Susan Spencer Paul

by The Bride Thief

  “Lady Alicia?” Isabelle asked, touching his arm lightly, with sympathy.

  He nodded. “He gave me the land then, as well as the purse of gold to help pay for the repairs. I had the manor house built at once, and the stables and smithy. Then, as I was able, other repairs were made to the keep and walls. Not that any of it mattered, for she would not live here. She found the idea equally amusing and distasteful.” He looked at her suddenly, as if he had only just remembered her presence, and his eyes narrowed. “How did you know of Lady Alicia?”

  She was momentarily taken back by the curtness of his tone, and replied, timidly, “Evelyn spoke of your former betrothal. She is acquainted with Lady Alicia.”

  “I see.” He lifted his gaze to the hills once more and was silent.

  “Justin…” Isabelle began softly, but he abruptly turned and headed back toward the stairs.

  “It will be getting dark soon.”

  “Justin, I’m sorry for having mentioned Lady Alicia, but—”

  “I would ask this of you, Isabelle,” he said, stopping by the stair entry, not looking at her. “Do not speak of Lady Alicia to me, or in my hearing. I will always try to speak truthfully and openly with you, but I cannot speak of her. It is very…difficult.”

  “Yes, Justin,” she murmured quickly, pushing aside the sharp pain that the evidence of his love for another woman gave her. “I understand, my lord.”

  He held out his hand. “Come, then. I want to show you the soldier’s quarters before we must return to ready ourselves for tonight’s celebration.”

  In the cool of the early evening, while the night’s feast was being prepared and while Justin closeted himself in his working chamber with Kayne to discuss all that had occurred in his absence, Sir Christian claimed Isabelle’s company for a walk through the keep’s inner garden.

  “Do you look forward to your return to Briarstone in the morn, my lord?” she asked as they seated themselves on a small bench beneath the branches of a scraggly oak tree.

  “Aye. It will be good to be home again,” he replied. “Briarstone is a fine place, as well as one of the oldest castles in England. It was completed in the year of our Lord 1025, and was counted as one of the finest defenses in the land during William the Conqueror’s time.”

  “You must be very proud to have such an estate,” Isabelle said.

  He nodded. “There is none other like it, I believe. Briarstone is a refuge for all the unfortunate. We are none of us well or highly born, and none smooth or polished. ’Tis a rough crowd, and yet the yield of our crops are so fine that brokers in London fight over the honor of selling them. Three years past we added five thousand acres to our holdings, and this coming harvest will yield twice what it did then. We have been very fortunate.”

  The mention of brokers and the London markets caught Isabelle’s attention. Which brokers? she wanted to ask. She personally knew all of them in London, and had spent long hours discussing financial matters with most of them. She opened her mouth to launch into a discussion of current crop rates, which she had always found to be a fascinating topic, but Sir Christian spoke first.

  “We owe most of it to Justin, of course. I doubt we would have prospered so well without him, despite the help we received from both the lord of Gyer and the earl of Siere.”

  “To Justin?” Surprise tingled all the way up Isabelle’s spine.

  “Aye, to Justin.” Sir Christian leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. “I will speak the truth, my lady. I did not ask you to accompany me here simply to enjoy the cool night air. I wished to tell you something of Justin. He has been my good friend these many years, and I would have him be content in his marriage. You do not yet know him well, as I do, but he was badly hurt once by a woman whom he loved, and I do not wish to see him hurt again. I do not think that such is your intent, but, perhaps, if I tell you something of Justin, you may be more…inclined to be kind to him.”

  “I mean to be kind to him,” she whispered, horrified and embarrassed.

  “Oh, my dear Lady Isabelle,” Sir Christian said with quick and warm reassurance, “I did not mean to say that you did not. Indeed, have you not already been wonderfully kind in wedding yourself to a man who is nearly a stranger to you, simply to save his lands? But I have sensed this evening that all is not well. Only this afternoon there was contentment between you and, aye, even happiness, which existed since before we left Siere and which had given me great hope for your future together. But now it is all gone. You seem unhappy, and Justin seems confused. And here am I, ready to leave for Briarstone, where I will do naught but worry. I know Justin well, you see. He is too gentle in many ways, much to his own suffering. If you are unhappy with him, he will not know what to do, and if you do not understand him well enough to help him, my lady, then the knot may never be untangled.”

  Isabelle released a long breath and folded her hands together to keep them from trembling. “You are mistaken, I think, my lord. There is no knot. Sir Justin wed me to preserve his lands, and that aim has been achieved. There is nothing more to the matter.”

  “Is there not? I do not deny that he wished to keep his lands. And what man would not? But if that had been his only reason, he could have chosen any woman.”

  Isabelle looked at him sharply. “Very well. He also took me because he wished to hurt my uncle. For revenge, and for the skills I might bring him. He never would have chosen me otherwise.”

  “It is not so, but I cannot think of the way to convince you of it. Will you let me tell you something of Justin, my lady? Perhaps, afterward, you will understand him better.”

  Silently, she nodded.

  “Ten years ago, I was given the ownership of Briarstone by Sir Hugh Baldwin, who was not yet then the earl of Siere. The estate had once belonged to my elder brother, John, but he had foolishly gambled it away to Sir Hugh while they served together in France under King Henry, may God rest his soul. John was killed at Agincourt, and Sir Hugh returned to England to take up his place as the master of Briarstone. Fortunately, for those of us who lived there, he brought Lady Rosaleen with him, although none of us knew that she was the heiress of Siere, not even Sir Hugh, who mistakenly thought her a commoner. When all was at last settled between them, and when they had married and Sir Hugh had been made the earl of Siere, Briarstone was given to me, as I was my late brother’s rightful heir.

  “I was ten-and-eight years of age,” he said, his voice wistful, “and fully afeared to find myself suddenly responsible for such a large estate and so many people. But Sir Hugh had ever been good to me, and he sent his twin brother, Father Hugo, as well as his youngest brother, Justin, to Briarstone to lend me aid. Justin and I are of a like age, and we became friends. I had never had a close companion before, and he had not, either. It was good to have someone to talk to, someone to listen and understand. Although our births were of a different order, he being nobly born and me being a bastard, we had shared similar childhoods. When I told him that I had lived much of my youth in fear, he knew very well what I meant I will not speak of that, for if Justin would have you know more, he will tell you himself.

  “We were strange young men, my lady. Quite strange and quite dull.” Isabelle turned to look at him, and he gifted her with a warm smile. “We were solitary, and too serious-natured, I think. Justin would beat me senseless if he knew I told you this, but he had never even been with a woman before coming to Briarstone.” He grinned at her. “The whores there had a wonderful time teasing him, and teaching him, too, i’ faith, although I don’t suppose I should tell you any of that. But it was truly most entertaining, if you could but envision such a thing. He was full grown, a man in every way, and, as a knight of the realm, had even killed other men, yet he would blush as readily as a shy young maid when one of the women would so much as wink at him.” He chuckled, and Isabelle found herself smiling, too, for she could indeed see her handsome husband doing just such a thing.

  “Those first three years were hard,” he
continued with a sigh. “So hard, my lady. We labored long, in the fields so that we might pay our debts at harvesttime and have enough left over for all that was needed. More and more people arrived as word of Briarstone spread among the desolate and poor. We could not turn any away, as long as they agreed to share in the work, for how could we be so hard-hearted? But there were many mouths to feed, and never enough food. The castle was overflowing, and we required new buildings to properly house our people. We had once, before Sir Hugh had come, been forced to steal from our neighbors to survive, but Father Hugo would not allow such as that while he was there, and, in truth, we were all loath to return to the practices we had worked so hard to put behind us. For a time, we did let some of the women who wished to run a whorehouse.”

  Isabelle’s eyes widened. “And Father Hugo allowed that?”

  “He had little choice. He did not like it, but he liked much less seeing the children crying from hunger, their already small bodies growing thin and ill. It was not long after that Justin decided he must do something to bring sufficient money to Briarstone so that the whorehouse would not be necessary.”

  “Justin? Even though it was not his estate?”

  Sir Christian nodded. “Even so. He decided that he would follow the tournaments in England, and whatever prizes he won would go toward supporting Briarstone, at least until the estate was profitable on its own. He did not have to do so, but he wished to help me, his friend, and he had come to love the people there as much as I did. Justin has a good heart, my lady.” He held a fist to his chest as if to prove the fact. “A very good heart.”

  “The tournaments,” she whispered. “He could have so easily been killed. Or maimed.”

  “Aye, s’truth,” Sir Christian agreed. “I did not want him to attempt it, nor did Father Hugo, but we could not stop him. He was the only one among us who possessed the skills for such gaming, although he had undertaken to train me and several of the other men in the ways of war and fighting. You do not know your husband well yet, my lady, but he never undertakes to do anything save that he does so with his whole being. He went out to follow the tournaments—I went with him in the beginning—and he won the choicest prizes at each one that he entered. For three years he did nothing else, and not only did he keep Briarstone from ruin, but he also began to put a measure aside for himself, looking to the day when he would no longer be able to support himself through such gaming. It was during this time that he began courting Lady Alicia, and later determined to gain Talwar through a plan I had conceived.”

  “He would not speak of her,” Isabelle murmured. “He told me not to mention her name. How much he must have loved her.”

  Sir Christian frowned “Aye, he loved her, although I have never been able to fathom why. She was very beautiful, and a nobly born lady, but she was seldom kind to him, and usually unkind. But Justin has ever been one who dreams, and his dreams always seem very true and real to him. He believed that Lady Alicia loved him, and he believed that, once he had made Talwar perfect for her, she would be ready to wed him and live here. To Lady Alicia’s credit, I cannot say that she ever purposefully led him to think that such things were true, but Justin had his dream and could not let go of it. When she left him to marry a wealthy commoner, he was grievously wounded. I cannot speak of those days, for the memory is awful to me. He was as one gone mad, and I think he wished to die, for he went back to following the tournaments and was reckless, disregarding every form of safety. His brothers finally had him disqualified from participating, and he returned to Talwar. He has lived here for the past four years as little better than a hermit, save for his occasional visits to Briarstone.”

  “He has been content?” she asked softly. “He said that he did not wish to wed.”

  Sir Christian’s shoulder’s lifted in a light shrug. “He has been content, I believe. As to wedding, he did not wish to suffer again as he had suffered at Lady Alicia’s hands. She told him that he was insufferably dull, you see, and that she would not be bound to a dullard. He believed her, my lady, and did not think another woman would find him any better. Until he met you, I vow. He set sight on you, my lady, and decided that the two of you could be very content together. I will speak the truth and tell you that I believe he is possessed of another dream. He has decided that you will be happy as man and wife, and he will not believe otherwise unless you give him cause.”

  “But do you think it can be so, my lord?” Isabelle asked. “Could it be?”

  “That depends upon you and Justin, my lady. You care for him, do you not? I have seen you look at him in such a way that gives me hope.”

  “I care for him,” she whispered. “But he… I do not know if feels the same. He says often that his desire is for us to be content, but I do not know if he and I share the same meaning of the word.” She lowered her eyes to look at the hands she held clasped upon her lap. “I do not know what to think. Or what to believe. You have truly given me much to think on, my lord.”

  He set a hand over both of hers, squeezing lightly. “It is all that I could hope, that you would consider these things before being so certain of Justin’s feelings toward you. There is more that I could speak, things that, if you knew them, would lend you much assurance. But they are for Justin to speak of, if he will, and I will not abuse his trust. You are a fine, grand lady, Isabelle Baldwin,” he said, standing and pulling her to her feet. “If Justin can find happiness on God’s earth, it will surely be with you.”

  Chapter Nine

  The evening was clear, and pleasantly cool for midsummer. Justin stood in his bedchamber by his favorite window—the one that opened toward the hills—and gave himself over to the deep pleasure of being home. He had always loved coming back to Talwar, but this time was different. Special. Better. This time he had brought a wife, and what had once seemed good now seemed perfect. Only one more thing was necessary to complete his happiness, but he knew he would have to be patient in waiting for Isabelle to bear him children.

  He wondered if she was ready for him to come to her yet. A glance at the door adjoining their chambers showed that it was still partly open, that the candles were still glowing, and he was tempted to move quietly and peek through the tiny crack and see what she was doing. They had retired over an hour earlier, under the speculative interest of the boys and Christian, whom they’d left playing games before the fire in the great room below. Birgitte had followed to help Isabelle prepare for bed, and Justin had gone into his own chamber, where he had listened unrepentantly to the sounds of the women’s voices as Isabelle undressed and washed and brushed her hair. He had attended to his own preparations, shaving and washing the dirt from their day’s journey from his body with a cloth and a basin of warm water. He had even attempted to comb his long, unruly hair into some manner of order, although he doubted the effort did much good.

  Birgitte had left Isabelle’s chamber some minutes ago, and all had become quiet. Justin stayed where he was by the window, waiting. He did not think he had ever desired a woman as much as he desired Isabelle. Even Alicia, whom he had loved, had not haunted his dreams as Isabelle so constantly did. But then, Alicia had never been withheld from him. They’d become lovers almost immediately after they met, and he had merely had to look at her to have her. It was the one way that he had ever been able to please her. The only way—in bed, but never out of it, no matter how much he had wished it otherwise.

  It would be different with Isabelle. He felt the truth of that in every part of his being. The first time he had caught her looking at him at Sir Myles’s house, trying not to be seen doing so, he had known. She had looked at him the way he had always dreamed Alicia would, as if he were fine and good, as if he were…well, pleasing. It was no small thing to be regarded in such a way by Isabelle’s beautiful blue eyes. He had understood the value of it at once, and he thought, now, that it must have been then that he began to want her for his wife, although he hadn’t actually made plans to steal her for many days after.

  He
had been delightfully surprised—and pleased—by her calm, assured behavior earlier in the day, when they had first arrived at Talwar and she had so quickly and readily charmed first the boys and then Gytha and Meg. There was obviously a great deal more to Isabelle than he had realized, a great deal more for him to learn. Just as she had much to learn of him. But they had time now. Years. A whole lifetime, if God was gracious.

  Pushing from the window, he walked to the adjoining door, running his hands through his hair and hoping that she would find him acceptable to gaze upon.

  “Isabelle?” he said softly before setting his hand on the knob. “Isabelle?” He opened the door and stuck his head around it to peer into her chamber.

  She was sitting on the bed in her nightdress—the same one she had worn when he stole her. Her feet were bare and linked together at the ankles, her hands were clasped on her lap, her eyes were cast down. Her unbound hair hung over one shoulder in a smooth black waterfall that reached all the way to her knees.

  “Good eve, my lord,” she murmured.

  She sounded sad, and Justin wondered if she was simply nervous or was still overset by his earlier refusal to speak of Alicia. Despite the fact that he had once been betrothed and was now married, he had not learned much of the ways of women. How long did such wounds last, he wondered?

  He regretted deeply the way he had behaved earlier. It had been naught but cowardice to turn away, to tell her not to speak of Alicia to him, or in his hearing. For a horrible moment, he had heard his father’s voice coming out of his mouth, speaking in the cold, despotic manner Justin had always hated. He remembered the shadows that had clouded Isabelle’s eyes for the remainder of the day, even during the feast that Meg had so carefully prepared. She had grown reserved, and the warm intimacy they had enjoyed since their last day at Siere had vanished.