
Roland felt the muscles in his jaw flex with nearpainful intensity as he worked to control his anger. How dare the defiant minx speak so to him after what she had done? And did she actually expect him to believe her extremely suspect assurances that her father had not known?
If the outraged honor in her jade-green eyes was any indication, that was exactly what she did expect.
His gaze raked her from the top of her tousled red head to the soles of her incredibly small bare feet. How could he have been foolish enough to believe her to be Celeste Chalmers? She was tiny and delicate where her sister was taller and lithe. His gaze was caught momentarily as he took in the tangle of scarlet curls that tumbled about her. When she turned her back to him and began to pace the oaken floor in agitation, still clutching the bedcover to her bosom, he saw that the flame cascade reached to her knees in back.
He was suddenly struck by an image of that hair draped across his chest as she kissed him with all the fervor of an experienced woman. But he reminded himself that she had not been. There was no mistaking the fact that he and he alone had breached the barrier of her womanhood. Even as he looked at her, the evidence of this stained the edge of the covering she used to shield herself from him.
Why? Why, if her father had not been trying to outwit him in some way, had they done this thing? He would soon be past caring how much rage showed in his voice, if he did not receive an explanation. “If you did not do this at your father’s urging, why have you done it…Meredyth?” Her name felt somewhat strange to his lips, though he had to admit, however reluctantly, that he liked the soft hard sound of it.
He brushed the thought aside. The woman’s name was of no consequence, nor were the memories of how she had returned his passion with an enthusiasm that had surprised and pleased him. Traces of an extremely unpleasant supposition were forming in his mind. Could it be perhaps that Hugh Penacre had thought to somehow cheat him of the heavy dower that had come with his eldest daughter?
Roland was determined that this was not going to happen. He glared at the woman before him through narrowed eyes as he tried not to see that she was quite beautiful, with her cheeks flushed and her eyes bright with animosity. Certainly, he admitted, not in the way of her sister, but in a way all her own. She reminded him of an angry ginger kitten, all eyes and flashing claws.
She tapped one tiny bare foot as she said, “I cannot tell you the answer to that question. Suffice it to say that the secret is not mine to reveal. You must simply trust that I am telling you the truth.”
He threw up his hands in disbelief at her continued pose of outraged dignity. “Again you ask me to believe you, woman. You who have married me under false pretenses.”
He knew his accusation was louder than he had meant it to be, but Roland was losing his temper with this audacious spitfire. And this did not please him. He prided himself on being a man who could remain in control in any situation, no matter how difficult. He did not allow passion to guide him into doing or saying anything he would be sorry for.
He would not make his father’s mistakes.
Yet with this woman he had already lost that tight hold on his emotions. What would happen if they ended in living together? Which, he realized, was what might well happen. He had bedded her.
By trickery he reminded himself. Again he thought of those dower lands.
Yet before he could speak of his suspicions, he was distracted by the movement of the chamber door as it slid open by the merest of inches. In raced a small hairy object that Roland suspected was a dog, pushing the portal wide as it came. The dog immediately ran to Meredyth Chalmers’s feet. After one quick sniff of the woman, it turned and scurried toward Roland, yapping in an extremely high-pitched way that made him want to choke the life from it.
At the sound of a gasp, his frowning gaze went to the plump, dark-haired young woman who stood in the doorway, her eyes growing round with shock as she looked from Roland to Meredyth. The woman, who was obviously a maid if her rough spun brown gown and simple leather boots were any indication, put her hand to her cheek. “Lady Meredyth? I…I could not fathom why Sweeting was hovering about my lady’s doorway. But now I see it was you he…” She focused for a long moment on Roland, before turning back to Meredyth. “Forgive me, Lady Meredyth…I…” She halted, obviously at a loss for words.
Roland looked to Meredyth Chalmers as she came forward and took the still yapping dog from beneath his feet. When she bent forward, Roland saw the way the maid’s gaze focused on the bloodstained sheet He met her troubled eyes with his own noncommittal ones.
Meredyth had not taken note of this, for she was occupied in fussing with that ridiculous excuse for a dog, which had not ceased its yapping. “There is no need to apologize, Agnes. You obviously expected Celeste to be here. Clearly you would not be able to tell me where she is then.”
The woman could no longer withhold her understandable curiosity. “No, my lady, I fear I cannot. And yes, I am surprised at seeing you here. I thought Lady Celeste…” Her brows arched in confusion. “Was not Lady Celeste to marry my lord Kirkland?”
Meredyth scowled, biting her lip. “Uh…aye, but there has been a change of plans.”
Roland could not restrain a grunt as he interjected, his voice rife with sarcasm, “Oh, yes, a change of plans indeed.”
Meredyth’s disapproving scowl, the maid’s continued shock and the insistent barking of the dog made Roland realize he could not hope to get anywhere here. With a growl of anger, he stalked toward the maid. “Where is your master?”
She gawked up at him, “In the great hall, my lord, when last I saw him.”
Roland dodged around the maid and out into the corridor. He would get to the bottom of this. If Penacre had not known what his daughters were about, which Roland seriously doubted, he soon would.
When Roland stepped into the corridor he stopped short at seeing Penacre’s knight, Giles, standing just a few feet away. The man’s expression was one of strange satisfaction as he watched Roland come through the doorway. With a sardonic smile Roland bowed. “Is there something I can do to assist you, Sir Giles?” He paused then, moving closer to the man as he gazed into a pair of burning eyes that were on a level with his own. “Or perhaps you might be of assistance to me?”
Roland gestured to where Meredyth now stood in the doorway of the bedchamber. She glared at him, her green eyes dark with defiance as he addressed the other knight. “Were you a part of this charade that has seen me married to the wrong sister?”
As Sir Giles’s gaze followed his direction, his eyes grew round with shock and horror. Immediately Roland realized he could not have known. His horrified reply was further proof. “Married to the wrong sister? Do you mean to say that you have married Meredyth instead of Celeste?”
When Roland nodded, Sir Giles shook his head, his gaze vacant with confusion. “But how could this happen?”
Roland shrugged, feeling his own anger rise anew as he pondered that same question yet again. “You would be a more knowledgeable man than myself if you were able to discover the answer to that question.”
Looking at the man, Roland could see that Sir Giles was not listening. He seemed completely overcome as he clearly forgot all thought of good sense or formality, striding past him to stand frowning down at the diminutive Meredyth as he barked, “Where is your sister?”
Meredyth seemed surprised at the degree of Sir Giles’s reaction. She recovered quickly, clearly not willing to allow him to speak thus to her. As she rose to her full height, Roland could not help noting, with an odd stab of protectiveness, that her head did not even reach the level of the dark knight’s shoulder.
“I do not know where Celeste is,” came her haughty reply, “and I will thank you, Sir Giles, to keep a civil tone when speaking to me.” Roland’s protectiveness turned to an even more surprising feeling of respect as he watched her face the fiercesome knight so regally.
In spite of his unexpected reactions to Meredyth, Roland could not help seeing that the man appeared so distressed by her reply that he did not heed her words. Instead he went so far as to reach out and place a detaining gloved hand upon her arm when she made to turn away, speaking to her hoarsely. “Meredyth, you do not know what the two of you have done.”
Roland felt an incredibly powerful wave of possessiveness streak through him at seeing that large hand on Meredyth’s small bare arm. The sheer depth of the reaction left him feeling as if he had been broadsided by a battering ram. Yet even as he sprang forward, he told himself that his degree of vehemence was simply brought on by the fact that Meredyth was his wife, wanted or not. No other man had the right to touch her.
He was at Sir Giles’s side instantly, his fingers closing on his wrist. “Take your hand from my wife.”
Sir Giles looked up at him with dawning clarity as if he, too, were surprised by his own temerity. Then even as Roland watched, his gaze became hard and guarded as he said, “Very well, Lord Roland. I can see that no one is allowed to trespass upon what belongs to you.”
Roland did not waver in his regard of the other man. “No one.”
Sir Giles looked as if he wished to say more. Then unexpectedly he swung around and strode away from them without a backward glance.
Feeling Meredyth’s gaze upon him, Roland faced her. Her small chin was raised in stubborn defiance. She spoke, with regal conviction. “I did not require your assistance in this, my lord. I am more than capable of rebuffing that oaf.”
Roland felt another unexpected surge of respect for her self-assurance. He quickly pushed it aside, telling himself that respect was not an emotion he wished to feel in connection with any woman—and most definitely not this one. She and her sister had had no right to dupe him. He would make his own position quite clear. “I have neither need nor desire for you to protect yourself, Lady Kirkland. I hold well what belongs to me.”
Outrage darkened her green eyes to jade. Roland had no wish for further debate. She would soon come to understand that his position as her overlord and husband was absolute. He turned and strode down the corridor without another word.
It was clear that his abrupt and obvious dismissal did not please her, for he heard a loud gasp of outrage, then the slamming of a door. A cool smile played about his lips as he heard this. That wench was sadly in need of lessoning, and learn she would, did they remain wed. There could be but one master in his household.
Her capitulation last night had been complete and gratifying. It would be so again, in bed and out. He felt an unexpected stirring in his blood.
Quickly Roland pushed aside all pleasurable thoughts of his bride. He had another matter to attend to. That of ensuring the dower he had been promised.
No woman would sway him from his purpose, no matter how delightful a night in her arms might have been. And Jesu help him, his far too vivid recollections of the evening told him it had been delightful, more so than he would ever have expected. He set his shoulders with determination. Did the dower not come with Meredyth, he would not have her.
Impatiently Roland found himself brushing aside an unwelcome and unanticipated sense of disappointment at his own decision.
He found Penacre in the great hall, where he was just finishing his morning meal. The older man’s gaze was not welcoming as he saw his new son by marriage coming toward him where he sat at the head table.
Roland lost no time in stating his demand. “Penacre, I would have a private audience with you, immediately.” He meant to find out first if Penacre had indeed known of his daughters’ trickery, and second, if he thought to withhold the dower.
Clearly the elder man did not care for Roland’s tone, for he raised a haughty silver brow. “You are free to speak here.” He made a sweeping gesture to indicate the others who were partaking of the morning meal.
“Nay,” Roland replied, “I will converse with you and only you. If your daughter speaks truth you will be glad I have afforded both her and you the courtesy of telling you what I have to say in private.”
Penacre stood, frowning. “As you wish.” Without waiting to see if Roland was indeed following, he strode from the hall. Roland went after him, feeling many sets of unfriendly eyes upon his back. It was obvious that those who had overheard his brusque words to their master did not approve. Roland gave a mental shrug. He had no care for what the folk of Penacre thought of him. He was the one who had been wronged here.
He was led to a small chamber that contained several tables and two chairs. The tables seemed to groan under the weight of the ledgers that rested atop each. Peripherally he found himself thinking that Penacre must have a care with his holdings to keep such detailed records. Then he quickly told himself that Penacre was likely only being miserly. Yet he could not help knowing that Penacre’s home was finely furnished and his daughter richly garbed.
With a wry twist of his lips, Roland told himself it did no ill to Penacre’s lot to be good friend to King John. What matter was it to him now, whom the man supported? Richard was dead.
Roland concentrated on the baron’s possible duplicity toward himself. Penacre made no motion for him to sit, nor did he do so, which was fine with Roland. He had no wish to affect any facade of polite civility.
Roland got to the point immediately. “Lord Penacre, your daughter has assured me that you had no knowledge of what she was about. That is the only reason I am even here discussing this with you rather than with the king himself.”
Penacre’s already stiff expression became even more so. “What are you jabbering about, Kirkland? What has Celeste told you that would make you go to King John in complaint?”
Roland watched the man closely. There was no indication that he was hiding anything, but Roland was not finished. “Not Celeste—Meredyth.”
“Why would Meredyth offer you offense?” The older man shook his head in obvious bafflement. “You have no cause to speak to Meredyth. Have had no need for contact with her of any kind. I’ll thank you to stay away from her.” The pain in his voice was clear as he said, “You’ve already taken the one person who means most to me and will have no more.”
Roland thought this a most odd thing to say, but pushed it aside. He could not be distracted. He continued to study Penacre for any sign of treachery as he said, “Oh, I have had opportunity for the most intimate of contacts with the lady Meredyth. You see it is she who passed the night in my arms.”
Penacre started toward him, his face a mask of anger and confusion. “You had best explain yourself, Kirkland, for I’ve no more patience in me.”
Unmoved by this and determined to learn the truth, Roland said. “It is Meredyth Chalmers who married me in the chapel last eve, Meredyth who is my wife.”
Even Roland could not doubt the utter shock and amazement that drained Hugh Chalmers’s face of all color. As Roland moved to help the older man into a chair, he could not explain the strange sense of relief he felt on finding out his wife had not lied to him on this matter, at least.
He quickly dismissed it. Betrayal was the way of women; his own mother had lessoned them in that when she had abandoned her husband and children by running away with his father’s squire. Even these more than twenty years later the memory had the power to squeeze his heart in a painful grip.
Learning that Meredyth Chalmers had told the truth of this one small matter did not change the fact that she had tricked him into marriage. In fact, it made her reason for doing so even more of a mystery. If not in some attempt to cheat him of the dower, then why indeed?
Meredyth had long since retreated to her own chamber. Nothing more could be gained by staying in Celeste’s. The truth was revealed. She knew that Roland had confronted her father, because he had come to her demanding an explanation, no more than an hour past.
Though it troubled Meredyth greatly to defy her father’s demands for information, she had refused to tell him. Celeste’s secret would not become known through her and Celeste herself had as yet to return to the keep. Her father’s men were at this moment searching for her.
Hugh Chalmers had gone back to St. Sebastian none the wiser, his parting stony stare a clear sign of his disapproval of Meredyth. She could only believe that did he know the truth he would wish for her to protect Celeste. Only that certainty kept her from blurting out all. That and the fact that she could read his illdisguised relief that Celeste had not been the one to marry Kirkland.
Meredyth looked up from her unhappy thoughts as her door opened. It was her maid, Jolie, who stood in the doorway. Her cloud of dark curls surrounded a pale face and troubled brown eyes. “My lady, he is here.”
“He…?” Meredyth asked in a ragged whisper, though she had a very uncomfortable feeling that she already knew what he the maid was referring to.
Before Jolie could say any more, the man in question pushed the door open wide with his broad shoulders. St. Sebastian then dismissed the maid without taking his narrowed cobalt gaze from Meredyth. “You may go.”
Jolie hesitated, her brow creased with concern, and Meredyth knew sympathy for her. The girl was quite young and had only been in her service for three short months. She was not accustomed to dealing with men like Roland St. Sebastian. Nor for that matter was Meredyth, but she nodded reassuringly. “All will be well, Jolie. Lord Kirkland is my…husband. I have nothing to fear from him.”
But even as a clearly reluctant Jolie dipped a curtsy and left, Meredyth wondered if he would continue to be her husband. Would he somehow find a way to set her aside? She supposed the church would allow it, considering the circumstances. Yet she could not help wondering what would then happen to her. She was no longer a virgin and surely all in the keep must know that After Roland had left her in Celeste’s chamber, Meredyth had become aware of the blood on the sheet she used as covering and the fact that Agnes seemed equally aware of it.
No other man would wish to have St. Sebastian’s leavings. Meredyth had thought she was resigned to being her father’s chatelaine, to never having a home and family of her own. But the sheer inescapability of this future should Kirkland refuse to remain wed to her was devastating.
She did not wish for him to know how very much this thought disturbed her. Surely having no husband would be preferable to being this man’s wife. Meredyth squared her shoulders and looked directly into those startlingly blue eyes. “Well?”
Roland St. Sebastian smiled but there was no pleasure in it and a sense of greater unease came over her. “Well, wife. It seems I am to keep you.” Before she could contemplate whether this revelation came as relief or curse, he continued, “Your father seems to have no more understanding of what has made you and your sister act so rashly than I. Furthermore, he has agreed that you shall have the same dower that Celeste would have brought to Kirkland.”
He shrugged. “As I have decided not to contest the fact that you wed me using your sister’s name, the matter is to be overlooked by the priest. We shall change the name on the marriage contract and notify the king of the situation, but I can see little chance of his caring greatly when he has the bulk of his attention set on his own recent marriage to Isabella of Angouleme. He has gained his end in seeing our two houses united. One Chalmers bride is as another.”
Meredyth hardly knew what to reply. His coldness toward her was not surprising, though unexpectedly painful. She pushed this hurt aside to concentrate on the rest of what he had said. The shock of learning that the marriage would be honored by Kirkland was amazing, not to mention the fact that he had just told her that she had attained a dower worth thousands of pounds.
Not that the properties and gold would be available to her. They belonged to the man before her. It was the furniture and linens, the huge copper tub, the bolts of fabric, all the household items they had gathered for Celeste’s marriage. All were now hers.
The thought was so overwhelming that it was a moment before Meredyth realized he was speaking again. “Your father will provide the men to drive the wagons, and I shall leave two of the four I have brought with me to Penacre. They will escort you to Kirkland in the morning. I assume you will be safe upon your own father’s lands. And after that you will be upon mine.”
She frowned. “They will escort me…?”
He raised a brow that was as black as a raven’s wing. “I have other matters to attend to. I shall follow in perhaps a week.”
She took a deep breath. She was to go to Kirkland, the home of her family’s enemy, alone. Meredyth met his gaze with her own deliberately cool one, though it cost her dear. “As you will.” If he thought he would see her beg him to attend her he was greatly mistaken. She would ask for nothing. Better to burn in hell than ask for this oaf’s protection.
Meredyth could not stop herself from saying as much. “If you imagine I shall beg you to act the proper husband to me, St. Sebastian, you may now learn that I will never do so. Not now, and not in the future.” She turned her back to him in dismissal.
It was with complete surprise that she heard his voice so close behind her only a moment later. Dear Lord, he had made not a sound. Meredyth was only just able to keep herself from giving a physical start, as she closed her eyes and willed her racing heartbeat to slow.
His words did nothing to assist her efforts. “Have no fear, wench, I shall act the proper husband to you when required. There will be no need to beg.”
There was no mistaking what he was referring to. The words had the effect of sending a shiver of awareness down her spine. Meredyth was appalled at her own reaction after the way he was now treating her. Even as she struggled with her own feelings, something told her that she must never allow this man to know how greatly he affected her. Calling upon all her reserves of self-preservation, Meredyth swung around to face him. “I have no fear of that or anything else about you, my lord. And allow me to tell you one more truth. You think this marriage has made me yours to command. I am not. I will act by my own wishes.”
As she looked at him, she thought for the briefest moment that she saw admiration light those compelling eyes. But the impression was short-lived, for she could see he was very obviously looking at her with that now accustomed superior expression of his. “Oh, you are mine to command and for whatever act I desire. Mark me.” Without another word he turned on his heel and was gone.
Meredyth passed through the great curtain wall at Kirkland with her head held high. What the occupants of the keep might make of the fact that she was arriving without their lord, she refused to contemplate. She had no more intention of allowing St. Sebastian’s folk to know how dazed she was by the changes that had occurred in her life over the past two days than the man himself.
That not all the changes had been disastrous did not lessen her distress one jot.
She cast a disbelieving glance backward over the two wagonloads of linens, furniture, cloth and other effects. They were hers, all hers, each and every item belonged to her, Meredyth. Never in her life had she thought to have so much.
The only items that had been taken from the chests were the clothing that had already been made up for Celeste, who had finally returned to the keep many hours after the worst of the chaos had died down. She had been summoned to their father, but emerged defiant a short time later, refusing to say where she had been or why she and Meredyth had switched places. Only to Meredyth had she admitted to passing a night in an abandoned forester’s cottage. She had then indicated that her confidence that all would turn out well between Meredyth and Roland had been justified.
An amazed Meredyth had not bothered to plague her with the unpleasant truth. She ignored the throb in her chest at remembering how cool the blackguard had been as he told her that he was sending her on to Kirkland without him.
Determinedly she told herself what he thought mattered very little. What did matter was that she could now set up her own home. Use things that were hers to do with as she pleased. Meredyth much doubted St. Sebastian would remain interested in her for long. He had no real feelings for her. Mayhap he would soon ignore her to the extent that he would leave her to do as she pleased about the keep so long as she did not interfere with him directly. He was a warrior. What true interest could he have in how she ran the household?
For reasons unknown to her the thought of his ignoring her completely was not as soothing as she would have wished. She told herself not to be foolish, even as a sudden and quite unwanted memory of the feel of the man’s tongue against her breast made her flush with heat.
Blushing furiously and angry with herself for such a thought, Meredyth looked about, glad that none here could read her mind. In spite of St. Sebastian’s overconfident parting words, Meredyth had no intention of being intimate with him.
The two men Roland had left behind to escort her sat silent atop their horses where they rode just ahead. They had said barely a word to her or her maid, Jolie, throughout the long day. Neither of the young men had even bothered to mention their names, nor had Roland before he galloped away from Penacre as if he could no longer bear to be there. Of course, she told herself, attempting to be fair-minded, the steadily falling drizzle might have had some bearing on the situation.
Now that they were within the castle walls, Meredyth felt many pairs of eyes upon her. She continued to hold her head high, refusing to give in to the urge to look more closely at the gathering crowd, to see if the people resented their lord’s marriage to his enemy’s daughter as much as she feared. She could only believe they must, and her position was made doubly difficult by Roland’s very conspicuous absence.
Knowing she could change none of this, Meredyth did her utmost to concentrate on surveying her new home. The keep was a large, square, two-story structure with a square tower on each of the four corners. A crenellated walkway ran the length of the four walls. A sturdy log bridge connected the outer wall to the top of the keep. In the event of an attack where the outer wall must be abandoned men would be able to fall back to the protection of the inner keep along this route and burn it behind them so as not to give access to the enemy. She suspected that there were others like it that were not visible to her from this vantage.
Obviously Kirkland took the security of his castle very seriously. Her lips twisted in irony. It did not completely surprise her that such a disagreeable man might indeed have enough enemies to make such precautions necessary.
Not that she felt her own father was lax. But he certainly did not go to such lengths to ensure the peace at Penacre. It had not been needed.
The wagons came to a halt in the center of the courtyard, yet no one moved.
After what seemed an eternity, Meredyth took a deep breath and told herself that she must be the one to do something if no one else intended to. Squaring her shoulders for courage, she slid to the hard-packed ground.
To her relief she saw a man leave the group on the steps of the keep and move toward her. With careful dignity Meredyth waited for him to come to her.
He was a tall man, as tall as St. Sebastian himself, but not quite as broad of shoulder, and his ash-blond hair was cut short He stopped before her with a polite if somewhat stiff bow. “I take it you are my lord’s new wife, the lady Celeste. I am Sir Simon, left in charge of the keep in my lord’s absence. But I am sure he has told you that.”
Meredyth could not hold back a scowl of chagrin. Roland had told her nothing. Worse than that, this man had called her Celeste. Then she chided herself for her own unpreparedness. Of course they were expecting Celeste, not having been told otherwise. Well, she had no intention of explaining anything. She simply replied. “I am your lord’s wife, the lady Meredyth.”
Sir Simon blinked, but she rushed on before anything could be said. “My maid and I are fatigued. It has been quite a long day.”
He cleared his throat. “Ah, of a certainty. And I take it Lord Roland is to follow.”
She did not meet his perplexed and questioning gray gaze. “My lord had other matters to attend to. He is to follow in a few days.”
“Ah, I see,” he replied, though it was quite clear that he did not see.
Meredyth ignored this. She would answer no more questions. She motioned to Jolie. “Come, Sir Simon will show us the way.” She looked to him even as she began to move toward the keep. “I take it rooms have been prepared for me.”
He had no real choice but to come along as he replied, “We thought that you would be sharing Lord Roland’s…”
She stopped him then, with an emphatic shake of her head. Meredyth wanted to tell this man that she would as lief bathe in boiling tar as share a room with Roland St. Sebastian. She uttered none of that, but could not refrain from gasping, “Nay.” Immediately realizing the amazed reaction of the man before her, Meredyth willed herself! to a more moderate manner and tone as she said, “Oh, that would not do. I fear I have many belongings and I would not wish to plague my husband by taking over his chambers.”
She motioned to the heaped wagons. “I will require rooms of my own, most definitely a large bedchamber and a solar.” She attempted a confident and reassuring smile, though she was not at all certain of its effectiveness, considering her current state of disquiet.
The tall knight looked at her closely. “Roland left no specific instructions. We had thought he would be returning here with—”
Gently but deliberately she interrupted, doing her utmost to keep the desperation from her voice. “Then all is well. You will not be countermanding any order given you. Obviously your lord expected me to do as I desired, or he would have accompanied me himself, would he not?”
At last he seemed at a loss for words, for what could he reply to such logic? Only Meredyth was aware of the truth, that Roland had left her at Penacre in anger. But he was not here. What he would say to her actions when he did return, she did not know. She only knew that she would not, could not, share a room with a man who had made his disregard for her so abundantly clear.
Not even when his touch had lit a fire in her like none she had ever imagined.
Forcing such thoughts away, she saw that they had now reached the steps of the keep. Two men and three women stood on the stoop, but she did not look at them directly, simply holding her head high as she fought the uncertainty inside her. To her utter relief no one spoke, simply stepping back to allow her to pass.
As Meredyth entered the great hall at Kirkland and looked about, her already heavy heart sank like a stone in a rain barrel. All during the journey from Penacre she had tried to keep from acknowledging the loneliness and hurt she was feeling, had tried to imagine making a home for herself in spite of the poor beginning with her husband.
Now, seeing the appalling condition of the keep, it was all she could do to prevent the despair that swept over her in a painful wave from showing on her face. The air was gray with smoke from a chimney that obviously needed cleaning. The rushes underfoot smelled stale and sour as she moved farther into the large, rectangular chamber. Several enormous dogs loped about her in open curiosity, making her glad that Sweeting was safely ensconced in the basket in the front of the lead wagon.
The trestle tables, which had not yet been taken down, had been set up in no particular order. The only indication that there was a high table were the two large chairs that rested behind the table closest to the inside wall. At least she thought, attempting to cheer herself, the surfaces had been washed after a fashion, for there were wipe marks in the grease.
She found no comfort in this. Meredyth could not face any more this day. She turned and saw that not only Sir Simon but the others had followed her the length of the room. Still working to hide her disappointment, Meredyth addressed the oldest of the three women, who seemed to display a modicum of intelligence, if the shame in her brown eyes was any indication. “Who is in charge of the household?”
The woman looked to Sir Simon, who blanched. He shrugged. “This is not my area of expertise. Tell her, Anne.”
Anne shifted her sturdy frame. “Einid has the keys at the moment.”
Meredyth closed her eyes, feeling a shooting pain behind the right one. “And what would ‘at the moment’ mean?”
“She is not the chatelaine. There is no one who actually occupies that place. She is…” The woman blushed deeply.
“What?” Meredyth could not completely keep the impatience from her voice. She desperately wished to find some private portion of this terrible place to hide before she broke down before them all.
Anne flushed more deeply. “She is Lord Roland’s…They always take the keys to the keep, while they are in favor…”
The shock of realizing what was being said was numbing. But thankfully that numbness carried her through without breaking. “Roland’s mistress has the keys to the keep?”
Both Sir Simon and Anne blanched now.
Anger surged inside Meredyth’s breast. How dare he send her to this…! To attempt to place her beneath the thumb of his mistress! He would do well to think again.
This Meredyth would rectify immediately. She was quite accustomed to running a castle and commanding servants. She would not stand for such foolishness. Under no. circumstances would she allow herself to be second to her husband’s leman.
Meredyth spoke in her most autocratic tone. “Bring her here to me.”
Anne obeyed immediately, rushing toward a narrow door in the outside wall. She emerged only a moment later with a tall, blond, voluptuous beauty whose enormous blue eyes viewed Meredyth with unmistakable resentment.
Meredyth knew a brief moment’s sadness. If this was the type of woman her husband preferred, it was not a surprise that he found her lacking. What he would say to her actions when he returned she dreaded to contemplate.
Yet she could not relent. She was defining her very position in this household now. How she began was the way things would go forward. She must take control of the household, and without any hint of uncertainty. St. Sebastian must be dealt with when the time came. The very notion caused a quiver in her belly. Quickly she pushed the thought aside. She would not worry about such things now.
She held out her hand and was gladdened to see how steady it was. “Give me the keys.”
The woman bit her lip, looking to Sir Simon for assistance. He offered none, remaining silent as his assessing eyes watched Meredyth. She dismissed his interest. She cared not one jot what he thought as long as he did not impede her.
Reluctantly Einid reached to the belt that rode her lustily curved hips. She took the keys and put them into Meredyth’s hand. “And now,” Meredyth told her calmly and with unshakable authority, though she knew her own temerity was great in making this last declaration, “You may find your way to whence you came. Your services will no longer be required at Kirkland.”
Again the woman called Einid looked to Sir Simon, and again there was no assistance forthcoming. She turned on her heels and ran from the room. Meredyth could not deny the stab of sympathy she felt for the other woman.
Surprising herself, she turned to Sir Simon. “Does she have somewhere to go?”
He answered with studied courtesy, but she sensed some hint of disapproval in his tone. “I believe she does, my lady. It is my understanding that her family lives in the next village over from Kirkland.”
Meredyth told herself she did not care what he thought of her, what any of them thought of her, as long as they showed her the respect her position demanded. She motioned in the direction the girl had gone. “Go after her and see that she arrives there safely.”
His eyes widened. “I am not to leave the keep, my lady.”
She shrugged. “You will not be gone long.”
He made no more demur, only bowed, before adding, “If I may be so bold, you show much kindness in looking after her welfare, my lady. It does you credit. I will give her some time to gather her belongs if that meets with your approval.”
Meredyth nodded. She had no words to answer to this unexpected approval. She had simply spoken from the fairness of her own mind. It was not Einid’s fault that Roland was unthinking.
Yet again, she had no intention of discussing her feelings about her husband. Better to concentrate on things she could change.
She turned to Anne. “Can you do better than this?” Her condemning gaze swept the room.
“I can, my lady. And the time for it is well past due.”
Meredyth handed her the ring of keys. “Now take me to a suitable chamber. As soon as I have approved of the accommodation, you may send—” she motioned to the servants who hovered in the dimness behind them “—these men to unload the wagons and the women to clean my chambers.”
Anne nodded. Like Sir Simon’s her gaze was thoughtful and assessing as she watched Meredyth. “There are chambers in the tower. They were occupied by Lord Roland’s mother, the lady Jane, before she…died. There is a large bedchamber, a room for a lady’s women and a comfortable solar. But I do not know if Lord Roland would wish for me to—”
Meredyth was not deaf to the odd hesitation in the serving woman’s voice as she spoke of Roland St. Sebastian’s mother, yet she could not find the necessary energy to think on this at the moment. There were already too many troubles crowding her mind. Meredyth interrupted her, evenly, quietly, unwaveringly. “Please take me to those chambers.” She was silently glad that her agitation was not reflected in her tone.
The serving woman lowered her gaze. “Of course, my lady.”
Chapter Four (#ulink_2f160be6-8bec-544c-a469-6b879a7de519)
Roland strode through the outer door to the great hall, and halted in the act of removing his gauntlets. His amazed gaze swept the wide stone chamber once, then again.
As he shifted to take in every corner of the room, the rushes beneath his feet gave off the fresh sweet scent of wild mint. The trestle tables that had been set up for the evening meal had not yet been removed. For the first time in his memory they seemed to be completely cleaned of grease and food stains. His dogs, which usually raced to great him the moment he entered the hall, were chained near the hearth, which was conspicuously devoid of the drifting smoke he had become accustomed to.
If he had not seen the familiar faces of his own men, he would surely have wondered if he might have stumbled into the wrong keep. Yet he did recognize the few still scattered about the hall, most assuredly Sir Simon, who sat gaming with several of the men at the far corner of the room. None of them seemed concerned with the alterations. They did, in fact, appear quite relaxed and contented as they jested amongst themselves.
His gaze swept the room again.
These changes could have been wrought by only one person, his wife. That they were an improvement was irrelevant.
What right had she to come into his home and rearrange all to suit herself? Remembering her open defiance as he had left her, Roland knew he should not be so very surprised. He very pointedly disregarded the fact that he could also recall feeling admiration of her strength of spirit. Strength was not a trait he desired in a wife. Quite the opposite was true. His mother had been known to be a woman of spirit, and that spiritedness had led her to seek adventure in the arms of a man who was not her husband. Roland brushed the old familiar ache away without thinking, so accustomed was he to doing it after all these years.
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Catherine Archer
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: Fire Song, электронная книга автора Catherine Archer на английском языке, в жанре современная зарубежная литература