Ransom My Heart

by Meg Cabot

  Hugo, his eyebrows lifted to their limits, glanced at the sheriff. “I see there’s no love lost between the servants and my father’s cousin,” he observed.

  “Cheated them out of their wages every chance he got,” de Brissac said mildly. “’Tis a wonder they stayed as long as they did. Waited for you, I think, my lord.”

  “And they shall be rewarded,” Hugo declared, and, making good on his promise, he called to the ancient groom and the somewhat less aged cook and, thanking them for their faithful service, poured a small fortune from a pouch at his hip into the palms he had them cup.

  Mistress Laver was beside herself with gratitude, but Webster managed a toothy grin, and a pull on his forelock. “I seen as ’ow it would be, m’lord, the minute I seed you in the yard last night,” he said, through toothless gums. “I tol’ that squire o’ yours, ’im won’t be lettin’ that Frenchman walk all over ’im like ’is father did, mark me words, nor did ye. Bless ye, m’lord!”

  “I shall be asking for your blessings again later this afternoon,” Hugo said. “I intend to bring my bride here anon, and will need your help in making her feel at home.”

  “Your bride!” cried Mistress Laver, clapping her hands. She’d shoved the gold he’d given her deep into her apron pockets. “What a ’appy day indeed! I’ll need to get straight to work, then, if it’s a wedding feast that’s called for. Might I have your leave, m’lord, to ask in my nieces to ’elp?”

  “Ask as many of your relatives as you feel necessary, Mistress Laver,” Hugo said, with a wave of his hand. “’Tis not just a wedding feast we’ll be needing, but this entire house aired out, if we’re to live here comfortably. See that something gets done about the dust in there, if you would. And the cobwebs. And the mice—”

  “And the empty wineskins,” the sheriff added, thoughtfully.

  Mistress Laver clapped her hands again, she was in such high spirits, and set off with a great many mutterings about carpets and seedcakes and bed linens. Old Webster shuffled away, and it occurred to Hugo that a member of his household was missing. He had only, it seemed, to glance right or left and there stood Jamie, his dirty face blinking up at him.

  “And where is my trusty squire this fine morning?” Hugo inquired.

  “He’s asleep in the washtub,” was Jamie’s chirpy reply. “He had a whole barrelful of wine to drink last night, and snored enough to wake the hounds—”

  Grimacing, Hugo ran a hand through his long hair, and noticed that Sheriff de Brissac was signaling for his men to mount up.

  “With your leave, my lord, we’ll escort you to the church and then some of us’ll be off,” John de Brissac said, with a mighty yawn he didn’t even bother to stifle. “Only got an hour or so of sleep last night, what with keepin’ an eye on your man, and whatnot—”

  “But you’ll all return tonight for more whatnot,” Hugo urged. “If there’s any wine left in my cellars, I hope to drink to the health of the new Lady Stephensgate.”

  “You couldn’t keep me away, my lord.” The sheriff grinned.

  And so it was that Hugo arrived at his wedding under armed escort, a hungover squire at his side and a painful throbbing behind his own right eye. The headache let up a little, however, when he glimpsed his bride waiting for him quietly in the nave, looking even more angelic than she had that stormy night in the hostelry, when he’d sworn to himself to make her his own.

  Indeed, if it hadn’t been for a familiar glint of rebelliousness in those gray eyes, Hugo would have thought some sort of devilry afoot, for the girl who met him at the altar was even more beautiful than he remembered Finnula Crais to be. She looked so feminine and even ladylike in her spotless white gown, it was hard to imagine that this winsome wench had ever held him at knifepoint. She repeated her vows in a soft voice, hardly ever glancing in Hugo’s direction, and he was left to suppose that one of her nosy sisters had got hold of her, and filled her full of lies about how a proper wife ought to behave. He had every confidence that by evening, she’d be his own Finnula again. He wondered if she was wearing the leather braies beneath her bridal gown, and looked forward to the moment when they were alone, and he’d be able to find out for himself.

  By the time they were pronounced man and wife, the little church of Stephensgate was as packed as ever Hugo’d seen it, jammed not only with Finnula’s innumerable relatives, but by his own vassals, who’d somehow heard of the impending nuptials and had shown up in droves to wish the couple well. There were so many people present that they couldn’t all fit in the pews, and spilled out into the aisles and even into the churchyard. When Hugo, as directed by Father Edward, bent to kiss the bride, a cheer erupted that fairly shook the rafters.

  And then the earl and his bride were caught up in a surge of well-wishers, who pressed forward with earnest congratulations, and at length, Hugo was forced to bellow an invitation to one and all to sup at the manor house, simply in order to clear a path out of the church.

  Outside in the fine spring air Finnula looked, if such a thing were possible, even more lovely. But as Hugo had expected, her usual asperity was not hidden deep beneath that virtuous exterior.

  “What can you be thinking, inviting all these people to dine?” she demanded, as he placed her on the saddle before him. “Mistress Laver can’t be expecting them—”

  “As it happens, my love, she is,” Hugo said, slipping an arm around his wife’s narrow waist. She blushed delightfully at the contact, as if the two of them had never so much as kissed before. Hugo couldn’t help grinning, anticipating an interesting wedding night. “And if you can convince Mellana to provide us with a barrel or two of ale, we ought to get by admirably—”

  Finnula scowled darkly at the mention of her sister’s name. Hugo’s invitation had served to empty the church, but one late arrival had captured the attention of Robert Crais and his brothers-in-law. Word of the wedding had not only reached the ears of Hugo’s vassals, but had stretched to outlying villages, bringing such unlikely hangers-on as a traveling tinker, hoping to make a few sales, and several wandering minstrels, one of whom turned out to be none other than Jack Mallory.

  It was as they were thanking Father Edward for agreeing to conduct the ceremony on such short notice—an act for which Hugo had seen the church was amply compensated—that a whisper in the crowd first alerted Robert to the presence of Mellana’s lover. Though he might have thought differently, fortune was smiling upon Jack Mallory that day, in that the shire reeve was present. John de Brissac alone kept the minstrel from being killed outright by his lover’s enraged brother, for the troubadour was greeted not with applause and tossed coins, as custom dictated, but with fists and boot toes.

  Sheriff de Brissac broke up the fight before Mallory suffered too many contusions, but there was no calming down the shrieking Mellana.

  “Murderer!” she cried at her brother, throwing her arms around the semiconscious minstrel. “Look what you’ve done! His beautiful face! Oh, Jack, your face!”

  Robert, brushing off his hands, regarded his handiwork with satisfaction. “He’s not dead,” he said, and there was no denying the regret in his voice. “Not yet, anyway. But when I get him to work for me at the mill, he’ll be wishin’ he were.”

  “Oh, you brute, you brute,” Mellana moaned. She buried her golden head in Jack Mallory’s neck, and made a very pretty picture there in the churchyard, with her bright skirts spread upon the ground, and her lover’s body in her arms.

  “Am I to take it that there’s soon to be another wedding in the Crais family?” Father Edward stepped forward to inquire, eagerly anticipating a full collection box.

  “You can stake your surplice on it, Father,” was Robert’s acerbic reply. “Soon as the groom comes to, we’ll be needin’ your prayer book opened again.”

  “Ah,” said the priest, and he made the sign of the cross over the troubadour’s supine body, hoping to speed along the fellow’s recovery, as Father Edward was anxious not to miss any of the revelry up at the m
anor house.

  Finnula, who’d bucked against Hugo in her eagerness to join her brother in the minstrel’s beating, complained bitterly all the way back to the manor house, insisting that she hadn’t wanted to hurt Mallory much—just a few kicks. Hugo, however, would have no part in the squabble, having sworn off violence. Besides, he secretly harbored a feeling of gratitude toward the troubadour, who, in impregnating Mellana, had been the reason behind Finnula’s abduction of himself. Hugo could not but be thankful to a man who had brought him such unexpected bounty, and he had already resolved to reward the minstrel somehow, as soon as he regained consciousness.

  By the time they reached the manor house, however, Finnula had nearly forgotten her pique. It was difficult to pout when one was jouncing along the road in the arms of one’s new husband, especially when the legs of Hugo’s mount were surrounded by village children and Finnula’s own nieces and nephews, bearing garlands and singing songs. It wasn’t until Hugo turned in the saddle to shoo some of them away—they were intent upon humiliating his noble mount by entwining wildflowers in his mane and tail—that he noticed they were also followed by the largest, ugliest dog Hugo had ever seen.

  “What,” Hugo cried, noticing that none of the children seemed particularly frightened of the beast, “is that?”

  Finnula glanced casually over one shoulder. “That? That’s a dog.”

  “I can see that it’s a dog. Why is it following you?”

  “He’s my hunting dog, Gros Louis,” Finnula said stiffly, “and of course he’s going with me to the manor house. My sisters didn’t much care for him, and made him sleep in the barn, but I was hoping, being a man of the world, you’d have a more open view. He does so enjoy sleeping with me.”

  “The hell he does. I’m not sharing my bed with that beast.” Hugo eyed the panting animal uneasily. “Where was he when you set off on your quest to kidnap me?”

  “I couldn’t bring him,” Finnula said, in horrified accents. “He’d have only got in the way. He’s a tracking dog. He picks up scents and follows them. I could hardly have used him, when I didn’t know who I was tracking.”

  “Does he have to come with us now?” Hugo complained. “Couldn’t he follow you upon the morrow, with the rest of your things?”

  “He won’t be in the way,” Finnula said airily. “You’ll hardly know he’s about.”

  Rolling his eyes, Hugo relented, thinking that he’d have his revenge later in the evening—if Mistress Laver managed to get his solar aired out, anyway.

  He needn’t have concerned himself over Mistress Laver’s ability to accomplish all she’d set out to do, however. By the time the wedding party arrived at Stephensgate Manor, the succulent odor of roasting pig was in the air, all the shutters in the stone structure had been thrown back, and garlands of flowers were strewn across every arch and doorway. Even Finnula, who’d been so loath to return to the accursed place, smiled when she saw the happy faces of the vassals she’d helped through the cold winter, gathered at long, laden tables in the Great Hall. Cries of “Lady Finnula!” and “Fair Finn!” filled the air, as cups were raised to toast the wife of the new Earl of Stephensgate.

  It was Matthew Fairchild and his wife who thrust chalices into the hands of the bride and groom, and Hugo thankfully drained his, feeling the tension from his altercation with the Laroches slipping away. Seated in flower-festooned chairs at the head of one of the tables, he and Finnula were subjected to all the humiliations traditionally wrought upon the newly wed. Broad jokes at the expense of the supposedly virginal bride, and even lewder ones concerning Hugo’s anticipated performance that evening ran rampant.

  Finnula, to Hugo’s surprise, took the ribbing with good grace, and did not so much as raise her dinner knife in a threatening manner when a few braver souls made light of the fact that a year before, she’d been seated upon the same dais with Hugo’s father. When her family arrived, carting a confusedly blinking Jack Mallory along with them, she smiled quite sweetly at her newest brother-in-law and said nary a word concerning his treatment of Mellana.

  The dancing started at nightfall, by which point, Hugo later learned, a dozen pigs had been roasted, thirty wineskins opened, and ten barrels of ale tapped. Hugo, having been out of the country for the past ten years, hadn’t the slightest clue as to how to perform the complicated reels, and Finnula at first disparaged the activity, since it was Jack Mallory’s rebec to which the couples danced. But after some considerable amount of pressure was exerted by his subjects, Hugo was forced to join the revelers, and Finnula proved a patient dance instructor, who did not seem to mind having her toes trodden now and again.

  It was nigh on midnight when Finnula’s sisters came to her and gigglingly led her off to Hugo’s solar, explaining that they had to “ready” her for the wedding night. Hugo, despite his enormous size—and respected title—was raised upon the shoulders of a half dozen men and carried off in the opposite direction, and it wasn’t until he offered to pay the men a goodly reward that they changed their minds, and instead of depositing him in the middle of the woods, as custom dictated, detoured back to the lord’s own chamber.

  There he found Finnula dressed in nothing but a nightdress that was every bit as diaphanous and revealing as the one Isabella Laroche had worn the night before. Her sisters were plucking limp flower petals from her hair, and their astonishment at seeing Hugo back from the forest so soon was great, but they hastily left the couple alone, and only stood for a little while outside the solar door, banging on pots and shrieking. At that point, Sheriff de Brissac, doing as Hugo had instructed earlier in the evening, called out that there was a wineskin for every man who let His Lordship and lady be. The retreating footsteps of the revelers, in their haste to secure a wineskin, sounded like thunder.

  Alone with his wife at last, Hugo glanced about his bedchamber, and saw that Mistress Laver had outdone herself. The drafty chamber had been transformed into a bridal bower, with newly washed bed curtains and linens, the cobwebs swept away, and flowers strewn everywhere. A cheerful fire crackled on the hearth, though the night was fair, and wall sconces burned brightly. The only item out of place was Finnula’s mastiff, stretched out upon the hearth like a great hairy carpet, looking distinctly at home. Hugo chose to overlook this, seeing as how the canine’s teeth were as big as Skinner’s, and he didn’t much fancy having them fastened to his backside.

  “Well,” Hugo said, sinking down upon the bed, his gaze on Finnula. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

  Finnula looked at him as if he’d lost his mind and said nothing.

  “In any case”—Hugo shrugged, defensively—“you’re not dead, are you?” Never had he met a more contrary woman. He had married her, and all he received for his trouble was a shrug.

  Finnula added to her repertoire by rolling her eyes. Then, glancing about the room, she asked, in a curiously diffident tone, for a woman so handy with a knife, “Was this where you slept as a boy?”

  Hugo grunted, and bent to pull off his boots. “Aye. It’s damnably cold in winter. Mayhap my brother’s solar would be more comfortable. I haven’t had a chance to look at it yet.”

  “One of them should rightly go to Jamie,” Finnula said, as she ran a brush through her long hair.

  “Jamie?” Hugo, barefoot, reached to remove his tunic. “That scamp? Whatever has he done to merit a bed in a Fitzstephen solar?”

  Pausing with the brush in mid-stroke, Finnula eyed him. “Well!” she declared. “I like that! And I suppose our children—if we have any, which I sincerely doubt—won’t merit solars, either?”

  “What are you talking about?” Hugo asked, slipping out of his braies. Her doubt at his capability to sire offspring ought, he thought pridefully, to be banished with one glance at the large package between his legs.

  Finnula laid the brush aside, staring at him. Hugo did not think her steady gaze was the result of lust after his fine masculine form, but rather of dread, though why she should dread going to bed with him, wh
en she’d done so happily so many times over the past two days, he couldn’t ken.

  “Hugo,” Finnula said slowly, and he realized, with a rush of pleasure, that it was the first time she had ever called him by his given name. She said it, however, as if the word felt odd on her lips. “Don’t you know who Jamie is?”

  “No.” Hugo gave the sheets an irritated flick, then slid between them, thinking that it was a fine thing when a man was treated like a veritable stranger by his own wife.

  “Hugo,” Finnula said, biting her lower lip. “Jamie is your son.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  My what?”

  Finnula jumped as Hugo’s voice thundered through the solar. Never in her life had she heard such a bellow.

  “My what?” Hugo roared again.

  He threw back the sheets, revealing his large, tawny body in all its naked glory. But he seemed unconscious of his nudity as he stalked toward her, where she leaned against the windowsill. Before Hugo could lay a hand on her, however—if, indeed, that had been his intention—Gros Louis was up and growling before his mistress, the hackles on his back rising like a hedgehog’s quills.

  “Christ’s toes, Finnula,” Hugo shouted, backing up hastily. “Call him off!”

  “Down, Gros Louis,” Finnula said, and the dog sat back on his haunches, but did not take his eyes off Hugo. Nor did he stop growling.

  “I think I understand a little better how you managed to remain a virgin so long, my love,” Hugo remarked dryly, “despite gadding about in those braies.”

  “He thought you were going to hit me,” Finnula said, giving the dog a fond scratch behind the ears.

  Hugo grimaced expressively. “Hit you? Someone ought to be hit, for keeping this from me. Why did no one think to mention to me the small detail that I have a son? Like you, for instance? Or were you saving it up for our wedding night all along?”

  “I find it hard to believe you didn’t realize it for yourself right away. He looks exactly like you.”