Shana Abe

by The Truelove Bride

  Into someone.

  The world came into focus again.

  There was a man in front of her, between her and Elfrieda. Even though he was two steps below her his head was still above hers, darkened in the obscure light of the passageway. Elfrieda was attempting to turn back to her, under his arm, her face the picture of fear. The man noted the disturbance behind him almost casually, and then he faced Avalon again.

  She belatedly dropped her chin almost to her chest, hunched her shoulders.

  “I beg your pardon, milord,” she said, changing her inflection to match how she thought Elfrieda would say it.

  The man didn’t move aside, but remained solidly in the middle of the stairs, blocking her path. Avalon waited, staring at the tremendous sword strapped to his waist, then took a small step to the right, as if to allow him to go on. Still, he didn’t move.

  Behind him Elfrieda was paralyzed, peering up at the two of them in agony.

  Avalon shifted again, this time to the left. The man stopped her with his arm, then placed one finger under her chin to tilt her head up. The contact of his skin against hers seemed to sear her, almost causing her to jump.

  She took in his face and had only the impression of strength, power, before looking away hastily.

  “Who are you, child?”

  His voice was deep and sure, the purity of his accent clearly marking him as one of Bryce’s visiting nobility. She bit her lip with the urge to yank her head away from his light touch. She felt so odd, like nothing she had ever experienced before. He seemed to set off a kind of nervous hum throughout her entire body, a sensation of heightened awareness.…

  This was insanity, she had no idea why she was reacting so strangely to this man, but they could not be discovered here. If Bryce found out he would kill them all, he would have to, and desperation made her words that much more convincing.

  “I am no one, milord.”

  “No one?” He flicked back her hood with dismaying ease. Avalon heard Elfrieda give a little cry.

  The stranger ignored it, silent and musing. Avalon felt for the veil, praying it still covered her hair, and found it in place. She remembered to lower her face again.

  Imprinted in her mind was all that she could see of him with the light behind him: black hair tied back, unsmiling lips, pale eyes that reminded her of frost.

  “No one,” he repeated softly, almost to himself, and she heard something new in his cultured voice, something wild and alarming. “I think not.”

  She tried to brush past him but he stalled her once more.

  “What is your name?”

  Astonishingly, amazingly, nothing came to mind. She blinked down at his chest, unable to say a single word.

  “Rosalind!” squeaked Elfrieda. “We must leave! We will be late!”

  The stranger again spared a glance for the girl behind him, then looked back at Avalon. She had abandoned the idea of looking down and met his gaze steadily. His winter eyes were narrowed; there was a tautness around his mouth, as if what he saw didn’t please him.

  “Rosalind.” He seemed almost to taste the word, saying it with cool speculation.

  She dipped a little curtsy on the stairs, wondering how to escape this man and this moment, the strangeness surrounding him, that heated sting still lingering on her chin where he had touched her.

  “Please, milord,” pleaded Elfrieda now. “Let my sister be. We must return to our father’s house or be punished.”

  The man shook his head, just once. The light behind him reflected off the ebony of his hair.

  “Rosalind.” Even in the way he repeated it he implied disbelief, as if he could easily see through their thin plot. It unnerved her so much that at last she found the will to move, ducking quickly under his arm and hopping over two stairs to regain her footing. Elfrieda started moving again just as fast, both of them almost running down the remainder of the stairs.

  He didn’t follow. Something told Avalon he wouldn’t. And as the two women made their way out of the inn and back into the night, Avalon thought about that delicate moment in time, when she had acted and he had not, though it would have been simple to block her escape and keep her there with him perhaps forever, there with his thick black hair and frost pale eyes, his muscular body almost engulfing her own.

  But he had let her leave. Avalon tried to be glad about it.

  The night had held no peace for her. When morning arrived Avalon shrank from it, burying her head under the blankets of the pallet, wanting to sleep on and on, slumber a shield between her and the looming problems of her life.

  The sun was insistent, however, and eventually she sat up and faced the brightness surrounding her.

  Directly across the room in front of her was the long row of her trunks, each filled with fine clothing—Maribel’s delight—and Avalon couldn’t help but feel a little sorry that she was going to have to abandon the handiwork of all those seamstresses.

  Perhaps she could pay one of the servants to send the trunks back to Maribel in Gatting after everything died down. Perhaps Elfrieda or her lover would do it.

  The door opened quietly, and Avalon watched the little maid appear and creep softly into the room, carrying a tray with bowls and a cup on it.

  She tried to smile when she saw Avalon sitting up.

  “A fine day,” Elfrieda said, and then burst into tears.

  Avalon crossed over to her, still standing in the middle of the room with the tray, tears rolling down her face. Taking the tray from her, Avalon led her over to the pallet, then went back and closed the door completely.

  The tray held her breakfast, porridge and honey and bread. She sat down beside Elfrieda and settled it carefully on her lap, then tore off a chunk of bread, offering it to the girl. Elfrieda took it, still crying.

  Avalon poured a dollop of honey on the porridge, touched the bread to it and took a bite. Very good. She realized she was famished and began to eat in earnest.

  Elfrieda was nervous, that was all. She thought Avalon had no idea of Bryce’s plan and didn’t know how to tell her. Avalon let the girl’s tears come to a stop, then took the cup of ale and made her take a sip.

  “Milady,” she hiccuped, “I must tell you something.”

  “I know it already,” Avalon said, tearing off the bread. “Drink more.”

  Elfrieda did, rolling her eyes at Avalon over the rim.

  “You are good and kind and brave,” Avalon said around bites. “And there is something I have for you, to remember me by.”

  As soon as the porridge was gone she set the tray aside and went over to one of the trunks. Inside she found her best cloak, dark green wool lined with satin. It was extremely heavy.

  “See if you can leave before the party tonight. When you do, wear this under your other cloak.”

  Elfrieda only gaped up at her, so Avalon laid the material across the maid’s lap, letting it shift and slide over her legs until it covered her.

  “I could not,” the girl exclaimed, aghast.

  “Yes, you could. You will. I shall be offended if you do not.”

  “Nay, milady—” She moved to stand up, and the cloak began to slither to the floor. Avalon pushed her back into place with one hand, then sat beside her again.

  “Look,” she said, and lifted up the weighted hem of it.

  Elfrieda looked but did not see.

  Impatient, Avalon took the girl’s hand and placed it on the cloth itself, making her feel the hard, circular outlines of the coins sewn within.

  “Sweet Jesu,” Elfrieda breathed, staring up at Avalon. “My wedding gift to you. Buy a cow,” Avalon said. “Buy many of them. Buy your way out of this place.”

  Her plans had now boiled down to one perfectly simple essence: flight.

  For years she had plotted, had charted her own path to her future, outwardly agreeing to all the edicts and proclamations about her that bustled back and forth from Scotland to England. She had acted as everyone thought she should. She had voiced no opini
on whatsoever on her kidnapping, her betrothal, or her return to England.

  Hanoch had not been completely fooled. Perhaps he had not been fooled even a little, and that was why he had held on to her so tightly, hiding her, shaping her, making her into the thing that he wanted for his family.

  At first she used to cry, Avalon recalled. She would cry over the loss of Ona, Trayleigh, even her father. She would cry when she was told to be quiet, she would cry when she was confined to the tiny pantry they kept bad girls in.

  The first time they struck her, however, the tears had stopped.

  It had been instructional, of course. Hanoch’s slaps always were. He was trying to teach her something in his own severe way. He was teaching her how to fight back.

  She used to hate him. She used to envision horrible things happening to him, that the goblin men would return and hurt him as they did Ona, they would burn his cottage down to ashes.…

  She no longer hated Hanoch. He was mean and savage but he had kept her alive, after all, even if he was a victim of his own ignorant beliefs. Hanoch was just another strand in the intricate web that made up her life, he and her father and Bryce and Marcus Kincardine, as well. Avalon was about to set all those strands on fire and watch them vanish in a puff of smoke.

  It seemed only fitting. Bryce had ensured that her own years of planning were now nothing more than worthless memories. The least she could do was destroy his.

  The celebration was at hand. Avalon had spent most of the afternoon in Luedella’s room, avoiding her cousins and gathering up what she thought she would need for her final hour here. The small bits of jewelry had been easy to hide in the seams of her bliauts. She had three gowns with precious stones—some set, some loose—hidden away in the linings of their sleeves and hems, her mother’s inheritance that Bryce had been unable to withhold from her once she was at Gatting. She had another cape with coins.

  She would endure the celebration tonight. She would again smother her true emotions and follow the lead of Bryce and Warner. They would engage her to Warner, they would drink to it, all those fine nobles would see her agree. And by the morning she would be gone.

  Most likely she would not get far, but it didn’t seem to matter anymore. She would retain her integrity until they had to kill her. Perhaps she might even be granted a stroke of luck. All she needed was one convent Just one. She would hand over all the jewels and money and then fall into a religious ecstasy if need be, claiming divine inspiration to devote her life to God. Warner would be unable to marry a bride of the church.

  And then someday, someday far ahead of her, she would leave that convent and come back to Trayleigh to avenge the deaths of her father and Ona and Luedella.

  She dismissed Elfrieda when she arrived to dress her, forcing her to take the green cloak and telling her that she should leave the castle now. It seemed important that she not witness what Avalon was about to do, the bald lie she was about to enact.

  “God be with you,” she had told the girl, and Elfrieda had looked back at her, speechless, then gathered the cloak and left.

  Avalon chose the finest bliaut she owned for tonight’s charade, a splendid brocade and velvet thing, deep blues and greens and purples in shifting colors, a low bodice, amethysts ringing her shoulders and dripping down in looping swirls over the skirts.

  Warner certainly appreciated it. As she came down the main stairs to the great hall he pushed through the gathered crowd to greet her at the bottom. He bowed only low enough to keep his eyes in the vicinity of her breasts, though she could not say if it was her bosom or the jewels that he admired most.

  “Glorious,” beamed Bryce, taking her hand. “Doesn’t she look glorious, my dear?” he said to Claudia.

  “Oh, yes,” that lady agreed, once again offering her curling smile.

  All the people in the hall were staring at her, examining the heiress, evaluating the gown, the gems, her smile. Thank goodness London had prepared her for this.

  Someone handed her a golden goblet of spiced wine that smelled too sharply of cloves. Bryce had melted away into the crowd, laughing loudly, keeping up an almost frantic pace as he moved from person to person, a line of servants trailing him.

  Warner seemed fixed to her shoulder. She could not move without him moving with her. He introduced her to the avid flocks of people; she felt the blazing curiosity among them, the brazen looks, the buzz of speculation that was getting more audible as the sun sank lower over the horizon.

  Lady Claudia made no effort to play hostess. She sat in a corner with two other women and a flask of wine. Every now and again Avalon could feel her eyes on her, the barely suppressed simmer of anger and fear that filled the woman.

  Avalon took a sip of the pungent wine and tried not to let pity for Claudia cloud her judgment. True, it could not be easy being married to a murderer, but she had suffered through that well enough. The anger Avalon felt from her now came from that place in Claudia that was furious with Avalon, actually, for appearing to comply with her husband’s scheme.

  Merciful heavens, what had she expected Avalon to do? It was hard enough having to conceal the things she had discovered already. Had Claudia really expected her to stand up and deny the baron and his brother in front of their cronies and peers? Hardly likely.

  She would be imprisoned in Luedella’s room, no doubt, until she came around. Or worse, locked away with Warner somewhere, allowing him to force her into the marriage in his own way.…

  He had the effrontery now to keep his hand on her waist—lightly, true, but still there, a clear proclamation of his ownership.

  Avalon gritted her teeth and endured it for as long as she could stand.

  “You are the most beautiful woman here,” he said once, bending down too close to her ear.

  “How kind you are,” she replied, and turned quickly to greet some approaching lord, knocking Warner’s hand away.

  He had it back in place in a second, taking over the conversation.

  She couldn’t help but look for the man from the inn, half-dreading his arrival for fear he would recognize her, but half-anticipating it … for no good reason at all. If she concentrated, she could almost feel again the strange awareness he had provoked in her, that unique, buzzing hum just beneath her skin that had come to life at his touch.

  He might denounce her. He might accuse her in front of everyone of masquerading as a tavern wench. He was an incalculable danger to her.

  But still Avalon looked for him, and still she felt a grain of disappointment that he did not appear in the seething crowd.

  It seemed endless, the swirling rumors that chased themselves from mouth to mouth, the living storm of conversation, the knowing looks directed at her and Warner. The gossip rose and echoed off the stone walls and ceiling, coming back and bringing with it a throbbing pain in her temples.

  Her goblet was empty, the spiced wine finally gone. It burned a hole in her stomach; the food was not yet served.

  “More wine?” asked Warner, hovering.

  She gave him a faint smile. “Only if you fetch it for me yourself, my lord.”

  His eyes widened, then grew hooded. She met his look without withdrawing her offer, but then pretended to be overcome with modesty, lowering her gaze. If only she had mastered the art of blushing on demand.

  “It would be my honor,” he said at last, and kissed her hand before leaving to search out a serf.

  It would not take him long. As soon as his back was to her she took the few short steps necessary to reach the side doorway that led out into a hall. She walked through it without looking around, maintaining an air of purpose.

  No one stopped her, though she was sure many had seen her go. It didn’t matter. She would return soon, but she had to take in some air, had to get out of that stifling room. She had to feel a breeze on her face for just a moment, and she knew the perfect spot to do it in.

  Her father had kept a garden, of all things, inside the bailey, a small plot of trees and plants and wh
imsy. Her mother had started it, Ona had told her, and it had been one of Avalon’s favorite places, a garden of surprises, pure luxury.

  “… has arrived. He is in the chapel now, my lord, awaiting your pleasure.”

  Avalon stopped at the muffled words coming past a closed door she had just walked by, and glanced around her. The hall was deserted.

  “Good, good.” Unmistakably Bryce, not even bothering to lower his voice. “Tell him we will be there within the hour. Make certain he is ready.”

  There was a moment of silence; Avalon imagined the serf bowing before leaving and looked around frantically for a place to hide. But then Bryce’s voice came again, the tone of having forgotten some trifling thing.

  “Oh, and tell the priest the bride may be somewhat … unwilling. Tell him to expect it.”

  “We have already done so, my lord.”

  “Fine. For what I’m paying him, he can overlook a maidenly scene or two.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  Avalon fled down the hall, mindful now only of getting away from the door. Her skirts were heavy in her hands, the amethysts winked in sparkling bursts from the torchlight as she ran.

  Idiot! she cursed herself, turning corners, following a path she only partly remembered. Bryce was much more desperate than she had thought, and just as ruthless as she had feared.

  He would wed her off tonight—tonight! In front of all these people, he would drag her willy-nilly to the altar and force her hand and ruin what was left of her life for his own private profit.

  Wed her off to Warner, large and menacing, his thick lips wet against her skin, sending shudders through her whole being.

  The garden was still there, slightly overgrown, all the trees larger, the bushes reaching out into the path now. Avalon slowed down to a walk as she entered it, letting the twilight envelop and surround her with its tricky light. She pressed her hands up to the sides of her head and wondered desperately what to do.

  She could go to her rooms, pleading a headache, which was very real. She could gather her things and sneak down to the stables, steal her own horse, ride away—