William Marshal would forever be a legend in Cullen’s eyes.
Taking the man’s hand, Cullen impulsively kissed it in a gesture of thanks and respect before quitting the solar and rushing to the floor above, taking the stairs two at a time. He burst into the chamber he had been sharing with Teodora to find her on the floor with the baby, playing a game with the child that made the baby giggle uncontrollably. The first thing Cullen heard when he entered the chamber was his child’s laughter, as pure and beautiful as when the world was new.
Until the day he died, Cullen never would tell Teodora why he burst into tears at that very moment.
EPILOGUE
Year of Our Lord 1213
Cerenbeau Castle
“The babies have ponies now?” Teodora muttered to Cullen. “And Holly has two. Two ponies, Cullen. How is it that Holly needs two ponies?”
It was summer at Cerenbeau on the Welsh Marches, a glorious time of green fields, warm grass, and bright sunshine. Or, at least for today, that was the image spread before them.
It was a glorious day of days.
Cullen and Teodora had traveled from Quellargate Castle to the wilds of Herefordshire for the great event of Regal’s birthday. The woman was turning eighty years and nine come Sunday, and given that her health hadn’t been particularly good over the past year, Cullen and Teodora would come to her for the celebration of the most momentous day.
It was a very precious event.
Packing up four-year-old Holly, who was very independent and insisted she didn’t need any help from either of her parents, and the three-year-old twins Lily and Ivy, Cullen took his four ladies and an escort of two hundred men across the middle of England for a week of travel beneath fair skies for the most part.
The girls had traveled well provided they stopped frequently, which they did, and Holly and Lily and Ivy got to see towns that had puppet shows and trained dogs. And they were able to sample sweets that their father would give them when their mother wasn’t looking.
But that was normal – the three criminals and their one accomplice.
The twins, surprisingly, were quite obedient, even at their young age, but Holly was very much her father’s daughter. She had been his shadow since she’d been old enough to walk. When he inspected the men, she would inspect them right along with him. If he wanted to conduct business, he did it with her usually on his lap. She was brilliant and vocal, and Cullen was deeply in love with the child to the point where all she had to do was say the word and he would move Heaven and Earth to make her happy.
But he wouldn’t have it any other way.
The arrival of the family at Cerenbeau had been a love-fest for grandparents Bradford and Antoinette. They scooped up their granddaughters, fussed over them, and presented them each with a beautiful new pony nearly the very moment they arrived. Now, Holly had one pony her grandparents had given her and another one her father had given her, back at Quellargate. Lily and Ivy didn’t have any ponies yet because Teodora thought they were too young, but Bradford didn’t. He gave Lily a brown-spotted pony and Ivy a pure white one. Even now, the twins were riding their ponies as Bradford followed Lily and Anthony carefully shepherded Ivy.
Holly, much more adept at riding, rode her black and white pony by herself, thrilled to pieces at her gift. She kept waving to her parents, who were standing in a huddle, watching their spoiled children and their new gifts.
“Well?” Teodora said when Cullen didn’t reply fast enough. “Holly needs two ponies? What are we going to do?”
Cullen often found himself the buffer between Teodora’s authority as their mother and the girls with their childish wants and antics. From a man who was a strict disciplinarian when it came to his own men, his daughters could get away with murder and he would happily bury the body for them.
He was soft that way.
“What can we do?” he finally said, eyeing Bradford. “Look at your father. Look how happy he is. If you do not want Holly to have the pony, then you will have to tell him because I will not.”
“Ignavum nominare.”
“I am not a coward.”
“In this case, I will say otherwise.”
He laughed softly, leaning over to kiss her on the cheek as he headed in Holly’s direction. She was trotting in a circle, bouncing happily, so he went to play with her because Teodora wanted to take the ponies away. Clearly, he would be in the position of defending his daughters at some point, so it was best to position himself appropriately. But he turned once more to look at Teodora as he walked away, blowing her a kiss, and she knew exactly what he was up to.
And she thanked God for it.
Life had been good over the past four years, so good it was as if, every day, Teodora were living a dream. Married to the man she loved, every moment was a gift. She had to learn the hard way to take nothing for granted, and she didn’t. She cherished every second. Turning away from her spoiled children and enabler husband, she rubbed at her gently swollen belly as she headed over to her mother and grandmother, who were on the steps of Cerenbeau’s big keep.
Antoinette saw her coming.
“The ponies were your father’s idea,” she said, knowing what her daughter was thinking. “Are you too angry, darling?”
Teodora looked up at her mother and broke down into soft laughter. “Of course not,” she said. “But Holly already had a pony and now she’ll have two. Cullen and I were just discussing that.”
Antoinette smiled as her daughter came near, reaching out to pat her belly. “This baby shall have a pony, too, if Brafe has anything to say about it,” she said. “Mayhap you should not have come in your condition, Teddy. We would have understood.”
Regal, seated in a comfortable chair, her sightless eyes imagining the three little girls with the white-blonde hair that she could hear screaming with delight, reached up a gnarled hand to touch her granddaughter.
“Teddy is strong,” she said, her hand feeling across her granddaughter’s ribcage until she came to the pregnant belly. “This is a woman who was riding to battle when she was carrying Holly. She is stronger than we know, Toni. Besides… I want her here. I have missed her terribly.”
Teodora bent down, giving the old woman a gentle hug. “I have missed you, also,” she said. “Mother says you have not been very well, but you look fine today.”
Regal snorted. “It is simply old age,” she said. “It cannot be cured.”
Teodora laughed. “Speaking of cures, you will never guess where Cullen and I were last month.”
“Where?”
“Remember Chad the physic?”
“Of course I do.”
“We were at Geddington Castle last month attending his wedding,” she said. “He married Dessa, Lady Geddington’s sister.”
Regal’s mouth popped open. “That wild girl?” she gasped. “I remember her well. When Cullen and I lived in the outlaw village, she would come to visit him a great deal. She was sweet on your husband, you know.”
Teodora grinned. “I know,” she said. “You told me. Owen told me. Cullen even told me. But she fell in love with Chad when he went to tend Owen because the man had contracted a terrible illness last winter. William Marshal sent Chad to Geddington Castle to see if he could help Owen and the man never left. He married Dessa and seems to be very happy.”
“That is good,” Regal said, satisfied with another happy ending. “From what you have said, the physic was an excellent friend to you those years ago. I am glad the man has found happiness, even if he did marry that wild girl.”
“That is what Owen said.”
Regal grinned, patting Teodora’s hand as she rested it on the old woman’s bony shoulder. “And you, sweetheart?” she asked. “I do not even have to ask if you are happy, too. I can hear it all around me.”
Teodora was watching her father as he set up tiny barriers for the twins to “jump” their ponies over. Bradford was enjoying every minute of it, enough to cause her to smile when he showed the g
irls how to jump by pretending to jump over the barriers himself.
“I am so happy that there are no words to describe it,” she said wistfully. “I have found my happy ending, but it has not ended. It goes on in my children and in the child I carry. But I do hope this one is a boy or Cullen has threatened to trade it for a boy-child somewhere.”
Antoinette laughed softly as Regal shook her head. “It will be a boy,” she said confidently. “God knows that it is time you should have one to balance out the lasses. Have you decided on a name?”
Teodora’s hand was on her belly as she leaned down and whispered in Regal’s ear. “Robert,” she murmured. “That is our birthday gift to you, Grandmere. For the love that never saw fruition, we have decided to honor it. And you. I hope you are pleased.”
Regal’s expression slackened and the sightless eyes began to fill with unshed tears. “Oh, sweetheart,” she breathed. “I… I do not know what to say.”
Teodora hugged her. “You do not have to,” she said. “We both know what it means to you, your Robert. We will honor him by naming our son after him and the fact that he is our child’s great-grandfather only makes it more of an honor. I am sure Father will be happy to know we are naming the child after his father.”
Regal was overcome with emotion, patting Teodora’s hand, reflecting on Robert de Rivington once again. Even at her age, there wasn’t a day that went by that she didn’t think of the love she had lost, now to be honored by Cullen and Teodora.
She could think of no greater gift.
She could think of no greater love.
Three months later, on a stormy autumn night at Quellargate Castle, Teodora gave birth in typically quick fashion to a healthy baby boy, christened Robert Owen de Nerra. By the time he was joined by brother William Bradford a year and a half later, in Cerenbeau Castle on the other side of England, their great-grandmother was breathing her last.
On a morning much like the last morning Regal had ever kissed Robert, the old woman drew in her final breath to the sounds of her daughter’s weeping. When next she opened her eyes, she was in a land much like the green fields of England she was so familiar with, and her sight had been restored. Her hands, so gnarled for all those years, were smooth and young again, and her hair had turned blonde again, long and soft and flowing.
Someone was calling her name.
Regal!
Turning, Regal could see a strong, young knight crossing the grass toward her, a face and body that she much recognized. It was Robert, as she remembered him, and when he extended his hand to her, she took it firmly. Joyfully, he held her, gazing into blue eyes that were much the same color as her granddaughter’s, whom she had much resembled in her youth.
Regal had watched everyone else in her lifetime know their happy endings, but it had been the one thing that had escaped her in her mortal life. In the afterlife, however, it would not escape her, and joy such as she deserved would now be hers – for eternity.
Regal de la Chambre finally had her happy ending, too.
Post semper amare.
Love ever after, indeed.
* THE END *
Children of Cullen and Teodora
Holly
Lily & Ivy
Robert
William
Bennett
Westley
Crisantha
THE FALLS OF ERITH
A Medieval Romance
By Kathryn Le Veque
CHAPTER ONE
North of Castle Erith, Cumbria, England
Year of our Lord 1305
The month of August
She could hear the screaming.
Like a dagger through the chest, physical pain bolted through her slender body at the sound. She knew it was her daughter; it could be no one else.
They were quite alone out in the wilds of Cumbria, harvesting fat purple berries from a bumper summer crop. All had been peaceful this morning, a warm summer day that had dawned soft and sweet upon the land, and she had allowed her daughter to separate from her in search of additional edibles. As another scream pierced the air, she was coming to regret that decision immensely.
“Brooke!” she screamed in return. “Brooke, where are you?”
The woman began to run; she wasn’t even sure which direction the screams were coming from, but she began running nonetheless. Panic bubbled in her chest as she heard screamed words off to her left; they were incoherent but unmistakably urgent. The woman plowed through the heavy foliage that stood between her and the screams; the branches scratched and the grass was wet with humidity, causing her to slip in her haste. She charged through the bushes, bleeding scratches on her arms, as she emerged into the clearing on the opposite side.
She drew closer to the towering falls of Erith, an oasis of crystal pools and roaring water about a dozen yards away. The thunder of the falls grew louder as she raced towards them, the piercing screams of her only child penetrating the mighty roar. The woman could hear the cries but she couldn’t see her child; only the green, moist foliage surrounding the falls and the spray of the water greeted her. Heart pounding, she yelled again.
“Brooke?” she cried.
“Mama!” came the call. “Help me!”
Lady Gray de Montfort Serroux could hear the cry again, like a nightmare, but she still didn’t see anything.
“Where are you?” she began to move towards the falls, a towering thunder of water that emptied into a crisp pool some fifty feet below its zenith. “I cannot see you!”
“Here!” came the cry. “I slipped! I am here!”
Gray raced to the edge of the falls, as close as she dared, seeing her slip of a daughter dangling from a ledge about ten feet below her. She couldn’t help the terrified yelp that escaped her lips as she fell to her belly, struggling to reach out a hand down to her daughter.
“Take my hand!” she stretched as far as she could go, reaching, begging. “Grab my hand, Brooke. Take it!”
Brooke was terrified, clinging to slippery rocks as the falls roared behind her. She was weeping hysterically, lifting a hand but too terrified to reach too high. After a half-hearted effort, she stopped trying altogether and clutched at the rocks again.
“I cannot,” she wept. “I will fall.”
Gray was biting back tears, having no idea how she was going to reach her child. Her heart sank as she realized that the girl was just too far out of her reach. All she could think to do was to untie her apron and yank it over her head, trying to use it as a rope as she awkwardly tossed it in her daughter’s direction.
“Sweetheart,” she tried to keep the terror from her voice, knowing calm heads would better prevail. “Try to grab hold of my apron. I will pull you up.”
Brooke was sobbing, terrified, clinging to the wet rocks. “I cannot!”
“Aye, you can,” Gray struggled to calm herself for her daughter’s sake. “Please, Brooke; grab hold of my apron.”
Brooke shook her head, crying, but eventually lifted a wet hand in the direction of the lowered apron. Gray tried to feed it down to her, lying on her belly and reaching over as far as she could go without slipping herself. The seconds were ticking. As Brooke reached up and took the tail-end of the apron ties, she lost her grip on the wet rock and she screamed, sliding another foot or so away from her mother down the slippery, grassy rocks.
“I am falling!” she screamed. “Help me!”
Gray’s tears returned, filling her eyes as she hurried to gain a better position now that her daughter had slipped further. She lay on the wet grass, trying to lower the apron to her, struggling against panic to coax her daughter into making another try for the apron.
But Brooke was paralyzed with fear, clutching the wet rocks and weeping hysterically. Gray couldn’t get her to look up at her or even make another attempt at the apron rope. As the great falls of Erith thundered only a few feet away, dousing them with spray, Gray sat up and yanked off one of her woolen hose.
It was full of holes but sturdy. Wit
h shaking, panicked hands, Gray tied the hose to the end of the apron and tossed it over the side of the cliff. It hit Brooke in the head and the girl shrieked; any little movement had her terrified she was going to fall the remaining forty feet into the churning water below.
Gray lay on her belly again, trying to coerce her daughter into taking hold of the hose, when the wet ground beneath her suddenly gave way. Gray let out a piercing scream, positive she was going to go crashing down on her daughter and, in turn, sending both of them to their death. The ground was sliding and dirt was falling, and Gray struggled to pull back, away from the sliding earth. But she was caught in the avalanche and there was nothing she could do. Just as she neared the edge to the point of no return, someone grabbed her ankle.
Whoever it was yanked hard, sliding her back along the wet grass that was now more like mud. Stunned, and slightly numb that she wasn’t already in a watery grave, Gray looked up to see a fairly big knight bolting past her, dropping to the edge of the cliff to peer down the side of the rushing falls. As she watched him, bewildered, a soft, deep voice from behind caught her attention.
“My lady?” he asked. “Are you injured?”
Gray turned in the direction of the voice; a knight was kneeling beside her, his handsome face glazed with concern. He was fair, his blond hair cropped close and graying at the temples, and his square-jawed face held an intelligent, angled edge. He was perhaps ten or more years older than her twenty-nine, but he wore his age well upon his striking features. He was average in height but he was very broad; she could see the thickness of his arms and legs, heavily muscled from years of warring. All in all, he was a big, handsome man, something she hadn’t expected to see out here in the wilds of Cumbria, and she struggled to find her tongue.
“I… I am well,” she suddenly scrambled to her knees. “But my daughter has fallen. I was trying to pull her up when the ground gave way.”
The knight rushed to the edge of the cliff, beside the other knight, and as Gray joined them, the three of them peered down at the very frightened young lady about twelve feet down. Gray’s amber eyes filled with tears as she gazed down at her frightened daughter.
Noble Line of de Nerra Complete Set: A Medieval Romance Bundle Page 52