by Meg Cabot
In all, the miller’s family was not one against which Rosamund’s father could have had many strong objections. Indeed, the mayor would have had no objections whatsoever, for a more promising young man than Robert Crais could scarce be found in Stephensgate. But there was the small matter of his youngest sister’s oddly independent ways, her flagrant defiance of poaching laws, as well as that unfortunate incident between her and the late earl. How to overlook the fact that Finnula Crais, however wrongly, had been accused of murdering her own husband?
But Rosamund’s affection for Robert was quite genuine, and, an only child, she eventually brought her doting father round to her way of thinking. If Finnula was his only objection, well, there was nothing to be done about Finnula. The girl was young, and it could be hoped that one day she’d grow out of her love for sport—and the leather chausses she insisted upon wearing. At least she had the sense to stay off the main thoroughfares while wearing them. And in the meantime, perhaps Rosamund’s gentle influence could help her to see the error of her ways.
What with all the married Crais sisters and their spouses and progeny at the millhouse noisily celebrating Robert and Rosamund’s impending marriage, it was perhaps understandable that no one missed one of the single sisters…at least, not right away. It was Finnula who eventually lowered her cup of ale and wondered aloud what had happened to Mellana.
No one, however, paid Finnula any mind, which wasn’t unusual, since “Finn” was not only the family embarrassment but also the family storyteller, whose wild exaggerations were now believed only by her youngest nieces and nephews. Putting aside her cup, she went in search of her favorite sister, and found her by the kitchen fire, weeping into her apron.
“Mellana!” Finnula cried, genuinely shocked. “What ails you? Is it your stomach again? Do you want me to fetch you a tonic?”
From the looks of her pink and swollen eyes, Mellana had been crying for some time. Considered by many to be the loveliest of the miller’s daughters, Mellana had had more admirers than anyone could count, but never an actual offer of marriage. Finnula had been unable to decipher why this was so, as she herself had been the recipient of one proposal, albeit ill-fated, and she in no way considered herself the beauty that Mellana obviously was.
Fair of face and trim of figure, Mellana was the only sister who had escaped the Crais family curse of bright red hair. Instead, she had lovely strawberry-blond curls that framed her heart-shaped face like a veil of reddish gold. Her eyes weren’t the mist gray of her sisters and brother, either, but a deep, sapphire blue that looked almost black in certain lights. And somehow Mellana hadn’t inherited the outspokenness of her sisters, being instead the mildest of creatures, an excellent cook and housekeeper who seemed to feel better suited to the company of the hens she loved than to actual human beings. At one time, there’d been some talk in the village of the next-to-youngest Crais girl being simple in the head. Robert and Finnula had soon put a stop to it, one with his fists and the other her bow, and now it was no longer mentioned by anyone—within hearing of the eldest and youngest Crais, that is.
“Mellana, sweetest, what is it?” Finnula bent over her most beloved sibling, trying to sweep some of the lovely girl’s hair from her face, where strands of the blond curls stuck to her damp cheeks. “Why aren’t you celebrating with the rest of us?”
Mellana hiccupped, barely able to speak through her sobs. “Oh, Finn, if only I could tell you!”
“What do you mean, if only you could tell me? Mel, you can tell me anything, you know that.”
“Not this.” Mellana shook her head with such force that her red-gold hair whipped her cheeks. “Oh, Finnula. I’m so ashamed!”
“You?” Finnula stroked her sister’s shoulder through the soft material of her green bliaut. “And what have you, the gentlest creature in the world, to be ashamed of? Nothing to wear to the wedding? Is that it, eh, silly?”
Mellana tried to mop up her tears with the sleeve of her cream-colored kirtle. “I only wish it were that, Finn,” she choked. “Oh, Finn, if only it were that! I’m afraid you’ll despise me when I tell you—”
“I, despise you, Mel?” Finnula was genuinely shocked. “Never! Oh, Mellana, you know I never—”
“I’m late,” Mellana gasped, and burst into a fresh shower of tears.
“You’re late?” Finnula echoed, her slender eyebrows knit with confusion. “Why, you aren’t late at all. The betrothal celebration has only just begun—”
Seeing Mellana’s quick head shake, Finnula’s voice trailed off. Late? She stared at the fractious girl, and understanding, when it dawned, was coupled with disbelief, disbelief that she couldn’t keep from creeping into her husky voice.
“Late, Mel?” she asked, giving her older sister a shake. “You mean you’re—late?”
Mellana nodded miserably. Still, Finnula needed clarification. She simply could not believe what she was hearing from her beautiful, sweet-tempered sister.
“Mellana, are you saying that you’re…with child?”
“Y-yes,” Mellana sobbed.
Finnula stared down at the bent golden head, and tried very hard to stifle a desire to shake Mellana silly. She loved her sister, and would thrash anyone outside the family who dared make light of her, but in truth, Mellana could be the most shallow of creatures, and Finnula was only too willing to believe that some rogue had taken advantage of that vapidity.
“What’s his name?” Finnula demanded, her hand falling unconsciously upon the hilt of the six-inch blade at her hip.
Mellana only sobbed harder.
“His name, Mel,” Finnula repeated, her voice hard. “The blackguard dies by nightfall.”
“Oh, I knew I shouldn’t have told you,” Mellana groaned. “Finn, please, please don’t kill him. You don’t understand. I love him!”
Finnula released the dagger hilt. “You love him? Truly, Mel?” When the older girl nodded tearfully, Finnula frowned. “Well, that changes things, I suppose. I can’t kill him if you love him. But why all the tears then? If you love him, marry him.”
“You don’t understand,” Mellana wept. “Oh, Finn, I can’t marry him!”
Back went the fingers to the dagger hilt. “Already married, is he? Right, then. Robert and I’ll have him strung up before you can say Nottingham Town. Buck up, Mel. It’ll be a lovely hanging.”
“He’s not married.” Mellana sniffled.
Finnula sank down onto the hearth, exhaling heavily enough to blow a few stray tendrils of red hair from her forehead. Truly, she hadn’t the patience today to deal with her scatterbrained sibling. Tracking a wild boar was ten times easier than trying to make sense of Mellana.
“Well, then what is the problem, Mel? If he’s not married and you love him, why can’t the two of you be wed?”
“It’s—it’s my dowry, Finn.”
“Your dowry?” Finnula plopped both elbows down on her knees, and smacked her forehead into her palms. “Oh, Mel. Tell me you didn’t.”
“I had to, Finn! Five weddings, in as many years. And I hadn’t a thing to wear. I wore the blue samite to Brynn’s, the lavender silk to Patricia’s, the burgundy velvet that I ordered from London to Camilla’s, the rose-colored linen to Christina’s, and the gold samite to yours—” Mellana looked up apologetically, remembering, even while consumed by her own grief, how intensely Finnula disliked mention of her own wedding. “I—I’m sorry, Finn. I’m certain it must seem petty to you. After all, you care only for bows and arrows, not ribbons and gewgaws. But I would have been the laughingstock of the village if I’d appeared at my sisters’ weddings in gowns worn previously—”
Finnula thought it entirely unlikely that anyone in Stephensgate would remember what Mellana had worn to any of her sister’s weddings, Stephensgate hardly being the fashion capital of the world. She refrained from saying so out loud, however.
“Are you telling me,” Finnula said instead, her head still in her hands, “that you spent your entire dowry on blia
uts, Mellana?”
“Not just bliauts,” Mellana assured her. “Kirtles, too.”
Had Mellana been speaking to any one of her other sisters, she might have received a remonstration for behaving in such a selfish and stupid manner. And though Finnula did indeed think that Mellana had behaved stupidly—no better, for instance, than her silly friend Isabella Laroche, that ridiculous creature whose father was so poorly managing Lord Hugo’s manor house in his absence—she could not help feeling sorry for her. After all, it was rather a terrible thing to be pregnant and unwed.
When Finnula finally looked up, her face was expressionless. “Do you have any idea,” she asked, “what Robert will do when he discovers what you’ve done?”
“I know, Finn! I know! Why do you think I’m crying? And Jack hasn’t a gold piece of his own—”
“Jack?”
“Jack Mallory.” Mellana blushed, lowering her eyes. “He’s a troubadour. You remember, he played the lute so divinely at Christina’s wedding—”
“God’s teeth,” Finnula murmured, closing her eyes in horror. “A troubadour? You’ve got yourself pregnant by a troubadour?”
“Yes, and you see, that’s why we can’t be married, not without my dowry, because all Jack owns is his rebec and some juggling balls. Oh, and his donkey, Kate. You know Robert will never allow me to marry a man who doesn’t even own a change of clothing, let alone a home for us to live in—”
Finnula sighed, wishing heartily it had been one of her other sisters who’d found Mellana weeping by the hearth. Brynn would have sympathized, Patricia scolded, Camilla laughed, and Christina gasped, but any one of them would have been better able to handle the situation than Finnula. Finnula, never having experienced the emotion herself, hadn’t the vaguest notion what it meant to love a man to distraction, the way Mellana apparently loved Jack Mallory. On the whole, Finnula felt she had the advantage. Being in love looked rather painful, from what she’d observed.
She said, “Well, instead of crying about something’s that over and done with, why don’t you scrape together what you’ve earned brewing ale—” She paused, noting that Mellana was energetically shaking her head. “What’s the matter?”
Mellana’s long eyelashes fluttered damply. “D-don’t you see? I spent it.”
“You spent it all?” Finnula’s voice cracked. “But there were over fifty—”
“I needed new combs,” Mellana whispered tearfully. “And ribbons for my hair. And that tinker came by the other day, and he was selling the loveliest girdles, of real gold they were—”
Finnula could hardly keep from cursing, and so she did so, roundly, despite the reproachful look it earned her from her sister. “You spent all of the money you earned brewing this winter on trinkets? Oh, Mellana, how could you? That money was to buy malt and hops for the summer’s batch!”
“I know.” Mellana sniffled. “I know! But a maid cannot always be thinking of beer.”
Finnula’s jaw dropped. Her sister was dim-witted, it was true, but surely this was the stupidest thing any woman in the history of Shropshire had ever done. For a while, the girl had had a very enterprising little business going out of her kitchen cellar. Mellana’s ale was widely respected as the best in Shropshire. Innkeepers from neighboring villages thought it worth the trip to Stephensgate to purchase a barrel or two from the lovely brewmistress. But without any capital left to buy ingredients, Mellana’s beer-brewing days were numbered.
“A maid,” Finnula echoed, bitterly. “A maid! But you aren’t a maid any longer, are you, Mellana? You’re going to have a child. How do you intend to support it? You cannot expect to live always here at the millhouse with Robert. He’ll be married himself soon, and while Rosamund’s the sweetest of girls, she won’t long tolerate a clinging sister-in-law who hasn’t the sense God gave a chicken, let alone her fatherless child—”
Finnula instantly regretted her harsh words when Mellana burst into a fresh set of tears. Through her sobs, the girl gulped, “Oh! And you are one to talk, Finnula Crais! You, who were wed exactly a single night before returning to the mill—”
“A widow,” Finnula pointed out, refusing to be manipulated by her sister’s tears. “Remember, Mellana? I returned a widow. My husband died on my wedding night.”
“Oh,” choked Mellana. “Wasn’t that convenient, considering how much you hated him?”
Finnula felt herself turning red with rage, but before she could march off in a huff, as she intended, Mellana grabbed hold of her wrist and beseeched her, her face earnest with contrition, “Oh, Finn, forgive me! I oughtn’t to have said that. I regret it most sincerely. I know it wasn’t your fault. Of course it wasn’t. Please, please don’t go. I need your help so much. You’re so clever, and I’m so very stupid. Won’t you please stay a moment and listen to me? Isabella told me of a way I might make some of my coin back, in a manner that I’m quite certain would work…only…only I’m much too timid to try it.”
Finnula was only half listening to her sister. In the other room, Camilla’s husband must have taken out his lute, for suddenly the strains of a merry tune reached the kitchen. Above the music, Finnula could plainly hear their brother calling their names. Curse it! He’d be in the kitchen in a moment, and Mellana was the worst liar in the world. The truth would be out, and there’d be no more celebrating. There would, like as not, be a murder. Finnula hoped Jack Mallory and his bloody donkey were nowhere near Stephensgate.
Mellana straightened suddenly, her blue eyes wide. “But you could do it, Finn! You aren’t timid. You aren’t afraid of anything. And it wouldn’t be any different from trapping foxes or deer. I’m certain it wouldn’t!”
“What wouldn’t?” Finnula, sitting on the hearth with her elbows on her knees, looked up at her sister’s suddenly transformed face. Gone were the tear tracks and puffy eyelids. Now Mellana’s deep blue eyes were sparkling, and her red lips were parted in excitement.
“Oh, say you’ll help me, Finn!” Mellana grasped one of her sister’s hands, the one with the fingertips heavily callused from pulling back the drawstring of her bow. “Say you’ll help!”
Finnula, quite distracted by her fear of her brother’s wrath, said impatiently, “Of course I’ll help you, if I can, Mellana. But I don’t see how you’re going to get out of this one, I really don’t.”
“Trust me. Promise?”
“I promise. Now let’s join the others, Mel. They’re calling for us. We don’t want them to suspect anything—”
“Oh, thank you, Finn!”
Suddenly joyous, Mellana pulled her younger sister into an exuberant hug. “I knew you’d help me if I asked. You have always been good to me. I don’t care what people say about you, I don’t think you’re a bit odd. And with your skills as a huntress, I’m sure you’ll capture the richest man in Shropshire!”
Finnula looked up at her sister curiously. “Whatever are you talking about, Mel?”
Surprised that Finnula didn’t understand, Mellana told her. And it took considerably more tears on Mellana’s part before Finnula would even consider honoring the promise she’d made in a moment of distraction.
Chapter Two
Hugo Fitzstephen might have spent the past decade in the Holy Land fighting for possession of Jerusalem, but that didn’t mean that he himself was holy. Far from it. As ought to have been amply illustrated by the fact that he had bedded that innkeeper’s wife, then refused to pay her husband recompense, as custom dictated, when the man “happened” to walk in upon the two of them.
Hugo had fled to the Crusades as the only recourse for the second son of an earl. His other option had been the monastery, which he steadfastly refused to enter, though it was his mother’s fondest wish that he should seek oneness with the Lord. Hugo preferred seeking oneness with women, however, and he’d found plenty of them in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The women of Acre, across the Jordan from Damascus, where Hugo had spent most of the decade he’d been away from England, had a curious habit of shaving
their most private areas, and that alone had been incentive enough for Hugo to stay on.
Of course, being captured in Acre by the Muslim army hadn’t been part of the plan, and by the time his ransom had been paid by the Crown, Hugo was particularly disgusted with the so-called Holy Land, and with crusading in general. By then, he’d learned of the death of his elder brother, followed by the extremely strange death of their father, making Hugo the seventh Earl of Stephensgate. He decided that he might as well go home to enjoy his new title.
But so far, he hadn’t had much of a chance. He’d not yet so much as glimpsed the green pastures of Shropshire, and already he was in trouble again. This time it wasn’t Saracens that were pursuing him, but the husband of that particularly well-endowed blonde with whom he’d dallied in London. “Dallied” wasn’t the husband’s word for it, however, and he was demanding a small fortune for his “humiliation.” Hugo suspected this husband and wife worked as a team, she luring in wealthy knights, then her husband “discovering” them together and demanding recompense for his injured feelings. Well, Hugo was damned if he would give the man the satisfaction.
Now Hugo and his squire were being forced to take back roads and sheep trails to Stephensgate, avoiding the main roads for fear of being set upon by the innkeeper and his cronies. It wasn’t that Hugo was afraid to fight; it was just that he’d had enough fighting in the past ten years to last him a lifetime, and wanted only to retire to his manor house and enjoy what he considered, in his twenty-fifth year, to be his old age.