Three Book Collection

by Vane, Victoria

  “What?” Mati swallowed hard.

  He did not drop his gaze from hers. “Marry me.”

  “I don’t know you.”

  Gareth looked away and released his breath explosively between his teeth. He turned back to her, and when she met his eyes, she could find no hint of desire there, as if it had never been. “Your stepfather and I have struck a bargain.”

  Mati felt the world tilt, and she drew her hand away to steady herself on the bench, not caring anymore if she gave offense or not. Sir John knew of Roland then, and was sending her away. She prayed that she would not be sick there in front of all the keep.

  “You and I will marry, and then return to my lands in Angelsey.”

  Mati breathed deeply, trying to stay in control herself so that she would not weep. “When was he going to tell me?”

  “Tomorrow, I think. Your mother does not know yet.”

  “Are you sure you want to strike this bargain, my lord? My dowry can’t be much, and we met only today.” She wondered for a foolish moment if she might talk him out of it.

  Gareth’s thumb rubbed the center of her palm, and she gasped as if he had touched her more intimately. Mati felt sick to her stomach, but did her best to hide it. The fact that she could not respond in kind to his warm desire was not this man’s fault. It was not his fault that her heart was already given to another.

  “I am the one gaining in this bargain, my lady.”

  Mati breathed deeply to fight her nausea down. All Norman women were given in marriage to men they did not know. She had known most of her life that this would be her fate. But since she had loved Roland, she had prayed by some miracle, by the will of the Prince of Powys, that she would be allowed to marry him. Mati felt a strong, sharp pain just above her heart.

  Though Roland had been gone for two months, though there was no word from the Prince of Powys with the offer of a renewed alliance between her family and Sir John’s, she had still hoped. She had not known how much hope she had clung to until she lost the last of it. She spoke the one truth she knew would not make her weep. “Well, I know my stepfather will be glad to be rid of me.”

  “Then he is a fool.” Gareth tilted her chin up to better see her eyes. She tried to hide her pain from him, but when he lost his smile, she knew that she had failed.

  Chapter Nine

  The next day, Roland came home. He rode into the keep and left his horse in the bailey with a groom. He climbed the stairs into the house two at a time, his long legs eating up the ground in huge strides. A man at arms began to speak to him as he passed, but when he saw the look of fury on the young lord’s face, his greeting died on his lips.

  Roland burst into his father’s antechamber. The priest stopped writing the letter Sir John had been dictating to the king and stood up from his place at the oak table. Sir John stopped his pacing and turned to face his son. “Do you no longer ask permission to come into this chamber?”

  Roland breathed deeply, trying to gain control of his temper. “I would speak with you alone, Father.”

  Father Philip waited, his eyes on Sir John. When his lord nodded, Father Philip carefully rolled up the parchment he had been working on. With a bow, the usually gregarious priest left the room without a word. Sir John sat down heavily in a carved oak chair.

  Roland spoke, his face very pale. “Father, is what I heard in the village true?”

  “What, my son?”

  “Is it true that you have arranged for Mati to marry a savage?”

  Sir John shifted in his chair, and reached for the tankard of ale on the table. He took a sip, and leaned back, looking at his son. “It is true that she is to be married to a Welshman.”

  Roland looked away, trying to control his breathing. For a horrible moment, Sir John thought he might weep.

  “Why?” Roland asked, his voice strangled in his throat.

  “The girl is fifteen. It’s high time she married. This marriage will return her to her own people. She has always wanted that.”

  Roland turned on him. “Did she tell you that?”

  Sir John saw the pain in his son’s face, but kept his voice neutral. “She did not have to.”

  “So she’s agreed to this?”

  “I did not ask.”

  Roland tightened his hands into fists, then let his breath out slowly and unclenched them. “Do you know what she is to me?”

  “I do.”

  “And that is why you arranged this marriage.”

  Sir John stood up, the gout in his leg paining him so that he grimaced. “Son, I did not raise you to chase after barbarians.”

  “She is not a barbarian!”

  “That is not what others will think. And she is penniless.”

  “She has her father’s lands.”

  “No.” Sir John stared hard at Roland until his son met his eyes. “We have her father’s lands. If I had arranged for you to marry, she would have brought no wealth into the bargain. Marriage is not for pleasure, boy, as you well know.”

  Roland turned his back on his father. Sir John took a deep breath. “Son, you must admit that your judgment is clouded where the girl is concerned. You will see, sooner than you realize, that I am right in this matter. And you will thank me.”

  Roland’s answer came in a strangled whisper. “I will marry her.”

  “You will do as you are told, just as she will.”

  Sir John sank back onto the hard oak chair, wincing as his son slammed the door behind him.

  Before the meal in the great hall, Mati walked the castle ramparts, feeling like a caged bear. She had wild thoughts of riding to Brittany to find Roland, of defending herself as she traveled with the hunting knife he had given her when they were children. She might shoot down any man who tried to molest her the same way she brought down deer with her new bow.

  Mati tried to push such thoughts away as the madness they were. She knew that she must go down to the evening meal, smile at the man who would be her husband, and eat without being sick. She dreaded the charade. She had no idea how she was going to do it, even for an hour, much less for the entire meal. She wanted to stay hidden on the roof forever.

  Though no one else knew where to look for her, Roland knew her well. She felt his presence before she saw him.

  She did not turn to face him, but stood looking over the forest below, taking in the scent of sandalwood on his clothes. His hands slid up her arms and came to rest on her shoulders. When she spoke, her voice sounded strange in her own ears, like the voice of another.

  “Has he told you then?”

  Roland’s voice was hoarse. “I heard in the village.”

  Mati closed her eyes and reveled in the warmth of him against her back. She leaned against him for a moment, and they stood in silence. When she spoke again, her voice was more her own, and she tried to make it lighter than she felt, as if a false lightness might deflect both their pain. “I’m sorry you heard it from a stranger.”

  “As long as it’s true, it doesn’t make any difference who I heard it from.”

  “No.”

  A breath of wind came up, and lifted her hair back from her face. She took a deep breath of the clean air scented with pine, and thought for a moment that it was a wind from her homeland, sent from the dragon under the mountain to give her strength to bear the pain she felt.

  But she knew she was a fool. There was no dragon, and she had found her home in the arms of the man she loved.

  She turned to Roland and buried her face in the warmth of his tunic. He clutched her close, his hands on her back, his arms a bulwark against the rest of the world.

  “I can’t do it,” she said, tears clogging her throat. “I can’t marry him.”

  Roland’s lips were on her hair, and then they slid down to her temple. When she kept her head down, and her face hidden, he spoke low in her ear. “I told you, Mati. You’ll marry no one but me. Fear nothing. I will handle this. I’ll worry about tomorrow.”

  She raised her face to his
and he kissed her, his lips the most comfort she had ever received. She could not imagine that heaven might hold anything more blissful than the feeling of his arms around her and his lips on hers. She dried her eyes, drawing back from him.

  “I love you, Roland.”

  He did not answer but kissed her again before they both went down to the great hall where his father and her betrothed were waiting.

  Mati entered the hall with Roland and went to her usual place beside her mother. Before she could seat herself, Sir John called to her from the other end of the long table. “Sit here, Matilda, with the man you are to marry.”

  She felt Roland tense behind her, and she prayed he was not reaching for a weapon. She did not look at him but moved as calmly as she could to sit beside Gareth of Angelsey. She kept her face a blank mask.

  “Good evening, Mati,” Gareth said, his eyes watching her as if she were a puzzle he might solve.

  “Good evening, my lord.” She took a sip of red wine, and watered it so that she would not lose her head. She needed her wits about her. She could feel the heaviness of Roland’s gaze from across the great hall.

  Gareth must have seen him, too. “Is that the man you’re in love with?” he asked.

  She choked and set her wine goblet down. “I beg your pardon?”

  “I’m not blind, Mati. I may have only met you yesterday, but any fool could see that you’re in love with someone else. Is that the man?”

  She met Gareth’s eyes and saw only kindness in their green depths. “Yes,” she answered. “I am.”

  “And he loves you?”

  Mati knew that she should hold her tongue. At the very least, she should change the subject. But she had been a forthright person for most of her life, save for Arabella’s teachings on how to rule men, teachings which had done her little good. “Yes,” she said at last. “He is.”

  Before Gareth could answer, there was a scuffle at the edge of the hall as a troop of Welshmen came in, still armed from their long ride. The Normans all around reached for weapons automatically, but Mati stood up with a cry of joy, and Margaret did as well.

  “Unwynn!” Margaret said, greeting the brother she had not seen in years.

  Mati did not hesitate but ran to her uncle. He took her in his arms and hoisted her high. “I’ve news for you, little Mati. And for your mother, too, if you’ve a bit of time for me before you dine.”

  The rest of the Welsh party sat down to eat as Sir John Ellsrod and Margaret came to meet him. Mati watched as her mother kissed her brother’s cheek, all their past held between them in the love and silence that lingered. It was Sir John who spoke.

  “What news from the Prince of Powys, Unwynn?”

  “News of a marriage for this one, if you’ve time to hear me out,” Unwynn said, patting Mati on the back. She still had not let go of him.

  “Unless you want to dine first,” Unwynn amended.

  Sir John sighed as they brought the roast boar into the hall. “We’d best talk upstairs, now,” he answered.

  Mati was sure he thought to leave her and her mother behind, but her heart had started to pound, hope coming back to life in her breast as she said a prayer to the Holy Mother. So she stayed with her uncle as her mother did, and they followed Sir John upstairs to his antechamber. Mati caught Roland’s eye and found that he was just behind her, and that Gareth was right behind him.

  “Well,” Unwynn said. “We’ve quite a party gathered up here. I thought it only took a man and a maid to make a wedding happen.”

  “Well, Mati has more than one man who wants her,” Gareth said.

  Mati went to stand beside her mother, but she did not take her eyes off her uncle.

  Roland glowered by the door, and Gareth looked him over while Roland ignored him.

  Sir John sighed and sat down in the room’s only chair. “Speak your piece, brother-in-law. There’s a boar downstairs that needs my attention.”

  Mati clutched her mother’s hand.

  “Well,” Unwynn said again, “The Prince of Powys has asked that I offer you Mati’s hand in marriage for your son, Roland. We’ve fleshed out her dowry and added to her lands in the hopes that you will consider our suit in an effort to keep the peace onward into the next generation.”

  None of them men present mentioned what a hopeless task that likely was. Mati found that she cared nothing for the peace, only for her own future. Her mother’s hands held hers tightly, and squeezed hers in sympathy.

  “I’ve already accepted the suit of Gareth of Angelsey, cousin and kinsman to the Prince of Angelsey, for our Matilda,” Sir John said.

  “Ach,” Unwynn said. “That is a conundrum.”

  Gareth spoke then, his eyes on Mati. “I can assist, perhaps. The Prince I serve was unaware that the Prince of Powys wanted to continue the treaty that was forged by Lady Margaret and Sir John Ellsrod with their marriage. We, too, wish to honor and keep the peace. Though Matilda is a beautiful woman and worthy of my hand, I will stand aside in favor of the interests of Powys.”

  Sir John smiled as if he were not fooled. “In the interests of keeping the peace,” he said.

  Gareth smiled back at him. “Yes.”

  “Well, Mati, this concerns you most. Do you want to go home with Gareth here or do you want to stay with us?”

  Mati blinked hard to keep tears of joy from blinding her. Even now, something could go wrong, and ruin it all. She prayed Roland would use his good sense, and stay silent.

  “I would like to stay, and honor the peace of Powys,” she said.

  “And marry my son?” Sir John asked.

  Mati met Roland’s eyes. “Yes.”

  Sir John looked to him. “Roland?”

  “I love Matilda. She is the woman of my life. It would be my honor if she will consent to be my wife.”

  Mati stepped away from her mother and Roland met her in the center of the small room. He took her in his arms and looked down into her face.

  “Do you consent, Mati?” he asked. “Will you have me?”

  Mati felt tears rising in her eyes. “Yes, I will.”

  “Well, if that’s settled, let’s eat,” Unwynn said.

  Gareth bowed to her and went downstairs with her uncle, Lady Margaret and Sir John on his heels. Mati stayed in Roland’s arms, standing in the light of one lamp, feeling the height of her joy, almost unable to believe the blessing she had just been given.

  “Your uncle saved me from running that other Welshman through.”

  “I wouldn’t let you kill the kin of the Prince of Angelsey,” she said.

  “You would not have been able to stop me.”

  Before they could argue in truth, she kissed him, and he kissed her back. “I love you, Mathilla of Wales, Matilda of Shropshire.”

  “I love you, Roland. And I will love you for the rest of my life.”

  If you enjoyed this story, stay tuned to Kathryn Le Veque’s De Wolfe Kindle World for the upcoming DRAGON TOOTH and DRAGON CLAW.