The Rose Red Bride JK2

by Claire Delacroix

  Vivienne bit her lip, as if knowing her suggestion would be unwelcome. “Perhaps the spriggan Darg accompanied us. She alone holds a grudge against you.”

  “And an unjust one at that!” Rosamunde’s eyes flashed. “I told Elizabeth to command her fairy. I cannot return the hoard to Ravensmuir, not now, so there is no wager to be made.”

  “But what of your ring?” Erik asked, noting Rosamunde’s barren finger. “The silver ring that the spriggan demanded as her due? Surely if you have surrendered it to her, this fairy has no cause for complaint?”

  Rosamunde’s eyes narrowed but before she could reply, Vivienne turned upon Erik in astonishment. “You acknowledge the existence of the spriggan?”

  Erik had felt the spriggan, when she had been tangled in the seaweed, and he was fairly certain of the source of the malicious laughter he had heard since. He was not prepared to admit as much openly, however, so ignored Vivienne’s query.

  Rosamunde, to his surprise, flushed like a maiden and dropped her gaze. “The ring is gone. I hold it no longer.”

  “But if you surrendered it to the spriggan, then there should remain no issue,” Erik said carefully.

  Ruari snorted. “Fairies are a capricious lot. There is naught to say that this Darg would stand by her wager even if it was accepted immediately, let alone days after it was made.”

  But Erik was intrigued by Rosamunde’s discomfiture.

  “It was not mine to surrender,” she said gruffly, her gaze flicking as if she would look anywhere rather than meet the gazes of the others. “It is returned to its rightful owner, and thus beyond the reach of both myself and this spriggan.”

  Erik heard a small scream, seemingly wrought of frustration. He considered that Darg might argue the rightful ownership of that ring.

  “Which means,” he concluded, “that there is no way to sate the spriggan for her terms cannot be met.” A weight landed on his shoulder then and he heard a small cackle close to his ear. It seemed that the spriggan chattered agreement, though he could not fully discern her words.

  Perhaps she spoke another language than the ones he knew.

  “The ring is at Ravensmuir,” Rosamunde admitted. “For it is Ravensmuir’s ring and rightly belongs there.”

  “Why did you leave it there?” Padraig demanded. “We could be lost at sea for all time, if you have not the ring with which to wager!”

  Rosamunde’s cheeks stayed ruddy and Erik guessed that she told but half the tale. “I thought this spriggan would remain with the ring, and we would be readily rid of her.”

  Padraig shook his head and rubbed his brow. “But instead we are doomed, doomed to be lost at sea for the sprite cannot have her due.” He granted Rosamunde a stern glance. “Unless you can make another wager that will please the demon.”

  Rosamunde pursed her lips. She paced, she frowned, she folded her arms across her chest. She surveyed the chamber with a bright eye, clearly seeking some sign that the spriggan was amongst them.

  Erik felt that slight weight upon his shoulder ease closer to his neck. He dared not move, for he knew not what the creature meant to do. A tiny claw clutched at his earlobe, then words resonated in his ear. They were words not carried on anything so mortal as a breath, but words he heard all the same.

  When he realized their import, he repeated them aloud.

  “Debts must be paid or they stay due, the fey have far less patience than you. The ring of kings is my sole demand, and I will have it from any hand. Be Rosamunde dead or alive, still she will render my prize.”

  “So, you would talk in verse, lad?” Ruari asked in evident surprise. “What madness is this? You have no need for this ring.”

  Erik felt the back of his neck heat. “It is the spriggan. I can hear her and these words are her own. I but repeat them.”

  Vivienne’s lips parted with awe. “You can even hear the spriggan?”

  “Evidently so.” Erik felt no small measure of embarrassment to be proven so wrong and before the company as well. The little claw tugged at his earlobe, then the whisper sounded again.

  “Debts can be rendered in many a way, though the price grows higher with each day. Tell her then to make me an offer: I may be fey but I will barter.”

  Erik repeated this as well and the company exchanged glances. Rosamunde sighed and stared at her boots for a long moment before she spoke. “If I return to Ravensmuir, which would be a breach of my own pledge to never cross that threshold again -”

  “A pledge you have already willingly broken,” Padraig interjected, earning a dark glance for his trouble. Rosamunde folded her arms across her chest, looking fully discontent with what she meant to say.

  “If I so do, and if I pledge to try to retrieve the ring while there, will the spriggan aid us?” she asked, her manner revealing her own opinion of this course. “There is no way to claim the ring while we are at sea.”

  All looked expectantly at Erik, but he could hear no whisper. The grip upon his ear was gone, as seemingly was the weight upon his shoulder. He turned, looking about himself for some hint that the spriggan still remained in their company. He could not see Darg, nor could he hear any sound from her.

  But he saw the ledger, fat with parchment once again. “Are your observations returned?”

  Rosamunde pivoted, gasped, and fairly fell upon the ledger, her features lighting as she turned the pages within it. “They are all returned!” she said with amazement. “And as neatly as if they had never been gone.”

  The bell rang with greater vigor from the deck and the sailors above gave a shout. “The fog clears!” one shouted. “It blows away with uncommon speed! Come and see!”

  Padraig hastened out of the chamber, then the ladder creaked as he climbed to the deck. “Ha!” he shouted, only half out the hatch. “He speaks the truth! I can see the blue of the sky.”

  Rosamunde laughed aloud. She clutched the book in both hands and raised it high. “We sail for Scotland!” she cried with evident delight. “We said this very day, first for Helmsdale and thence to Ravensmuir.”

  Padraig ducked his head back into the hold and granted Rosamunde a grim glance before he met Erik’s gaze. “And you may tell your fairy that I shall ensure that there is no breach of this pledge.”

  “You?” Rosamunde asked with a smile. “Your word is worth precious little.”

  “I may have a fondness for the sea, but not to the point of being lost upon it,” Padraig retorted. “Indeed, I lose my taste for such adventures. I will complete this journey with you, Rosamunde, for I have agreed as much, and this despite the fact that my pledge is worth so little. But then I yearn for the sun of Sicily. I will sail forth from that isle no more.”

  He climbed fully to the deck then, leaving Rosamunde astonished behind him. She pursued him but a moment later. Ruari turned a merry eye upon Erik and Vivienne eased closer to his side, her eyes sparkling with laughter.

  “So the spriggan has chosen you,” Ruari said with no small measure of amusement.

  “Darg takes our side in persuading you of matters unseen,” Vivienne added.

  “It was but a verse or two,” Erik said gruffly, as if they made too much of too little, and they laughed at his manner.

  Ruari shook a finger at him. “You cannot fight the truth, lad, that much is certain. If you deny what is evident to all, then it shall be made evident to you, in one way or another.”

  “And you cannot trick a fairy,” Vivienne added. “Even Rosamunde has learned as much.”

  “He probably saw the fairy all along,” Ruari teased, then granted Vivienne a knowing glance. “But meant to share your bed for as many nights as possible. After all, you were determined to show him the power of the unseen.”

  Vivienne opened her mouth, then closed it again, her wondrous eyes filled with shadows when she glanced at Erik once more. Perhaps Ruari did not know that Erik and Vivienne did not meet abed any longer. Erik did not care. With that comment, with the lady’s disappointment, the moment had lost
its camaraderie for him.

  “Only a knave would so inconvenience an entire company for his own pleasure,” he said and turned away from Vivienne.

  Only a knave despoiled a maiden and did not honorably wed her. It seemed that Erik not only heard the voice of the spriggan but that of his father, as well.

  Perhaps it was not so surprising that both fairy and father so vehemently agreed.

  * * *

  Darg appeared to have considerable influence with the weather. The winds changed as soon as Rosamunde struck her wager with the spriggan, and the ship was fairly driven back toward Scotland’s coast. They drew near the coast near the Firth of Forth and the entire crew cheered as one.

  The ship was turned north with many hands lending their weight to the rudder. They made uncommon speed and Vivienne knew that soon Erik would see his home again. He took to standing at the rail, pointing out this landmark and another to Ruari, his excitement a tangible thing.

  Erik did not so much as glance her way, though Vivienne awakened more than once in the night in the ship’s hold to find his heat beside her. He did not touch her, much less caress her, but the bite of the wind was cold and Vivienne was glad of his heat.

  She hoped she might gain more from him in time. She prayed that she bore his son already.

  But when Vivienne learned for certain, it was not the truth she wished it to learn. On a night that the moon was just past full and riding high in a clear sky, she awakened in the midst of night to a warm trickle on her thighs. She eased aside the coverlets and let the moonlight fall upon her flesh. The red blood there made her heart plummet to her very toes. There could not longer be any doubt.

  She had failed to conceive Erik’s son.

  Vivienne’s tears fell then at her failure, for she had been so certain that their efforts would see the matter quickly resolved.

  She cleaned herself with haste and bound a length of linen around herself, then wrapped her cloak more tightly about herself. Erik still breathed with deep regularity and she was loathe to awaken him with such tidings. She eased closer to his heat, though, feeling the cold more keenly in her disappointment. She willed herself back to sleep, resolving to tell him the truth in the morning.

  A resolve grew within her in the darkness. Vivienne was far from prepared to abandon this quest. There were twelve more moons in their handfast, and that meant twelve more chances to conceive a son.

  The wager was not lost as yet.

  * * *

  Erik had felt Vivienne stir in the night. He had heard her gasp of surprise and had watched through his lashes as she discovered the blood upon her thigh. He knew the import of that blood and was disappointed that there was no lingering bond between them.

  He was touched by her dismay. She thought herself unobserved and further, her response seemed to come from her very core. He understood then that she had truly wished to bear his son, that she felt the failure as keenly as he, that he had been a cur to doubt her. When she nestled beside him again, he felt her tears touch his shoulder.

  Vivienne had not lied to him. The truth of it was inescapable. She had lied to her family, against all expectation, and she had done so to aid his quest.

  In return, Erik had taken all she offered and granted her naught.

  But he had naught to grant, not until he reclaimed Blackleith. No man could offer honorably for a woman in marriage without property beneath his hand, without some means of providing for her and any children they might bear. He had wronged Vivienne with his distrust, but it would only compound his error if he dishonored her now with an empty promise, with a pledge for what he could not guarantee.

  Erik wanted to console Vivienne in this moment, he wanted to ease the tears from her cheeks and coax the return of her smile. He wanted to put the sparkle back into her eyes, but he dared not reveal to her that he was awake.

  Indeed, it took all within him to keep his arm from tightening around her. He turned as if in sleep and touched his lips to her temple, and she burrowed her face into his chest. Her hair was spread across them, their cloaks were unfurled over them, the softness of her skin touched his own flesh in a thousand paces.

  And Erik knew that they were entwined in more ways than that. He loved Vivienne, loved her impulsive nature and her confidence, loved that she was unafraid of any peril, that she would pay any price to see a just goal achieved. He loved how she opened like a blossom beneath his caress, loved how they seemed each wrought for the other. No other woman would ever touch his heart as she had done. He loved that she gave of herself unstintingly, fully confident that her gifts would be repaid in greater abundance.

  He wanted to be the one to render the balance due to her.

  He loved her, but he had not the right to tell her as much.

  Not yet.

  Erik would confess his love only in triumph. He feared that Vivienne would accept him for the offer of his love alone, even if he remained a failure.

  But she deserved better than love alone. She deserved wealth and security, a home and a hearth, a husband and a future filled with promise. Erik could not offer the ending of the tale that she deserved, not on this morning, and if he never could offer it, then Vivienne would know nothing of his love for her.

  He knew, however, that he would yearn for her for all his days and nights. He wanted to fulfill her maidenly dreams, he wanted to offer her those three nights of courtship and that red red rose wrought of ice. It might prove to be impossible, but Erik wanted the chance to try.

  When Vivienne slept deeply again, Erik eased from her side. Praise be that Ruari had held fast to that saddlebag, for it contained the length of tartan, the yellow chemise and the sturdy leather boots in which Erik was more comfortable. He shunned the southern clothing that the Earl of Sutherland had granted to him, and dressed in his familiar garb. He retrieved his father’s blade from the tumble of Vivienne’s clothing, for he suspected he might have need of it, and shoved it into the back of his belt.

  He stared down at her, watching the moonlight play upon her cheek, and committed her features to memory. He would never forget Vivienne Lammergeier, and he praised the instinct that had urged him to seek out the one woman who had spurned his brother.

  He might have little to offer her in this moment, but he would not leave Vivienne without some token of him. Erik took the silver pin that had been his mother’s most prized possession, the silver pin that adorned his own cloak and had drawn Vivienne’s eye more than once, and laid it beside his lady’s hand.

  Her fingers spread across the silver, then closed surely around it. She sighed in her sleep and rolled to her side, pulling the pin to her chest in her closed fist.

  Erik took that small gesture as a good portent.

  He reached out a fingertip and touched her cheek one last time, his heart aching when she smiled and turned her lips against his palm, her lashes barely fluttering. A tendril of her hair twined around his fingers, as if it would hold him fast by her side forever.

  Vivienne sighed, her breath as light as a summer breeze, the stains of her tears yet upon her cheeks. Erik vowed to himself that he would return to her in honor or die trying.

  The lady deserved no less than his all.

  * * *

  Erik silently roused Ruari, not allowing himself a backward glance. The older man seemed to sense his intent, for he dressed quickly and hastened to the deck behind Erik.

  Ruari did not ask about Vivienne.

  The coast rose ruggedly to their west, within easy proximity mist swirled in patches over the silvery sea. The fat moon sank toward the horizon and the few clouds to the east were already touched with pearly light. To Erik’s relief, Padraig kept the watch. As he anticipated, that seaman was readily bribed and an arrangement was made both swiftly and quietly.

  Erik and Ruari rowed to the shore in the borrowed boat with Padraig huddled between them. None of the men spoke, and they exchanged the barest of nods when Erik and Ruari climbed out of the boat in the shallows. Padraig rowed b
ack toward the ship with powerful strokes.

  Erik strode through the water to the shore. He reveled in freedom of movement offered by his tartan, the way that his old boots with their perforations did not hold the water. His feet and his legs would be dry before they had walked a mile, while that southern garb left a man sodden all one day and the next.

  Erik liked the feel of the rock beneath his soles, the shimmer of the heather, now in full bloom, across the hills. The River Helmsdale climbed before him, its every turn and leap as familiar as the lines in his own palm. He knew where to cast a lure for salmon, he knew where tiny sea pearls could be found, he knew where every ancient stone stood sentinel. He took a deep breath of the crisp cool air and felt an ease, a contentment, settle in his veins anew.

  Erik was home.

  He felt a new measure of hope, a new prospect of success. When last he had stood so close to Blackleith, he had been certain only of his ultimate and inevitable failure.

  Vivienne had taught Erik to see promise where he had perceived there to be none. Vivienne had taught him to believe that all was possible. And now that his very sinews were healed and he was as hale as ever he would be, Erik found himself anticipating his encounter with his brother, however it might end.

  Erik also found himself less persuaded that he approached his own doom. Perhaps it was folly, but that hope made it easier to turn his back upon Rosamunde’s ship and the lady who would hold his heart for all eternity, made it easier to turn his face toward Blackleith once more.

  “Do you mean to go to the Earl of Sutherland’s hall from here?” Ruari asked, but Erik shook his head.

  “We go to Blackleith. The Earl will not grant aid to me without the son he demanded as his terms.”

  Ruari hesitated. “There is good and bad in the Earl, to be certain, but he might be amenable to a request for aid. Do not be so hasty to discard a potential ally, lad, for it is difficult indeed to find a man inclined to stand at one’s back.”

  Erik shook his head again. “This battle is mine alone.”