Phantom Bride

by Cach, Lisa

  “Fat lot of good it did you,” he said, and she saw his glance go to her scar. “Father didn’t think much of you after that happened.”

  Fury exploded inside her. She pitched her cup at him, hitting him on the temple, wine spilling all down his face and shirt. Thomas jumped backward, falling off the bench, and she was up and over the table and on top of him before he could recover. She knelt with all her weight on his chest, her dagger out, pricking at the skin under his chin.

  “I have told you before, Thomas,” she said, “that you are never to speak of it.”

  “But you always refer to your scar! You did so this very afternoon!” he protested.

  “It is different when I do, and well you know it. I had enough of mocking from Father and the others: I will not endure it from you.”

  “It’s not half so bad as you think. I don’t even see it most of the time.”

  She moved the dagger up to the edge of his eye socket. “Would you like one to match?”

  His lips trembled. “You wouldn’t do that.”

  “Wouldn’t I, though?” she said, and for a moment did not know if she would or would not. She had so little left, she almost wanted to destroy what remained. Kill Thomas, kill herself, and be done with fighting to survive. Let it be over. Let her rest. The thought was with her for as long as it takes a spark to flare and then die, and then the full fire of her determination to live rose up within her, devouring any thoughts of giving herself over to despair.

  “Serena?” Thomas asked, a wobble of worry in his voice, his eyes wide.

  Her eyes focused on him anew. Thomas, her last remaining kin. She lowered the dagger and climbed off his chest. “Get up.”

  She checked the stew while he found his feet and picked up the fallen bench. When she came back to the table with bowls of stew, she saw that Thomas had refilled her wine cup.

  They ate in silence, and despite the luxury of the meat, Serena did not taste it. Her mind was too caught in the future she envisioned for herself: She would survive, and she would get le Gayne. She would not starve here over the winter, scrounging for scraps of inedible food. She would have children whom she would love, and who would love her the way she had loved her mother, without regard to beauty or size, intelligence or grace. All she had to do was reach out and take what the falling star had promised would be hers.

  She began again to run through and discard possible scenarios for how to capture her soon-to-be husband. “We will need to lure him away from whatever men ride with him,” she said, staring into the growing dark of the kitchen, then turning her gaze on her brother.

  Thomas, his face half-lit by the orange flames of the fire, said nothing.

  “What draws a man away from others?” she asked. “And what takes down his guard?”

  Thomas took another bite of stew, chewed, and swallowed. A long moment went by, in which all that could be heard was the crackling of the fire. “A woman draws him away,” he said at last, quietly. “And the helpless take down his guard.”

  Chapter Two

  “He’s coming!” Thomas said, crashing through the bushes to where she waited by the stream. “And he’ll be alone this time. He’s left his two men to oversee one of the fields. He must think it’s safe, this close to the fortress.”

  “At last!” Serena said, relief and apprehension mixing together, her heart beating a rapid tattoo. “Do I look all right?” she asked, nervously combing her fingers through her loose hair.

  “Pull the gown down a little lower on your shoulder.”

  “Like this?”

  “That’s perfect. Now, quick, get in position,” he said, and ran to the hiding place they had constructed earlier.

  Serena sat at the edge of the creek, pulling her skirts up to mid-thigh with shaking hands, and putting her bare feet in the water. She put her bandage-wrapped wrist in the sling around her neck, and rearranged the too-small gown again, so that plenty of shoulder and half a breast were showing. Anxious perspiration broke out under her arms.

  She and Thomas had been spying on le Gayne for nearly a week, and moving about through pockets of forest to both avoid detection and choose possible spots for their ambush. Their nerves were frayed from fear of discovery, their imaginations torturing them with what might go wrong with their plan. Fortunately, frustration with being unable to ever find le Gayne alone had overcome some of their fears, making them eager to get the ambush over with, whatever the consequences. This was their first real opportunity to take him.

  She started to sing, her voice not particularly lovely, but of sufficient strength to guarantee that their quarry would hear it from the narrow road passing nearby.

  “There were three ravens sat on a tree,

  Down a down, hay down, hay down,

  There were three ravens sat on a tree,

  With a down.”

  It was the first time in her life she had made an attempt to attract a man’s sexual attention, and she had her doubts that it would work. Thomas had assured her that her hair alone would be enough to catch le Gayne’s eye, thick and flaxen as it was, growing down past her hips. He had also embarrassed her by pointing out that her breasts were quite respectable, and had a good swell to them.

  They had overcome her height by putting Serena on the ground, a position that only increased the impression of vulnerability given by the sling.

  “There were three ravens sat on a tree,

  They were as black as they might be,

  With a down, derry, derry, derry, down, down.”

  “The Three Ravens” was the only ballad she knew by heart, so there hadn’t been much choice in what to sing. Thomas had insisted that the words wouldn’t matter— all le Gayne would care about was seeing a young woman alone.

  “Then one of them said to his mate,

  ‘Where shall we our breakfast take?

  Down in yonder green field

  There lies a knight slain under his shield.’ ”

  She saw movement through the trees. It was their quarry. She sang louder, bending over and splashing water up her calves with her free hand, as if she were a weary traveler washing her dusty feet.

  A few moments later le Gayne came through the woods and drew his horse to a halt on the other side of the narrow, shallow stream. Serena looked up from the water and stopped her singing, her hand going to her throat as if she were startled. “Good sir!” she exclaimed, as breathily as she could manage. She made a fumbling, ineffectual attempt to push down her skirts. The shaking of her hands was real, at least; and the thudding of her heart. God’s blood, but he was an ugly man, with a cold, mean look to his eyes.

  “What are you doing in these woods?” he demanded. Le Gayne had indeed become a large man, his jowls and fat neck bulging beneath his jawline, and a massive gut hanging over his belt. His hair was the dark gray of dull steel, and she guessed his age to be in the late fifties. Despite the age and the fat, it looked as if there were muscle under his padding, and she suspected he was as strong as Thomas had warned. Perhaps as cruel, too.

  Serena bowed her head forward, letting her hair cover half her face and the scar, and looked up at him from under her brows. Thomas had said it was a most pleasing, beseeching look. “I have been wandering in this wood half the day,” she said. “I have lost the road.”

  He chuckled, eyes gleaming, and swung down from his horse. “You are alone.”

  “Aye, sir, and growing terribly hungry. I am looking for work. Do you know of where I might find some?” She blinked innocently at him.

  “What work can a pretty maid like you do, with an injured arm?” he asked, his eyes on her breasts. The tip of his tongue poked out to touch his upper lip.

  Serena shuddered. This, her future husband? For the first time, she saw her plan as Thomas had: an invitation to a fate worse than winter in Clerenbold Keep. No good could come of this. A dark dread swept over her, warning of the price she was about to pay to get what she wanted.

  But then the falling star flashe
d through her memory, brilliant with hope as it sank behind le Gayne’s fortress. It had promised her all that she desired; she must not doubt it.

  “Sir, I will do whatever I must. Is there not some use you could find for me?” she asked. She arched her back, thrusting her breasts into plainer view. She felt the creeping heat of embarrassment coming up her neck at both the whorish role she was playing and her poor performance of it. He must think her ridiculous.

  His eyes went up and down her body. “I might be able to think of something,” he said, and dropped his horse’s reins.

  She made herself stay still as he leaped the narrow stream, not quite believing that he was falling for their trap. She felt his hand touch the hair on the top of her head, petting her as if she were a dog.

  “Sir?” she said, trembly voiced, and looked up at him helplessly, being sure to turn slightly toward him so he could get an unobstructed view down her neckline.

  Looking up into le Gayne’s eyes, she saw for the first time in her life a man lusting for her. She shivered, as much from a true sense of fear as a feigned one. Thomas had said that a man like le Gayne would enjoy a bit of cowering and protesting, but she found she need hardly pretend. It was as startling to see that lust as it was terrifying, for she knew right then that this man did not see her as Serena Clerenbold, a sister and a daughter, a future wife and mother, a person with thoughts and feelings, hopes and fears. He saw only a female with breasts, and thighs to be parted. She might as well have been a sheep, for all the care he would give her. He would treat her as she’d seen her father and brothers treat the female peasants within their power.

  “I am a maid, sir,” she said, covering her cleavage with her hand and looking down bashfully. “I have never known a man.” Thomas had promised that those words would do away with any of le Gayne’s hesitation. Deflowering peasants was great sport among those who could get away with it.

  “Today must be your lucky day,” le Gayne said roughly, and grabbed a fistful of her hair, jerking back her head as he dropped on top of her, pinning her to the ground.

  The assault took her by surprise, both her arms getting caught under his weight on her chest, and she kicked and struggled, trying in a panic to push him off her, forgetting that this move by le Gayne was exactly what she and Thomas had hoped for. All she knew was that the man’s huge weight was on her, and his hand was up her skirt, poking blunt fingers at the most intimate area of her body. Her fear skittered out of control, and she grunted with the effort to dislodge him, silently screaming for Thomas, her heart racing and her breath coming in panicked gasps.

  “You’ve got life in you,” le Gayne said into her ear, one hand still wrapped in her hair. “I like that! You’ll give me a fine gallop, and earn yourself a crust of bread. You’ll be grateful to your fine Hugh, won’t you?” He ran his tongue across her face.

  The stink of his saliva on her skin made her gag, her stomach heaving. Oh god, oh god, where was Thomas?

  There was a sudden thunk, and le Gayne collapsed on top of her.

  “Get him off me!” she shrieked, seeing Thomas. She squirmed beneath the loathsome weight. “Get him off me!”

  “Shh! Serena, for God’s love, be still!” her brother said in a hiss, dropping the iron pot with which he’d clubbed le Gayne. He pushed over the fallen man.

  The moment le Gayne’s weight was off her Serena scrambled to her knees and to the edge of the stream, her stomach heaving, trying to keep from retching. She bent her head down, not caring that her hair trailed in the dirt, and tried to gain control of herself. She heard Thomas working behind her, shackling their prey.

  “Are you all right?” Thomas asked a few moments later, as he came to kneel beside her, his hand lightly touching her back.

  She moved out from under his touch, reaching down into the stream for water with which to splash her cheeks. “I’m fine,” she said coldly. “Go get the cart.”

  Her brother hesitated until she turned to meet his eyes; then he nodded and got to his feet, dashing into the woods. He must have seen the hardness she felt in her own face.

  She rose and went to get le Gayne’s horse, well trained enough to have stood its ground throughout the melee. If nothing else, they could ride it to another town and sell it if their plan fell apart. Or eat it.

  She recrossed the stream, leading the mount, and forced herself to look at their prisoner, lying like a dead pig in the brown leaves, his mouth open and dribbling saliva, his hands trussed behind him.

  This was the man she had chosen to be her husband, the man who would plant his seed in her, and own her body. He would share her bed and put those blunt fingers on her whenever and wherever he wished, and lick her face with his foul-smelling tongue.

  Maybe it wasn’t too late to back out. They could remove the shackles and leave him here to wake on his own. He had not seen Thomas, and perhaps would not think to look to Clerenbold Keep to find her.

  But then she and Thomas would be back where they started, minus a week’s worth of harvest time.

  She heard the rumble of the cart, and Thomas appeared a moment later, leading their one ancient pony.

  “It’s not too late to leave him,” Thomas said, echoing her own thoughts. “I want to fight with the Black Prince, but God’s blood, Serena. Le Gayne. I should be ashamed to leave my kin in his care.”

  She looked at le Gayne again, this time taking note of the thickness of his flesh that denoted a well-stocked table, and the finery of his clothes that said he wanted for nothing. The horse whose reins she held was a finer creature than any that had been at Clerenbold for many a year. No one would be starving in le Gayne’s fortress this winter.

  She knew that the sons he had sired had all died in the Pestilence or the war, just as had her own brothers and father. He would want heirs. He would provide for their children, and keep both them and her safe and fed in his fortress, however much he hated her, and she him. Marriages had never been matters of love, after all.

  She would have children. She would not starve. The falling star had promised.

  “We will continue,” she said.

  “Damn you, show your faces, you cowardly whoresons!” le Gayne shouted through the small barred window in the door of his cell. “God rot your filthy souls.”

  “It doesn’t sound like a good time to talk to him,” Serena said.

  “He won’t get any better tempered as time goes on,” Thomas replied.

  “No, but at least he’ll be a little more desperate, a little more willing to listen.” They were in the cellars under Clerenbold’s main kitchen, around a corner from where le Gayne bellowed in the dark. His “cell” was a storage room that had once held wine and spirits, its door heavy and fitted with a lock.

  “We may as well talk to him now,” Thomas said. “It will give him something to think about as he gets thirsty.”

  Thomas spoke as if indifferent, but Serena could feel his tension, an echo of her own. Le Gayne’s incessant ranting had an unnerving effect, and she was half-afraid he would find some way to break through the door and come after them.

  There was a rising voice inside her saying that this had been a huge mistake, that however rich the man was or however well equipped to father and provide for children, marriage to him would not be worth the price she would have to pay.

  She doubted he would try to kill her. Even a rich man like le Gayne could not always get away with killing his wife, and she had no intention of making herself an easy target. She knew how to be on guard. But there were other ways le Gayne could take his revenge out of her hide—like beatings, or in the marriage bed—and no one would lift a hand to stop him.

  She quashed the rising voice of her fear, focusing instead on what the marriage could bring them. He would get used to her in time and learn to ignore her, and she would have children to love and raise. She could not let le Gayne’s shouted threats frighten her from her course.

  “Good morrow, sir,” Thomas said, coming around the corner, the li
ght from his torch reaching le Gayne’s face in the hatchwork of iron bars. The man squinted from the light, stepping back from the opening.

  “ ‘Good morrow,’ he says,” their prisoner returned in a mocking voice. “ ‘Good morrow’ my ass. Who the hell are you? Do you know who I am? There will be soldiers searching for me, and when they find you they will disembowel you before your own eyes. I’ll have them rip out your tongue first, so that you may not pray to God to take your black soul and save you from your torment. Hot irons will—”

  “Your pardon, sir,” Thomas interrupted, “but we will gladly answer your questions.”

  Serena felt her heart pounding painfully in her chest, le Gayne’s ire infecting her with an echo of the panic she had felt at the stream.

  “—burn out your eyes. With my own dagger I shall flay—”

  “He’s not going to listen,” Serena said, quietly enough that le Gayne could not hear. “It’s been only two days. Give him two or three more without food or water, and at least he will be too hoarse to shout.”

  “I do not like the waiting,” Thomas whispered back. “ ’Tis making me nervous as a cat. I have eaten no more than le Gayne since we took him.”

  “Nor I,” Serena admitted under her breath. It had been so much easier to be brave when this was all a plan and not reality. She had not counted on being frightened of her prey. Where was her courage now?

  They began to move away from the door, but were halted by a sudden shout. “Wait, you dung-eating sheep buggerers!” he commanded, and then was blessedly quiet for a long moment. “Who the bleeding hell are you?”

  Serena waited for the verbal abuse to continue, and when it did so only in low, muttered tones, she and her brother moved once again toward the cell door. They had agreed beforehand that Thomas should do the talking, as it was unlikely le Gayne would listen to a single word from a woman’s mouth. They’d also decided to pretend the kidnapping was Thomas’s idea, in hopes of lessening any revenge the man might take on her.

  “I am Thomas Clerenbold, and this is my sister, Serena.”