Suddenly, a terrifying thought occurred to him. Would Bria do the same thing Odella had done to avoid marrying him? Would Bria take her own life?
Terran stalked away down the corridor, and Bria turned to find Kenric glaring at her. Her left arm throbbed with the memory of his attack. But he didn’t frighten her any longer. She’d faced him in battle and had survived. It was the way he was looking at her, like all the fires in hell had gathered inside him and he was waiting for the right moment to unleash them on her.
Then Kenric cast a glance over his shoulder at Harry. When he looked back at her, there was a restrained look in his eyes, but a dark promise nonetheless. He moved off down the hall.
Bria turned toward her grandfather and slowly walked up to him, gazing at his arm. “That’s a nasty cut.”
“You don’t know how nasty. Do you realize how much courage it takes to cut oneself with a dagger?”
A thousand sincere thank you’s glimmered in her eyes. She knew now just how wrong she’d been in not telling him the truth. He was more than her grandfather. He was her confidant. “You knew.”
“I may be old,” he replied, “but I’m not a fool.” He gently touched her cheek. “And I know my granddaughter. I had the others just put on bandages. They didn’t cut themselves. I told them it was a joke I was playing on Knowles. They don’t know what it means.”
Bria threw herself into his arms.
“I was afraid for you, Bria,” he whispered. “I knew Knowles would find out. But I can only protect you until that coward of a father of yours marries you off. Once you’re gone, you’re on your own.”
“And it will be soon,” she said, pressing her cheek to his chest.
“Aye,” Harry replied, stroking her hair. “Within the next few days. Knowles is insisting you leave for his castle within the next week.”
Bria’s embrace tightened. She was scared. Everything she knew, everything she loved was here at Castle Delaney. She’d soon be leaving the safety of her home and venturing off into unknown lands, into her enemy’s hands.
“Knowles will do everything in his power to find out who the Midnight Shadow is. Give it up, Bria, before it is too late.”
“I can’t,” Bria whispered. She had to keep up the guise of the Midnight Shadow, for Mary, for Garret, for everyone she could help. “I won’t.”
Harry squeezed her tightly. “You must promise me something, then.”
Bria pulled back. “Anything.”
“You must promise me...” Harry studied her features.
Bria could have sworn she saw tears in his eyes.
“You must promise me you will not die.”
For the flash of a second, she considered lying to him, but he knew her far better than anyone else. He wasn’t a fool. “The Midnight Shadow will never die,” she answered, feeling tears rise in her eyes. “You taught me that, remember?”
Harry brushed a tear from her cheek before stepping away from her and turning to move off down the hallway.
Bria watched her grandfather, and a strange heaviness settled upon her chest. She’d be leaving him soon. But why? Why did she have to leave? Why wouldn’t her father tell Knowles to go hang? Even if he thought the worst of her, she was still his daughter, his only heir. He could refuse this marriage.
Bria walked down the hall, then up another set of stairs to find her father. He was probably in the treasury studying the profits and figures from the tithes. Holding her skirt up slightly, she climbed the stairs. Her small, slippered feet made no sound as they moved across the steps. Finally, she reached the treasury. She tentatively opened the door, calling, “Father?”
“Come in, Bria,” her father called from a small table. Stick tabulations lay spread out on the table, some banded together, some separate. A piece of parchment lay on the table with meticulous figures written on it. Her father paused, looking up from the sticks to gaze at her.
“Hello, Father,” Bria called.
Her father sat back in his chair. “I’m glad you came. I could use a rest from these figures.”
Bria nervously ran a finger through a gouge in the wooden table.
Her father reached out and clasped her hand.
Bria lifted her eyes to meet her father’s. With his gentle gaze upon her, Bria couldn’t speak the truth. She couldn’t ask him why he wouldn’t fight for her. She couldn’t ask him why he wouldn’t defend her. She knew why.
“I expected you to come to me much sooner than this, but you’ve always put the feelings of others before your own,” he mused.
Bria glanced down at the gouge again, unable to meet her father’s direct gaze. She couldn’t hurt him. She adored him. He’d fought and been maimed in a horrible war. He was dealing with it the best way he knew how, the way that would keep him sane. She couldn’t destroy him.
“You think me a coward for not protecting you from Knowles.”
How could she think him a coward after what he had been through? She began to shake her head, to deny his words, but he continued.
“You do. As much as you want to deny it, you do.” He ran his hand over his eyes, sighing. “I cannot fight him, Bria. If I declare the betrothal invalid, he will challenge me in battle. It is his right.”
Bria heard the anguish in his voice and dropped to her knees beside him. She reached out for his hand, but he moved his injured arm away from her touch with his good hand, absently rubbing his useless limb. Bria withdrew immediately, placing her hands in her lap.
“It would be pointless,” he said softly. “I would be killed and then he would have the run of our lands anyway.”
“But Grandfather –”
“Is old and would be killed, too. Knowles would have you in the end,” her father explained. “He’s a strong man, Bria. You will bear him strong sons and maybe you can raise them to be kind lords.”
Bria sat back on her heels. “Then your mind is made up.”
Her father’s blue eyes rose to meet hers. “Your rendezvous with this Midnight Shadow doesn’t help my situation any.”
Bria began to shake her head.
“You brought this on as much as I,” her father scolded.
Bria couldn’t tell her father there was no rendezvous. He wouldn’t understand why she risked her life. He wouldn’t understand her reasons for trying to help the people under Terran’s rule. He would forbid her from doing it.
“Tell me who he is,” her father commanded.
Bria wouldn’t look at him. She couldn’t look at him. She was disobeying a direct order of his. Women had been beaten for less, but she knew he’d never force her to tell him.
“Bria, I am your father. Tell me who he is!” His tone grew angry and stern.
She snapped her gaze to him. He’d never used that tone of voice with her before. Despite every fiber in her being urging her to confide in her father, Bria stood her ground. Revelation now would be the death of the Midnight Shadow. “I can’t,” she whispered. “I can’t, Father. Please don’t ask me again.”
Her father sighed. “Why didn’t you come to me with your love for this man, this Midnight Shadow, whoever he is? I could have betrothed you to him.”
Bria wanted to laugh, but couldn’t. This matter had gone far beyond the point of humor.
“Instead, you sneak off into the night to meet with a man I don’t know. I should feel insulted. Betrayed.”
“No,” Bria objected. “Don’t. I never meant to make you feel that.”
“Maybe that’s how you feel about me.”
“No,” Bria insisted.
“I’m sorry I’m such a disappointment to you,” her father whispered.
“No,” Bria repeated, running her hand over his cheek. “Father, you are not a disappointment. I don’t blame this on you. I... I just don’t know what the future holds.”
Her father nodded. “That’s how I felt when I took your mother as my wife.”
Bria stared into her father’s eyes. He’d loved her mother very much. She wanted her li
fe to be like his. She wanted to feel the love he had felt for her mother with her husband. She threw her arms around him. “I’ll do as you wish, Father.”
“This is not as I wish. It is as it has to be.”
Bria stood at the altar, staring up at the chaplain. Her palms were sweating, and she had to wipe them on her dress more than once. She half hoped one of the dozen witnesses would find a reason to object to the whole thing, and her eyes darted nervously around, looking for some kind of salvation: the chapel roof, the ornate glass windows, the elaborate statues lining the church like guardians. Finally, she looked at Terran. He was gazing at her with such calmness Bria was taken aback.
He reached out and placed his hand over hers. His gentleness startled her, but his touch soothed her. She turned her gaze back to the chaplain, her anxiety washed away by a simple touch from Terran.
The chaplain finished the uneventful ceremony and blessed the union.
She was the wife of Terran Knowles.
A simple ceremony had changed her life forever, a ceremony she’d once imagined would be attended by all of her friends, by Mary, by Garret, by hundreds of guests, a ceremony sealed by a kiss.
Instead, she didn’t even have a special dress made for the occasion, but wore a simple dark green velvet dress she’d worn a dozen times before. And now the deed was done. The decree in the betrothal papers had been fulfilled. She didn’t know what she was feeling, but it was certainly not the happiness of a new bride. A wife.
What a terrifying word.
In the next whirlwind moment, Terran ushered Bria out the doors of the keep. In the courtyard, a double line of mounted men awaited them, Kenric in the lead. Terran escorted Bria to a waiting horse and helped her mount, then mounted behind her without a word.
She couldn’t help but notice the cart filled with bags of gold in the middle of the line. All these men, all these soldiers were here to guard her dowry.
Terran’s arm swept around Bria, clasping her tight against him as if she were his possession. Before she could register her annoyance, a tremor shot through her body at the touch of his strong arms.
The horse whinnied and reared slightly as Terran took the reins in his hands.
She’d barely lifted her hand in farewell to her father and grandfather, who stood in the doorway of the keep, dwarfed by the massive wooden double doors and looking as forlorn as Bria felt, before Terran kicked the horse forward.
Then she was moving through the inner gatehouse. The speed of the horses quickened as they rode toward the outer gatehouse. People stood at the sides of the castle watching, their expressions a mixture of pity and devastation.
Bria tried to glance back, but could see only Terran’s shoulder. A strand of her long hair had come loose from her braid and Bria had to push it away from her eyes. As she turned back to the path of her future, she saw the last structure of her castle loom before them, the outer gatehouse. Panic flared through her, and she had a strong instinct to leap from the horse and run back to her home, the only life she’d known.
Instead, she lifted her head, letting the wind whip her hair behind her, and faced what the future had in store.
They burst forth from the castle, riding toward the village.
Who would have thought two weeks ago she would be married to her enemy, sitting in his arms, approaching his lands?
My lands, she corrected herself. My people. A calmness washed over her. My people. And I have a vow to keep to Mary. I will see to it they are protected. One way or another.
As the entourage galloped through Knowles Village, there were very few cheers, and even fewer happy faces. Terran noticed more than one person shaking his head at the sight of Bria. Were they displeased with her? Not that it mattered.
The sun was beginning to set over the horizon as his castle appeared in the distance, marking an end to a very long day and several very long weeks. It seemed like another lifetime since he’d arrived at Castle Delaney to seek Bria’s hand. Now that he’d secured it, he must instruct Kenric to get on with paying the king’s tithe, paying his knights, and seeing that there was enough food to last the winter and...
... and these were things he knew he really didn’t give a damn about. He steered his thoughts elsewhere. He’d sought Bria’s hand for her dowry, and in the hope that the challenge of gaining her hand would rouse the spirit he had lost. But it hadn’t been the challenge of winning Bria’s hand. Bria herself had roused his spirit. At first her intellect had provoked him. Then it was her secrets.
Bria shifted in his arms, drawing his gaze to the top of her head. Little strands of rebellious curls had freed themselves from the tight braid. He hated that braid and wanted to see her hair freed from its constraints. She was at her most beautiful when her long tresses hung loose and free. Terran found himself leaning into those strands, inhaling deeply the fragrance of lavender. He rested his cheek against the top of her head.
Something else became very apparent. With each of the horse’s steps, her bottom rubbed against his manhood like a lightning strike. He hardened instantly. Just the thought of her tiny buttocks pressing so intimately up against him sent desire spearing through him. He clenched his teeth, trying to get his passion under control, but it was next to impossible. He had to think of something else.
They rounded the hillside, continuing in an arc toward the castle. Castle Knowles rested near one of the highest mountains in the land. Surrounded by cliffs on all but one side, the fortress was virtually impenetrable. But Terran no longer admired its beauty or its strategic defenses as he once did. He’d lived here all his life and was unimpressed by its grandeur.
He needed something else to bring that spark of excitement back into his life. He’d thought he found it with Odella, but he’d been wrong. Fatally wrong.
His arms tightened instinctively around Bria.
They approached the castle head on. Terran glanced behind him at the long line of armored men. He had tripled the number of guards in his entourage, for the dowry was substantial, an amount enough to pay his men and his taxes to the king.
And there was another reason. Terran knew the Midnight Shadow wouldn’t let his lover go. He’d expected some sort of confrontation with his enemy, but their journey had been uneventful.
As the castle walls loomed higher in his vision, his tension eased. The Midnight Shadow wouldn’t be bold enough to attack them in front of Castle Knowles.
Terran glanced down at his bride’s head. He now knew his attraction to her was much stronger than he could have imagined. They could have a good marriage. But could Bria ever let the Midnight Shadow go and let Terran be her husband?
It’s irrelevant, he told himself. She’s mine.
They rode through the outer ward and into the inner ward. Terran eased Bria to the ground and dismounted. He gave commands to Kenric to secure the gold in the treasury. Then he turned toward his castle. He had many things to see to, boring things. His steward, no doubt, had a list of things needing his immediate attention.
As he turned, his gaze stopped upon the small woman standing where his warhorse had been before the stable boy had led him away. Around her, his men were dispersing, but she stood motionless, her hands clasped before her, her large blue eyes trained uncertainly on him. Bria looked so lost that for a brief moment, Terran had the urge to sweep her into his arms and assure her everything would be all right.
He took a step toward her, but suddenly a voice called out, “M’lord!” Terran turned to find a blond woman standing on the stairs to the keep. Every detail about her was impeccable, from her horned headdress to her slippered feet. She was a marvelous woman to look at, and Terran used to love to do that. But now another woman needed his attention.
But the woman came toward him, holding out her slender hand. Terran brushed her knuckles with a kiss. “Lady Kathryn.”
“Yes.” Her haughty blue gaze swung to Bria.
“Lady Kathryn, meet my wife, Lady Bria.” He turned his gaze to Bria and was crushe
d by her crestfallen expression. But she straightened her shoulders and marched up to them.
“A pleasure,” Bria said, expressing anything but.
Terran stared in confusion at Bria. Her large eyes all but danced with fire as she gazed upon Kathryn. Kathryn’s reaction was just as baffling. Her eyebrow rose in disdain. Then both women turned their gazes on him.
Terran smiled enigmatically, but he’d never felt so burdened and strained before. He felt expected to do something, but he didn’t know what they wanted. “Kenric!” he called out.
His cousin strolled over to him.
Terran’s eyes shifted from Bria to Kathryn and back again. “Show Lady Bria to her room.” Something flashed in her blue eyes like the distant glint of lightning. Was that hurt or anger? She lowered her eyes before he could figure it out.
Terran’s gaze shifted to Kathryn’s, and he saw victory shining in her blue eyes. Strange, Terran thought. He’d never realized before how dull her eyes were. They were pale blue and hard, almost like stones set into her sockets.
Terran stepped past Bria and paused. “I will come to you tonight,” he promised his new bride. Then he took Kathryn’s arm and moved into the keep. Kathryn was aglow as they strolled through Castle Knowles’ halls. She primped for the peasants who watched them, holding her chin high. Terran tried to restrain his impatience.
They turned down a dark hallway, their footsteps echoing. Kathryn was strangely quiet. She could talk for hours about herself, but now her mouth remained shut. Something was wrong.
“What brings you here, Kathryn?” he asked brusquely. Terran paused before the closed door of the room she always occupied when at Castle Knowles, although the last time had been over a year ago.
“My darling,” she cooed, leaning back against the door. “Why are you so cruel to me?” She placed her hands on his chest.
Terran had once found her coy manner irresistible, before Odella. “I’m not cruel, Kathryn,” he said softly. “I just know your games.”
Daring Damsels Page 78
