Once a Bride

by Shari Anton

  He chuckled at that. “Then there is something I want you to see, my dear.”

  My dear. Not the declaration of his undying love she yearned for, but a lovely endearment. A beginning.

  Reluctantly, she let him go. He pulled a scroll from the folds of his tunic, which Eloise recognized as their betrothal bargain.

  “I know what the bargain contains.”

  “Not all of it. Not the part where it states that I do not come to you barefoot in my short pants.”

  An enticing image. If he’d made the comment with humor, she’d comment, but Eloise knew he’d always felt awkward about obtaining a vast sum and giving nothing in return, so she refrained.

  “I do not need to see a listing of your horses and armor and equipage. Sweet mercy, Roland, I care nothing for—”

  “I know, but I did.” He tapped the scroll on his palm. “As I walked to the Tower to request your father’s approval, I agonized over the disparity. I obtained wealth beyond my wildest dreams, and had nothing to give you as a bride price. That sat ill.”

  Wounded pride she understood. “Does it still?”

  “A bit, but not as much.” He untied the ribbon binding the scroll. “I rectified the situation as best I knew how, by giving you the only thing I possessed which seemed fitting.”

  “I need nothing but you.”

  He cupped the side of her face, his palm warm, speeding up her heartbeat. His eyes held such tenderness she nearly melted.

  “If you truly mean that, then this is the moment I have saved this for.” He handed her the scroll. “Read and believe.”

  Eloise opened the scroll and skimmed down through the listing she’d provided Geoffrey. Toward the end, above the myriad signatures, a clause had been added in unfamiliar writing.

  As bride price, Sir Roland St. Marten, knight in service to King Edward of England, vows to hold safe and protect Eloise Hamelin of Lelleford. Possessing nothing of material value with which to gift her, he bestows upon her all that he may, being his oath to love and cherish her all of his days and beyond, no matter what life may impose upon them both.

  Love and cherish.

  Her throat closed up. Tears welled up and blurred her vision, preventing her from again reading those precious words.

  “Oh, Roland.” She collapsed against him and cried out her joy, held upright by strong arms and his balance.

  “I love you, Eloise. As I told your father, my love for you was the only reason I considered the marriage. ’Twas my fondest wish that someday you might find it in your heart to return my affection.”

  “Why—” She cleared her throat and tried again. “Why did you not simply tell me?”

  “Because I wanted you to believe.” He brushed a palm across her cheek, coming away wet. “Do you remember telling me that gallant utterances from a suitor were not to be believed, that professions of adoration were all chivalrous nonsense?”

  She remembered saying something similar on the day they’d passed by the village church, when they’d discussed Hugh’s death and his infatuation with his bride.

  “I remember.”

  “That is why I put my professions in writing, so that if you ever doubt that I mean it when I tell you I love you, you have only to look at the bargain which cannot be broken or set aside.”

  With irrefutable proof of Roland’s love in hand, Eloise pulled him down for a long, heartfelt kiss. He’d given her all he had to give, his heart.

  She’d keep it safe, guard it well. Beginning now.

  Eloise set the scroll on the table and reached for the laces of Roland’s tunic. “Now are you ready to celebrate?”

  A wide grin spread across Roland’s face—and lasted most of the night.

  About the Author

  SHARI ANTON’S secretarial career ended when she took a creative writing class and found she possessed some talent for writing fiction. The author of several highly acclaimed historical novels, she now works in her home office where she can take unlimited coffee breaks. Shari and her husband live in southeastern Wisconsin, where they have two grown children and do their best to spoil their two adorable little grandsons. You can write to her at P.O. Box 510611, New Berlin, WI, 53151-0611, or visit her Web site at www.sharianton.com.

  More Shari Anton!

  Please turn this page

  for a preview of

  AT HER SERVICE

  available in paperback January 2005.

  Chapter One

  England 1350

  IVY SCREAMED as only a little girl can—loud and shrill. Within Lynwood Manor’s great hall, Lady Joanna’s hands shook, nearly dropping the pestle with which she ground herbs for the stew bubbling in the hearth.

  The children were playing on the village green, chasing a ball and each other. Their mingled squeals of delight and groans of disappointment told the parents how the game progressed without them having to watch. Joanna’s seven-year-old daughter was, as usual, among the loudest of the children.

  Surely, Joanna thought, there was a hint of hurt or a taste of fear in Ivy’s last screech?

  Then Ivy screamed again. Piercing. Frightened, yet angry. Heart pounding, Joanna dropped the pestle and ran out the hall door, joining two other mothers in their dash across the dusty yard between the manor house and the timber palisade. She burst through the gate and froze at the sight of three men on horseback, the riders bent forward and low, thundering up the middle of the green, coming straight at her. One had speared a goose, the poor thing hanging limp and bloodied, a repulsive banner on the lance’s tip.

  The outlaws.

  Joanna’s fury flared hot and bright. The outlaws had again raided the village, as they had several times before. However, unlike former raids, this time they had come during daylight and frightened Ivy and the other children.

  She desperately longed to search for Ivy, but as lady of Lyn-wood she stood her ground, studying the men’s faces as they came closer, hoping she might recognize one, or find some clue to their identities to aid in their capture. To her disappointment, she didn’t know them. However, she now knew their faces and could be sure she punished the right men when they were brought before her for judgment.

  The leader, who bore a scar on his forehead, wore a satisfied smirk. The beast!

  Joanna waved a fist and shouted, “Whoreson! Leave us be! Do you hear me? Leave us be!”

  If he heard her command, he gave no sign, merely veered right, leading his men around the palisade to escape into the woodland beyond.

  Joanna no more than thought to order pursuit when she heard the captain of the guard shout the command for his men to mount up.

  Praying this time the soldiers would find and capture the bastards, Joanna anxiously glanced about for Ivy.

  In the middle of the green, near the well, mothers picked up and soothed their little ones, adding outraged shouts to the children’s cries. Joanna went cold at what she heard. The outlaws had purposely terrorized the children with no regard for whether or not the little ones came to harm.

  Fighting panic, Joanna shouted her daughter’s name. “Here, milady!” answered the booming voice of the blacksmith, one of the few males not out in the fields attending to the spring planting.

  Donald strode toward her with Ivy, looking small and fragile, cradled in his meaty arms. Glistening tears flowed from her pain-filled blue eyes, streaking her dirty cheeks. Bright red blood oozed from a gash in her forearm, staining her short gray tunic.

  Joanna nearly swooned. She’d never dealt well with blood, nor sickness, which she’d seen too much of during the past year.

  “The h-horse stepped on m-me, Mama!” Ivy stammered through her sobs. “My arm h-hurts! It bleeds!”

  Joanna’s hand shook as she pushed strands of golden hair from Ivy’s forehead, struggling to banish the vision of Ivy tumbling on the ground beneath a horse’s hooves.

  “I know, dearest.” She hoped her voice didn’t reveal the extent of her horror. “Be brave a few moments longer. Donald will ta
ke you inside while I find Greta.” She looked up at Donald. “Have Maud bind the wound to stop the bleeding.”

  The blacksmith nodded and bore Ivy away.

  Frustrated that she couldn’t take away the pain or spare Ivy the ordeal to come, Joanna fetched Greta, the midwife, now the only healer in the village with experience in stitching skin. On the way back to the manor, she sent a dairymaid out to the fields to inform the village reeve of the raid, ordering him to attend her along with Harold Long upon the captain’s return.

  Several moments later, she was seated on the edge of the bed in her Lynwood Manor chamber, with Ivy draped across her lap. Joanna struggled to remain calm.

  Terror lurked beneath Ivy’s stoic expression. She bit down on a thick towel and buried her face in her mother’s shoulder. Cradling Ivy’s head, Joanna nodded at Greta, who held a sharp needle and strong thread at the ready.

  Greta grabbed hold of Ivy’s arm above the wrist. Joanna tightened her grip on her child’s elbow. The moment the needle pierced the forearm’s skin, Ivy jerked, gave a muffled scream, then mercifully fainted.

  “Hurry,” Joanna ordered, feeling her head go light.

  “Breathe, milady. Ivy is only cut, not dying.”

  The midwife’s reassurance helped some, but having already buried two children, Joanna loathed allowing anything untoward to happen to her remaining daughter.

  “How long must the stitches stay in?”

  The midwife continued to work—a fourth stitch, a fifth. “The wound ought to heal up in a few days. She will have a scar, but has come to no lasting harm. With a few days rest, she will be fine.”

  Joanna wondered how she could enforce rest for even a day. Ivy could hardly keep her seat at table each morn, eager to escape to the village to play with the tenants’ children. Despite the recent problems, Joanna had considered the green a safe place for her daughter to play.

  No more.

  The only way to ensure everyone’s safety was to find and punish the bastards responsible for this outrage—and Joanna was nearly at her wit’s end over how to capture the outlaws who’d been harassing the village for the past fortnight.

  She’d thought of one way, but it seemed extreme.

  And how long would it take before she stopped questioning nearly every decision she made? Joanna pushed the uncertainty aside. Whatever she must do, she would do.

  After what seemed an eternity, seventeen neat stitches puckered Ivy’s arm. A rinse to remove the blood and a wrap of white bandaging completed the process. As they finished, Maud, the manor’s housekeeper, cautiously poked her head into the chamber.

  “Milady, Wat and Harold are in the hall. Are ye ready to speak with them?”

  If Harold was back so soon, then likely the outlaws had escaped capture once more. Damn.

  “Inform them I will be there in a moment.”

  Maud disappeared. Greta gathered up the bloodied towels and her basket of medicinals and followed.

  Joanna took a deep breath, kissed Ivy’s forehead, and eased her onto the thick feather mattress, hoping the girl would sleep a while longer.

  While fears over Ivy’s injuries had eased, Joanna’s resolve to set an untenable situation to rights had not. After a last reassuring inspection of her child, she left the room, leaving open the door connecting the chamber to the manor’s hall, the better to hear if Ivy woke and cried out.

  The scents of rabbit stew bubbling in a cauldron on the hearth and rosemary strewn among the rushes covering the dirt floor helped to mask the odor of blood drying on her brown, light wool gown. At some time during her mad rush to find Ivy, Joanna’s circlet and veil had flown off, and she hadn’t given their whereabouts a thought until now, when the two somber men sitting at the trestle table in the middle of the hall turned to stare at her.

  Joanna forswore returning to the bedchamber to cover her braided dark blond hair. If either man thought her scandalous for the mere absence of a veil, so be it.

  Wat Reeve and Harold Long occupied benches on either side of the trestle table. Though neither man would admit it, they had been unprepared to assume the positions of authority they now held.

  Joanna included herself among the unprepared.

  The plague of last summer and autumn had cut through both manor and village like a scythe wielded by an indiscriminate mower, taking whichever lives happened to cross the jagged path of the vile sickness. Nearly half of the populace had been lost, in some cases entire families. No family had been spared.

  Wat Reeve, whom the villagers elected to his deceased father’s position as village reeve, unfolded his long, lank body and stood.

  Sturdily built Harold Long followed suit. He now captained the sorely depleted manor guard—chosen by the men for his skill at arms, approved by her for his ability to command.

  Both young men provided her with counsel and most often readily abided by her decisions, even when they didn’t entirely approve. But, thus far, her decisions had been good ones.

  Joanna eased into the chair placed at the head of the table. The men sat, but didn’t relax.

  “How does the little lady?” Wat asked, his deep voice an odd match to his slight frame.

  Likely the servants had already informed the men of the extent of Ivy’s injuries.

  “She finally sleeps. The other children?”

  “I visited all the families. The children are bruised and suffered a fright, but are otherwise unharmed, praise the Lord in his mercy.” Wat rubbed weary eyes with his palms. “We were most fortunate. When I think of what might have happened …”

  No one finished the reeve’s thought. No one wanting to put the tragedy they’d escaped into words.

  Joanna glanced pointedly between the men. “These brutes who harry us must be caught and punished. I will not tolerate a repeat of this morning’s incident. ’Tis unacceptable that our children are at risk while playing on the village green.”

  Harold pounded a fist on the table. “We have hunted them since they first stole one of Margaret atte Green’s chickens. But with so few soldiers and the spring planting not yet completed, I fear we will not have enough men available to hunt the ruffians properly for some weeks yet.”

  “We cannot wait weeks!”

  “I am aware of your concern, milady. I share it! Where before the band struck in secrecy, they now flaunt our vulnerability. We need more men, more horses and … nay, milady, I do not know from where either can be hired or bought. The entire kingdom suffers the same hardships we do.”

  She didn’t care about the hardships of the entire kingdom, only those in the small portion under her rule, a role thrust upon her without warning or mercy.

  The pestilence had robbed her of two children, both innocents she missed horribly. But the plague had also rid her of her husband, whose soul—if there were any justice in the afterlife—now resided with the devil in the deepest pit of hell.

  Joanna gathered her courage to present her decision as diplomatically as she could. As a courtesy, she would first give Wat and Harold a last opportunity to suggest other solutions. Indeed, she hoped either one might offer an easier, less extreme solution than the one she had in mind.

  “This noon the outlaws threatened the lives of our children. As you say, Harold, we have not the means to deal with them as we might like. Still, we need a solution, good sirs, and quickly.”

  Harold leaned forward, palm raised, expression earnest. “Mayhap another appeal to the abbot for assistance is in order.”

  Joanna didn’t hesitate in her answer. Appealing to Abbot William, Lynwood Manor’s overlord, didn’t sit well.

  “Our last appeal to the abbot gained us no more than Father Arthur. While we had need of a priest, he is helpless against these ruffians.”

  Indeed, the priest wasn’t good for much of anything except spouting nonsense—in her opinion. He wailed and moaned over the lack of holiness in the kingdom, claimed God had sent the plague to punish the wicked, impious hordes for their sins.

 
; Her toddling son hadn’t been impious, or her infant daughter wicked.

  “Are you still against an appeal to your brother?”

  Appeal to the brother who’d taken the first opportunity to be rid of her upon his inheritance? Who’d married her off to Sir Bertrand de Poitou despite her objections? She’d never again speak to her brother if she could help it.

  “I am sure my brother suffers hardships, too. We must deal with this problem on our own.”

  Neither man would suggest she appeal to the de Poitou family, who’d irrevocably broken ties with Bertrand years ago.

  Wat shifted in his seat. “If I may take the liberty, Lady Joanna. These scoundrels must know we have no lord in residence or they would not be so bold. I pray you reconsider your position on marriage.”

  This suggestion not only pricked her ire but soured her stomach. The men knew she’d had two offers of marriage, both from landless knights seeking to improve their lot. She’d sent both men out the door with firm refusals. If she had her way, and she meant to, she would never marry again. Never place herself or Ivy at the mercy of a man. Memories of Bertrand’s cruelty helped her keep her resolve.

  Barely restraining her ire, Joanna once more stated her position on what Wat considered the solution to all of the manor’s travails.

  “I will not take a husband simply to rid us of a few ruffians.”

  Wat’s mouth tightened. “These ruffians are now more than a nuisance, milady. In return for our pledge of fealty, the villagers are due protection. You must do whatever is required to meet that responsibility.”

  She was well aware of her duty to the villagers and manor folk, having witnessed both her father and her husband go about ruling their holdings. Unfortunately, she had no practical experience in the matter because neither man had seen fit to give her the opportunity to try her hand.

  They’d both believed women were too weak-hearted and light-handed to oversee estates. Joanna meant to prove both men wrong, even if neither man was alive to witness her success.