Brides of Falconfell

by Bancroft, Blair

  And poor Serena, destined to be born a crusader, forever marching off to strange places to put things right. If I had been born in another time, would I have ridden off on a Crusade, bare-breasted like Eleanor of Aquitaine?

  A hot blush swept me from head to toes. Bare-breasted. Surely the songs and stories lied. The Queen of France had not actually . . .?

  I slapped my palms down hard on my writing desk and forced myself back to my schedule for the day. After jerking the bellhanger with more force than necessary, I sent the maid who scurried to answer it to the nursery with a message. No walk with Violet today. (I was saving my strength for the mountain.) But I would spend an hour with her after luncheon.

  I paid my respects to Isabelle and Maud then indulged myself in a sweep through the main rooms of Falconfell, nodding approval of sunlight shining through open draperies in every room, of touches of fresh color making their appearance here and there. The furniture, polished to perfection, gleamed. The vases, statues, clocks, paintings, and other bits and pieces showed not a speck of dust.

  I mounted the stairs and entered my bedchamber—no, Helen’s bedchamber. A room of pale colors, ruffles, and lace. Was it mean-spirited that I had decided this would be the first room to be totally redecorated? The room for which I had already selected new fabrics, a new wall covering?

  No, indeed. Thayne had given me carte blanche and refurbish I would. Beginning right here.

  Putting thoughts of redecoration aside, I lost myself in pleasant speculation of another kind, this one spiced with an occasional frisson of fear. Falconcrest. Thayne. Tonight. I hadn’t spent nearly thirty years on this earth without hearing tales of Mid-summer revels that would make a rabbit blush. Dear God, what did Thayne have in mind?

  The moment came at last. Thayne and I wore calf-length cloaks that would not dust the ground at steep angles, for the mountain at night would be chilly. We each wore stout boots and carried a sturdy wooden staff. Thayne carried a pack on his back. “A blanket,” he explained as we walked through the garden with what I was certain were the eyes of the entire household fixed on our backs, “and a bite to eat.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if even Violet is watching us,” I muttered with no little chagrin.

  “My land, my house, my servants. If I want to take a walk with my wife, it’s none of their business.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous! I wager even Isabelle is watching. We are the cynosure of all eyes.”

  “I do not choose to be kitchen gossip,” Thayne responded loftily.

  I choked, stumbling on nothing more challenging than the brick walkway. “You have been kitchen gossip since the day you were born. Nothing you do or say can change that.”

  Silence. We reached the end of the garden and entered the path through the woods, the steep incline beginning almost immediately. I concentrated on my walking, not wishing to disgrace myself by falling behind. The only words we exchanged were warnings from Thayne: “Watch your step,” “Take my hand,” “Steep drop on your right.” My responses, mere murmurs in return.

  We climbed without pause for twenty minutes or more before Thayne stopped, waited for me to catch up, then took me by the shoulders and turned me around. Falconfell and the valley, as I’d seen it with Ross . . . and yet so very different with the sun descending behind the mountain at our backs and casting both house and valley into a landscape of shadows. “You must love it very much,” I said.

  “I do, but we’ve fallen on difficult times, Serena. I can’t deny it. I should have come up here sooner—it might have cleared my head, given me a better picture of what is happening down below.” Thayne pounded his walking stick into the hard earth of the path. “As a boy I came up here nearly every day, sometimes by myself, sometimes with Ross and Rab. Life was good, with no inkling of what was to come.” He turned abruptly and resumed climbing.

  Dutifully, I followed. Even with the sun gone down behind a mountain even higher than Falconcrest, the trail through the high moor was still clearly visible, though occasionally squishy beneath my feet as we skirted a bog. Bogs, I supposed, were something like shake holes. You could be on granite one minute and plunged in fathomless depths the next. The only difference—I could recognize bogs, I understood bogs. The treacherous quality of shake holes terrified me. The very idea that the ground could suddenly open and swallow a person whole . . .

  Mid-summer’s Eve! snapped my inner voice. Revelry. Romps in the heather. No dark thoughts, no terror.

  I found myself agreeing. Tonight, nothing but pagan celebration. Pleasure. Indulgence in . . . whatever the night might offer.

  When we finally reached the summit of Falconcrest, I paused, gasping for breath. I swear Thayne doubled the pace as our goal came in sight. “Look!” he declared, swinging his arm in a great arc. “It’s all Hammersley land, as far as the eye can see. Mine. And I need to guarantee our hold for the future.”

  Of course. He’d brought me here tonight to demonstrate his power, to plead his case for an heir. I stepped away from him, turned my back.

  “Serena?”

  I didn’t answer and soon heard rustling behind me. Out of he corner of my eye I saw he was laying down the blanket, unpacking packets of food and a bottle of wine.

  Oblivious, completely oblivious.

  Not quite.

  “I am sorry if I have said something to offend you, but we have had a long climb and food and drink shouldn’t come amiss.”

  To avoid a confrontation, I said the first thing that came into my head. “Where are the bonfires?”

  “It’s not yet dark,” Thayne pointed out with an amused patience I didn’t deserve. “But if you look there . . . and there”—he pointed toward two widely separated hollows between the hills—“you will see movement where people are gathering. The wood was hauled to the sites earlier and is already fixed in place. At midnight the fires will be lit. We may even be able to see one or two on the far side of Falconcrest. So come and eat while we still have light to see by.”

  That brought me fully around to face him. “You didn’t bring a lantern.” Not a question. I should have noticed before, but I was so all about in the head at the thought of a climbing the mountain with Thayne . . .

  “The moon and the stars should be quite enough light for Mid-summer’s Eve,” he returned equably, “but I do prefer to see what I’m eating and not risk missing the glasses while pouring the wine.” He gave me his lord-of-the-manor look and, seething, I sat.

  He’d known we could not descend the mountain until morning. He’d planned it.

  Anton had outdone himself, providing small pastries with a variety of stuffings from beef and piquant pork to cheese and ground lamb with rosemary. For dessert, jam-filled tartlets. I licked my fingers while examining the paper packets in hope of finding more. By the end of the meal we had drunk two-thirds of the wine and my temper had mellowed. We consumed the remainder while we waited for midnight.

  The torches came first, two bobbing about one bonfire site, three at the other. We stood up but could see nothing more, save the brilliance of the stars overhead and a crescent moon that did little to alleviate the dark. And then suddenly the torches dipped low, shouts and cheers ringing loud enough to reach all the way to the top of Falconcrest. The fire to our north flickered, caught, went up in a great blossoming of flames. Another cheer, and we turned to the south as that fire flamed into life. My gaze shifted back and forth from one bonfire to the other as my mind grappled with amazement that level-headed Serena could be so caught up in the excitement of the moment.

  “Come,” Thayne said, “let’s take a look to the west.” He held my arm firmly as he led me across the high ground until we could peer down the far side of Falconcrest. And, sure enough, far below us another bonfire lit the night sky. The slope on this side of the mountain was more precipitous, and it seemed as if we were looking straight down on the fire from above. The figures dancing around the bonfire brought a smile to my lips. They were truly enjoying themselves.
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  Nor could I see any hint of the licentious activities I had heard whispered about through the years. Merciful heavens, was that a flicker of disappointment I felt? Or, more likely, some more personal emotion as Thayne led me back to the blanket, rummaging in his pack a moment before producing a second bottle of wine. I could not see his expression, but I suspected it was a wicked grin. “I have had quite enough,” I declared.

  “But it’s a long time ’til morning, my dear. Did you have something else in mind to pass the time?”

  “I thought you knew every inch of this mountain, including being able to climb down in the dark.”

  “My expert knowledge of Falconcrest,” he returned with great equanimity, “includes being quite certain I would never risk climbing down in the dark, particularly with my bride at my side.”

  Trapped.

  But why was I fighting? Had I not wanted to spend Mid-summer Eve alone with my husband?

  Eve. Not night. I definitely had not expected to spend the whole night on the mountain. The more the fool, I.

  Defiantly, I turned back toward the west side of the mountain, following the pungent scent of wood smoke and carefully shuffling my feet so I wouldn’t trip over an unexpected rock or plunge into a pool of mud. Once again I peered down the steep slope. My breath caught, my eyes went wide. What were the dancers doing?

  Shedding their clothes, one piece at a time is what they were doing. Tossing each garment helter-skelter while never missing a beat. Oh. My. I couldn’t take my eyes off them, quickly discovering it was harder for the men to disrobe. They had to hop on one foot, often for several paces, before getting one leg out of their breeches, only to have to struggle with the other pant leg. Fascinating. So fascinating I almost didn’t notice the women were already naked, some with breasts ample enough to bounce with every step.

  An arm came ’round my waist. I gasped, my heartbeat soaring even as my belly warmed with feelings I had only recently come to recognize. “For shame, my lady,” Thayne whispered. “I had no idea you were a voyeur.”

  “You brought me up here not expecting me to look?” I challenged.

  He whispered in my ear. “I thought I might have to coax you.”

  Coax? Horrid man. I was burning up. As if all three bonfires were inside me. And he knew it. He had stranded us on this mountain quite deliberately. With every intention of taking advantage of the shocking pagan traditions that were allowed to surface at the Summer Solstice.

  “Will the others do the same? The people at the other bonfires.”

  “I expect so. Shall we take a look?”

  I allowed him to lead me back to our blanket. The bonfires were farther away, but the dancing flames glinted off prancing circles of bare skin at both sites. Even as we watched, the circles began to dissolve as couples slipped off into the darkness for the final rite of welcoming summer.

  The summer is a-cumen in, loudly sing cuckoo. The old song said it clearly. It was unlikely the couples sneaking off were married, or at least not to each other.

  “I envy them,” Thayne said softly. “For them it all seems so easy.”

  “One night of the year,” I pointed out. “A marriage such as ours must last a lifetime.”

  “Which does not keep me from wanting to begin it here and now.”

  Out of a perfectly clear night sky, a lightning bolt crashed through me. “On a blanket on top of a mountain?” I squeaked.

  He clasped both arms around my waist, brushed a kiss at the nape of my neck. “What better place to celebrate Mid-summer’s Eve?”

  “I trust there’s no tradition of maiden sacrifice,” I managed, “no plans to toss me off the back side of the mountain, come dawn.”

  “What maiden?” he taunted. “I promise you, come dawn, there won’t be any maidens to toss.”

  Ignoring my outraged gasp, Thayne knelt on the blanket and deftly opened the second bottle of wine and refilled both glasses. Instead of handing one to me, however, he settled into a lazy sprawl, balancing both glasses in one hand, and patted the blanket beside him. “Come, Serena, when was the last time you indulged in a fine wine under the light of nothing more than the moon and the stars?”

  “And bonfires.” My heart might have wished it, but my knees refused to bend.

  “It’s past the witching hour, my girl. Every female on the mountain has become a fairy princess, every male a prince. Or whatever creatures they fancy themselves. There’s magic in the air, don’t you feel it? You only have to reach out and touch it.”

  I gazed at the nearest of the bonfires on this side of Falconcrest—nothing moved except the flames, still burning with as much abandon as the dancers who had found their own private niches of delight. How wonderful to be so free, unbound by the strictures of society. I, on the other hand, was Miss Prim and Prudish who could not even bend a knee to join her husband—her husband—on a blanket because she could not imagine baring her body to either the star-strewn sky or the man. Exposed on top of a mountain, for all the world to see.

  Nonsense! If I were a typical unmarried female, I would have become a dutiful companion and house slave to one of my relatives, where I would have stayed put, kept my opinions to myself, perhaps arranged flowers for the church or taken food baskets to the poor. I would not have bounced from sickroom to sickroom, organizing households along the way. Some of my notions might be a trifle too conventional, particularly when it came to men, but Thayne was now my husband and clearly one more challenge to be met with fortitude instead of frailty.

  My legs belied my determination to be brave, giving out so suddenly, I would have tumbled onto the blanket if Thayne hadn’t reached up and caught me. He also saved the glasses, which were still in his hand, but wine went flying in every direction, drenching both of us. I could feel it dripping off my hair and running down my face. Laugh or burst into tears, that was the choice, and with the moment so fraught with emotion, instinct told me only laughter would do. “I am so sorry,” I managed around a giggle as Thayne hauled out a handkerchief and mopped my face before doing the same for himself. “My legs just—” I fell silent as he untied my cloak strings and dabbed at wine that had made its way from my neck all the way down—

  I gulped as his hands went where no hands but mine or Bess’s had gone before. Another bout of nervous giggles struck me. “It’s r-red wine,” I pointed out. “Can you imagine what we’re going to look like in the morning?”

  “We can always drape our cloaks over our heads and hope no one notices,” Thayne offered as he tossed his sopping handkerchief aside. My groan at this inanity dissolved into yet another chortle. I steepled my hands before my face, rocked back and forth, and laughed unrestrainedly. Was this the hysteria I so scorned in other females?

  “With my handkerchief now useless,” Thayne declared, “I shall have to improvise. And suddenly I was flat on the ground, with him bending over me licking my forehead, my eyelids, my cheeks, my neck . . . and on down until I forgot we were on a blanket on top of a mountain, in full view of the panoply of the heavens. I forgot everything except the teasing of his lips and tongue on the tops of my breasts and—finally—the strength of his lips against mine. The claiming. And that’s certainly what it was. No soft, gentle seduction but purposeful desire. This woman is mine. Nothing and no one can put us asunder.

  I had no fight left, not even enough to reason that I could be my own woman and his. That the parts of the puzzle of male and female could fit together without constantly warring with each other. Those thoughts came much later, when sanity had returned.

  But sanity had no place on Falconcrest on Mid-summer’s Eve. With wisps of smoke curling around us, occasionally obscuring the stars, we did the unthinkable for the lord and lady of the manor. One piece at a time, taking turns, we stripped each other naked. And enjoyed every moment. Until the magic of the night overwhelmed us and eagerness for the ultimate pairing left my stockings and boots in place. Something that seemed perfectly all right in the heat of the moment but very odd
indeed when I woke to the soft gray of predawn and a sheep nosing my wine-stained gown, not ten inches from my head.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  I sat perched on the very end of the chaise-longue in my bedchamber and made a determined effort to convince myself the world would not end if I stood up, walked downstairs, and faced the other members of the household. At Thayne’s urging I had slept for a few hours, and it was now well past noon. Which gave more than ample time for the news to spread that the Lady of Falconfell had come down from the mountain, soaked in wine and looking worse than a Covent Garden doxie.

  My mortification was only slightly less because I had spent the night with my husband. The actions of married couples in the privacy of the bedchamber were considered perfectly natural. Naked coupling under the stars was so far from normal, the very thought made me shudder. Oh, we had wrapped our cloaks tightly around us as we approached the house and made an effort to straighten our hair. Thayne even wiped away a streak of wine from my face that his questing tongue had missed—

  Oh, dear God, I’d never be able to show my face again! Even though we entered through a little-used side door, I thought I heard the rustle of hasty feet, the hiss of whispers as we made our way through the house to the front stairs, which, between exhaustion and embarrassment, seemed the equivalent of climbing another mountain. Thayne took the lead, just as he had on the mountain, grasping my hand and pulling me up. After escorting me to my bedchamber door, he offered an altogether too smug masculine smile, kissed me, and left, but not before murmuring a highly provocative, “I hope you enjoyed the Summer Solstice, my dear.”

  If I’d had anything to throw at him as he walked away, I would have. I could only hope he felt the arrows my eyes were launching at his back before the door to his own bedchamber closed behind him.