Love in a Mist

by Patricia Grasso

  Published Internationally by Lachesis Publishing Inc.

  Rockland, Ontario, Canada

  Copyright © 2015 Patricia Grasso

  Exclusive cover © 2015 Laura Givens

  Inside artwork © 2015 Joanna D’Angelo

  Previously published as Love in A Mist Copyright © 1994

  Revised and Re-released as Love In A Mist Copyright © 2015

  All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written consent of the publisher, Lachesis Publishing Inc., is an infringement of the copyright law.

  A catalogue record for the print format of this title is available from the National Library of Canada

  ISBN 978-1-927555-69-9

  A catalogue record for the Ebook is available from the National Library of Canada Ebooks are available for purchase from www.lachesispublishing.com

  ISBN 978-1-927555-70-5

  Copy Editor (for this edition): Joanna D’Angelo

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any person or persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Dedication

  Zeke: my velcro boy. Meeter, greeter, and lover of all cats. You were attached to my lap, my arms, my side for nine years. Losing you was like losing a limb. You left too soon and broke my heart.

  Acknowledgments

  Many thanks to Joanna D’Angelo (editor)

  and Myretta Robens (computer guru)

  for their long-suffering patience.

  Reviews and Awards

  FINALIST: National Readers’ Choice Award

  BESTSELLING ROMANCE LISTS: Barnes and Noble and Waldenbooks

  “Humor and adventure infuse this lusty tale, creating an absorbing, high energy story that is a joy to read from start to finish. Rapier-like verbal sparring, lush descriptions, and sensuous love scenes are indelible qualities marking all of Ms. Grasso’s work.”

  ~ Rendezvous Magazine

  “Mixing magic, romance and lively adventure, Patricia Grasso delivers an exciting tale resounding with color and memorable characters.”

  ~ Romantic Times Magazine

  “ . . . a touch of magic, a bit of whimsy and the requisite stubborn heroine and more than willing hero. This melding of two cultures is done beautifully as the Welsh princess meets the Englishman, and finds that boundaries have no bearing on the heart, and a little magic can’t hurt!”

  ~ Heartland Critiques

  “ . . . a bawdy romp through Elizabethan England.”

  ~ Publisher’s Weekly

  “LOVE IN A MIST is an exciting Elizabethan historical romance . . . endearing characters. Patricia Grasso provides her audience with a fun-to-read tale.”

  ~ Affaire de Coeur Magazine

  Also Available

  Douglas Series:

  Book 1 To Tempt an Angel

  Book 2 To Charm a Prince

  Book 3 To Catch a Countess

  Lords of Stratford Series:

  Book 1 Enchanting the Duke

  Book 2 Beauty and the Earl

  Pagan Bride

  Love in a Mist

  Chapter 1

  Wales, August 1575

  Dark gray clouds, changing afternoon into twilight, hovered over the lush green land. A flash of lightning brightened the sky and then vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

  Eighteen-year-old Keely Glendower stood at the window and watched nature unleashing her forces. The gathering storm outside the keep mirrored the storm brewing within her. Worry troubled Keely’s delicate features. Her aching sadness mingled with constricting fury, making breathing difficult. Keely sighed raggedly, brokenly. Her heart railed against what her mind knew to be true.

  Her beautiful, gentle mother was dying.

  Megan Glendower Lloyd lay in the bed across the chamber, slowly bleeding to death from a final, futile attempt to give her husband a second son. There was nothing to be done but await the end.

  “Is she dead yet?”

  Keely whirled around at the sound of that voice. Her skin prickled with loathing at the sight of her stepfather.

  Baron Madoc Lloyd filled the doorway. Tall and muscular, the baron could have been a handsome man except for the revealing coldness in his gray eyes.

  Keely stared hard at him. Her startling violet-eyed gaze judged him guilty of murdering her mother.

  “Am I a free man?” Madoc asked.

  Keely flushed with appalled anger, pointed an accusing finger at him, and opened her mouth to speak. Before she could utter a word, a spectacular bolt of lightning zig-zagged across the sky outside the window behind her, and a deafening boom of thunder reverberated in the chamber.

  “Hex me not.” Madoc crossed himself and slammed the door shut.

  Keely started to go after him, but the voice from the bed stopped her.

  “Leave him to the divine forces,” her mother said.

  Keely hurried across the chamber and sat on the stool where she’d been keeping a lonely vigil beside her mother’s sickbed. In spite of her sadness, Keely managed a smile for her mother. “What Madoc desires most will kill him in the end,” Megan told her. “Trust me, for I have seen it.”

  Keely nodded. Whatever her mother saw came to pass. Always.

  “There was a time when Madoc loved me beyond reason,” Megan said, her voice soft with remembrance, “but my heart belonged to your father. And still does.”

  That bit of information surprised Keely. Her mother had always refused to answer her questions about her real father, and so she’d stopped asking. Keely hoped her mother would say something more now. She’d waited a long, long time to learn about him.

  “You resemble me, but your violet eyes are his,” Megan went on. “Each time I looked into your eyes, I saw him. Madoc could never forgive you for being his daughter.”

  “We’ll speak of this after you’ve rested,” Keely said, realizing her mother was wasting what little reserve of energy she had left.

  “My beloved daughter, I stand at the gateway to the Other World and will soon be gone,” Megan told her. “By the time the cock crows, I will have begun the Great Adventure.”

  Keely opened her mouth to refute her mother’s words.

  “Do not deny what I have seen,” Megan said. “It is Lughnasadh, the time of marriage and divorce, and I will finally be free of Madoc. Fetch my sickle.”

  Keely hurried across the chamber to her mother’s chest. She returned a moment later, sat on the edge of the bed, and offered her mother a tiny golden sickle used for cutting mistletoe from the mighty oak trees.

  “Upon my death, the golden sickle passes to you.” Megan removed the only piece of jewelry she’d ever worn and gave it to her daughter.

  From a heavy chain of gold hung a dragon pendant. A blaze of sapphires and emeralds, lit by glittering diamonds, the pendant was the head of a dragon. One ruby rose flamed from its mouth.

  “Wear this always. The magic of its love will protect you,” Megan said. “Your sire wears the dragon’s tail.”

  Keely placed the necklace over her head and touched the dragon where it rested against her chest. “Will you tell me his name?”

  “Robert Talbot.”

  A smile of joy lit Keely’s face. She had waited so many years to hear her father’s name, and now she knew.

  “Walk among the powerful, but find happiness where the birch, the yew, and the oak converse,” Megan said. “Trust the king who wears a flaming crown and possesses the golden touch. Beware the blacksmith.”

  A chill danced down Keely’s spine. “
The blacksmith?”

  “Go to your father when Madoc exiles you,” Megan said.

  “That will never happen as long as Rhys lives,” Keely assured her. She wanted her mother’s final hours to be without worry.

  “Though he does love you like a sister, Rhys is only your stepbrother and must obey Madoc or be disowned,” Megan said. “I know these things because I have seen them. Promise to go to your father.”

  “I swear.” Keely planted a kiss on her mother’s cheek. “Where will I find this Robert Talbot?”

  A smile touched the dying woman’s lips. “Robert Talbot is the Duke of Ludlow.”

  Keely paled several shades. “The English Duke of Ludlow?”

  Megan merely smiled at her.

  “I’m a blasted Englishman?” Keely cried, appalled.

  “Englishwoman,” Megan corrected, patting her daughter’s hand.

  Disturbed by her mother’s incredible revelation, Keely stared into space. She’d been bred to despise all that was English, but that tainted blood flowed through her own veins. Oh, Lord! Where did she belong? Here in Wales, the land of her birth? Or in England, the land of her enemy? Nowhere?

  “Teach your children the Old Ways,” Megan said.

  Keely gave Megan her full attention. Thinking only of herself when her mother lay dying was horribly selfish. Thoroughly English.

  “I will be with you again at Samhuinn,” Megan promised. “Give me your hand.” Megan drew an imaginary circle in the palm of Keely’s hand. “Remember, my child. Life is a circle with no beginning and no ending. You are born, you live, you die.”

  With one finger, Megan circled Keely’s palm a second time. “You are born, a child, a young woman, an old woman . . . you die.”

  Again, Megan circled her daughter’s palm. “Born, grow, die. Reborn.”

  The hand holding Keely’s went limp and fell away. Keely gazed at her mother’s serene expression and knew she had passed into the Great Adventure.

  Keely kissed her mother’s hand. She leaned down, buried her face against her mother’s chest, and wept.

  Gradually, her sobs subsided and then ceased. Still, she rested against the comforting solidness of her mother.

  What would become of her now? She had lost not only her mother but her home. Though she’d lived her entire life at her stepfather’s holding, Keely knew she was no Lloyd and had never felt that she belonged there. Now she was alone in the world.

  Her stepbrother Rhys loved her like a sister, as did her cousins Odo and Hew. And now there was Robert Talbot, the man who sired her.

  Keely walked to her mother’s table. She returned with a bouquet of oak leaves and mistletoe and a hooded white robe. Her mother’s lavender scent clung to it, nearly felling Keely with aching loss. Placing the bouquet in her mother’s hands, Keely kissed her cheek and whispered, “Until we meet at Samhuinn.”

  Keely shrouded her mother’s empty shell with the white ceremonial robe. She touched the dragon pendant, gleaming against the crisp whiteness of her linen blouse, and prayed its magic would give her the inner strength she needed.

  After taking a deep breath to steady herself, Keely left the chamber and walked down the torch-lit corridors toward the great hall. She stepped inside and nodded at her mother’s women, who hurried away to prepare the body for burial.

  Keely stood alone inside the doorway and scanned the crowded hall. Rhys wasn’t there. Odo and Hew, her loyal cousins, saw her stricken expression and hurried toward her.

  Seated at the high table, Madoc looked up from his mug of ale and saw her. “Well, she took her sweet time dying.”

  Keely stepped back a pace as if she’d been struck. Her flawless complexion paled to a deathly white. All around her sounded the shocked gasps of the Lloyd clansmen and retainers. How dare Madoc speak of her gentle mother in that despicable manner. Intending to set him straight, Keely started toward the high table, but her cousins reached her in time to prevent the confrontation.

  Odo and Hew were larger than most men and possessed in brawn what they lacked in intelligence. Standing on either side of her, the brothers held her arms and warned her to silence.

  Odo, the older of the two, nodded in the baron’s direction. “Baiting him will serve no purpose.”

  “Where is Rhys?” Keely asked.

  “He rode out earlier to go raiding,” Hew answered.

  That surprised Keely. “You mean, he went raiding even though my mother was near death?”

  “He had no choice,” Odo told her.

  “Madoc ordered it,” Hew added.

  Keely stared with barely suppressed rage at her stepfather, who sat like a king at the high table.

  “Where’s my supper?” Madoc demanded, banging his fist on the table. “Bring more ale. I cannot celebrate my freedom without ale. And I want Elen with the big teats to serve.”

  Heeding her cousins’ advice, Keely turned away, her ebony hair swirling around with her movement. She left the great hall and headed for the kitchen. Like two gigantic hounds, Odo and Hew followed behind her.

  “Greetings, Haylan,” Keely called, crossing the kitchen to the middle-aged cook.

  “I’m very sorry for Megan. Such a wise and gentle soul,” the older woman said, hugging her. “’Tis the baron’s loss, though I doubt he realizes it.”

  “Grief makes Madoc hungry,” Keely told her, blinking back tears. “Serve supper promptly, and be certain Elen attends the baron.”

  Haylan nodded and then shouted, “Elen!” Answering the call, a pretty serving girl appeared and hurried across the kitchen toward them.

  “Deliver this to the high table,” Haylan ordered, handing the girl the bowl. She yanked the girl’s bodice down a couple of inches. “Cleavage comforts a grieving man. Be kind to the baron.”

  “I hope my kindness will kill him,” Elen said with a grimace.

  “You know my mother’s last wishes,” Keely said, turning to her cousins. “When supper is done, clear the hall for the deathwatch. I‘ll return then.” With that, she left the kitchen.

  * * *

  Three hours later, Megan Glendower Lloyd lay in state inside the torch-lit great hall, her simple wooden coffin resting on trestles. Wrapped in her white robe, Megan appeared to be sleeping.

  Keely walked into the nearly deserted hall. With her ebony mane cascading to her waist in pagan fashion, she wore her own white ceremonial robe and the blazing dragon pendant. In her hands she carried a fresh bouquet of oak leaves and mistletoe.

  Odo and Hew stood beside the bier and waited for her.

  “Have you seen to the grave?” Keely asked.

  “Dug where you wanted,” Odo answered.

  “And the cross?”

  “Carved to your order,” Hew said.

  Keely nodded with grim satisfaction and placed the bouquet across her mother’s chest. Then she sat on a wooden bench beside the bier.

  Odo and Hew sat down on either side of her. Faithful Haylan walked in, carrying her own stool, and sat with them in silence. Finally, Madoc arrived and took a seat on the bench next to Odo.

  “Keeping the watch means losing a good night‘s sleep,” Madoc complained.

  “It’s the least you can do to honor a loving wife who died trying to give you another son,” Keely shot back.

  “Megan was never a loving wife,” the baron grumbled, his voice filled with bitterness. “Her heart always belonged to him. Never me.”

  Keely froze. He spoke of her father. Had Madoc known him? Keely opened her mouth to question her stepfather but felt her cousins’ hands touch her forearms, warning her against rash speech.

  An hour passed. And then another.

  “I’m thirsty,” Madoc announced, breaking the silence as he rose from the bench. “I’m in need of something fortifying. I’ll be back.”

  He left the hall and never returned.

  Father Bundles arrived in the crowded great hall an hour before dawn. As he made his way through the mob of clansmen and retainers, the old pr
iest muttered under his breath about the earliness of the hour. Burying a body in the middle of the night was barbaric. And that was before he saw Keely.

  Keely looked like a pagan princess in her flowing white robe. Around her neck hung a wreath fashioned from oak leaves and mistletoe.

  “Shame on you for wearing that to Megan’s funeral,” Father Bundles scolded her. “You’ll be needing my absolution before the sun sets this day.”

  Keely arched a dark brow at him. “I honor my mother’s memory, Father Bundles. If you want to waste time in sermons, we’ll forgo the funeral mass. The choice is yours.”

  Father Bundles scanned the crowded chamber. “Where are Baron Lloyd and Rhys?”

  “The baron is sleeping off the effects of his drinking,” Keely told him, “and my brother is busy plundering the English.”

  “‘Tis an unnatural family,” the old priest grumbled.

  “These friends have come to bury Megan,” Keely said, gesturing toward the crowd. “Please begin the service.”

  With Odo and Hew acting as pallbearers, Father Bundles led the way from the great hall to the chapel. Keely walked behind the casket, and everyone followed her.

  The old priest opened his mouth to pray, but Keely called out, “Celebrate the short mass, Father. Megan desired a dawn burial.”

  Father Bundles’s expression told Keely that Madoc would hear of her blasphemy. The short mass took exactly twenty minutes.

  “Megan will not be interred in the Lloyd vault,” Keely announced. “My mother wished to enjoy the rising sun for all of eternity.”

  Though he looked ready to explode, Father Bundles swallowed his fury. Expressing anger in the house of God was a terrible sin.

  Keely pulled her hood up to cover her ebony mane and led the unusual funeral procession out of the chapel. Carrying the casket, Odo and Hew followed her. Behind them walked Father Bundles and then a piper playing a mourning lament. The baron’s clansmen and retainers marched behind in silence.