The Unwilling Bride

by Margaret Moore

BY THE TIME MERRICK CAME into the room, Constance was sitting up in bed, her heart pounding, her curiosity roused to an almost unbearable degree.

  Yet even so, as he ran his gaze over her, her body reacted instinctively, as if it were his hands and not his eyes, and she was naked, not clothed in a thin silk shift.

  “I hope I haven’t disturbed you,” he said.

  “No.”

  “Does your head still hurt?”

  “No.”

  He nodded and started to leave.

  “Merrick!”

  She scrambled out of bed and reached for her bedrobe, ready to ask about that lie, until he regarded her with those cold, dark eyes.

  “Where’s Henry?” she asked, desperately seeking something else to say.

  “Now that his injuries have been attended to, he’s in the kitchen, eating.” Merrick hesitated a moment, and his expression clouded as he continued. “It’s been a long time since his last meal.”

  “He’s cleared of all suspicion?”

  “Yes.”

  “He must understand how it looked.”

  Merrick didn’t meet her steadfast gaze. “I should never have doubted him.”

  She clutched the bedrobe about her. “What of Lord Carrell and your uncle?”

  “They are on their way to the Tower, well guarded and in chains.”

  “What will happen to Beatrice?”

  “Her family is to be stripped of all lands, but she may retain her title, and I’ve asked that she be placed under my protection.”

  This unexpected act of generosity only added to the puzzle that was her husband.

  What kind of man was he? An evil blackguard guilty of some heinous sin, or a generous nobleman who would take pity on a young woman who might suffer because of someone else’s treason?

  She had to find out. She couldn’t live another moment with that question on her mind. “What did you mean in the monastery when you said that you had lied and would release me from our marriage? Have you committed some foul crime?”

  She waited, poised between hope that he was innocent of anything terrible and fear that he was not.

  Merrick stood as still as a statue, his face like a stone effigy’s. Then he slowly turned on his heel and went to the door. He put his hand on the latch.

  Constance wouldn’t run after him and beg for an answer. “I can’t live with uncertainty and dread, as I did when your father was alive,” she said, her heart a dull, cold ache of disillusion. “If you won’t tell me, I’ll imagine the worst and seek to have our marriage annulled.”

  Merrick bowed his head. His shoulders slumped. For a long, long moment she watched and waited, not daring to breathe as he stood motionless, the very image of forlorn misery.

  Then he shuddered, as if he was shaking off some great weight. After the spasm passed, he turned back, his eyes full of such anguish and remorse, they were almost unrecognizable. But the tight resolve of his jaw—that bespoke her husband, as did the deep furrows of concern upon his brow.

  When he finally spoke, his voice was almost unrecognizable, too, full of raw emotion and ragged sorrow. “I have lied to you, Constance. I’ve lied to everyone.”

  He spread his hands in a gesture of submission and his expression settled into hopeless despair. “I’m not Merrick.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “I’M BREDON, THE SON OF TAMSYN. Peder’s grandson.”

  Impossible! He couldn’t be. Bredon was dead. He’d drowned. He was dead. Drowned.

  As her mind struggled to understand not just what Merrick had said, but his remorseful attitude, Constance felt for the end of the bed and sat heavily. “But he…he died! Everyone knows he drowned in the river.”

  Merrick shook his head. “No, I did not.”

  “But…if he didn’t die—”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Then what happened? You…you’re…how did you come to be Merrick?” She gasped and covered her mouth. “What happened to him?”

  “He died. In the ambush on the way to Sir Leonard’s.” He took a deep breath, then the words seemed to fairly pour out of him, like a stream in flood in the spring. “I went fishing at the river, and a man came to me there—a nobleman, dressed in such finery as I had never seen. He asked me if I wanted to meet my father, and like the curious child I was, I said yes. That man was Sir Egbert.

  “But he didn’t take me to my father. We rode a long way, to join a cortege. There was another boy there—Merrick. My height, my coloring. They put me in his clothes, and he wasn’t pleased about being dressed in mine.

  “Sir Egbert told me I was going to get to ride a pony—and whatever happened, I was not to say a word.”

  Merrick looked without seeing at a tapestry on the wall of a group of ladies seated in a garden. “After the attack, I fled until I could run no more, and the next day a patrol from Sir Leonard’s castle found me.

  “I was too exhausted and terrified to explain what had happened. Since I was dressed like Merrick, and there was no one to say otherwise, they assumed I was the heir of Tregellas. Yet…” His words trailed off as she stared at him, still too shocked and dumbfounded to speak.

  Merrick finally fixed his steadfast gaze on her. “Bredon’s body was never found, was it? And he disappeared just after Lord William’s son was sent north to be fostered.”

  “Yes—but…but you knew the castle the day you arrived. You never asked where the solar was.”

  “An educated guess. Norman castles are much alike.”

  “You recognized Sir Jowan.”

  “A lie.”

  “And Talek?”

  “Him I did know, from when he’d come to the village with Lord William’s noble son. My mother warned me to stay far away from them both, and I did.”

  She studied his face, his hands. “You look like Lord William.”

  “I may not be Merrick, but I am Wicked William’s son. Although my mother wouldn’t admit to anyone else whose get I was, she told me, swearing me to secrecy. She wanted me to know I had the blood of nobles.”

  “So you switched places with Merrick?”

  Merrick grimly nodded. “Although I didn’t know it then, I later realized that if we were attacked, I was to be a decoy. The real Merrick was dressed in my clothes and put among the servants with the baggage carts, presumably for his safety.”

  “Instead they killed everyone except you.”

  “Everyone but me.” He took another deep, shuddering breath. “When I understood their mistake, I was afraid to tell the truth. What if Sir Leonard thought I’d lied on purpose? What if they believed I’d been trying to trick them? I was so frightened, I didn’t know what else to do, except become Merrick and pray that Lord William wouldn’t come. If he did, I’d try to escape, somehow.”

  “But he didn’t.”

  “No. When I realized he wasn’t going to, I felt a little safer—but never completely.”

  “Is that why you didn’t speak for so long after the attack?”

  He nodded. “I didn’t understand the Norman tongue, so I didn’t dare talk until I learned enough to get by, and when I thought I could sound like a Norman nobleman’s son. It was weeks before I ventured even one word, and then I was afraid to say much.”

  No wonder he was so reticent, even now.

  “Later I couldn’t risk going home in case my ruse was discovered, although I sorely missed my poor mother, and Peder, who was like a father to me. I knew they would be worried about me, wondering what had happened. If only I could have found a way to tell them.”

  He bowed his head. “When you told me my mother had killed herself believing I was dead…” His voice dropped to a tortured whisper. “Now she suffers in eternal torment because of my lie.”

  Constance rose and put her arms around him and held him close. “We will have prayers and masses said for her,” she promised. “I’m sure God will understand. She was as good as murdered by the men who stole her son and made her believe that he was dead.”

 
Merrick gripped Constance tightly, as if he were falling and she the rope to save him.

  “You are too good for me, Constance. Far, far too good,” he murmured before he pulled away and walked to the delicately arched window.

  When he faced her again, he cleared his throat and his voice was stronger, firmer, when he spoke. “I had decided before I returned to Tregellas that I would break the betrothal and set you free. It was no more than you deserved. But I discovered I had not the strength. I did remember you sitting in a hay field—that was no lie—and when I found a woman the same and yet, oh, so different, I could not give you up. But never, ever was I so tempted to reveal my secret as when I was with you in the first days of our marriage, and never was I more ashamed of my great lie.

  “Yet what would become of us, of me, if I told you? I feared you would hate me for deceiving you. So rather than reveal my secret, I tried to keep my distance, and even to push you away before I told you what I’d done.”

  He looked at her with bleak, pleading eyes. “In spite of all my resolve, I was too weak to stay away from you. Even after we quarreled, I simply couldn’t resist the need to be with you. To touch you. Kiss you. Caress you. To show you how I truly felt, no matter how I behaved toward you.

  “But I love you, Constance. I would have done anything for you—except tell you the truth, because it meant I might lose you. I was wrong to deceive you, and, worse, my actions put you in danger. As Merrick’s wife, you were in harm’s way. If you’d not been Merrick’s wife, you would have been safe.”

  He took hold of her hands and gazed at her with all the intensity of his passionate nature. “You must be safe, Constance, and you should be free. You were married to a base pretender under a false pretext, and no law will uphold our deceitful union.”

  Her heart swelled with sympathy. With compassion. With love. “Do you truly love me?” she asked softly.

  He looked down at their clasped hands. “I’ve loved you since I was ten years old, and I’ll love you until the day I die.”

  “What will become of you if the truth becomes known?”

  He shrugged.

  This air of defeat was at least as distressing as his revelation. Where was the strong, decisive warrior? She must get him back. “Who do you suggest I marry, my lord?”

  He dropped her hands and stepped back as if she’d hit him. “What?”

  “Surely if you’re so eager to be rid of me, you must have some idea who you think will make a good husband for me. Henry, perhaps, although he has no land? I would suggest Ranulf…except his position is the same. Sir Jowan? Or would you have me wed one of the queen’s French relatives, who knows nothing of this land or Tregellas? Because if I’m no longer married to you, the king will probably marry me off to a member of his wife’s family. A fine fate,” she said grimly, “and after you’ve spoiled me for another man by making me love you so much, my heart will surely shrivel and die if you leave me.”

  As his wife’s smile lit her features and her brilliant blue eyes shone, the mighty lord of Tregellas’s face flushed and he stammered, “That’s not…I…you still love me?”

  “Yes, I still love you, with all my heart.” She took his hand and led him to the bed, sitting upon it and pulling him down beside her. “But there’s no need to give up Tregellas, my beloved lord, because whether you’re Merrick or Bredon, it’s rightfully yours as Lord William’s only surviving son. Didn’t you read your father’s will? Your father said that if he died without legal issue and his illegitimate son by Tamsyn was found alive, he was to inherit Tregellas.”

  Merrick—Bredon—stared at her with dumbstruck disbelief. “Algernon said my father never made a will.”

  “He lied, my love, blatantly lied, and had I known of this sooner, I would have realized he was not to be trusted.”

  Although she could easily believe Algernon had lied to Merrick, another explanation came to her. “Or perhaps he truly didn’t know,” she mused aloud. “He was in York when your father had it written, and it could be your father never told his brother because he hated him. Maybe he thought if Algernon knew about the will and its contents, he’d try to steal or destroy it.”

  “Maybe he already has,” Merrick suggested, as if he didn’t dare to hope.

  “I doubt it. Your father kept the key to the chest holding the important documents on a chain around his neck, and the solar locked, too, when he wasn’t there. Algernon would never have had the chance to take it from the room before you came.”

  Merrick gave her a look of bleak dismay. “If I’d known what was in that chest, I would have kept it locked, too. And the solar. But I haven’t. It’s possible Algernon found it after I arrived.”

  “But there’s a copy in the cathedral in Canterbury, and another in Westminster,” Constance hastened to assure him. “Your father sent them there for safekeeping. Remember, he trusted no one. And even if Algernon somehow managed to have them destroyed, Alan de Vern witnessed it, and the scribe who wrote it still lives. I’m sure that poor man remembers every word. Your father was not an easy man to please.”

  Despite her revelations and assurances, Merrick still didn’t look relieved, or joyful. He was puzzled, confused. “Lord William acknowledged me? Did he not believe I’d drowned?”

  She shrugged her shoulders and wished she knew what had been in his father’s mind. “I don’t know. He never spoke of Tamsyn’s son, not once in all the years I was with him.” There was one reason she could give that made sense of the will of the late lord of Tregellas. “I suspect it’s more likely that he was trying to make trouble for Algernon, whom he loathed and believed was conspiring against him—which, we now know, he was. By putting that clause in his will, Algernon would have to go to great lengths to prove that you were dead. It would tie him up with legalities for months.”

  She gripped Merrick tighter at the thought of so much malignant hate, pondering what else Wicked William might have done. “I fear your father may even have planned your abduction, using an innocent child to protect his own son, or taking you to torment your mother and grandfather. Peder made no secret of his hatred for Wicked William.”

  “If my father knew about the ruse, would he not suspect it was the impostor, and not his son, who’d survived?”

  Her heart ached because of what she had to tell him, but she had known his father well, as he had not, and she wanted no more secrets between them. “Perhaps he did know, and didn’t care. He gave no sign of affection toward Merrick while he was alive, although he was his son. He loved nothing except his castle and his money, and he feared nothing more than losing them, even to a son. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn he had wanted you both dead. By killing everyone in the cortege, he would do away with both his sons and Egbert, leaving only Algernon to fear. That would also explain why he sent his brother with the cortege instead of taking his son himself.”

  Merrick sucked in his breath. “There were accidents when I was training and in tournaments. I often wondered…feared…He must have been mad.”

  She looked into her husband’s eyes and spoke firmly. “Whatever he was, you’re the lord of Tregellas by right of birth, for there is no other living child of Lord William. And more, you’re the lord of Tregellas because you deserve to be.”

  He still looked uncertain. “I hope the earl thinks as you do, and the king.”

  “You’re going to tell them? There’s no need—”

  “Yes, there is,” he insisted. He brought her hands clasped in his to his chest and regarded her with grim determination. “As I love you, Constance, I won’t lay the burden of living with this lie on you.”

  “But I gladly accept it,” she replied, not understanding why more people needed to know. Those who hadn’t known Wicked William might question why he’d lied for so long.

  Then another explanation came to her and it made her gasp with dismay. “Or do you fear I’ll betray you?”

  “I know you won’t,” he said softly, and with a sincerity that reassured h
er. “Yet I also know what it is to live with the dread that one slip of the tongue, one incautious word, will be your ruin. Most of all, I fear that you’ll come to resent having to keep this secret and, therefore, me.”

  “I won’t,” she vowed.

  “I wish I could be as certain of that as you, but I would always be seeking the signs that you grow weary of that cross, as I’ve watched for signs that people suspected I was not nobly born for fifteen years. I’m going to tell the earl of Cornwall the truth. And Peder, too. I especially want him to know his grandson is still alive.”

  When Constance saw Merrick’s firm resolve, she knew nothing she could say would dissuade him. This, too, was part of the man she’d married. “I’ll go with you when you speak to the earl, to tell him that whatever happens, I’ll still be your wife. I love you, whatever your name may be.”

  “And if he imprisons me for my ruse?”

  “Then, my lord,” she said, as resolute as he, “the earl had best be prepared for the battle of his life. You are the rightful heir of Lord William, and not only do I love you, I care about the people of Tregellas. I would go to war to win you your lawful rights and keep Tregellas out of the king’s—or the queen’s—hands.”

  At last he smiled, and in a way she’d never seen before, as if he had lost a heavy load he’d carried for too long, and was finally free. “I think you could defeat even the king and all his counselors. With you by my side, how can we lose?”

  “Then you’ll fight for what is yours in law?”

  “Yes,” he whispered as he leaned in to kiss her.

  Excited passion flickered through her body as it had when they’d first married. The desire that she had tried to stifle in more recent days broke free. She laughed with the joy of it, even as they kissed.

  He drew back, puzzled.

  “I’m happy.”

  He smiled slowly, wonderfully. “I’m happy, too. Truly happy.”

  “And come what may, I am yours forever, Mer—Bredon.”

  “As I am yours,” he whispered, his voice husky with need as his hands opened her bedrobe to reveal her thin shift. “And I have been Merrick for so long, I hardly recognize my rightful name. I’ll feel like you’re talking to somebody else if you call me Bredon.”