by Susan Wiggs
Resolute, she raised her chin. She was the Demoiselle de Bois-Long, daughter of the warrior Aimery. She’d not allow the English king’s minion to wrest power from her.
With a last look at her own haughty face, cold eyes, and stubborn chin, Lianna followed her aunt to the chapel portico to await her bridegroom.
* * *
Walking through a cloistered upper gallery on his way to the chapel, Rand paused. Rain had cleansed the air, scented it with springtime. He peered through the open stonework at the courtyard below. A group of women stepped from the door of the Tour du Roi and moved toward the chapel.
His eyes flicked over the group; coldly he noted that the blue-and-silver costume looked lovely on the bride. Then he recalled his first glimpse of her, whipping a servant. Red had suited her better.
His hand went to his throat. He felt for King Henry’s talisman, then remembered he’d flung the jewel away in anger after leaving Lianna for the last time. Grimly he continued walking. After two steps he froze. In abrupt disbelief he reeled back to stare. Something about the gowned and veiled woman beckoned to him. Her back was to him, yet her movements seemed oddly familiar.
His hands, suddenly cold and damp with sweat, gripped the stonework ledge of the cloister. Leaning forward, he squinted through the sunlight and felt an unexpected yet undeniable attraction. Small and trim, she walked with light, purposeful steps at the head of the women. Disjointed images swan into his mind; Lianna walking beside him, her feet kicking up the hem of her smock. Lianna defending her mistress to him. Lianna tapping her finger against her chin in that appealing gesture of deep concentration.
Jack Cade appeared at his side. “All is ready, my lord. I’ve the rings here—” He stared down at the group in front of the chapel. “I see your bride awaits.”
His face alight with cautious joy, Rand faced his scutifer. “My bride...” His voice trailed off as he swung back to stare at her. She reached the chapel and turned. Jewels flashed in her veil. Her finger lay poised delicately at her chin.
“Sweet lamb of God.” Rand’s heart leaped. His spurs clattered over the flagstones as he began to run.
* * *
Armor, ill concealed by Burgundy’s scarlet raiments, glinted in the sun as her uncle strode forth and took both her hands. “Belliane, you look so—”
She snatched her hands away. “Do not think I go willingly to this marriage.” Her voice and eyes were glacial.
Burgundy took hold of her arm more forcefully. Leaning forward, he said with quiet menace, “My patience is spent. You will behave cordially.”
Feigning indifference, she turned a disdainful glare to the crowd outside the chapel. The Bishop of Tours stood solemnly in his rich vestments. English men-at-arms, their garb bearing the hated leopard device, gaped at her, as did the castle folk. Beside the bishop stood another cleric, who bore the blunt features of a Saxon and a look of piety Lianna did not quite trust. Peeking from the sleeve of his robe, she noticed, was a bit of leather oddly like a cuff used in hawking.
Hawking... A memory emerged from the confused thoughts stewing in her mind. Rand had once mentioned a priest who had a fondness for hawking and hunting. Her stomach plummeted to her knees, and her head began to pound. Rand. The name might be a diminutive of—
“Enguerrand of Longwood comes,” said her uncle.
She turned.
He smiled.
It was all she could do to choke off the scream that climbed from the depths of her heart into her throat.
Blazing with power and confidence, wearing a white tabard adorned with a golden leopard rampant, he approached. His face wore the look he’d given her a hundred times, the look that had the power to melt her soul. His clear, leaf-green eyes danced with elation; his golden hair shone in the noontide sun.
Dear God in heaven, Rand. Enguerrand of Longwood. She trembled all over, inside and out, as Burgundy propelled her forward. Her hands, balled into fists at her sides, were ice-cold. So, she hoped, were the eyes with which she raked him from head to toe.
“You...” Her voice was a harsh, tortured whisper.
“Neither dreams,” he murmured as he bent, adorning her cheek with a kiss, “nor even prayers could have so happy an answer.”
Stung by his kiss, his words, and her weak-kneed reaction, she pulled away. Betrayal burned in her heart. The man who had pledged his friendship, who had made her life bright with promises, was the god-don who had abducted her, who meant to steal her home and her dignity. And, sweet Virgin Mary, she might be carrying his baby. No French heir, but an Englishman’s child.
Staring hard at his face—so alight with joy, so devoid of guilt—Lianna heard her uncle speak. “Let the ceremony begin.”
In a ringing voice the Bishop of Tours blessed a pair of jewel-encrusted rings, held on a velvet pillow by Jack Cade, the mawkish herald Lianna had driven from Bois-Long. She cringed when the deed of settlement was read. All her worldly goods—her property, even her body—were given unto Enguerrand Fitzmarc, first Baron of Longwood. She belonged to him—but desperately, silently, she vowed he’d never own her heart.
The bishop called for the common consent. She nearly spoke her protest aloud. Catching a look of dark fury from her uncle, she quelled the impulse.
“Then let him come who is to give away the bride.”
Burgundy’s fingers closed around hers.
“And let him give her to the man as his lawful wife.”
Dazed by fury and heartache, she felt Burgundy place her hand into Rand’s keeping. A shock of sensation stung her. Recoiling like an exploding cannon, she pulled away from him. His touch had lost none of its potency. She was shamed by her reaction to the man who had duped her, used her, mangled her heart, and stolen her innocence. Ah, said a niggling voice at the back of her mind, but you were only too eager to give him that innocence. Such are the wages of the deception you practiced.
His face soft with an affection she now knew to be false, Rand took the smaller of the golden rings from Jack. He slipped the ring on and off three successive fingers of her right hand, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, then placed the ring on her left hand.
His voice echoed across the crowded yard. “With this ring I thee wed, with this gold I thee honor, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow.”
He proclaimed his vows like a love song, striking a chord of response in Lianna that rang in her soul and left her shaken.
Duchess Margaret’s women sent up a collective sigh. With annoyance Lianna heard their whispers of admiration for the handsome Englishman.
Her fingers numb, she took the other ring, repeated the empty gesture and unfelt vows in a flat, lusterless voice. Rand stiffened beside her. So. She’d managed to communicate her displeasure, to penetrate his armor of self-confidence.
When she reached the end of her vows, Lianna went still. She knew well what was to come next—knew and resisted it with every fiber of pride she possessed.
“We are waiting, my lady,” Burgundy said icily.
“No,” she whispered. “No, I won’t—”
“You will prostrate yourself before your husband.” His eyes told her that this was her punishment for defying him, for bringing in his enemy to defend Bois-Long.
Cheeks flaming, she sank to her knees and bowed her head in a deep curtsy of submission. She clenched her eyes shut. She had lost all to deceit and treachery. The utter humiliation of the gesture sapped her of strength.
The crowd buzzed. A strong hand closed around hers. Slowly, as if waking from a bad dream, she dragged open her burning eyes and lifted her pounding head.
And found herself face-to-face with Rand.
Amazement flooded her mind. He had knelt before her, proving to all the celebrants that he and his wife were equals. Like a warm balm, the display soothed the sting of her mortification.
No, he lies even in this, she thought. Still, he’d saved her honor, her dignity. She let him raise her to her feet. Burgundy’s face pi
nched with displeasure as he led the way into the chapel, where the bishop’s clean white hands blessed the couple and lifted the Host in a mass of celebration.
“You’ve a right to be angry, my love,” he whispered. “But remember, I, too, have the right. You’ve installed an outlaw knight at the castle given to me. Now I must risk myself, my men, wresting it from Gaucourt and Mondragon.”
“My heart bleeds for you, my lord,” she said.
His eyes glinted with the soft, diffuse light of many candles. “You are not the fawnlike creature I met in the glade, but a warrior-woman. I must get used to that.” Firmly he took her hand. “And so I shall. Lianna, this marriage is what we have both wanted.”
“I wanted to be loved by the man I believed you to be,” she stated. “Not used and betrayed by a god-don.”
“We will be happy together.”
“We will be enemies forever.”
* * *
The music of timbrels and viols rang through the grande salle, mingling with the lively sounds of celebration. Despite his anger at his niece, Burgundy had spared nothing in staging the wedding feast. Sideboards groaned under the weight of puncheons of wine. Trenchers of boar’s meat, roasted onions, and spring pease littered the trestle tables. The wedding guests exclaimed over a subtlety of pastry and spun sugar, fashioned into a replica of lilies and leopards.
All during the feast Rand had wanted to shout his elation to the rafters. Even Lianna’s coldness and the fact that she’d spared but one dance for him could not dampen his spirits. He had forgotten her deceit; she would forgive his. Once they were alone in the nuptial chamber, he’d show her they were not meant to be enemies, but lovers. Husband and wife.
Blessed by destiny, he lifted his cup to acknowledge yet another toast given by one of his men. He drank deeply, then leaned back to savor a keen joy as he watched his wife sweep through the processional steps of a ductia on her uncle’s arm.
“You look like the fox guarding the henhouse.”
Rand set down his cup and grinned at Jack Cade. “I’ve found better than that.” His attention drifted back to Lianna. Her face, expressionless yet unutterably lovely, glowed in the light of the chandelier suspended above the dance floor. Slim as a willow, she moved with natural grace. The thought of reclaiming her body sent anticipation burning to his loins.
“By St. George,” said Jack, “I cannot credit this change in you. Only yesterday you were stalking about like a chained bear, cursing the fates that linked you with the demoiselle.”
“That was before I realized who she was.”
“I thought you saw her when you went to secure the boat at the river.” Jack slid an admiring glance at Lianna. “How the hell could you mistake a face like that, a body like—”
“It wasn’t her I saw. That woman was the wife of Gervais Mondragon, not Lianna.”
Jack set down his mazer with a clatter. “Lianna?”
“Aye.”
“Holy Mary.”
“You were the one who saw her, Jack, when you took the letters to Bois-Long.” Pain twinged in his upper arm: the arrow wound. “All you could prate about was her maid. Why didn’t you tell me of Lianna’s beauty? You might have spared us all a harrowing night.”
“By the rood, it was all I could do to bear her insults and save my hide from her cannonade.”
Rand frowned and sipped his wine. “I had her in the palm of my hand and knew it not.”
“How the devil did she conceal her true identity from you? And you your own from her?”
“When we first met, she would say only that she was Lianna, a gunner’s daughter, an orphan. She knew better than to reveal to a stranger that she was the demoiselle.”
“Aye, she’d be a valuable hostage, were you of a mind to seize her.”
Rand nodded. “I had reasons of my own for not revealing myself to her. She heard the echoes of my father’s native Gascony in my speech, and so dubbed me Rand the Gascon.”
“Bones of St. Peter, and you trysted with her all these weeks. What in the name of heaven did you talk about?”
Nothing, Rand reflected, and everything.
Jack stared. “I warrant you did little talking at all.”
Rand laughed loudly. The sound brought a glare from Lianna, her eyes flashing silver fire.
“God in heaven, but she’s passing fair,” Jack breathed. “Yet were that look a naked blade, you’d be a dead man, my lord.”
Rand met her furious stare, smiled, and waved. “She is still distraught.” Guilt stole the smile from his face. He remembered the way she’d fought when he’d dragged her through the water. Unknowingly he’d plunged her into the danger she feared above all others. Half to himself he said, “When her heart catches hold of the idea that we are well and truly wed, she’ll come to see the wonder of it.”
“I’d not taint your elation with doubts, my lord, but think on it. ’Twas the knight Rand who won her love, not Enguerrand of Longwood.”
“We are one and the same, Jack.” But even as he spoke, he felt dread pushing into his mind, thoughts he’d fled from ever since finding his bride on the church steps. He stared at her, saw resentment in her stiff posture, defiance in her marble-hard features. Reluctantly he admitted, “She loved a man who exalted her—her mind, her body, her soul. But she will resist the man who comes to take her castle, her lands.”
His face grim, Jack nodded. “You can’t trust a word she says or a move she makes, my lord.”
Avoiding the troublesome thought, Rand remembered the pleasures they’d shared, pleasures they would repeat for a lifetime to come. As he finished his wine, a new notion entered his mind—an idea that had until this moment been lost amid the drama of surprise and excitement. Lianna was married when he’d first made love to her, yet she’d been a virgin. With a shaking hand he set down his cup. Had she? Or had he been so ignorant of womanly matters that he hadn’t known the difference? Angry at the thought that Lazare Mondragon might have been her first, Rand resolved to discover the truth...tonight.
At the end of the great hall a man burst into the room. Bearing an urgent look and the dust of a long and frantic ride, he approached the Duke of Burgundy. Seeing Lianna left without a partner, Rand strode across the hall.
She aimed a haughty look at his proffered hand. “I am weary of dancing and must visit the garderobe.” She sounded so different when she spoke English—harsher, a stranger. She swept past him.
Annoyed by her blatant snub, he moved to follow her. Burgundy’s voice stopped him. “A word with you, my lord.”
The harried messenger left to avail himself of the lavish fare. Rand followed the duke to his privy apartments. Light from a taper picked out Burgundy’s stony features. Rand studied his host. Crafty and manipulative, Burgundy was a man to be respected...but not trusted. By chance or by design, he’d dispensed with Lazare Mondragon as if Lianna’s first husband were no more than an annoying mayfly. Although Jean the Fearless lived up to his title, Rand recognized tenseness in the man’s shoulders, shadows of trouble in his blue eyes.
“Ill news, Your Grace?”
Burgundy’s lips thinned. “Aye. The Armagnacs are en route to lay siege to my town of Compiègne.” Anger simmered beneath his calm speech. “If I don’t reach Compiègne with a sizable army, the town will be lost.” He scowled. “I must leave here by dawn. My men will have to ride hard to intercept the Armagnacs coming from Paris.”
Like a sudden frost, understanding gripped Rand. “You’ll need, of course, every available man at Le Crotoy.”
Burgundy nodded. Rand’s heart sank. Instead of spending his wedding night with the woman he loved, he would be busy preparing to join a feud of foreigners. “I’ll alert my men.”
“No, no.” The duke made a dismissive gesture with his hand. “You’ve but ten men. I was speaking only of those directly in my service. I wanted to inform you of Armagnac’s treachery because it changes your plans.”
Rand’s hands curled into a fist. On the morrow
he was to have ridden for Longwood with a hundred of Burgundy’s men to retake the château. Impatience niggled at him. Burgundy might not return for weeks, even months.
“I mean to take Longwood,” he stated. “If I’ve but ten men at my disposal, that number shall have to suffice.”
Burgundy’s eyes lit with a mixture of admiration and annoyance. “What madness is this? Ten men couldn’t take so much as a single stone of that keep. Stay, my lord, at Le Crotoy. Your men are will content here.”
“Every day Mondragon holds Longwood, his claim strengthens. I won’t sit idle while my castle is usurped.”
“You’ll do as you must, then. But I cannot help you.”
Rand stared at him thoughtfully. An uncertain ally, the duke. Ever quick to duck obligations, commitments. Burgundy had promised to support King Henry’s claim to the French throne. Would he avoid that alliance, too?
The chamber door banged open. Wild-eyed and panting, Jack Cade burst inside.
“My lord, your wife—” He gulped for air, sketched a stumbling obeisance to Burgundy. The sounds of shouts and running feet filtered into the room.
“What, Jack?” Rand demanded urgently.
“She’s gone, my lord!”
* * *
The wind soughing through the eaves chilled Lianna. She’d shed most of her clothing in order to make her climb to freedom. Her feet clad in thin slippers, her hair freed of its gem-encrusted veil, and her body garbed in a tunic purloined from the laundry, she edged along the wall of the Tour du Roi.
Glancing up, she saw with satisfaction that the window of her room loomed far above. Glancing down, she saw that the moat shimmered far below. She pictured herself falling into that inky maw. Fear gripped her. She began to sweat. Her heart pounded and her breathing quickened. Then, focusing on her goal, she exerted a stiff control over her terror.
The stone of the limewashed wall felt cold. Already her fingers were raw. Her limbs shook from the effort of climbing. She had to get to the south face of the tower; torchlight from the bailey would not reach her there. Tamping back a thrill of fear, she concentrated on moving downward swiftly, silently, and—God will it—safely.