Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Part One - THE SAXON’S DAUGHTER
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Part Two - THE PRINCE’S BRIDE
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Part Three - THE HEIRESS OF AELFLEAH
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Part Four - THE LADY OF AELFLEAH
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
BOOKS BY BERTRICE SMALL
BOOKS BY BERTRICE SMALL
The Kadin
Love Wild and Fair
Adora
Unconquered
Beloved
Enchantress Mine
Blaze Wyndham
The Spitfire
A Moment in Time
To Love Again
Love, Remember Me
The Love Slave
Hellion
Betrayed
Deceived
The Innocent
A Memory of Love
The Dutchess
Rosamund
THE O’MALLEY SAGA
Skye O’Malley
All the Sweet Tomorrows
A Love for All Time
This Heart of Mine
Lost Love Found
Wild Jasmine
SKYE’S LEGACY
Darling Jasmine
Bedazzled
Beseiged
Intrigued
Just Beyond Tomorrow
Vixens
ANTHOLOGIES
Captivated
Fascinated
Delighted
I Love Rogues
New American Library
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First New American Library Trade Paperback Printing, January 2004
Copyright © Bertrice Small, 1987
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Set in Goudy
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To Morgan Llywelyn, with love,
from her sibling through time
Prologue
Brittany, 1056
“The child is a bastard, uncle, and must be declared so!” Blanche St. Ronan compressed her thin lips into a narrow line, and her hard blue eyes stared unflinchingly into those of her uncle. “I did not marry Ciaran St. Ronan and agree to live in the Argoat so that my child might be passed over in favor of that brat!” Her slender fingers worried at her full indigo blue silk skirt. He noted that each one of those fingers wore a gold ring encrusted with a colored gemstone. “You must help me, uncle! You must!”
The bishop of St. Brieuc looked directly at his niece, and felt the same sensuous pleasure he always felt when he looked at her. She was an absolutely beautiful girl, her pale golden hair braided with colorful ribbons, her white-rose skin, and those perfect sky-blue eyes. He felt a sting of regret. She was fit for a king, but because she was the last of his sister’s children she had only had a small dowry. Her parents had thought to send her to a convent, but Blanche had rebelled and he had supported her in her rebellion for she was far too lovely to be shut away. It had been he who had arranged her marriage to the Sieur St. Ronan, a man of impeccable Breton lineage and a pleasant estate, but little other wealth.
Ciaran St. Ronan was a widower who had a small daughter from his first marriage. Blanche had detested the child on sight, but she had hidden her dislike long enough to marry the Sieur St. Ronan. Now she was with child, and although the bishop understood his niece’s concern, he was a cautious man. Blanche could simply not dispose of her stepdaughter as if she were an unwanted puppy. He made another attempt at reasoning with her.
“If the infant you carry is a son, Blanche, there is no question at all of his position. All the daughter will have is a small dowry. In another year or two she will be old enough to go to her future husband’s family, and they will raise her; or we may place her in a convent, and that will be the end of it. There is no need for you to upset yourself, my precious girl.” A fat, dimpled hand reached out, and he stroked her silken head. “You are young. At fourteen you have many years ahead of you, and you will undoubtedly bear many sons for your lord husband.”
“Ciaran is dying, uncle! There is only this child! If it is another daughter then it is the girl, Mairin, who will inherit, and my child will be left with nothing! You cannot let that happen to me, uncle! You cannot!” Her voice was tinged with growing hysteria. “It is a female that I carry, uncle. She has said it! Help me!”
“No one can know if the babe that you carry is a son or a daughter until the child is born, Blanche. Who has told you that you will bear a daughter? Surely you have not listened to the old women in the village with their stories, and their signs that usually mean nothing?”
“Mairin has said it, uncle. You know that the child has second sight! We do not discount these things here in Brittany, for we are a Celtic race. Several weeks ago the brat greeted me in the morning with the words, ‘How fare you this morning, my lady Blanche? And how fares my little sister?’ Ciaran was with me, for it was before his accident, and he lifted the little brat into his arms saying, ‘So it is a sister you see, Mairin?’, and she answered, ‘Aye, my father. A sister, and she will be as pretty as the lady Blanche.’ ”
The bishop sat back in his chair and contemplated his niece’s words. The church did not approve of second sight, but as Blanche had pointed out to him, the
y were Bretons. Theirs was a Celtic race, and whatever the church might say on the subject, Bretons believed in second sight. His niece’s stepchild was known to possess it, although being but five and a half years of age she could but innocently speak of what she saw, but had not real power over her gift. If Ciaran St. Ronan died of his injuries, and Blanche’s child was a female, their family would certainly lose the St. Ronan lands for the elder daughter would indeed be the heiress. Mairin was a healthy child, however, and although he would never countenance violence against a child, his niece did have a valid point.
“What do the physicians say about your husband’s condition, my precious girl?” the bishop gently queried. “Are they truly convinced that he is dying?”
“Aye,” she answered him irritably. “His condition is disgusting, uncle, for his bowels run constantly. He grows weaker every day, and the doctor holds little hope for him. I will be widowed long before my baby is born, and all because he and the Comte de Combourg must play their stupid game! Will the comte look after my child and me when Ciaran is dead and buried? He will not! This is all his fault, but it is I who must suffer!”
“Blanche, Blanche,” soothed the bishop, and he squeezed her delicate shoulder in his pudgy hand, “Ciaran and the comte have been friends since boyhood, and they played the game they enjoyed each time the comte visited Landerneau. Leaping the castle moat from the narrow ribbon of land below the walls to the other side takes great skill, and both men had fallen into the moat in the past. It is unfortunate that this time Ciaran’s horse fell on him, and that he swallowed so much water.”
“Yes,” Blanche St. Ronan said bitterly, “it is indeed unfortunate, uncle, but now I must protect my baby alone. Mairin must be declared a bastard lest my own child suffer. Why should I care what happens to Mairin? She is not mine! Why should I be left to care for the bastard spawn of some Irish savage? If I wait until Ciaran is dead, people will say I make the claim out of malice, but if you will help me now, dearest uncle, who will dispute the church’s decision? If it is done before my husband dies, and he protests not, who will dare to criticize me?”
“Ciaran St. Ronan loves his daughter, Blanche. I do not believe he will allow you to do this thing.”
“Ciaran St. Ronan will never know, uncle. Once the deed is done I will permit no one to come near him but me, and my chosen servants. To the world his lack of protest will appear acquiescence!” She smiled at the bishop triumphantly, her small and perfect teeth glistening whitely against the rose-pink of her mouth.
“What is it exactly that you want me to do, Blanche?” His niece had certainly considered it all very carefully, he thought, impressed by her determination.
“The church must declare that the child known as Mairin St. Ronan is bastard-born, and therefore, not entitled to inherit her father’s estates as his heiress,” came the cold reply. “The church must declare that the true heir to Ciaran St. Ronan is the child I now carry in my belly.”
“And on what grounds shall the church do this, Blanche? We must have legitimate evidence if we are to succeed in disinheriting little Mairin, else I be accused of favoring my own.”
“Uncle! There is no proof whatsoever of my lord husband’s marriage to the brat’s mother. No one here in Brittany ever laid eyes upon the woman for she was Irish, and is said to have died in Ireland before Ciaran could bring her here. There is nothing, however, to prove such facts. It is only upon the word of my lord husband that the child has been accepted at all.”
“What was the woman’s name?” the bishop asked. “Do you know anything about her?”
“Her name was Maire Tir Connell. Ciaran has said that she was of royal blood, but I do not believe it for a moment! She was probably some savage peasant whore with whom my lord amused himself during his time in Ireland. It is said that my husband was wild in his youth. The whore’s child might not even be his, uncle! Perhaps this Maire Tir Connell did die, and Ciaran took the child to raise himself. You know how softhearted he is. How can we allow Landerneau to fall into the hands of a bastard whose father is unknown when I carry the true heir to the estate?”
“Why was Baron St. Ronan in Ireland?” The bishop was curious.
“Ciaran’s mother was Irish. After his father died she remarried an old friend with whom she had grown up in Ireland. Several years ago she grew ill, and my lord’s stepfather sent for him that he might be with his mother in her final days. While he was there he claims to have met and wed with this Maire Tir Connell, but he has never showed me any proof of that marriage, uncle, nor can I find any. Believe me when I tell you I have looked everywhere for such evidence.”
The bishop smiled tightly. He had absolutely no doubt that his darling Blanche had sought thoroughly for proof of her husband’s first marriage with an eye to destroying it.
“When this Irish woman gave birth to my lord’s daughter, he says she was weakened, and made ill by her months of confinement,” continued Blanche. “Ciaran returned home to Brittany leaving her to regain her strength before making the long journey here. He had been gone over a year, and felt it necessary to show himself on his estates. His mother had died shortly after the child’s birth. When he went back to Ireland to fetch the woman and her baby she was dead. He brought Mairin back with him. This is what he says, uncle, but I think he says it to protect the bastard. There are neither documents nor witnesses to this marriage. Nothing!”
“You are certain, ma petite Blanche?” If she were, he thought, then his clever girl had indeed found a way to disinherit her stepchild.
“Absolutely certain, uncle,” came the firm reply.
“What of the Irish giant who guards the child, my precious? Was he not a servant of Mairin’s mother? Perhaps he knows something of the truth. Have you spoken with him?”
“Dagda? He could not possibly know anything of value to us, uncle. The creature is stupid beyond belief. With your help nothing can stand in my way!”
The bishop of St. Brieuc smiled benevolently at his favorite niece, thinking again of how lovely she was. Blanche had always had a marvelous instinct for style. The blues she wore today complimented her fair hair and her beautiful eyes. The full, flowing skirt was just a shade darker than the tunic top which was embroidered at the neck and about the sleeves in gold thread and tiny freshwater pearls. Her pale gold braids with their rose-colored silk ribbons were looped fashionably about her ears, and her head was crowned with a chaplet of delicate filigreed gold that had been set with tiny, sparkling gemstones. She was a marvelous girl, he thought fondly, and she deserved only the best that life had to offer.
“If you are certain of what you say, Blanche,” he said with a beneficent smile, “then I shall arrange to solve this little problem for you. Unlike your careless husband, ma petite, you shall have a document, both stamped and sealed, that will attest to the validity of your word. Mairin St. Ronan will be declared bastard-born, and she will therefore be unable to inherit her father’s possessions. Ciaran St. Ronan’s lands will belong to your child alone, and you will hold them until that child either marries, should it indeed be female, or comes of age if you bear a son. Is that satisfactory?”
She arose from her chair, and slipped her arms about his neck as she had done so often as a child. With a little smile she settled herself into his ample lap, wriggling her bottom suggestively as she did. “Oh, uncle,” she said softly as she looked up into his fat face, “you are always so good to me!”
He beamed back at her, feeling a trifle breathless, and finally drawing a breath in he was almost overwhelmed by the wonderful perfume that she wore. It smelt of lilies of the valley. “Dearest Blanche,” he said, and he patted her dainty little hand, “how can I not be good to you? I adore you, and you are more than well aware of it, petite méchante.”
Blanche St. Ronan leaned heavily against her uncle, and the tip of her little pointed tongue flicked out from between her pink lips to run along his fleshy mouth in a teasing manner. Then she kissed him, her full breasts pressi
ng against him as she did so. “Let it be as it was between us, uncle, before I came to Landerneau,” she murmured huskily against his lips. “Make love to me!”
The cleric’s breath came in hard, little pants, and unable to restrain himself he fondled his niece’s breasts with a groan of unconcealed desire. “You are with child, and I would harm neither you nor the baby you carry, ma petite Blanche,” he protested, but faintly.
“Uncle dearest,” she breathed with scented breath into his ear, “I have not even begun to show. You will not hurt us, and I burn for your touch! I am wed to a sick and disgusting man who has never been as virile with me as you always were. I wonder that he bothered to take a wife.” She licked the inside of his ear teasingly.
“You are fortunate indeed that he did, ma petite, else you’d be in a convent now instead of the lap of luxury,” the bishop reminded her, and felt his manhood begin to stir.
“But he never had your charm, uncle.” She pouted, and added, “I will come to your apartments as soon as I have seen the castle settled for the night.” She smiled at him, showing her perfect little teeth. “Surely, dearest uncle, you will offer me comfort in my distress?”
The bishop’s heart pounded with excitement, and beneath the holy robes of his office he felt himself growing more lustful for his niece as each moment passed. He had taken her maidenhead in the confessional when she was twelve, and now as she rubbed herself against him he remembered other times, and other places. She was deliciously insatiable. He realized now how very much he had missed her since she had married Ciaran St. Ronan. Though he never lacked for companions, no woman had ever aroused him as did Blanche. Reaching up he stroked her soft cheek, and said in a pious tone, “My doors will be open to you, dearest niece, should you desire to make your confession to me later on this evening.”
Enchantress Mine Page 1
