The Unlovely Bride (Brides of Karadok Book 2)

by Alice Coldbreath

  Garman was silent a moment. “You’re lucky she believed you.”

  “Oh, she didn’t at first. I think most were dying servants. The pox really swept through their quarters. But no matter how many times she kicked me off, I would not leave give her any peace.”

  “Seems a characteristic of yours.”

  Lenora turned her head to peer at him. Did she see the slight gleam of his eyes? “Persistence?” she asked, oddly flattered.

  “That pleases you?” he grunted.

  She nodded, then remembered he could not see her. “Yes. I don’t think—” She broke off.

  “What?”

  “That I’ve been much described, in terms of my personality.”

  “You didn’t exactly encourage it,” Garman told her bluntly. “As you never seemed to have one.”

  Lenora fell silent. After all, what could she say in her defense? He spoke nothing but the truth. She remembered all the times she had not troubled herself to make conversation or cultivate friends among her fellow courtiers. It had all seemed like a pointless exercise when she could simply drift through her charmed life, troubling herself about nothing. Her cheeks burned.

  She remembered too the words her cousin had spoken to her months ago, encouraging her to connect more with the world around her, to have compassion and interest in her fellow creatures. But all Lenora had cared about was her cats and having her fortune told by the latest soothsayer to appear at court. She smiled bitterly in the dark. They had flattered her, everyone, from the lame beggar at the cathedral entrance to the famous seer from across the seas. All had hinted at a glittering future, she remembered and not a single one had hinted at her spectacular fall from grace.

  How funny, she thought that absorption with such things should come crashing down around her ears so spectacularly like everything else in her life. She no longer believed in fate or fortunes. How could she? And yet, it had been something she had clung to from such a young age.

  How well she remembered her very first encounter with a fortune teller in Bonbartle on a feast-day as a child of eleven. She and Eden had wandered from their attendants and been importuned for coin by a fellow dressed in multi-colored rags. “I’ll tell you of your true loves, my pretties,” he had wheedled.

  Eden had scoffed even as a child, sticking her nose in the air, but Lenora had been entranced. After parting with her copper which had been intended for the cathedral alms box, he had seized her hand in his and predicted a mighty lord whose emblem was that of a bleeding heart.

  Lenora had tottered through the rest of the day oblivious both to her cousin’s scandalized reaction and her nurse’s scolding for straying. A mighty lord with the emblem of a bleeding heart was her true love. In the dark, a tear tracked down Lenora’s cheek, quickly followed by another. That had been a lie too. That foolish dream she had clung to for all these years. She had no true love. She had nothing.

  “Lenora?” Garman’s voice startled her, coming out of the dark. Had she made any noise? She’d rather die a thousand deaths than let him know she was crying like the spoilt, silly idiot they both knew she was. Keeping very still, she squeezed her wet eyes tight, feigning sleep.

  It’s not too late, Eden had urged her. But was that still the case? For a woman with a ruined face? Lenora swallowed. Only Eden had ever believed there was more to her than her superficial appearance. But her cousin was the person she loved best in all the world. Should she not trust Eden’s opinion, over that of people who did not really know her? Even her own father had always thought her no more than a pretty fool. Your looks will bring the suitors flocking, he had predicted sagely, and he had been right. Only her grandmother had thought she should apply herself more to studies and music lessons, advice Lenora had blithely ignored. She had been lazy and self-indulgent, she acknowledged now with bitter self-reproach. If she had studied her books and her lessons, she would have inner resources now to fall back on now, after losing her beauty. She would have more substance.

  She thought of her cousin. Eden was so strong and proud and clever. No-one would ever describe Eden as wishy-washy or lacking in personality. Lenora knew deep down inside that she would never be strong or clever, but in her own small way, could she not carve out a life for herself now? Surreptitiously, she wiped the back of her hand across her eyes.

  I will change, she vowed. While I will never have a really decent character, true love or even much by way of brains, I can still seek out some semblance of happiness. Plenty of wretched creatures were forced to eke out a life with far less good fortune than her own. She thought of Berta who had never owned her own home and was forced to labor away at two jobs to even keep a roof over her head in her old age.

  She had no right to wallow in self-pity like this. She had her beloved cats and was on her way to a new home, away from the prying royal court, where she could lick her wounds and recover. And recover she would, she vowed silently into her tear-stained pillow. She would prove her naysayers wrong, her parents included. Far from being better off dead, who knows, maybe this new version of herself would lead to much needed improvement in her character? Stranger things happened, or so people said.

  This new resolve brought some relief from her scalding self-reproach and she felt her limbs relax as her eyelids drooped. Whoever would have thought that a spot of honest soul-searching would be so exhausting? She would have to write to Eden as soon as they arrived at Cofton Warren and let her know of her new resolutions. She knew her cousin would approve of the resolve, if not her choice of groom. A faint smile touched her lips. No, Eden would not approve of Garman Orde she thought wryly. Far from it. For some reason that thought fortified her as she drifted off to sleep.

  10

  Garman paced the courtyard and glanced up at the small window in the eaves. Where the hells was she? He had half a mind to go barging up there and drag her down. He wanted to be off. If he pushed hard today, they could reach Cofton Warren by nightfall. And he intended to push hard. He’d had enough of being slowed down by a pair of women. He had already hooked up the cart and saddled his horse first thing. There was not a bite of food to be had in the place to send them on their way, so he wanted to clear out at first light. Shambling footsteps heralded Berta’s arrival. She squinted evilly at Garman before making for the cart.

  It crossed his mind that Lenora might have told the old crone about how he’d made her cry the night before. He didn’t doubt that she would make much of it this morning, looking tragical and making a great play with wet eyelashes and hurt feelings. She was a spoilt court beauty after all, he thought with a scowl. He had spoken naught but the truth, and he stood by every word. If she expected him to start pussyfooting about her, she was in for a big disappointment. It would be a cold day in hell before he started that game.

  He turned his head sharply at a footfall in the doorway, then saw Lenora maneuvering the basket she kept the cats in through the narrow opening. “Sorry,” she called out cheerfully. “I had a bit of a trouble rounding them up this morning.” She headed straight for the cart and swung it up before her. Garman could make out the faint mew of indignant cats. Berta thrust out a hand and Lenora seized it and climbed into the wagon. Once she had settled into the bench, she looked over at him brightly. “Are we ready to depart?”

  He grunted and swung into the saddle, steering Bria’ag back out onto the open road and away from the dismal inn. He was surprised. And Garman Orde was seldom surprised. He had been grimly certain that he was in for a scene of female play-acting and hysterics. It seemed he was wrong.

  As the morning wore on, he found for some reason, he could not tune out the women’s conversation. Snatches of it drifted over to him despite him being several yards in front. Lenora’s tone was bright and breezy, he heard her rippling laugh and Berta chiming in sourly at intervals. It slowly sank in that Lenora was not bearing tales about her husband’s brutality. Far from it. She seemed to be putting on a determinedly bright front this morn. He wondered at that, considering she
had not much sleep the night before.

  He had not been taken in for a minute by her unconvincing semblance of sleep. She had been stiff as a board and even he, not finely attuned to the moods of others, could tell she was upset and faking it. Then, when she finally had managed to drop off to sleep, it had been a mere couple of hours before her night terrors had roused her screaming from whatever it was that haunted her dreams. Whatever it was. He hunched a shoulder in irritation. No point in feigning ignorance to himself. He knew full well what that was about now. Lovely Lenora Montmayne, the Flower of all Karadok had been left to rot down in the crypt with the rest of the condemned.

  He couldn’t even imagine how she must have felt. The spoilt court darling, suddenly finding herself cast onto a fetid human rubbish tip. No matter how much he tried to tell himself she’d had it no worse than the other pox-ridden beggars, it rang hollow. What were her family thinking leaving her to fester and die down in the palace crypt? He really couldn’t fathom it.

  Of course, Lenora Montmayne had been spared from a mass grave, but how much of that had been due to her own merit. She’d had the presence of mind to call on her privilege when she needed to and a surprising amount of dogged determination not to give up the fight for survival. He himself had recognized these qualities in her after only one day in her company. Yet she said no-one else had ever drawn any such conclusions as to her character? Her family must be a bunch of fucking idiots and callous ones at that.

  At the end of the day, she had clawed her way out of a pile of dead and dying to find her beauty and her suitors fled. Instead of descending into maudlin despair, she had cast about her for a way out of court where she would be an object of curiosity and pity. She had struck on him. Only one conclusion could be drawn from that. Lenora Montmayne was brave as fuck or foolhardy as hell. He wasn’t sure yet which it was.

  Suddenly, the image of her arose in his mind of her standing up naked in that damned bathtub, letting him look his fill. Again, brave or foolhardy, one or the other. A bold move that filled him with grudging admiration as well as lust. It could have gone either way. That backside, fuck. Who cared about her face when she had an ass like that?

  Glancing over his shoulder, he found her debating with Berta about the qualities of household cats. The old woman seemed to think they should be booted out of doors come nightfall. Lenora was strongly against such action as it meant a pile of dead birds on the doorstep come morning. Neither woman seemed to notice his scrutiny. He found himself once more wondering at their closeness. In spite of himself, he had been shocked by Lenora’s account of their meeting.

  The crone Berta was a far from endearing character. Her face was withered as a rotten apple and she had a voice that could curdle milk. By all accounts, she had been far from solicitous in her care of her mistress in the early days. Yet Lenora treated her now as if she were… what? A trusted member of her household. She had even identified Berta to that soldier as her own mother, something he would never have believed if he had not heard it with his own ears.

  Of course, he knew in his own experience that family could be forged from extreme circumstances and near death. He thought of his own point in case, the Hainfroys. He had been squire to old Bernhard Hainfroy from the age of twelve, but he had become another son to him through the hardships of the war. Huw and Ivo his sons had become his brothers, although they shared no blood. They had shed plenty of it in defense of one another.

  It had been four years since he had seen them, since he had returned home. And now he was returning to Cofton Warren with a wife in tow. He smiled grimly to himself. He had amassed quite a fortune from his success in the tourneys and at some point, in the near future, he could finally achieve his heart’s content; Matchings Halt. The handsome manor house and its fruitful acres had long been the object of his boyhood admiration and one day very soon, would be his. If Lenora’s father, Sir Leofric actually did hand over her dowry, then he could possibly achieve it even sooner than he’d hoped.

  For now, he would have to stash Lenora at Matchings Farm with his grandfather Sutton, he thought with a grimace. His grandfather had run the farm now for some twenty years now and ran it with the same calm efficiency he applied to everything. Garman had no doubt it would be turning a good profit, though he only ever received letters few and far between from his grandfather, sometimes several in one go would catch him up as his travels took him far and wide to compete.

  His maternal grandfather was a conscientious man and though he and his grandson had very little in common, there was a blood bond between them. His bride would be assured a punctilious welcome at Matchings Farm, even if not overly warm. He could have taken her to Cofton Grange, of course, as when he’d left, he’d been promised a perpetual seat at Huw’s table, but who even knew how things fared with the Hainfroys. He had not kept in touch with them any better than he had with his own grandfather and neither Huw nor Ivo were known for their letter writing skills. It was hard to think of either of his quarrelsome friends faring well in times of peace. No, on reflection, it was better to take Lenora on to his grandfather’s farm. They were making good progress and looked set to reach there by nightfall.

  11

  It started to rain at midday. At first Lenora hoped it was only a passing shower, but it kept on and on until by late afternoon, her raised hood and closely wrapped cloak were drenched through.

  “We can’t go on like this,” Berta grumbled beside her, but in truth Lenora had not seen much sign of shelter along the stretch of road they had been travelling. Almost as if he had heard, Garman slowed ahead of them, and dropped back.

  “Detour!” he shouted above the rumble of thunder.

  “Where to?” Lenora shouted, and he pointed to a lane approaching on the left.

  “Man of few words, ain’t he?” Berta huffed. “I thought he said we would reach his precious Cofton Warren by nightfall.”

  Lenora glanced up at the darkening sky, but it was thunderclouds rather than nightfall that had caused it. She judged the hour no more advanced than five o’clock. Pulling on the reins, she urged the horse to take the bend in the road and hoped he had somewhere dry and safe in mind. After a half a mile or so, she saw a low gray-stone building looming in the distance and nudged Berta.

  “Looks a ramshackle sort of place!” Berta sniffed.

  In truth, it did look rather abandoned with a trail of outbuildings leading up to it, all in varying states of dilapidation. Creeping vines had taken root and were spreading over the walls as if nature was trying to reclaim the place. Could this be his grandfather’s farm, Lenora wondered? And if so, it seemed like his grandfather had frankly given up the struggle.

  She followed where he led, to the largest of the outbuildings which turned out to be a large stable, well equipped and dry with clean hay and housing two large brown horses every bit as big as Garman’s own beast. He climbed down and immediately set to unhooking the wagon and rubbing the horses down. Lenora’s cats mewed pitifully, and she was tempted to let them out in this large, well-appointed barn, which she was starting to suspect was in better repair than the house itself would be.

  Draping her cloak over a nearby stall to dry out, she picked her way around to where Garman was feeding the cart horse. “Are we sleeping in this barn?” she asked forthrightly.

  He spared her a glance. “We should find a welcome up at the house.”

  “I could not see any lights and it looks half-abandoned.”

  He did not answer this, and Lenora wandered over to where the two large horses eyed her curiously. One pawed the ground while the other tossed his head. “I suppose these fine horses must belong to someone. They at least are well cared for.”

  Again, he made no answer, turning back to his own beast and leading Bria’ag into a spare stall.

  “I cannot decide whether to let my cats out in this stable,” she said swinging back to face him.

  “Why wouldn’t you?” he asked. “It’s dry and warm and there’s plenty of straw.�
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  “What if they wander off or go astray?”

  He snorted. “In this weather?”

  Lenora glanced out of one of the narrow window openings. “I could not depart on the morn if one of them were missing,” she warned him.

  “They will not wander in this rain,” he replied confidently.

  Lenora rounded the cart and lifted down the basket. By the time she had installed the cats in a warm spot and given them the last of her scraps, they were huddled together and purring. Berta was shaking out their wet things and Garman had settled the horses for the night. He nodded meaningfully toward the exit and Lenora reluctantly donned her wet cloak. “Come along Berta,” she prompted her maidservant who seemed to be making herself comfortable on a bale of hay.

  “I’ll remain here,” said the old woman. “I can keep an eye on the cats.”

  Lenora was touched. “I would not expect you to sleep out here though,” she frowned.

  “Nay, I’d prefer it,” the old woman yawned. “I likes me own space and I saw a pile of blankets in the corner.”

  “Those will be horse blankets,” Lenora pointed out.

  “Makes no odds to me.”

  “Well, if you’re sure,” Lenora faltered, seeing Garman was growing impatient by the door.

  “Quite sure.”

  “Very well then, I’ll bid you good night.”

  The old woman nodded. “If ye finds a welcome within, perhaps you’d send me out a bit of bread and cheese.”

  “Of course,” Lenora assured her and hurried out after Garman into a cobbled courtyard filled with puddles of rain. “Whose house is this?” she asked with some misgiving, wondering if she should have retrieved her veils from his saddlebag. They would doubtless be badly creased after being stuffed in there these last two days.