St. Leger 1: The Bride Finder

by Susan Carroll

  "Wilt thou have this man to be thy wedded husband?"

  Would she? Madeline swallowed hard, trying to gather her scattered wits. Beneath her gown, she felt the miniature she had persisted in keeping, pressed close to her skin, like the gentle weight of the dreams she was abandoning, of the perfect companion and friend, the perfect love.

  "Well, I—I," she faltered. She saw Fitzleger's face wax anxiously, and Anatole shifted impatiently. Had his hand dropped beneath his coat, nearer to the hilt of his sword? Perhaps that was why he'd brought the weapon, to prod vows from a reluctant bride.

  Madeline's gaze drifted toward Anatole's face. There was one thing about the man that would never be tame and that was his eyes, fierce and mesmerizing with dark facets. He had no need of any sword, not with those eyes. They bored deep into hers, compelling her answer.

  "I will," she blurted out. She felt a little dazed, as though with those two simple words she had just surrendered everything to Anatole St. Leger.

  The rest of the ceremony passed in a blur, Anatole's own vows, the re-blessing of the rings, the final prayer, the fateful closing words.

  "I now pronounce thee husband and wife." Fitzleger's voice held a mingling of relief and triumph. He closed his book with a snap and mopped his perspiring brow. Then he gazed expectantly at Madeline and Anatole.

  When neither made a move, Fitzleger prompted, "You may kiss your bride, my lord."

  "I know that," Anatole growled. He turned and reached for Madeline. She stiffened, bracing herself for the onslaught of one of his savage, knee-buckling kisses. Her alarm must have showed in her face because Anatole hesitated.

  His arms dropped awkwardly back to his side. Something flashed in his eyes that might have been irritation. It could hardly have been regret. He ran two fingers across his brow, staring at her with brooding intensity.

  He did not seem to even bend forward, and yet Madeline could have sworn he kissed her, his lips grazing her cheek, soft, warm, and gentle. As he turned away, she pressed her hand to her face in confusion, beset by an urge she scarce understood. To reach out to him, to call him back to her side.

  But it was not as though her reluctance had wounded her bridegroom's feelings. He fetched his cape from where he had tossed it on the front pew, coolly swirling it about his shoulders like a man who'd done what he came for and was now impatient to be gone.

  Beamus and Darby skittered to attention, making their obeisance to him from a safe and respectful distance. It was Madeline that they crowded closer to, offering felicitations.

  But even as she accepted their good wishes, she remained aware of Anatole in the background, a proud figure, cloaked in shadow, standing isolated. And alone.

  Fitzleger stepped forward to claim her hand, squeezing it with the vicar's usual sweet enthusiasm. "Oh, my dearest Madeline, I hope you will be very happy."

  She thanked Fitzleger for his kindness and for the flowers that had been his gift to her.

  "Oh, tush, 'twas nothing, my dear. I am sure that Anatole would have himself if—if—" The vicar lowered his voice, casting an anxious look in Anatole's direction. "There is a good reason why he would not think to offer you flowers. You see he—he—"

  "It is all right," Madeline said. "You don't have to make excuses for him. I have fully recovered from all my romantic delusions."

  She glanced toward Anatole herself. He had taken to pacing before the altar, running his fingers absently along the carved rood screen. Even the quiet beauty of this tiny village church seemed incapable of touching his rough and restless spirit.

  "I must simply learn to accept Anatole St. Leger for what he is," Madeline murmured.

  "Ah, my dear." Fitzleger sighed. "That would be the most wondrous gift you could give him."

  Madeline doubted that Anatole would want anything she had to offer, but she kept such lowering thoughts to herself. The sexton fetched forth the parish register to record the marriage.

  Darby presented the ledger first to Anatole with that mixture of fear and deference that Madeline noted all the villagers accorded him. Shaking back the lace at his cuffs, Anatole scratched his name across the surface of the open page before passing the quill to Madeline.

  She was surprised to see that her husband wrote in a beautiful hand, bold and flourishing. Set beneath it, her own signature seemed insignificant.

  She tried not to feel as though she had just signed her name with her heart's blood, chiding herself for such melodramatic nonsense. Darby whisked the ledger away, and Beamus headed back to her kitchens. Even Fitzleger excused himself, retiring to the sacristy to remove his vestments. As the last of the vicar's footsteps faded, Madeline laid her flowers upon the altar stone.

  There could be nothing more solemn than being left alone in an empty church. Except she was not alone. Her new husband was with her. Anatole stood a short distance away, but the aisle that separated them might as well have been full fathoms wide. His eyes raked over her from the hem of her petticoats to her curls, which she had dressed loosely beneath her bonnet. Though she could detect no sign of approval on his features, at least the contempt of yesterday was absent.

  They had scarce spoken more than a dozen words to each other from the time she had crept downstairs that morning until their short journey in the coach to the church. Madeline wondered if she was condemned to a lifetime of being lost in the man's silences. A grim fate for a woman who had been accused of talking too much in some of the finest salons in London. But then, so many gentlemen disliked hearing their opinions proved wrong by a lady.

  Lifting the hem of her gown, a confection of ivory silk embroidered with roses, Madeline crossed over to Anatole, her petticoats rustling about her ankles.

  To cover her nervousness, she said cheerfully, "Well, my lord, I thought the service was quite nice. Fitzleger managed it very quickly."

  Anatole tugged at his cravat as though the finery were choking him. "Were you anticipating some more elaborate affair?"

  "Oh, no. I did not come to Castle Leger expecting any grand wedding."

  His lashes swept down. "I know what you came here expecting, Madeline." There was a bitterness in his tone that surprised her, making her feel self-conscious of the portrait hidden beneath her gown. It was almost as though she had betrayed Anatole with another man, which was absurd. There was no love between them to betray.

  When Anatole raised his eyes, his customary sardonic expression had returned. "So. You managed to survive both the wedding and your first night at Castle Leger. My congratulations, madam."

  Madeline winced but retorted, "Survived is a very apt word, my lord."

  "Did you not sleep well last night?"

  "Well enough."

  Taking a step closer, he raised one finger and traced the bruised hollow beneath her eye. His brows arched skeptically almost as though he knew exactly what sort of night she'd spent. Her suspicions about what had happened in her room flared anew.

  "And you, my lord?" she challenged. She could likewise have touched the shadows beneath his eyes if she had been bold enough. "How did you fare last night?"

  His hand fell away from her face. "I slept like the dead." He amended. "I mean… like a rock."

  "Truly? At one time I thought I heard you stirring about in your room."

  She had heard no such thing, but a shade of unease crossed Anatole's features.

  "You might have heard me when I was resetting my clock. I trust I didn't disturb you?"

  "No, but there was a question I wanted to ask you."

  "Yes?" His tone was not encouraging.

  Did you slip into my bedchamber and undress me?

  Unthinkable to give voice to such a suspicion with Anatole's fierce gaze upon her. Unthinkable and impossible. Madeline fought back a hot blush. To cover her confusion, she stammered out the first question that came into her head. "I was wondering about the age of the church. St. Gothian's seems so very old."

  Was it her imagination or did the set of his shoulders relax? "Th
e church has been here in one form or another since the reign of Edward the Confessor. The original building was said to have been built on the site of a pagan altar."

  Madeline's gaze roved about the chancel and nave, admiring the church's serene beauty anew, the finely carved rood screen with its organ loft, the magnificent stone relief depicting the Gift of the Magi.

  "It's amazing so much of this has survived the years," she said. "The Puritans destroyed such things elsewhere."

  "My ancestors could not save the stained-glass windows from Cromwell's army, but they disassembled the reredos and the cross, hiding them away."

  "That was a dangerous thing to do."

  "Both the church and the village fall within our lands. St. Legers protect their own."

  "And I suppose that now includes me?"

  "Aye."

  Madeline had meant her remark as a jest, but Anatole's reply seemed deadly serious.

  "Do you mean that if any man offered to harm me that—"

  "He would be dead," Anatole said in a deceptively soft voice that both chilled and warmed her. It was not quite the same as being loved and cherished, but to have a husband so willing to protect her was no small thing.

  She wandered along the main aisle, running her glove over the edge of ancient pews that seemed permeated with the scent of incense and the salt tang of the nearby sea. For once Anatole appeared not quite so impatient, content to watch her, allowing her to satisfy her curiosity.

  She couldn't help noticing that unlike many benefactors of a church, his family had no private enclosed bench set aside for them. When she remarked upon it, he said, "The villagers have always preferred to have the lords of St. Leger out in the open where they can be seen. It makes the local folk more… urn—comfortable."

  Madeline could well understand that. Anatole made her far less nervous when he was in her sight, not standing behind her as he was now. She could sense his presence as much as if he had taken that great black cloak of his and enfolded her in it, gathering her to the heat of his powerful frame. It made the hairs at the back of her neck tingle. If his ancestors had been anything like him—

  It suddenly occurred to her that Harriet was right. She knew nothing about this man's family.

  Turning to face Anatole, Madeline gestured toward the empty pews and remarked, "I had hoped… that is I thought that perhaps some of your relatives might have attended our wedding."

  "Oh, they're here."

  His dry remark puzzled her until Anatole pointed toward the church floor. Glancing down, Madeline saw what she had failed to notice before, the names carved into the worn stone.

  The practice of burying bodies beneath a church was not unusual, but Madeline felt suddenly uneasy. She skittered back from the memorial she had heedlessly been trampling.

  "St. Legers have long been buried here instead of in the churchyard," Anatole said. "The hope being that the added weight of the building might keep them in their graves."

  "What!"

  He hastened to add, "I mean because it's holier ground. They can better rest in peace."

  "Oh!" Anatole had a disconcerting way of explaining things. "Are your parents also—"

  "No!" A shadow crossed his features. "My mother… and my father lie elsewhere."

  Madeline sensed from his tone she had blundered upon a painful and forbidden subject. With great delicacy she drew back from it, returning to her study of the floor. The names extended to the enclosed porch itself, one small marker carved into the space beneath the bell tower.

  "Deidre St. Leger," Madeline murmured, noting the dates. "She died quite young. How sad."

  "One of my more unfortunate ancestresses," Anatole said, trailing after her.

  "She must have been a very petite woman considering…" Madeline gestured, noting the Lady Deidre's narrow resting space.

  "No, actually according to the family records, Deidre was a regular Diana, tall and strong. Only her heart was buried here in a small casket."

  "Her—her heart?"

  "Supposedly Deidre wanted it that way. She said that since her family had trampled so much over her heart during her life, they might as well continue to do so after her death."

  Madeline shuddered, repulsed, but fascinated by the tale. "She sounds like a most unhappy woman. Why did she die so embittered?"

  "The Lady Deidre was foolish enough to fall in love."

  Madeline glanced wistfully at her husband's stern profile. "Do you find that so foolish, then, my lord?"

  "It is for a St. Leger. We have always been bound to marry only the one who is selected for us."

  "You mean like you sent Reverend Fitzleger to find me?"

  Anatole nodded.

  "I know Fitzleger is a venerable, aged man. But he could not possibly have been around in Deidre's time."

  "There was another Bride Finder before him. And another before that. But Deidre chose to disregard our family custom. Because she had given her heart to another, she rejected the man her Finder had provided. If she could not have the man she desired, she vowed to have none at all. She thought she could defeat the curse by remaining unwed. It didn't work of course."

  Anatole scowled down at Deidre's memorial. "She met with death and disaster, the lot of all St. Legers who refuse to wed their chosen mate."

  For a moment Madeline's mind boggled with what he was telling her. She had an image of generations of white-haired little men, scouring the countryside for mates to save St. Legers from their doom. A quaint family legend, but patently ridiculous.

  An uncertain laugh escaped Madeline. "My lord, you cannot possibly believe in such things as curses. You cannot honestly think—"

  She broke off at Anatole's black frown. It was obvious he did believe in the legend of the chosen bride, or else she would not be here. Someone needed to inform the poor man that the dark ages were over, that a new era of reason had dawned, at least in the rest of the country beyond Cornwall.

  "Such superstition is not rational," she said. "What empirical proof could there be for such a thing?"

  "Proof, madam? I do not have to look further than my own parents for such proof. My mother was not a chosen bride. She was damned from the moment she arrived at Castle Leger until the day she—"

  He broke off, his jaw clenching. The same darkness clouded his eyes as when he had spoken of his mother before. This time Madeline could not stop herself from asking, "What happened to her?"

  "She died young. Just like Deidre St. Leger. I was but ten years old at the time. Losing my mother so broke my father's spirit that he followed her to the grave within five years' time."

  "Then, you have been the master of Castle Leger since you were but fifteen?"

  "I've been my own master even longer than that."

  "I'm sorry." Madeline wanted to touch him, but Anatole was not the sort of man to readily accept sympathy. "How did your mother die?"

  "She was killed by fear and sorrow."

  That was impossible, Madeline had to bite her lip to keep from pointing out. People did not die merely from misery or terror. More likely the poor lady had suffered from consumption or a weak heart. But as she stared at Anatole, something in his face made her swallow the remark. Instead she said gently, "Oh, yes, I see."

  "You don't see anything at all. You don't understand a damn thing about me. Or my family." Anatole struggled for words to explain and finished by biting out, "I don't want you to share the same fate as my mother."

  "I won't. After all, I am the chosen bride, aren't I?"

  Madeline looked solemn enough, but a coaxing light shone in her eyes.

  Anatole glowered at her. The infernal woman was humoring him, curse her hide! The same as he had done with Will Sparkins the day the lad came tearing up from the beach with some faradiddle about spotting a sea monster.

  He dragged his hand back through his hair in pure frustration, dislodging several strands from the queue. "You don't believe a blasted word I've been telling you, do you?"

  "
N-n-o-o-o," Madeline admitted, but was quick to add, "there are better reasons—you don't have to fear my being doomed to an early grave. I am as strong and healthy as a farm girl. Most unladylike, my mother would say. I could not produce a maidenly swoon if my life depended upon it."

  She gave his hand a pat, as though she considered the matter settled. With a soothing smile she drifted off to study the statue of St. Gothian she had spied set back in its niche. Anatole stared after her, not knowing whether to be more annoyed or dumbfounded. He had dreaded this moment all morning, knowing that at some point he must reveal to his bride his strange family heritage. Her question about Deidre had given him his opening, and so he had begun to explain to Madeline the dark legacy of the St. Legers and his own accursed share in it.

  He had envisioned dismay, rejection, the kind of fear and revulsion that had haunted his mother to her grave. But it had never occurred to him that Madeline might simply refuse to believe any of it.

  She looked so demure beneath her bonnet, tendrils of auburn hair wisping about her delicate face. Her silken gown billowed about her lithe figure, all warm, all natural womanhood, her soft pink mouth set in a line so… so…

  So sunnily obstinate, so cheerfully opinionated!

  Anatole folded his arms across his chest. So the lady demanded proof, did she? Otherwise she'd set him down as a superstitious fool, to be treated with the sort of kindness she might have shown the village idiot.

  He could offer her proof aplenty that the St. Legers were a breed set apart from other men, beginning with his own peculiar talents. All he had to do was levitate the candles from the iron wall sockets or send the poor box floating down the aisle.

  Or what about the nosegay of bluebells and wild heather she'd left on the altar? a voice taunted inside him. Why didn't he whisk those up into the air and dance them before Madeline's eyes?

  Because the mere thought of it was enough to make his blood run cold. His fingers strayed to his scar, and he wondered bleakly if he was the only one in the world who connected something as innocent as flowers with pain… and death.