The Elusive Bride

by Deborah Hale

  While insisting to herself that FitzCourtenay’s conquests were no concern of hers, Cecily could not keep her throat from tightening. Again she glanced back to the bailey, trying to pick out a bare-chested man.

  “I must see to our meal,” said Donata. “I’ll have a serving maid direct you to my chamber. Once you have cleaned up and changed clothes, you may join Father and me in the great hall.” Without waiting for a reply, she hurried away.

  A while later, Cecily entered the great hall of Lambourn feeling refreshed and ready to tackle her next challenge. Her mood flattened slightly when she saw only her host and hostess at the table. Perhaps she should have been quicker to tell them John FitzCourtenay was no servant, but the kinsman of her future husband. Then they might have invited him to dine.

  Lord Ranulf rose to greet her with the kiss of peace. “My dear child, it has been too long! What a handsome young woman you have grown into since last I laid eyes on you.”

  He held her shoulders overlong before letting them go. The sensation of his hands upon her made Cecily uneasy.

  She wished she could return his compliment, but the past few years had not been any kinder to Lord Ranulf than to her own father. His thinning hair had gone iron-gray and his bony hands reminded her of a bird’s talons. The gown hung loose upon a frame that had never been robust.

  “It does my heart good to see you again, my lord. No doubt you have heard of my errand.” She took her place at the table where her host motioned—at his right hand.

  “Indeed. It pained me to hear word of Geoffrey and Walter’s deaths.”

  At first the words stubbornly refused to have meaning for her. Then they swooped down on her heart like trained falcons with talons bared.

  “My father…dead?”

  And she had slunk away like a craven coward when he’d needed her most. Perhaps he’d been right all along to dismiss her as worthless.

  “Did you not know?” Lord Ranulf’s gaunt face radiated paternal concern.

  In spite of her earlier misgivings, Cecily warmed to him. “When I left he was hurt. At the time I did not think it grave. He’d suffered many worse injuries and lived.” Though not with grief devouring his spirit.

  “You must take nourishment,” urged Lord Ranulf. “Things always look their worst on an empty belly.”

  They prayed briefly over the food. Though her stomach growled, Cecily wondered if she could face breakfast.

  “Young Fulke always was insufferably bold.” Lord Ranulf carved a slab of juicy roast suckling and offered it to Cecily on the point of his knife. “Comes of gaining too rich an honor at too young an age, I say, with none to curb his impudence. The brazen pup needs a good lesson in manners.”

  Cecily tried to remember her own manners, waiting to speak until she’d finished eating. How good it was to dine on hot food again, in spite of her grief and guilt. And such food! Was this some saint’s feast day she’d forgotten—or had the Beauchamps put on such fine board in honor of her visit?

  This was no social call, she reminded herself severely.

  “A lesson is just what Lord DeCourtenay will teach him.” She attacked the meat with her teeth again, thinking of all the lessons she’d gladly teach Fulke DeBoissard. “I shall be grateful of any assistance you can render me…and my companion, in reaching Ravensridge.”

  Abruptly, Beauchamp’s daughter rose from her place. “If you will excuse me, I must take food to Mistress Cecily’s man.”

  “Go to. Go to, then.” Lord Ranulf sounded impatient.

  When his daughter was no longer within earshot, he turned to Cecily. “If Fulke would listen to reason from anyone, I fancy it would be me. Before this folly over the crown fell out, the young whelp used to look on me almost as a father.”

  Cecily took a drink. Expecting small ale, she tasted the sweet potency of malmsey wine. Nothing at Lambourn was turning out quite as she’d expected. “I misbelieve Fulke DeBoissard will listen to any reason but that of a sword at his throat. With the help of my…” The words came hard. “…new husband, it is sense I mean to teach him. I will need two of your swiftest horses and a little food for our journey. Weapons too, mayhap, though I hope we will not have need of them. A sword for my companion and a dagger for myself.”

  Lord Ranulf cut her more meat. His mild expression and the leisurely pace of his movements pricked Cecily. Did he not recognize the urgency of her errand? If, for the sake of Brantham, she was willing to fly headlong into a marriage that her heart resisted, the least her father’s boon ally could do was speed her on her way.

  “Are you certain this calls for so drastic a step as wedding that blackguard DeCourtenay, my dear? Give me leave to parlay with Fulke first. See if we cannot talk him ’round.”

  “While there is a chance he may get me in wedlock, Fulke will never yield. Don’t you see, my lord? As long as I bide here, Lambourn may be in the same danger as Brantham, if Fulke discovers my whereabouts.” She took another drink of her wine. “Besides, the Empress bade me wed Rowan DeCourtenay and him me. Why do you call him blackguard? Her grace sets great store by the fellow.”

  “Maud would praise the devil himself if it bid fair to gain her the crown. I speak as an old and very dear friend of your family.” When he placed his cold, fleshless hand over hers, a chill of distaste went through Cecily. “DeCourtenay murdered his first wife on their wedding night. I cannot stand idly by and see you sacrificed to him on the altar of Maud’s ambition.”

  Cecily shook her head to clear her ears. Surely she had misheard Lord Ranulf. Her intended husband had murdered his first wife? More than anything at that moment, she longed to talk with John. He would not have risked his life to escort her to wed a wife-killer. She clung stubbornly to that belief.

  But why had he not cautioned her that such foul rumors were circulating? Why had he not told her the rights of it and put her mind at rest? Was that what he’d been trying to tell her when they’d stood outside Lambourn and again when she’d fallen asleep in the guardhouse last night?

  Most importantly, did it have any bearing on his strange behavior—his unyielding severity with himself?

  “I know the news must come as a shock, my dear.” Lord Ranulf patted her hand. Then he raised his own and ran it caressingly over her hair.

  Cecily’s gorge rose. “You understate the matter, Lord Ranulf.” First her father’s death. Now this.

  “I assure you, on my honor, it is the truth. Oh, DeCourtenay was never prosecuted, of course. Not with such a powerful family behind him. The young beggar promptly up and quit Europe for the Holy Land. I’m surprised he had the gall to come back after all these years.”

  “I must…speak to my…escort.”

  Her host treated Cecily to an indulgent smile. “I’m afraid that will be impossible. The fellow is cooling his heels in my stockade.”

  “How dare you?” she flared. “Release him this instant!”

  “All in good time, my pet. All in good time. After all, what kind of bridegroom would take the risk of leaving such a fellow at liberty? What if he whisked you off to the arms of that foul brute, DeCourtenay?”

  “Bridegroom?” Cecily’s mind tried in vain to shield her from the truth she had already sensed, deep in her belly.

  “Why of course, my dear.” He wetted his thin, dry lips with the tip of his tongue. “Can a clever lass like you not see it is the only solution? You must wed me.”

  As if to confirm the inevitable, he added, “The priest is summoned. Now let us have a real kiss.”

  Chapter Eight

  Rowan longed to leap from the pile of dirty straw where he lay and hurl himself against the door of his cell, like a human battering ram. Instead, he held himself in quivering, alert stillness—listening.

  By nature, he’d always been a cautious fellow. And if his many wounds over the years had taught him one thing, it was never to surrender to a whim. Until very recently, he’d been able to follow that dictate with ease. When it came to Cecily Tyrell, however, he’d
found himself besieged by all sorts of dangerous whims and urges. Perhaps some of her impulsiveness had begun to rub off on him.

  The sound of quiet conversation drifted into Rowan’s cell. Unable to make out the words, he crept over to the door and pressed his ear to the narrow space beneath it.

  “God must be favoring his lordship,” remarked a man. He sounded like the postern gate guard who had let Rowan and Cecily into Lambourn. “A plum like this falling right into his lap.”

  “It shall be our good fortune, too,” replied another man. By his high, reedy voice, Rowan guessed he had not grown a proper whisker yet. “A good feast to celebrate the wedding, I should hope. Then his lordship too well occupied in the bedchamber to chivy us. We shall enjoy our liberty, see if we don’t.”

  Wedding? Rowan barely stifled a groan.

  Once again, the urge to hurl himself against the stout oak door nearly overcame him. It was partly a desperate yearning to rescue Cecily and flee this place, and partly a craze to batter his bones to jelly as punishment for his own folly.

  He had insisted they come this way, trusting that loyalty to the Empress would compel folk to aid them. Too late he realized Cecily’s plan had its own merit. At least by traveling north into country held by the King, they would have been forced to keep their wits about them and trust to no one but themselves. In these treacherous times, when self-interest made a mockery of fealty, suspicion had become a healthy trait to cultivate.

  Part of Rowan protested that this might not be such a calamity, after all. If Ranulf Beauchamp wed Cecily, Rowan himself would not be held accountable by the Empress to do so. The thought did nothing to pacify him. He could not abide the notion of his beautiful, vibrant Cecily being pawed over by some lecherous old man. Come to that, he could not abide the idea of her wed to any other man. What option did that leave him?

  “She’s a likely looking wench,” said the man with the deeper voice. “Got spirit enough, too, stealing out of Brantham right under DeBoissard’s nose and making her way here by night. I wonder how she’ll take his lordship’s marriage offer?”

  In spite of the worry and self-blame roiling within him, an involuntary grin overtook Rowan at the thought. Had Lord Ranulf been the very model of youth, gallantry and male comeliness, Cecily would still violently resent his courting by force. Rowan could picture her hurling crockery at his lordship’s head. Pity the fool if he let her have a knife to carve up her breakfast!

  “His lordship has many means of persuasion,” replied the second man in a suggestive tone that inflamed Rowan’s temper. When the pair of them laughed at the jest, he privately vowed to cut their tongues out at the first convenient opportunity.

  His skin rose in gooseflesh as he contemplated the means of persuasion open to Lord Ranulf. Cecily’s indignant refusal might only prick the fellow to vindictiveness.

  Lurid scenes rose in Rowan’s mind, taunting him—condemning him. He imagined her being shut up and starved into submission. He envisioned the knotted rope being tightened to put her eyes out. He pictured Cecily held down by lewd-minded, brawny-armed henchmen while Ranulf Beauchamp violated her.

  Galled to extremity, Rowan fought to calm himself. Exercising a lifetime of harsh discipline, he strove to cauterize his feelings for Cecily. By moving him to imprudent action they made him terrifyingly vulnerable. With a ruthless singleness of purpose, he concentrated on escaping his prison and planning a way to extricate himself and Cecily from Lambourn in one piece.

  On reflection, he realized his assets were as limited as the weaknesses of his prison. It was built of thick oaken stakes, planed just enough on the sides that they fit snugly together. It had no window. Unlike the other outbuildings he’d spied when they brought him here, the stockade roof was not thatched, but encased with solid timber. Beneath the straw, the earthen floor had been packed hard and smooth as marble. With good sharp digging tools and all the time in the world, a prisoner would be hard-pressed to tunnel his way out. Rowan had neither.

  If he was to leave this place, it must be through the door. That, too, looked impossible.

  The sturdy oaken posts appeared capable of withstanding monstrous force. The portal boasted three massive iron hinges of old Saxon design that spanned the whole width, reinforcing its impregnable strength. No doubt the bolt that held it fast was equally stout.

  Arrayed against such confining force, Rowan had only his wits and his tenacity. Would they be enough?

  He was used to charging into battle fully armed, with his weapon drawn. Cecily had shown him how a woman must use her ingenuity to compensate for disadvantages in size and strength. If only she had been at hand, now. She’d have devised a clever plan in the wink of an eye.

  Perhaps, thought Rowan, warmed by a faint ember of hope, he only needed to imagine what Cecily might advise.

  One thing he had come to know for certain. Cecily Tyrell would never be safe from this kind of treachery as long as she remained an unwed heiress. If he managed to deliver them from Lambourn, Rowan swore he would offer her the protection of marriage to him.

  If he had still been on speaking terms with God, he might have offered that sacrifice in exchange for divine assistance. With the sins that weighed on his soul, however, he knew better than to ask.

  As Lord Ranulf’s bloodless lips homed in on hers, Cecily turned her face and tried not to vomit. His attentions revolted her worse than stripping that dead leper.

  “Go to, my lord! I have no intention of wedding you!”

  His arms snared her with wiry strength. When she would not turn her face to him, he assaulted her cheek, her ear and her hair with kisses.

  “You always were a spirited little creature, Cecily. But you can no longer afford to behave like a headstrong child. You said yourself none of us are safe as long as Fulke sees any means of wedding you. Brantham aside, I know this is what your father would have wanted.”

  If he had hauled back and struck her, it would have had less impact on Cecily than those words. What her father would have wanted.

  She pushed Lord Ranulf away. “I pray you, sir, let me go, that I may breathe and think on what you have said.”

  “Very well, my sweet.” As he released her from his embrace, Lord Ranulf’s hands strayed from Cecily’s shoulders down to her bosom, where they gave an assessing little squeeze. “I won’t pretend the prospect of a maiden bride holds no appeal for me.”

  She backed away from him, her stomach and her thoughts both churning. Was this a marriage her father might have arranged for her, if he’d lived?

  All too likely.

  For years she had strived in vain to win his affection, or at least his respect, by proving she could best men at their own games. Might she now atone for deserting her father by adapting to a woman’s proper province—the securing of marital alliances and the breeding of sons?

  Would she be a fool to reject Lord Ranulf’s offer out of hand, no matter how the thought of sharing his bed disgusted her? This was the kind of marriage she’d envisioned with Lord DeCourtenay…until she’d met his brother. It was the kind of marriage she’d wanted, with no expectations of deep affection or closeness. And Lambourn was near to Brantham—not like Ravensridge, almost forty miles distant.

  Then there was Lord Ranulf’s charge that DeCourtenay had killed his first wife. Cecily took that into account, uncertain what to believe. At least with her father’s old friend she would be safe from anything worse than his odious romantic attentions.

  What to do? What to do? Cecily pressed her knuckles to her forehead. If only Mother Ermintrude had let her take the veil!

  Just when it seemed that the scales of reason drooped heavily in favor of accepting Ranulf Beauchamp, Cecily set on the opposite end of the balance one minor consideration.

  Her time and acquaintance with John FitzCourtenay.

  It weighed far more heavily than she had expected.

  Especially considering he was not her intended husband. Only Rowan DeCourtenay’s boon companion and look-
alike brother.

  Considering John’s intense reaction to the unavoidable killing of DeBoissard’s henchman, Cecily could not imagine him on close terms with a cold-blooded murderer. Could Lord Ranulf have concocted the story as a means of coercing her into wedding him?

  Cecily gulped a deep breath. “No, my lord, I cannot marry you. I offered the Empress my fealty and she bade me wed Lord DeCourtenay. Whatever manner of man he is, whatever he may have done in the past, I must honor my word.”

  Lord Ranulf’s pale blue eyes glittered with icy wrath and his skin seemed to stretch tighter over the sharp angles of his face. “Don’t be daft, girl! You do not have a choice whether you’ll be my wife. Only whether you’ll exercise your reason and do it willingly.”

  “You would wed me by force?” She could feel the temper brewing within her like a gathering storm. “Then you are no better than DeBoissard. I demand, in the name of the Empress, that you release me and my companion.”

  He strode toward her.

  In spite of her resolve to stand firm, Cecily found herself retreating, until her back pressed against a tapestry that covered the timbers of the great hall.

  “Think on it, child. You are in no position to make demands.” Lord Ranulf’s voice was hushed, but it had the jagged edge of threat. “I have never taken an unwilling woman, but there are men who highly recommend the practice. They say it stirs the blood.”

  Something in Cecily pleaded for restraint. Begged her to pretend submission and play for time. But the tide of indignant fury within her had mounted to a crest and she was powerless to stop its onrush.

  “Treacherous cur! See if this will stir your blood!”

  Jamming her knee into the lap of his tunic, she scored his face with her nails.

  As he clutched at his nether parts, bellowing in pain and outrage, Cecily squeezed past him and ran for the entrance to the hall.

  Straight into the arms of a tall, burly guard.

  She tried to slip from his ham-handed grasp, but when Lord Ranulf roared, “Hold her!” the fellow caught her long plait of hair and yanked her back.