by Anne Bishop
“Mother’s mercy, Aiden.” Lyrra sank down on the end of the bed. “Let’s hope they never realize that what Morag said wasn’t what they assumed she meant.” Then she turned and gave him a brilliant smile. “Ari is gone. Isn’t that wonderful?”
Answering her smile with his own, he held out a hand. When she took it, he tugged her toward him, lying back so that she was stretched out on top of him.
He played with her hair and said, “When humans wed, there are speeches and customs that are observed to seal the bargain. We’ve spoken words to pledge ourselves to each other, so there’s just one other thing to do to seal the bargain.”
He looked at her with eyes full of lust and laughter.
She gave him a soft kiss, then wiggled her body just enough to get a hard response from his.
“Vixen,” he said, wrapping his arms around her.
“I am not!” She paused. “Well, yes, I am. Some of the time.”
Laughing, he rolled until she was under him. “Come, wife. Let’s seal the bargain.”
This time, when they gave each other their bodies, they also gave much more.
Aiden stared at the ceiling. Lyrra slept peacefully beside him.
Yes, husbands and wives kept secrets, but there were some secrets he had to tell her now, for her own protection. If something happened to him, she had to know where to run—and what places to avoid at any cost. It wasn’t safe for a woman to travel alone anymore along the eastern border. In some places, it wasn’t safe to be a woman, now that the Inquisitors had come to Sylvalan and somehow convinced the eastern barons—and through them, other men—that women were lesser creatures who had no purpose, and no value, except to provide men with comfortable homes, sex, and offspring.
Aiden rolled over and tucked himself around Lyrra, needing the closeness.
He’d missed her over the past year with a fierceness that had made him ache. And even though he’d worried at times that the Inquisitors might come back to Brightwood, he’d been grateful she’d stayed there—until he’d returned to see her and discovered Lyrra hadn’t stayed by her own choice. Then the anger and frustration he’d been feeling toward his own kind had turned on Dianna, who was the Lady of the Moon, the Huntress, the female leader of the Fae. She and Lyrra were the only Fae at Brightwood who had some aspect of power in them that made it possible for them to anchor the magic in the Old Place and, with enough other Fae present, keep the shining road to Tir Alainn open.
Last summer, after part of the Clan had come down to the human world, Dianna had asked Lyrra to remain at Brightwood a few more days while she went to Tir Alainn and took care of a few things before coming back to live in the cottage that had belonged to Ari’s family. Dianna returned to Tir Alainn—and stayed there, leaving Lyrra with the choice of remaining to anchor the shining road or putting an entire Clan at risk if she left.
It was only when he’d returned that Lyrra had sent a warning through another of the Fae that she was leaving. That brought Dianna back to Brightwood. Lyrra refused to tell him what had been said before she left, but he imagined it hadn’t been a pleasant leave-taking. And the cold courtesy with which they were greeted whenever they went up a shining road to a Clan house in Tir Alainn told him that Dianna had been spewing her bitterness over having to remain in the human world to anyone who would listen. He and Lyrra were being blamed for putting Dianna’s Clan at risk and leaving her “exiled” at Brightwood.
The fact that no Lady of the Moon from another Clan had offered to come to Brightwood and try to be the anchor for the magic in the Old Place was telling. Perhaps that was just the self-interest that came naturally to most of the Fae—or perhaps, despite being willing to condemn Lyrra for her decision, no one trusted Dianna enough to offer, not after she’d broken her promise to the Muse.
He could fight the Clans’ cold courtesy with sharp words, but he couldn’t fight what was happening in Sylvalan. What he’d seen in some of the villages he’d passed through last summer and autumn had chilled him. Women wearing something called a scold’s bridle that deprived them of the ability to speak. A woman being strapped in the public square, while the men witnessing the punishment hadn’t been able to tell him what she’d done to be treated so badly, only that it was necessary to teach a woman modesty and pleasing behavior.
Those things had been bad enough. But something else had come across the river from Wolfram over the winter, something that made the men so uneasy they wouldn’t talk about it. Something that the eastern barons were ordering done to make sure women remained in what was now considered their proper place in society. A “procedure,” the men had muttered, to rid a woman of unhealthy feelings.
Shivering, Aiden snuggled closer to Lyrra.
He hadn’t been able to find out what this new danger was, but the fear of it was one of the things that had sent him galloping back to Brightwood.
Whatever was wrong in the human villages in Sylvalan was spreading. Even a village like this one, where nothing seemed out of place, made him uneasy. More so now, when the desire to protect Lyrra was stronger than his desire to survive.
Tomorrow they would head for villages closer to the Mother’s Hills, places farther away from the eastern border of Sylvalan. Maybe they would come to an Old Place and take the shining road back to Tir Alainn and rest for a few days. And try, once again, to convince the Fae that the human world was no longer a place where they could amuse themselves when they chose and ignore it the rest of the time.
Because if the Fae didn’t act soon to protect the witches and help the humans protect themselves from what the Inquisitors were doing to the people of Sylvalan, none of them—the humans, the witches, the Small Folk who lived in the Old Places, or the Fae—would survive.
Chapter Two
Standing in front of the morning room door, Liam smoothed back his dark brown hair and resisted the urge to give the tops of his boots a quick polish on the back of his trouser legs. His mother knew he’d already been out working, had requested this appointment during the time when he usually came in to spend an hour going over accounts and correspondence and, lately, to reply to the black-edged notes of condolence. She wouldn’t expect him to look like anything but what he was—a man who tended the land that belonged to him and looked after the people who worked for him. The fact that he was now the Baron of Willowsbrook didn’t change anything. He’d been riding over the land for twenty years now, had started visiting the tenant farms on his beloved sorrel pony when he was barely seven years old. She wouldn’t criticize him for being dressed in clothes that were a bit sweaty and smelled of animals.
Maybe it was because she wouldn’t criticize his appearance that he had the urge to run upstairs and put on a fresh shirt before stepping into a room that was bright, feminine, and soothing.
Giving the door a light rap with his knuckles, Liam walked into the room. His mother, Elinore, stood at the glass door that opened onto a small terrace, no doubt watching the birds that gathered to drink and bathe in the stone basin that was scrubbed and filled with fresh water every morning. The sunlight made the strands of gray in her light brown hair shine like silver. She was a small, slim woman with an inner strength that had weathered all the emotional storms of her marriage.
He may have inherited his father’s looks—the dark hair, a face handsome enough to catch a woman’s eye, height that was a little above average—but he was glad he’d inherited his mother’s hazel eyes. Woodland eyes, she called them, because they were a brown-flecked green. Sometimes he wondered if, when she looked at him, she saw only a younger version of his father. At least when she looked at his eyes, she had to know there was a part of her in him, as well.
“Good morning, Mother,” Liam said. He glanced at the tray on the table near the sofa and instantly became wary. The tea, thin sandwiches, and pastries weren’t unusual fare for a midmorning chat, but the decanter of whiskey was definitely out of place. Elinore didn’t approve of indulging in strong drink, especially so early in t
he day. That she’d arranged for the decanter to be here meant she thought one of them would need something more potent than tea to get through this conversation.
Turning away from the window, Elinore offered him a hesitant smile. “Good morning, Liam. Thank you for taking time out of your day to meet with me.”
Heat washed through his body, a sure sign that his temper was rising. Making an effort to keep his voice calm, he replied, “Thanks aren’t necessary. You’re my mother. My being the baron now doesn’t change that.” At least, he hoped it didn’t.
“No, but... it does change some things.” She walked over to the sofa, sat down, and offered another hesitant smile. “Please sit down. There are some things I need to say to you.”
Reluctantly, he sat on the other end of the sofa. Then something occurred to him that had him leaning toward her, tense. “Brooke’s all right, isn’t she?”
“Brooke?”
The surprise in Elinore’s eyes, warming to amusement, made him feel limp with relief. His ten-year-old sister was a delightful child, but she did tend to get into scrapes.
“Brooke is fine,” Elinore said, pouring tea for both of them. “A bit sulky since it’s a lovely day and she’s stuck doing lessons instead of working with the new pony a certain someone recently gave her for her birthday.”
Taking the cup of tea she offered him, Liam gave her a bland stare. “I seem to recall another someone slipping money to that certain someone with the instructions to purchase new tack for the new pony.”
“Is that what you recall?” Elinore asked innocently. “Do you also recall that certain someone telling Brooke she could skip her lessons this morning so that he could take her for a long ride so the pony wouldn’t get bored working in the confines of the training ring?”
Liam choked on the tea he just swallowed. “I said maybe. After the midday meal.”
“ ‘Maybe’ means yes.”
“Since when?”
She just looked at him until he wanted to squirm. That was the problem with trying to argue with his mother, even playfully. She knew him too well and remembered far too many things from his own childhood.
“After the midday meal, if she has her lessons done, I’ll take her for a ride and we’ll put the pony through his paces,” Liam said.
“Listening to the two of you determine the definition of ‘done’ should be quite entertaining,” Elinore said placidly.
“I—” Liam leaned back, feeling a bit sulky himself. He wasn’t going to win this round. Brooke was his little sister.
His baby sister. He’d already been away at school when she was born, and her first years were odd flashes of memory for him. A baby who drooled and giggled when he made funny faces at her. An infant who had learned to crawl between one visit home and the next, and had sent him into a panic when he’d put her on the carpet and turned his back for what he swore had been no more than a minute, only to have her disappear on him. The toddler who giggled and ran through the gardens as fast as her chubby little legs could take her. The bright little girl who chattered about anything and everything to the point where he’d nicknamed her Squirrel. The silent, wary child she became whenever his father was around.
As the male head of the family, he’d do his best to be firm about getting the lessons done, but the minute she turned those big blue eyes of hers on him, he’d cave. He remembered too well how it felt to be stuck indoors laboring over sums when the land beckoned.
“Liam.” Elinore sipped her tea and didn’t look at him. “Did you mortgage the estate?”
It didn’t surprise him that she’d known his father had intended to take a mortgage out on the estate. No doubt the old baron had taken cruel delight in telling her he was stripping the land for everything it was worth.
When his father’s man of business had gone over the accounts with him, he’d been appalled at the amount his father had intended to wring from the already foundering estate. And he’d felt an obscene kind of gratitude that the old baron had choked to death while dining with his current mistress before the papers had been signed.
“Yes, I took out a mortgage,” Liam said, gulping down the rest of the tea. “A small one.” Enough to pay off the tradesmen his father owed and give himself some money to honor his own bills for the next year or so. Elinore had provided him with a generous quarterly allowance ever since he’d first gone away to school, and he’d been grateful for it, but now that the estate was his, he didn’t want to live off her money. With proper care and management, the land should be able to provide him and his family with a good living.
“I see.” Elinore set her cup down, then folded her hands in her lap. She focused her gaze on the terrace door. “I’ll make the same bargain with you that I made with your father.”
Don’t treat me like I’ve become him just because I hold the title, Liam thought fiercely.
“I’ll pay the servants’ wages and the household expenses,” Elinore continued, her eyes still focused on the terrace door. “And I’ll assist in paying any bills for the upkeep of the tenants’ cottages. But I won’t pay any bills for the upkeep of the town house in Durham, nor will I pay for any of your ... personal... expenses.”
Meaning, if he took a mistress as his father had done, he’d have to pay for his own pleasure. Not that he thought much pleasure could be had from a mercenary creature like the woman his father had been bedding when he died. On the other hand, he couldn’t blame her for being mercenary. It had showed she’d had a better understanding of his father than the other women the old baron had enjoyed.
“It’s a generous offer,” he said. It stung that he had to accept it, but he was practical enough to know it would be a few years before the estate would recover sufficiently to pay all the expenses. “I thank you for it.”
“Your father didn’t think it was generous.”
“My father and I didn’t see eye to eye about a great many things,” Liam said sharply. “Your father gave you an independent income for your benefit, not for my father’s and not for the estate’s. You had, and still have, every right to do with it as you please. Willowsbrook should be able to support itself twice over. The fact that it can’t quite support itself is my father’s—and his father’s—fault, not yours.”
After a long pause, Elinore said, “Would you like more tea?”
What he’d like was a hefty glass of that whiskey, but he had the feeling they’d only chewed the edges of whatever she’d wanted to talk to him about. “Please,” he said, holding out his cup. He waited until she refilled both their cups. “Would you mind if I sold the town house in Durham?”
“The estate and any other property is yours now, Liam. You may do with it as you please.”
“Would you mind?” he persisted.
When she looked at him, he saw a bitterness in her eyes she’d never allowed to show before. “There’s nothing in that place that I value.”
No, there wouldn’t be, not when his father’s string of mistresses had spent more time there than she had. Well, that was one burden and expense he could easily shed. He’d write to his man of business and set things in motion to sell the town house and its contents.
“Won’t you need the town house when you have business in the city?” Elinore asked.
Liam shook his head. “I can rent rooms easily enough for the two times a year when the barons formally meet.”
He felt a pressure building inside him, and he clamped his teeth to try to keep the words back as he’d done for so many years. Perhaps it was because the conversation was already difficult that he couldn’t hold it back anymore. “Why didn’t you leave him? He was a bastard, and you deserved so much better. Adultery is grounds for severing the marriage vow. You had income of your own, so you were never dependent upon him. Why did you stay?”
“I had three reasons,” Elinore replied quietly. “You. Brooke. And Willowsbrook.”
There was something about the way she said “Willowsbrook” that made him think she was talking
about more than the estate.
“You’re the baron now. You have authority and power, not just on the estate and tenant farms but over the villagers and the free landowners, as well. You can use that authority and power for ill or for good.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“How you act will set a precedent for the rest of the people here.”
Liam snorted softly. “My father thankfully didn’t set much of a precedent.”
“If he’d ordered that something be done, that order would have been obeyed. The squires and magistrates in each village would have seen it carried out.”
Liam rested one hand lightly over his mother’s. “He still had to obey the decrees that the council of barons agree upon for the good of Sylvalan.”
“The barons have the power to change the decrees or make new ones, regardless of what the rest of Sylvalan’s people want. And a baron can impose his will over the people in the county he rules no matter what the decrees say.”
She looked pale and unhappy, and he didn’t know what she wanted from him. “To what use do you want me to put my new authority and power?” he asked gently.
“I want you to protect the witches at Willowsbrook—the Old Place this estate took its name from generations ago when your father’s kin first came here to live and work the land.”
Liam sighed, withdrew his hand. “Mother—”
“I have something to tell you,” Elinore said hurriedly. “A secret I’d kept from your father because of a few things he’d said on our honeymoon. But you have to know. You have to understand.”
