* * *
THE PROMISE
“That was quite a feat of horsemanship,” Stephen repeated dryly. “I suppose you’re going to tell me next that you can defeat me at swordplay as well.”
Mara blushed. “I doubt I could best you,” she replied honestly. “But I might just hold my own against you.” Stephen felt his jaw drop. Although, he realized, he shouldn’t be at all surprised by now. This was a woman of many wonders.
“What’s wrong?” Mara asked, suddenly apprehensive.
“Nothing.” Her betrothed shook his head. “I must say, however, that I am glad you are to be my wife, if only so I will never have to face so formidable a foe as you in battle.”
Mara laughed. “Quite so, my lord. You will never have to face me over the point of a sword. But know that, should you ever need it, my sword will be at your back.”
He didn’t know why, but a sudden chill ran down Stephen’s spine and something cold clutched his heart. To lighten the darkness that threatened to settle on his soul, he forced a laugh to his lips, pulled his sword from its sheath, and tossed it hilt first to his lady.
Mara caught the weapon easily, as if it had no weight at all, and balanced it in her hand. “My arm for you, Lord Baron. And my life.”
She had meant the comment, and the moment, to be lighthearted, and was dismayed by the expression on Stephen’s face. She lowered the sword, and he took it from her.
“No,” Stephen murmured as he resheathed his weapon. “Rather, my life for yours, Lady. Always and forever, my life for yours.”
THE CIRCLE OF A PROMISE
HELEN A. ROSBURG
LOVE SPELL NEW YORK CITY
* * *
To my husband, James A. Rosburg, whom I will love in all my lifetimes to come. And to my children: Erik, Will, Ali, and Freya.
* * *
LOVE SPELL
June 2003 Published by
Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc. 276 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10001
If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
Copyright c 2003 by Helen A. Rosburg
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.
ISBN 0-505-52545-3
The name “Love Spell” and its logo are trademarks of Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.
Printed in the United States of America.
Visit us on the web at www.dorchesterpub.com.
* * *
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to acknowledge the invaluable assistance of Christina Johnson in the creation of this manuscript. She is also pretty darn good at cracking a whip.
Additionally, I would like to thank my wonderful editor, Chris Keeslar. It’s so nice to be home again.
* * *
Chapter One
The morning mists had long since blown away. The sun was high and hot. The stench from the battlefield was nearly overpowering.
Stephen’s knights, victorious, drifted back toward him. They shuffled slowly, battle weary and bloodied, cleaning the blades of their weapons as they went. Occasionally a man stopped to pat the neck of a faithful mount, or to lean, exhausted, against a massive shoulder. Many of the horses themselves bore ghastly wounds. Others lay dead on the ground amidst the bodies of the fallen soldiers. The earth was red with blood. Stephen ignored it all.
His eyes searched desperately for one face. Sunlight glinting from bright armor made him squint. He turned and looked in the other direction. Saw her.
The form was unmistakable. Even among men she was tall. Their gazes met.
Mara smiled. She pulled the mail hood from her head and shook loose her magnificent hair. It tumbled in waves across her shoulders and down her back, and Stephen knew there was not a more beautiful, desirable woman in the world. He started toward her.
There was blood on her hauberk, but he knew instinctively it was not hers. Thank God. Thank God. She had made it through the battle unscathed. He could tell by the way she moved, walked slowly toward him. The tip of her sword dragged on the ground. Hero, her enormous warhorse, plodded along behind her, head low. He, too, appeared uninjured.
Stephen let his blade fall to the ground. He opened his arms to receive her, and Mara stepped into his embrace.
There were no words; they were too exhausted. Yet none were needed. The pair was husband and wife, companions of heart and soul, lovers. They were also victors. At long, long last, the terrible struggle was over. Many deaths were avenged. They were finally free to be together without fear. It was over.
For a long moment they simply leaned against one another, arms loosely clasped. Then Mara looked up at him. Her eyes were the color of a deep, deep lake. The lake beside which she and Stephen had first made love.
He did not see-no one saw-the hidden archer one of the earl’s men, hidden in the tree at the edge of the glade.
Stephen smiled into Mara’s eyes. The blood, death, and destruction all around them disappeared. Trey, their deerhound, whined and pushed at their legs, but they barely noticed. They could not tear their gazes from each other.
It was thus that Stephen saw the life go out of his wife’s eyes when the arrow struck. She was gone from him almost instantly. Mara slumped, was caught up in her husband’s arms for the last time.
Steve Bellingham woke up screaming. The clock radio read 2:00 a.m.
Chapter Two
“No.”
The word, spoken so firmly, echoed in the relative silence of the great hall. Mara shook her head slowly, deliberately, from side to side. “No,” she repeated.
Ranulf, the barrel-chested, red-bearded Lord of Ullswater, quailed beneath his daughter’s stubborn gaze. He turned to his wife for support.
Lady Beatrice sighed and clasped her pale, slender hands in her lap. Despite the furs draped over the wooden chair, a familiar pain in her lower back had returned to plague her. She shifted slightly and returned her daughter’s wide, blue, unblinking gaze.
“You heard your father, my dear,” she said in her soft voice. “And you will respect him.”
Mara’s head continued to shake.
“It is long past time, in fact, that you wed,” Beatrice continued, unruffled. “You knew it was inevitable. You knew the time would eventually come. And it has.”
“No,” Mara said. But the conviction was gone from her denial. Her eyes grew wider as she gazed at her mother.
“I know how skillful you are at putting unpleasant subjects from your mind, Mara. Now, however, you are going to have to face this.”
“Mother-” Mara began.
It was Beatrice’s turn to shake her head. “No, Mara, hear me out. Your father and I are not getting any younger, and neither are you. We have no sons. You will need both a protector and a provider. These lands will need an overseer. A husband there must be, and a husband you shall have.”
Mara remained motionless. Silent. Every word her mother had spoken was true. Marriage was an inescapable fact of life; she could avoid it no longer. Still, it was a bitter and difficult remedy to swallow. Almost without realizing it, Mara shook her head one last time.
“Obstinacy will do you no good, daughter.” Beatrice leaned a bit closer to the fire that roared in the hearth. “A marriage will be accomplished. It will be accomplished, moreover, in as short a time as possible.”
The woman ignored
the hiss of her daughter’s indrawn breath and glanced at her husband. “It has become imperative, in fact, that this alliance be made with the greatest haste.”
Something unpleasant stirred in the pit of Mara’s stomach. “Am I to be informed of the reason for this. haste? What is it, Mother? What trouble befalls us?”
Husband and wife exchanged another quick glance. This time it was Beatrice who implored Ranulf with her gaze. The man’s normally ruddy cheeks flushed a deeper shade of red, and he took a long, deep breath.
“It’s. Baldwin!” The name was spat like something foul tasting. Ranulf’s thick, rusty brows drew together, storm clouds massing over the mountains and canyons of his weathered face. “He’s asked for your hand. Again.”
As if to underscore his statement, Mara’s father’s meaty fist slammed down, hard, on the table. The table shuddered, and a pewter cup overturned.
Beatrice flinched, and Mara wrapped her arms across her chest. Her blood turned to ice. Baldwin.
“I. I thought the earl understood that I. that you”-Mara looked pointedly at her father-“would never consent to give him my hand.”
Ranulf grunted something unintelligible. “I thought so as well,” he added after a moment. As he gazed into the liquid blue of his daughter’s eyes, he saw that her memory had returned along with his to that fateful day nearly six months earlier.
Mara had been practicing her swordsmanship in the castle yard with one of his skilled but aging retainers. Despite the man’s years, Douglas’s arm was yet strong, and he had forced Mara back a few steps. She parried defensively for several breathless seconds before finding her balance and coming back at him with the speed for which she had become renowned. A grim smile touched the knight’s thin mouth, and he lifted his left hand in a gesture of surrender.
“Well done, my lady,” he panted. “The swiftness of your stroke makes up for what you lack in strength. You have learned your lessons well.”
Mara bowed her head modestly in acknowledgment of the compliment. But before she could speak, a shout went up from the guard in the gate tower.
“Fetch my lord Ranulf,” the man cried. “The Earl of Cumbria comes with a great force!”
Mara could not forget the icy hand of fear that had clamped her heart. Earl Baldwin was one of the most powerful men in the land. His wealth was vast, his strength of arms impressive. Her father’s forces, on the other hand, consisted of a few men like Douglas. And Baldwin coveted her father’s lands-rich, fertile acres that bordered his own. If he had come to take them by force, he would be met with precious little resistance.
Baldwin had not, however, come to take what he coveted at the point of a sword. His plan had been far worse.
“When you last met, Father,” Mara said at length, breaking the tense silence, “you told the earl in no uncertain terms that he would never have either me or Ullswater. Does he think you soft or of wavering mind?”
“He knows exactly what everyone else knows,” Ranulf said in a subdued voice. “That my knights age as I do. That I have no son to attract and lead a larger, stronger force. It would be easy for Baldwin to take what he wants, and only the king’s peace protects us from his aggression.” Ranulf sighed. “But it does not lessen his greed for what is mine.”
“Yet you humiliated him when he came to ask for my hand!” Mara protested. “You did not even open your gates to him.”
Ranulf did not miss his wife’s quick glance in his direction. “Yes,” he admitted slowly. “And the action was perhaps impulsive and ill-considered.”
Lady Beatrice spoke up. “There has always been bad blood between the earl and your father.” She knew how difficult it was for her husband to compromise his pride and confess his mistakes. “They are as different in temperament and outlook as night and day. Baldwin well knew what his reception might be when he came to your father’s hall. He hoped his show of arms would serve to intimidate. It did not.”
“And, as you know,” Ranulf continued, “I told him so. It did not improve his temper. He is as poisonous and dangerous as a viper, and it is never wise to kick at a coiled snake.”
A blade of fear seemed to stab directly into Mara’s heart. Her body went rigid. “You. you’re not telling me that you’ve changed your mind, are you? That you’ve decided to give me to-”
“No! No, of course not.”
Beatrice rose stiffly and laid a pale, elegant hand on her husband’s muscular forearm. She smiled gently at her daughter. “There’s no need to look so stricken, my dear,” she said quietly. “Or you, my husband. As long as there is breath in our bodies, Mara, Baldwin shall never have his will. You must know that we would never, for any reason, force you to marry a man like that.”
“Or,” Ranulf added, “be forced ourselves to give you to him. No. That will not happen. Never!”
For a second time Ranulf’s broad, scarred hand crashed down on the nearby wooden table. The pewter cup, already on its side, rolled off the edge and clanged loudly on the stone-flagged floor. No one paid it the slightest heed.
Mara gazed levelly at her father, then her mother. The room was still. “But you have someone else in mind,” she said at length. “Don’t you?”
Beatrice did not respond at once. She regarded her daughter thoughtfully. Then: “Yes, Mara, we do. We have the kind of man, the kind of marriage we always hoped we would be able to secure for you.”
“Aye,” Ranulf said, picking up the thread. “He is a strong man, powerful in his own right. Baldwin will not be pleased with our decision when he learns of it.”
The Lord of Ullswater glanced at his wife. Her expression remained serene, so he continued. “In spite of Henry’s laws, and the peace now in the land, there may be repercussions when we’re gone, Mara. I doubt Baldwin would move against me now, but. someone may one day have to fight to protect these lands, Mara. Henry’s reach may not always extend this far. The king is just and his power great, but it is not infinite. And I have given Baldwin even greater reason than its riches to want to see Ullswater either under his banner or destroyed. Do you understand? You must have a husband. Soon.”
Yes, Mara did understand. All too well. Life as she knew it had just come to an end. Not only was the specter of marriage now a grim reality, so was war with Cumbria. Bloodshed. Her parents’ eventual demise. It was all too much at once.
Mara pressed her hands, so cold, to her cheeks. She closed her eyes.
“Mara-”
“Don’t say any more, Mother. Please. I don’t want to hear it. I don’t even want to think about a time when you and Father won’t be with me, much less think of a husband, a-”
“Amarantha!”
Mara fell silent immediately, clamping her jaw shut as if she had been slapped.
Her mother’s eyes glittered darkly. “The time has come not only to face facts, Mara, but life,” she said sternly. “You’ve been spoiled, shamefully so, by both your father and me. You’ve been allowed to run wild, without a care in the world. But that must end. Now.”
Mara clasped her hands tightly beneath her chin. She opened her eyes, but her gaze remained downcast.
“I’m sorry, daughter. Truly, I am.” The hard edge of Lady Beatrice’s tone had softened. “I regret if my words are harsh, but I have no choice. We have no choice. I must impress upon you how important this matter is. You need a husband, and your father believes he has found the right man-someone he has met only briefly but knows well by reputation. A just and honorable man. Letters have been exchanged, and the matter has been agreed upon. The union is advantageous to all concerned. Your betrothed has agreed, in fact, to come at once to meet with us.”
Mara felt as thinly stretched as a tanner’s hide. Though she often argued companionably with her father, she had never once talked back to her frail and lovely mother. Now she found herself suddenly unable to control the bitter words that tumbled from her tongue.
“ `Letters have been exchanged‘? ”The matter has been agreed upon`? Is that what I am, M
other? A ’matter`? Is that all I am in the end-a deal to be negotiated? Doesn’t anyone care what I think? What I want?“
Ranulf’s reaction was instant.
“Never let me hear you speak that way to your mother again.” His tone was dark. “We are only doing what is best for you, and when you’ve had time to think about it, I know you will agree.”
“Never!” Mara snarled. Her eyes were clouded with the intensity of her emotion. Her pale, straight hair tumbled about her shoulders and across her heaving breast. “Tie me up and drag me to the altar if you wish, but that’s the only way-the only way-you’ll be able to get rid of me by marrying me off to some. some stranger!”
The stricken look in her parents’ eyes was more than she could bear. She had hurt them, purposely, and Mara instantly regretted it. But she couldn’t apologize without also giving in, and that she could not do. Not now, not yet. Not with her own pain, her own fear, so fresh and aching in her breast The threat of Baldwin did not even touch her. As a sob choked in her throat, Mara spun on her booted heel and fled her parents’ apartments.
Lady Beatrice sank back into her fur-draped chair and sagged as if with defeat. Ranulf came immediately to her side and gently took her hands in his.
“Don’t worry, my dearest wife,” he said with gruff tenderness. “You know her nature. Mara will come to her senses eventually.”
“Oh, I know. I know she will.” Beatrice turned her eyes to her husband and smiled. “Mara is a good girl, a sensible woman. She will see the wisdom of our decision.” The woman paused, her smile fading. “But will she find happiness, Ranulf? Will she be blessed as I have been blessed? Will she bear a child, children perhaps, with love and joy as I have? Or will it be in loneliness and pain? Are we truly doing the right thing, Ranulf? Are we?”
He gave no answer. There was no honest one to give. Sharing the only response and solace that he could, Ranulf cupped his wife’s pale and lovely face in his great, gnarled hands. With infinite gentleness, he pressed his lips to hers.
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