by Claudia Dain
She looked to him then, her eyes to his. So blue they were; such eyes should be always merry, shining with joy, and hers were... still. Guarded. Wary.
"I am not troubled. By anything, Lord Rowland," she said, looking up into his eyes.
It was then that Weregrave's priest appeared, the damsel at his heels. Father Timothy was a young priest, with less than two score years on this earth, and he had a look of strength about him. Such could sometimes be said of a priest, but not often. His hair was tawny, as was his skin, his eyes the gray of heavy cloud; there was a beauty to him that even his robes could not diminish, and an intensity that bespoke more than godly fervor.
But perhaps he was reading too much in just a glance. When he felt William go still beside him, he allowed the impression to stand. If he and William both felt that the priest was something more than prayerful, then he would not discount his impression. Never had the two of them been wrong. The fact that they were still living in a world bloody and battle-eager bore witness to the accuracy of their judgment.
"Father Timothy," Nicolaa introduced, "Weregrave's priest and mine."
"Lord Rowland." The priest bowed slightly, his eyes assessing.
"Father Timothy," Rowland answered, not bowing. He did not understand the impulse that kept him from that small observance of humility, but he gave in to it. His instincts he trusted more than civility. "Would you introduce your ladies, Nicolaa, that all may be named within this house?"
"As you wish," she said evenly. "My mother's mother, Lady Jeanne," she said with a wave of her hand toward the eldest of the women in her circle. She was gray-haired and blue-eyed, her fingers twisted with age, as was the top of her back. Yet she looked none the worse for it and was smiling almost playfully at him.
"My mother's sister, Lady Agnes," Nicolaa continued. Her hair had once been red, dimmed now by wide bands of silver, and she shared the same slim carriage as her niece.
Lady Ermengarde, a distant cousin, was followed by Lady Blanche, a widow, Lady Perette, petite and pretty, and finally Lady Beatrice, barely past her girlhood and with a tumble of pale blond hair.
Casting a glance at Ulrich, Rowland thought he looked ready to burst with joy at so many comely women. The women were far more subdued, with the blatant exception of Lady Jeanne. He could not see any resemblance between Nicolaa and her grandmother, though perhaps truer comparisons would come in time.
"My friend," he introduced, though he was certain it was not necessary, "Lord William le Brouillard of Greneforde, and his squire, Ulrich."
Ulrich bowed deeply and smiled his largest and most encouraging smile. Two of the ladies noted it and returned his look. Unfortunately for Ulrich, one of the ladies was Lady Jeanne.
"Baths are required," Nicolaa said, and a servant rushed off to whisper to another servant, and then a stream of men went outside.
It was all she said, but Rowland was certain that he and William would have hot water within the hour. She was very efficient, his bride, and ran an exemplary household. The knowledge brought him neither joy nor sorrow. He would not be here long enough to enjoy the efficiency of her household; the king would call him away soon enough.
With a slight movement of her hand and a nod, she summoned the bailiff, a ruddy man of good size by the name of Edward. With a smile, she made it plain that Rowland was to follow Edward. He did so. Such smiling efficiency almost compelled obedience. He did want a bath, after all. Or at least, William did. For himself, he would do whatever was necessary to bring honor to the vows he was about to take.
As they ascended the curving stair, William at his back, he turned to look down into the hall. What compelled him to turn he could not say, but, in looking down, he found her staring up at him, her eyes clear blue in the cream white of her face, her expression unreadable. Meeting his eyes, she spoke a whispered word to the women around her and they all, with only the brush of fabric to mark the movement, surrounded her so that only the top of her red head was visible to him. That and Father Timothy, looking up at him from the bottom of the stair, his stare as blunt as the smack of a sword.
Nothing was said in the presence of Edward, but Rowland could feel William's amusement leaking out of him like red drops of wine from a cracked jug. William found amusement in unlikely places. As did Rowland. Usually.
"Did you mark how the Lady Blanche smiled at me?" Ulrich said in a rush of enthusiasm. "And Lady Perette, is she not the most comely of women? Her black curls are deep enough to drown in, are they not?"
"Enough, boy," William said sternly. Only his eyes revealed his humor. "Have you no breeding at all? Does a knight of chivalry discuss a lady's... attributes, and with a man of her house to bear witness? Shame, boy. Render your apologies now."
"Your pardon," Ulrich said, his eyes wide with the shame of public rebuke. "Your most undeserved pardon, I beseech you. I am shamed that my tongue rules my head, and my heart the most willing witness to my shame. I was overcome. I have no defense beyond the beauty of the ladies of this house and my own weakness against it. Can you forgive, Edward?"
They were in the chamber assigned to them. It was large enough for the bed and the ewer and little else, but it did have a wind hole, and the wind hole looked out over the wall to the distant western wood. The sky was studded with clouds the color of metal, the air freshened by a wind that came from the north.
"I can and I do," Edward said bluntly, little amused by Ulrich and his protestations of innocence. Perhaps also little interested. "Your chamber," he announced needlessly. "Your bath will be up anon, Lord William. Lord Rowland, yours will await you in the lord's chamber." With a nod, he was gone.
"A well-run holding," William said, laying off his helm and tossing Ulrich his mufflers.
"Yea, and a woman of strict composure," Rowland said, leaning against the doorway and the curtain that sheltered it, "as you found your bride. Her manner is all they share, I fear."
"Fear not, Rowland. She looks to make a man a fine wife."
"She looks of an age to have been a wife already."
"What matter?" William said, letting Ulrich help him with his chain mail. "Surely you do not begrudge her that?"
"Nay," Rowland answered, crossing his arms over his chest. "It is only... where stands her heart?"
Yet, in truth, he spoke of his own heart, given to Lubias and ne'er retrieved, even from her grave.
Chapter 3
She watched him ascend the stair, entering more deeply into Weregrave with each step, trying to learn something of the man from his willingness to delay the ceremony. Perhaps his actions revealed arrogance that Weregrave could not be taken from him; perhaps courtesy to her needs; perhaps only that he was easily led by his friend, William le Brouillard.
Perhaps nothing at all.
When he had turned upon the stair, his eyes instantly going to hers, studying her, she had covered herself with her women, rejecting his assessment. She could feel the intensity of his gaze. She knew what was said of Rowland the Dark; he was a man who saw into shadows and found shape and form where other men saw only darkness. An unhappy trait for a husband to possess. She knew that he was trying to lay her bare, to understand her as a man would want to understand the woman he was to manage. She refused him the opportunity. She would not willingly allow him to study her. Unfair it might be, but life was seldom, if ever, fair.
The women retreated to the sanctity of the solar, which abutted the hall, separated by only a wall, but a wall that etiquette demanded be barred to men. Within the solar, she was safe from husbands.
And priests. Father Timothy would await her in the chapel, in prayerful meditation. She would occupy herself with her embroidery until her next husband had bathed away the dirt of battle. As if it mattered.
"He is most courteous, is he not?" Perette gushed, her black curls quivering. "Very handsome, too, did you not observe, Nicolaa?"
Nicolaa smiled her response and picked up her needle, threading it with blue.
"He looked a fit ma
n for any woman," Jeanne said, avoiding her place at the embroidery. "You will enjoy yourself with this one, granddaughter, or you're not fit to share my blood." She laughed at that and did not seem to care that no one joined in the laughter. It might have been that none dared.
"Hush, Mother," Agnes said, always quick to defend Nicolaa. "Can you not keep still? It is not your wedding day and it is not you who will soon ... that is, it will soon..."
"Aye." Jeanne laughed. "Soon and soon enough for that man. Have yourself a merry time of it, Nicolaa, and spare not a thought to your grayed grandmother who must do with thin strands of thread when a well-favored man grows hard and long within the walls of Weregrave."
"Keep still, Mother! Can you not keep to your embroidery?"
"My needlework," she grumbled. "Little point there is in endless toil—which is ruining my eyes, I can tell you— with no heirs to gift the goods to."
"Rowland or William—or even Ulrich, for that matter—looks fit enough to make any woman a mother," Blanche said. Blanche, a childless widow, was wont to make such remarks. Nicolaa had learned to let them pass.
"By Saint Winifred, hear yourself, Blanche," Ermengarde said. "How coarse you have become."
"I am not being coarse," Blanche said loftily. "I am merely being observant."
"Such cannot be observed," Nicolaa said softly, her eyes on her needlework, "and it matters not how fit Rowland the Dark appears to be. I am barren. 'Tis a fact well known."
"Think you he knows it?" Beatrice asked.
"If he knew, he would not be here," Nicolaa answered calmly, hoping it was the truth.
* * *
"She has had a husband before me, and I would know her history, yet to ask directly might offend," Rowland said.
"It is you who usually ferrets out such things, yet there is no way for you to hide here, not when you are lord of this holding. And I cannot," William said.
"Nay, you have not the skill for hiding in the shadows, listening to whispers," Rowland agreed.
Both heads turned to Ulrich.
"I will do it!" Ulrich said, his voice as joyful and determined as the look in his shining blue eyes.
"Aye, but can you?" William said, smiling.
"I can," he vowed, striving for seriousness. "Let me prove myself. I will succeed."
"You must tread softly, giving no offense," Rowland said.
"I will. I can. I did the same service in Greneforde when first we did land there, did I not?"
"Aye, yet you found out nothing needful."
"Yet I did not offend!"
"Aye, 'tis true." William said.
The decision was Rowland's and he made it. Ulrich must be used. He was willing, he had some skill, and he was the only one of them able to do it. Many battles had been fought and won with just such a list of qualifications.
"Go, then," Rowland said.
The squire was gone before any more instruction could be given, which was likely his intent.
"He will go first to that comely lass with the black hair," William said. "Perette."
"Aye." Rowland nodded ruefully.
* * *
It was not to be. There was not a woman to be found. Each one, whether aged or comely, was sequestered within the solar, a place no man dared enter unless expressly invited. It was a setback.
Ulrich had not yet found the opportunity to charm any of the women into issuing such an invitation. Given time, he would. He had all the optimism of a young man who had not yet failed in matters of romance.
With a lopsided smile and a shrug of his wide shoulders, Ulrich departed the tower, searching for a fellow squire on whom to pour friendship and gossip and learn of the history of Weregrave in return. He would be subtle—had he not vowed to be?—and he would be quick. Perhaps if he had found a maid he would have tarried a bit, but what pleasure in tarrying with a man?
It took less time than he would have supposed to pry out the secrets of Weregrave, but only because there were no secrets. Nay, all knew. It was only Rowland who was in ignorance as to the history of his bride and Ulrich commanded himself not to shake with outrage at King Henry's gift. Rowland, after all his suffering, deserved better.
Ulrich raced up the tower stair. Rowland met him at the door to William's chamber and faced him squarely. Rowland's expression was open and calm. That such news must be vomited out on such a man... Ulrich fought his anger. Rowland had bathed and dressed, to add honor to his vows of fidelity and constancy. Rowland deserved so much better than what Weregrave offered him.
"Tell me of her husband," he said.
Ulrich swallowed hard and tried to keep his voice from shaking. "Which one, Lord Rowland? Of which husband would you have me speak?"
"How, boy, what say you?" William asked.
"Tell me what you learned," Rowland said very softly.
"Of husbands, Lady Nicolaa has had four."
"Four! Is she four times a widow?" William asked.
"Nay, not ever a widow."
"Repudiated?" Rowland asked. What was so wrong with her that she had been rejected four times? He had seen no flaw.
"Nay, not repudiated," Ulrich said. "Though it is said her last husband was mouthing the words. Nay, king, overlord, and bishop have invalidated each marriage for one reason or another, leaving her husbands free to marry again."
"And did they?" Rowland asked.
"Aye, each one, and in untimely haste. Each man taking a bride of greater worth or greater favor. Leaving no child behind."
He had heard of it. He had seen it once or twice in his life. A marriage invalidated for the thinnest of reasons or the weightiest. In one instance, a husband and wife found to be within the sixth degree of consanguinity after fifteen years of marriage. The wife had finished her days in a convent. The husband had died with a sixteen-year-old bride of considerable worth in his bed. And how had King Henry II come by his wife, Eleanor, she who had jumped from the bed of the King of France to climb in with Henry of England, dragging her Aquitaine riches along with her? Aye, it was done, though it was never well done.
"No child?" William said, his anger growing with his concern. "She has never quickened with child, even to produce it stillborn?"
"Nay, there has been no child, living or dead," Ulrich said.
This was the worst of it. A woman who could not produce a child left her line without an heir; all that had been achieved in this life was lost without a blood heir to carry the name and the legacy of a man into the future.
"You must not do this, Rowland," William said. "I know your heart softens for her even now for what she has faced, but you cannot chain yourself to a woman who is barren. Your future will be as barren as she is."
But what of Nicolaa? Four times cast off and each time by a husband who had sworn to stand by her. How bruised her heart must be to have been so used. That explained the stillness of her; she held herself in the stiff quiet of great pain, her body braced for the next buffeting at the hands of her next husband. It was as he had known. She was fearful—if not trembling in fear then frigid with the unending shock of it. How great was her need of a man who would stand true to her.
Had she loved any of her husbands? Had they left her for no reason but greater profit with another wife? He would not do the same to her.
Let her be barren. It did not matter to him. His future had died with Lubias.
He would remain with Nicolaa.
Excerpt from
A Kiss to Die For
by
Claudia Dain
© 2003, 2011 by Claudia Welch
Prologue
The Texas wind was blowing hard and cold, but he didn't care. All he cared about was that little girl in his sights; she was a woman full grown, but slight, like a girl, with red hair the color of ripe pumpkins hanging down her back. The wind blew her hair hard, making strands of it whip around her head like straw in a cyclone. She kept pulling at it, tugging those wild strings of hair down with her white hands until she held them like a bouque
t.
Only one reason for a woman to wear her hair loose on a day of such wind; she wanted to catch a man's eye.
She'd caught his.
He'd seen her before. This game she was playing with him was an old one and he let her lead him around in it, knowing it built her confidence to have him chase after her. Knowing it made her sure of herself. Knowing that soon she'd do something reckless. And he'd be right there when she did.
He'd give her what she was asking for.
Maybe even today.
He got hard thinking of it, thinking of her under his hands, soft and willing. Her mouth telling him yes when he wrapped his arms around her and asked her to marry him.
That's what she was wanting from him, a proposal of marriage, and that's what he'd give her. That, and a few dozen kisses. But she'd be getting more than kisses from him. A whole lot more.
He knew exactly what she wanted. Same thing they all wanted. And he was more than happy to oblige.
He was nothing if not accommodating.
She was a pretty little thing, her hair so bright against the milk white of her hands. She had a spray of freckles across her knuckles that about matched the color of her hair. She was smiling at him, her eyes blue and round with excitement. He'd arranged this meeting with her yesterday, as she was walking out of church with her folks. He'd whispered to her as she'd passed, her head down as she walked behind her ma, and she hadn't answered. But here she was.
Her folks didn't know about him, not yet. They'd know soon enough. Once she agreed to marry him, they'd know it all.
"You're a pretty little girl," he said, closing the distance between them.
"I'm not a little girl," she huffed, letting loose of her hair. It rose up in the air and twisted, writhing and hot against the blue of the sky.
"Is that why you came today? To prove to me you aren't so little?"
