The Wooing of Lady Elisa
Rosemary Laurey
Blush sensuality level: This is a sensual romance (may have explicit love scenes, but not erotic in frequency or type).
Elisa expected changes when her brother returned to Thorncroft after years in the Kings’ Crusade. That he returned with her future husband was unexpected. But Elisa fast learns to love the intriguing and attractive Signor Marco. All seems well, until the sudden arrival of visitors on the eve of her wedding…visitors who seem certain to destroy Elisa’s chance at happiness.
Ellora’s Cave Publishing
www.ellorascave.com
The Wooing of Lady Elisa
ISBN 9781419933165
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
The Wooing of Lady Elisa Copyright © 2011 Rosemary Laurey
Edited by Mary Moran
Cover art by Syneca
Electronic book publication March 2011
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This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.
The Wooing of Lady Elisa
Rosemary Laurey
Chapter One
It was a perfect morning for a homecoming.
Lady Elisa of Thorncroft thanked heaven for her brother’s survival after fighting in the Kings’ Crusade, but Sir John’s return, marked the end of the life she’d enjoyed the past six years.
The aromas of roasting and baking followed her as she rode out to meet her brother. For three days, servants had been preparing the celebration feast. The entire house had been wild with activity since the first news of his return. Sir John was coming home to a hero’s welcome and an estate that now fared well under her direction. Wheat stood strong and ready for the scythe, fruit trees bowed under the weight of an abundant crop and livestock had increased since the day John rode out to join the Christian cause.
They had not been easy years. She’d grown to a woman, learning along the way to direct servants and haggle with traders. The flood last summer and the drought the summer before she’d faced but with the authority to give orders. With John’s return, she would descend from lady of the demesne to unmarried and now, perchance, unmanageable sister.
Still, that was preferable to marriage to Edwin Doune. Elisa would not feel anything as sinful as gladness that her betrothed was dead. Each night she prayed for his soul and thanked the Creator for sparing her from marrying him. She’d liked Edwin, and the alliance was blessed by all concerned, except the bride-to-be, who had no say in the matter. Edwin had been kind, she granted his departed soul that, but the one time he embraced her had been like kissing a dead carp.
She’d seen and heard enough between the servants and the villagers to know there was pleasure between men and women, but mayhap such a boon was just the Almighty’s gift to peasants to compensate for their heavy lot in life. Perhaps such pleasures were not for those of her class and standing.
No time for pondering! The familiar blue banner of Thorncroft approached. It was faded and worn from long years of fighting, but the standard bearer carried it with pride. There were far, far fewer in the company than had set out that crystal-clear spring morning so many years gone past, but she could sense the joy in every heart at the sight of home.
At the head of the company rode her brother John, looking older than she remembered and weary and grime-streaked from travel. Beside John rode an unknown, broad-shouldered man on a white mount. The horse chomped, but the stranger held the reins with one hand, confident his horse would respond to a touch from his knees or thighs.
“Elisa!” John said as they met. “Let me present my rescuer from a heathen ambush, Signor Marco de Bella Vista. My sister, the Lady Elisa of Thorncroft.”
“Lady Elisa,” Signor Marco bowed, the tanned skin by his eyes crinkling as he smiled. “I am honored.” His speech marked him as a foreigner, and his dark, searching eyes were unlike any she’d ever encountered.
“‘Tis my privilege, Signor Marco. Thorncroft is open to all loyal and brave knights, and my brother’s savior gains a tenfold welcome.”
“Gracious and beautiful, indeed,” Signor Marco replied, taking her hand and kissing it. If good sense did not tell her otherwise, she’d swear she felt the touch of his lips through the leather of her glove. Or maybe it was his smile that stirred the warmth across her skin.
“Come, Elisa,” John said, his brows furrowing. “I have a thirst and a hunger to slake.”
As she turned her mount to fall beside her brother, the wind ruffled her kerchief. Thank heaven the knots held! When John saw her hair, he’d have good reason to scowl. Hopefully by then, he’d have food and beer in his belly and thus be in a mellow mood before he glimpsed her shorn head.
After a short while, John rode ahead, leaving her to ride alongside their guest.
“Thorncroft is a fine property, Lady Elisa,” Signor Marco said.
“I believe so, but it’s my home and I love it, so perhaps my opinion is biased,” she paused, glancing sideways. Signor Marco rode high in the saddle, head and shoulders above her. He was slender, as were almost all the men returning from long years of war and hard travel, but from the way Signor Marco held himself, she guessed he was strong and muscular. She stopped herself. Thinking of a man’s body was most unseemly. “Tell me about your home, signor.” He seemed surprised at her question. “Forgive me if I intrude, but I am curious.”
“No forgiveness needed, lady. I hesitated for fear of boring you.”
“You would not bore me, Signor. How will I learn about the world beyond Thorncroft if not from those who have traveled?”
“Would you travel to lands afar, lady?”
No one in her family had ever asked her that. Elisa looked up at the stranger riding knee to knee with her. “I have not permitted myself to want it. My world is Thorncroft.”
“But one day you will marry, lady, and leave your brother’s demesne.”
“I was to have been married but my betrothed died on the march from Acre to Jerusalem.” She didn’t want to talk about Edwin. Not now when happiness and lightheartedness seemed the order of the day. “Your mount, Signor Marco. Is she from your country?” The mare was light-boned, but fine muscle rippled under her sleek, white coat.
“No, lady. Diane was captured from the Mohammedans. I took my bounty in four-legged wealth. I had two yearlings, six brood mares and a fine stallion sent to my home.”
“You will breed them?” Why else bring horses all that way? If the others were half as fine as this one, he’d have the start of a magnificent blood stock.
“Breed my horses and tend my vineyard.” His dark eyes glimmered as he spoke.
“You miss your home?”
“Doesn’t every man, lady?”
“But you journey this far out of your way.” Mayhap that was too presumptuous, but why had he come? And where was his home?
“Your lord brother insisted.”
How like John, to demand Signor Marco travel many, many hundreds, maybe thousands of leagues out of his way. Thank the saints they’d not arrived in the spring, with the countryside recovering from flood and famine. “If you would, tell me…”
A shout from the company interrupted her. Thorncroft was in sight. John had reined in his horse as he surveyed the fields. “Tithes will be rich this year,” he said.
“It will be a good harvest,” Elisa replied, “after two lean years. Drought and then floods ruined the last two crops.”
“But all is well now, sister, I am home.” Head high, John led his company the last few miles.
* * * * *
All was as well as she could make it. Smells of roast meats and fresh pies filled every corner of the castle. Huge cauldrons of water had heated in the courtyard all morning, and now servants carried tubs of hot water for guests to bathe before the feast. Minstrels gathered to entertain, and a troupe of players had been summoned from the town. Elisa prayed it was sufficient to please her brother.
Certain that everything was in readiness. She retired to her room. She bathed quickly and sat in her shift as her serving woman dried her hair.
“’Tis growing back, my lady,” Marjorie, her cousin, said as she brushed the damp out. “One day it will be as long and beautiful as ever.”
So Elisa hoped! Selling her hair had been a necessary sacrifice she still regretted. “And meanwhile, a fresh kerchief. The blue one to match my new dress.” She ran her hands over the soft blue linen, the color of bluebells in summer, spread out on her bed. It wasn’t silk or velvet but was the best she could afford, living on the sparse finances John had allowed.
She brushed down her skirts, smoothing out creases as Marjorie checked the knot on Elisa’s kerchief and gave her a gentle slap on her cheeks to restore their color. Elisa knew she was pale from anxiety. There was so much that might not be to John’s satisfaction and he had never been one to hold back from criticism or complaint.
She could delay no longer. The company and the feast awaited. She left her chamber and descended the stairway down to the solar, crossed the long, narrow gallery and down another narrow flight and opened a door.
“Sister,” John called as she entered the small parlor where he and Signor Marco waited. He stepped forward, his ever vigilant gaze taking in her new dress, her reddened hands and her kerchief. As his eyes lighted on that, he frowned. “Why wear that kerchief?” he asked. “A maid should show her hair. Off with it!” Moving faster than she could, John pulled off her kerchief. “Saint’s bones! What have we here?” He stared. “Have you been ill, sister? Why is your hair cropped like a postulant’s or,” he paused, “a whore!”
“I had it cut, brother. It was necessary.” Elisa stood as tall as she dared, her face burning as she fought back the tears of humiliation that stung her eyelids. He might shame her this way in front of his guest, she felt the heat of Signor Marco’s gaze as well as the weight of her brother’s scowl, but she would not be ashamed.
“Were you sick of the fever?” he demanded.
“No, I was not sick. We were in dire need. This past spring we had no seed corn. Last season’s was lost in store during the floods. So I sold my hair to a wigmaker to buy us seed.”
He looked ready to blame her for the rains that left them close to starvation. “But your hair! Ye gods! Sister!” He ran his fingers though his own dark locks as if to emphasize her shorn state. “What think you, signor?” Blood heated her face as John grabbed her shoulders and she turned to meet Signor Marco’s dark eyes. “Do you still want her? Shorn like a Magdalene?”
Elisa gasped, her brother’s words echoing in her skull. She was to marry the foreigner! How could John tell her like this!
Signor Marco was silent for several wild thumps of her heart. He looked from her to John and back to her as the blood pounded in her ears. Then he smiled, directly at her. “Why not, my friend?” he said. “A maid who would sell her hair to buy seed corn for her brother’s harvest has a heart great enough to surely find space for a husband.”
Elisa blinked back her tears, knowing weeping would only bring on more of John’s wrath. He said nothing. Signor Marco’s gaze said far too much.
“Your hair is the color of aged honey, Lady Elisa,” Signor Marco went on, his voice warm and gentle in the strained silence. “For my part, I would look on your golden hair shorn or long, but as you wish to keep it covered…” His fingers deftly and surely smoothed her ruffled hair before taking the now crumpled linen from John’s fist. “This blue matches your eyes, lady,” he said as he knotted the square of fabric back in place.
Signor Marco stepped back, but she still felt the warmth of his breath on the back of her neck and the lingering touch of his hands. She wanted time alone to fathom her brother’s ill-timed news, but it could not be. The feast and the company awaited them.
Seated between her brother and her would-be husband, Elisa barely tasted the fowl and beef John sliced and placed on her trencher, but the stripped carcasses and empty serving trays showed others were not so distracted. But no one else faced marrying a stranger.
“Lady?” Signor Marco spoke gently as he raised a pewter flagon to refill her goblet. “My regrets that you heard this news in such a fashion.”
“Mine too.” The blood rose to her face at the memory.
“Is it unwelcome?” Elisa stared. Signor Marco went on. “I fear that I sense your displeasure.”
“Not displeasure, sir.” It was the truth. “But surprise.”
He nodded. “Surprise that your brother found you a husband or surprise it was me?”
“Both, sir. The news took me so unawares. On reflection, I know I should have expected with Edwin dead that…” She did not want to talk about Edwin, not with Marco who, by his eyes and smile alone, thrust her into disequilibrium.
“Is it too soon to think of another as your betrothed?”
It would be so easy to act the bereft lover, but she balked at the deception. “Edwin was my childhood playmate, signor. It was hard to think of him as my husband, a boy I’d pushed out of a tree and made cry with teasing. I was three years older and not a very kind child, I fear. I once put a mouse down his tunic.”
Her now intended had a deep, warm laugh, rich and heady as mulled cider. “Would you put a mouse down my tunic, lady?”
Her face burned as blood flooded her cheeks. This man was no eight-year-old boy. “No, Signor Marco.” She shook her head. “I have grown up and learned better manners since then.”
“And how to manage an estate, tend your bother’s lands and provide a feast fit for the pope. Lady, is it too much for me to hope that you look favorably on my suit?”
Most gently and tactfully put, but… “Signor Marco, is my consent of any import?”
That was not tactful. He raised his eyebrows. “Indeed, it is, lady. When your brother offered me your hand, I told him I would only accept if you agreed.”
“Knowing that for me to refuse is impossible, if my brother wills it.” That was shrewish but why pretend her feelings were of any importance?
His slow smile did strange things to her heartbeat. And other parts of her body. “You will come to me willingly, lady, or we will not marry.”
Signor Marco’s words sent shivers chasing down her spine. Shivers that burst into an ice storm when her brother stood and silenced the company to announce three days of feasting, at the end of which, his sister and Signor Marco would wed.
How like John! Three days of feasting meant endless work for the kitchens and even more inroads to their still not abundant stores. Maybe she could convince him to organize a hunt tomorrow for entertainment.
But these concerns, she had to put aside as the company drank to her health and that of her future husba
nd before the players assembled to perform The History of the Trojan Horse.
As the players frolicked and the company laughed and shouted their amusement, Elisa’s mind was on matters other than Greek ingenuity or even worries of how the kitchens would cope for the next three days. Her intended spouse occupied her thoughts. To the eye, he was more than pleasing, but a man was surely more than muscular shoulders or a strong, clean-shaven chin. Much as she admired the dark hair that fell over his forehead and the way his eyes crinkled at the corners as he laughed at the antics of two Trojan guards, she knew what she saw was just the shell of Marco de Bella Vista.
He was brave and strong, saving John’s life proved that. Honorable and courteous, that she’d observed herself. Determined too, insisting on her wholehearted agreement to their marriage. She would ask him later why that mattered so.
“Such entertainment at short notice speaks of great hospitality,” Signor Marco said. “I thank you, Lady Elisa.”
John clunked his goblet on the table. “I warn you, good signor, watch my sister when the players come to Belle Vista. She’s wont to leave her home and follow them.”
How could John mention that! She’d been seven years old at the time.
“Indeed, Sir John?” Marco sounded almost bored, until he turned his dark gaze her way. “You ran away and followed the players, my lady?”
“I was a child, enthralled by the Christmas players. I wanted to travel from town to village and castle to house and see the world and play dress-up games. I hid in their wagon when they left, but they found me and brought me back before we’d even reached the next town.”
He gave her a slow, wide smile that sent little thrills skittering across her skin and whispered, “Lady, I too ran away. I was nine and wanted to join the traveling acrobats.”
“But they brought you back?”
“Not right away. When my father received the news they’d found me, he told them to take me with them a month.” Signor Marco shook his head, and she tried to imagine him as a nine-year-old boy. “I found out how hard life could be. They never ill-treated me and fed me when they ate, which was not as often as I was accustomed to. But as I was no use as an acrobat, I had the rough work to do—help the men load and unload the carts, find fodder and water for the two donkeys, hideous animals who kicked and bit me at every chance.” He took her hand, very lightly, but her skin warmed at his touch and her heart raced at what those hands would do, one day. No! In three days’ time. “When I was finally returned to my family, I was most appreciative of my home.”
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