The Overlord's Bride

by Margaret Moore

His gaze met hers. “Cadmus will sleep on the other side of the door.”

  She couldn’t help the sigh of relief that escaped her lips. “Thank you. I shall try to get used to him, my lord, so that he doesn’t have to be exiled forever.”

  He smiled a little and heat trembled along her limbs.

  Then noises from the courtyard caught his attention. He dropped her hand and went to the window to look outside.

  Feeling bereft and thinking it must be getting near time for mass, she threw back the covers, then shivered as the cool air hit her body.

  “Stay,” her husband ordered as he faced her, in much the same way he commanded his dog.

  “My lord?” she asked warily.

  “Stay in bed.”

  “It is so late in the day already,” she replied. She gasped as her bare feet touched the stone floor and wrapped her arms about herself as she continued. “Surely there are things I should be doing. The servants will think I am lazy. That would a terrible way to begin.”

  “No one will disturb you.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Stay in bed as long as you like today. Call for Rual when you are ready.”

  She couldn’t say what shocked her more: the notion that she could climb back into that warm, soft cocoon of a bed, or that he had said so much at once. “But mass—”

  “Is over.”

  “For certain?”

  He nodded.

  “You do not fear the servants will think me slovenly?”

  He shook his head.

  Of course, she thought, he would not fear the servants.

  And neither, Lady Katherine would say, should she. So why not take advantage of his offer and indulge herself?

  She scrambled back into the bed and, snuggling down into the featherbed, gave him a delighted smile. “Thank you, my lord. I cannot say how many times I imagined such a luxury as this.”

  “You will sleep?”

  “Sleep? Oh, no, for then I would not know what I was enjoying.”

  His lips jerked into another little smile. “As you wish.”

  She sighed rapturously. “First the beautiful gown and now this! My lord, I thank you from the bottom of my heart, and I bless you for marrying me.”

  Lord Kirkheathe didn’t answer as he strode from the room.

  Sighing again, Elizabeth pulled the covers even tighter and contemplated her unusual husband. Seeing him smile, though it be a little one, made her want to laugh.

  No doubt he had many cares, being such a rich and powerful lord. She would do what she could to lessen them, especially if she could see him smile more often.

  Maybe a child would make him happier, too.

  She climbed out of the bed, noting the dried blood on the sheet as she knelt.

  “Dear God,” she prayed, wishing she had gone to mass, the better for her prayer, and also that she had been a more humble, obedient person and thus more deserving, “let me be with child. If not already, soon!”

  Fearing she had sounded too demanding, she added, “If it be Your will.”

  Shivering, she got up. Outside, the sound of horses and jingling harness took her to the window.

  Her husband sat upon a mighty stallion. Behind him was a troop of mounted soldiers. She watched as Lord Kirkheathe raised his hand and moved toward the massive gates, his well-equipped men following.

  He had not called out an order, merely raised his gloved hand and gestured. All was done with purposeful silence—and the instant obedience of well-trained and disciplined men.

  With a grin, she realized the Reverend Mother would surely approve of her husband, and just as surely think he had made a poor choice of bride.

  But the Reverend Mother was far away, and she was married, and soon—please, God, soon!—she might be a mother, looking after her children with love and kindness, as her parents had raised her before their deaths from fever when she was but eight years old.

  Sighing, she blocked out the memories that came after that, of traveling from relative to relative, never really wanted or cared for. Of the brief respite at Lady Katherine’s, who was strict, but fair.

  Then the horrid years at the convent.

  She turned and looked at the inviting bed, but there was no point now to go back. Nor did she wish to give the servants any cause to disparage her, despite her husband’s remarks on that point. She might as well dress and go to the hall.

  Besides, if breakfast was half so good as the feast…

  She slipped her feet into her shoes beside the bed and ran eagerly to the door. “Rual!”

  The woman appeared so quickly, Elizabeth thought she must have been waiting on the stairs for her summons. “My lady?”

  “I was to call for you when I was ready,” she said jovially. “Well, I am ready. Do you know where my other dress has gone? I cannot wear the velvet gown today.”

  “Your old dress is in the chest beside the bed,” Rual said as she came into the room.

  “And all my other goods?”

  “There, too.”

  “They don’t take up much room, do they?” Elizabeth noted as she opened the chest.

  “Shall I fetch warm water, my lady?”

  “Do not trouble yourself. I am used to cold.” No lie, that, Elizabeth thought ruefully as she put on her warm stockings and then her gray woolen gown. With the speed of years of familiarity, she tied the laces while Rual began to gather up the bedding.

  Thinking of the dried blood, Elizabeth hurried to wash her face and hide her silly blush. After all, Rual was a grown woman. She would know what had happened.

  Everybody would know.

  She splashed the water over her face, again and again, until she felt the heat diminish.

  She picked up the small square of linen beside the basin and wiped off her face.

  It smelled of him, her husband, Lord Kirkheathe….

  “By our Lady,” she muttered. I don’t even know his first name.

  “Do you need anything else, my lady?” Rual asked, holding the big bundle of cloth against her broad hip.

  “No…well, yes,” she confessed as she went to the chest and found her scarf and wimple. She didn’t want to appear ignorant, but wouldn’t it be worse not to know? “I fear in all the hurry yesterday, I didn’t ask my husband’s Christian name,” she said as she put the scarf over her head and attached the wimple beneath her chin.

  “Raymond D’Estienne is his Christian name, my lady, like his father before him.”

  “Did you know his parents?”

  “No. They both died well before my time here.”

  “What do they say about them?”

  The maidservant shrugged. “His father was reckoned a good man, although basely born.”

  “How did he come to have such an estate then?”

  “It was taken from another and given to him by the earl of Chesney.”

  “You do not think he deserved it?”

  “That is not for me to say, my lady. The earl thought he did.”

  “And his mother?”

  “She died giving birth to him. His father did not marry again, like he did.”

  Elizabeth tried not to look shocked, but she suddenly felt off balance and unsteady, as if she were trying to cross a raging river on a fallen tree trunk.

  Yet why should she be so surprised, she reasoned. He was not a young man. Of course he might have been married before, perhaps more than once. “How many wives has he had?”

  “Just the one, other than you.”

  That was something at least. “Did she die in childbirth, too?”

  “No, my lady.”

  “Was it an illness?”

  “No, my lady. He killed her.”

  Chapter Six

  Elizabeth didn’t want to believe she had heard aright. “What did you say?”

  “He killed her, in this very room.”

  Elizabeth went to stand face-to-face with Rual. “Why?”

  “He said she tried to kill him, my lady.”
Rual shifted the bundle to the other hip. “The tale I heard, he claimed she drugged his wine and when he slept, she put a leather strap around his throat and tried to strangle him. He pushed her off and she fell and struck her head and died.”

  “That is why he has that scar around his neck,” she murmured, “and sounds as he does.” Her eyes narrowed as she regarded Rual. “You don’t believe his explanation?”

  “He has a temper.”

  “Was he brought before the king’s justice for murder?”

  “No.”

  “So what he said must be considered the truth.”

  “He is a lord.”

  “There is still punishment for a lord who kills his wife,” she reminded Rual. “Had he struck her before?”

  “There were no marks on her, my lady—at least none that people ever saw.”

  Which did not mean they were not there, beneath the woman’s gown, or that he was not cruel to her in other ways. “Was he harsh with her?”

  “Not that I’ve heard, my lady.”

  Again, that only meant not in public. However, considering the open nature of a lord and lady’s life, the servants would know if things were seriously amiss between them. “He has his scar and ruined voice for proof that he was attacked.”

  The woman flushed and remained silent.

  “Why did she want to kill him?”

  “I don’t know,” the woman mumbled.

  “Rual, if you don’t believe my husband’s explanation, you must have some reason to think he wanted her dead.”

  “Perhaps he suspected her of infidelity.”

  “With whom?”

  Rual shrugged.

  “Does anybody hazard a guess?”

  “No, my lady.”

  Elizabeth sighed with relief. If there had been infidelity, or more than the merest suspicion of it—or any other hint of a motive on Lord Kirkheathe’s part for wanting his wife dead—rumor and gossip would have flown from one part of this castle to the other. She had learned that well enough.

  Rual shifted nervously. “My lady, I think I had best get these linens below.”

  “Thank you, Rual,” Elizabeth replied, seeing the wisdom of Lady Katherine’s admonition never to listen to the gossip of servants, no matter how tempting. “Has my uncle eaten this morning?”

  “He and his men departed at first light on my lord’s orders.”

  Elizabeth stared at her incredulously. “He is already gone?”

  “Once Lord Kirkheathe got the dowry, he sent him off, with his men grumbling all the while. Your uncle felt so sleepy and poorly from the wine, he could barely keep his seat.”

  “But Lord Kirkheathe was here when I awoke.”

  “Came back, that’s all.”

  “I didn’t hear a thing.”

  Rual smirked. “You were sleeping sound, I expect.”

  “I suppose,” Elizabeth replied, paying little heed to Rual’s expression as she wondered how long he had been there, watching her.

  “Have you no warmer gown, my lady?”

  “No. The hall will have a fire, will it not?” Elizabeth answered.

  “Aye, a good one. Lord Kirkheathe insists upon it.”

  “Then I shall go there and get warm,” Elizabeth said. “And when you are done with the laundress, will you come back and show me about my new home?”

  “Aye, my lady.”

  “There, my lord, do you see?” Aiken said, pointing at the footings of the bridge. “It’s rotting. The bridge’ll collapse come spring.”

  Holding his tunic up out of the mud of the riverbank with one hand, Raymond noted the decayed wood.

  Thank God, he had the money to pay for repairs. Or, to be more precise, thank Elizabeth’s uncle, who had no notion of just how desperately Raymond needed money, or he would have haggled the dowry lower. Now, however, Raymond could afford much-needed repairs to various buildings, roads and bridges on his estate.

  Of course, he could have haggled the dowry higher, Raymond thought, had he not believed that if he did so, Perronet was enough of a miser to cancel the contract and take her back to the convent. She had been so adamant about not returning, he would have had to be made of iron to ignore her pleas.

  If he had been made of iron, he could have ignored her this morning, and not stood watching her sleep like some sort of besotted simpleton.

  Yet how sweet she had looked, her hair spread upon the pillow, one arm thrown across his side of the bed as if she would embrace him if he were there.

  He thought of the scar of the dog bite, and the long, narrow welts on her back.

  God’s blood, what kind of nun inflicted beatings to make scars like that?

  The kind he would like to meet and show the error of her ways.

  He straightened. “How many more are rotting?”

  “Ten, I make it, my lord,” Aiken said, scrambling up to higher ground. He was a short man of brisk movements, and although he was a soldier, he was also the finest judge of structures, whether wood or stone, Raymond had met in his life. “They’ll all need replacing this summer. Best time is August, when the water’s low. They should last some weeks yet, though.”

  “Good.”

  As Raymond climbed up the bank, he glanced up at the sky. Nearly noon. Time to go back home.

  Home.

  For the first time in fifteen years, it actually felt that way.

  The hoofbeats on the road interrupted his reverie, and a band of mounted men appeared, Fane Montross at their head.

  Drawing his sword, Raymond strode to the center of the road and waited for his neighbor, former friend and detested enemy to approach.

  Montross signaled his men to halt. “Why, Raymond, this is unexpected,” he called out from the back of his prancing stallion.

  Raymond ran a scornful gaze over Montross. As always, he was extravagantly dressed, this time in Lincoln green and gold, for he was as vain as Allicia had been.

  He was also as fair as she, with handsome features and curling blond hair.

  “I would have expected the bridegroom to be at home today of all days,” Montross noted with a mocking smile.

  So, he had heard of his marriage. Not unexpected, but Raymond begrudged him the knowledge nonetheless.

  “That is, of course, why I have set foot upon your land. I have come to wish you joy.”

  “With twenty soldiers?”

  “A proper guard, that’s all. We all know these are troubled times and men must take precautions. You have ten men yourself, and you are on your own land.”

  Raymond would not explain that they were masons and carpenters assessing the state of the bridges on his estate, any more than he would explain anything he did to Fane Montross.

  “Surely you are going to be chivalrous and invite me to meet your bride?”

  Raymond would rather tell Montross to go to the devil and take his twenty men with him. That, however, would be to make the first hostile move, and he would never do that. “Please do,” he said, turning toward his horse, Castor.

  He glanced at Aiken. “You and four others, ride behind Montross’s men.”

  “As you wish, my lord,” Aiken said as a significant look passed between them. “We wouldn’t want any of them to get lost, would we?”

  Raymond smirked, then signaled his men to start off toward home.

  “Are there any more storerooms?” Elizabeth asked Rual, who looked as weary as she.

  “No, my lady.”

  Elizabeth tried not to smile at that, but in truth, she was glad. She doubted she would be able to remember half of all that Rual had shown her of Donhallow, or remember the names of all the people to whom she had been introduced. She would do her best to remember the most important; others had made more of a memorable impression.

  There was Hale, the serjeant-at-arms and second in command of the castle garrison. He was a broad-shouldered, gruff fellow, yet he had smiled at her kindly, in a way that warmed her heart.

  The mews had been interesting, beca
use there had been no such place in the convent. Her husband didn’t have many birds, but the few he had were fine ones, she thought. The fowler, a very small man with very beady eyes, hadn’t said much. He had simply stood and watched them, just like his charges.

  Meeting Lud, the cook, and the kitchen servants had been much more pleasant. Lud had been pleased by her sincere praise for his efforts, and the servants in the kitchen, while as disciplined as all in Donhallow, seemed to enjoy their duties.

  The same could be said of most of the female servants, with the possible exception of Greta, who was in charge of the laundry. She was a thin, nervous woman whose head bobbed and eyes darted and fingers twitched. Elizabeth had been tempted to assure the woman that if things were not perfectly clean, that would not be cause for instant dismissal. Then she realized, based on the half smiles of the other laundresses, that Greta must be one of those people who would be taut as a bowstring no matter what she did. Moreover, it would not be wise to imply that the new chatelaine might be willing to overlook shoddy work of any kind.

  Nevertheless, she had smiled and tried to put the woman at ease. Unfortunately, it seemed Greta’s tension was catching, and Elizabeth was very relieved to finally leave the laundry.

  Yes, the day had been a long one, and as they exited the dungeon where food was stored, Elizabeth was looking forward to sitting down to the noon meal.

  She thought she might even be glad that she would not be called upon to speak much to her husband. Donhallow Castle was so vast and so populous, she was feeling distinctly overwhelmed.

  As she walked beside Rual toward the great hall, she noticed a peddler’s cart near the entrance. A man stood beside it, speaking to the guards. Sitting on a seat in the cart was a thin, pale woman holding a baby.

  Elizabeth uttered a small cry of delight and hurried toward them. The men fell silent as she approached, and the woman watched her warily. The baby started to bawl, perhaps because the mother’s hold had grown too tight.

  Elizabeth smiled at her to put her at her ease, even as she noted that the young mother looked as if she had not had rest or a good meal in days. “Please, may I hold him? Or is it a girl?”

  “It’s a boy, my lady,” the woman shyly replied.

  “She’s Lady Kirkheathe,” one of the guards muttered to the woman. “Do as she—”