Anice's Bargain

by Madeline Martin

  The Earl of Werrick was a formidable man whose primary weakness was his love for his five daughters. Anice might not be the most intelligent or talented of them, but she had always had a knack for coercing her father to her will.

  “You have told me not to attend.” Anice did not slow her pace. “But I refuse to be left behind.”

  “Anice,” her father bellowed in a tone he had not used with her since she was a child. “I do not wish to have you there.”

  She went hot with humiliation. “Because I am not Marin?” she demanded. “Do you think me so incompetent that you doubt my ability to manage at your side throughout the negotiations?”

  His face softened. “I was thinking more of what happened to your mother.” He averted his gaze and the muscle along his bony jaw went tight.

  He had been like this for some time now: nostalgic, melancholy. Anice’s heart flinched. He missed their mother, though it had been many years since her death. But Marin’s leaving had caused his sorrow to dip deeper. No matter how hard Anice tried to take her elder sister’s place, the feat was impossible.

  “I coordinated this meeting; I intend to see to the discussion as well.” Anice tried to keep her voice steady. After all, she knew well how to fake confidence.

  Her father sighed and appeared every bit of his two and fifty years with the exhaustion and weariness emphasizing the loose skin under his eyes. “Very well, but I expect you to leave the speaking to the men.” He motioned for her to walk in front of him on their short journey down to the great hall. Not that there was much great about it anymore, save its massive size.

  The trestles lay in neat lines, empty and nearly useless with so little food to be had; the once-lively chatter now rendered quiet with a general darkness of foreboding; the bustle of servants gone still with the grinding pain of hunger in their bellies. Rats didn’t dare enter the castle anymore for fear of encountering a desperate inhabitant of Werrick.

  Even the rushes underfoot had long since gone bad and been swept away with nothing to use in replacement, leaving their steps echoing off the walls with a despondency that resonated in Anice’s heart. William, their steward, stood beside the dais at the ready, as well as Drake, their new Captain of the Guard after their former one, Sir Richard, had sought a quieter life in the country in his older age.

  The heavy thud of shoes on stone sounded outside the hall as Anice and her father took their seats upon the raised dais at the rear of the great hall. Her father curled his hands around the carved arms of his chair, his knuckles white.

  Mayhap the meeting had not been a good idea. But their alternative was what— to starve slowly?

  The doors opened and the laird entered along with the man who had promised to care for Piquette. However, her dog was nowhere to be seen. Her heart lurched.

  “Where is Piquette?” she demanded when they entered.

  Her father shot her a look of stern warning to be silent. Marin would never have warranted such a reprimand.

  The large man inclined his head in apology. “Forgive me, Lady Werrick. To ensure our safety, I was forced to leave him behind. Know that he is quite well and in eager spirits to see ye.”

  Quite well, indeed. Anice shifted in her seat, unable to still the restlessness burgeoning inside her at this unwelcome news. As it was, she had not been able to sleep, not with images of Piquette being beaten or threatened, or worse—killed. Her heart flinched at such terrible musings.

  “Piquette is with a man I’d trust with my life,” the man continued. “Yer dog is in fine care and has eaten his weight in venison after ye left.”

  “Lady Werrick?” her father said with obvious irritation. “Lady Werrick died nigh on fourteen summers ago, and we’ve got you to blame for taking her light from our lives.”

  Laird Graham scowled. “We’re here to come to an accord, are we no’, Lord Werrick?”

  Anice’s heart was pounding with rage at the injustice her mother had suffered at the hands of the Grahams. But anger would not aid her in a time of negotiation.

  Her father narrowed his eyes with obvious suspicion. “Aye.”

  “Ye want us to leave yer lands.” Laird Graham let his glittering gaze shift around the barren room before coming to rest on Anice’s father. “What are ye willing to give us to make it happen?”

  The Earl of Werrick did not answer. Anice turned to her father and found him clenching his jaw with stubborn determination. “Papa,” she urged quietly.

  Her father pulled in a long inhale. “I imagine one such as yourself would arrive with a price in mind.”

  “Ye’re a perceptive man, my lord.” Laird Graham grinned. His gaze slid over to Anice and lingered with clear consideration. “Yer daughter is unwed, aye?”

  Anice stiffened. Surely the old man did not mean to ask for her hand. Time had shriveled him into a husk. His shoulders curled downward, shrinking what might have otherwise been an impressive height like the younger man with him. Laird Graham stood hunched, his stomach protruding like a woman swollen with child. His face was puckered like an apple left too long in the sun and his eyes glittered with gleeful malice.

  “Aye, Anice is unwed.” Her father’s words were heavy with trepidation.

  “Yer eldest?” Laird Graham surmised.

  “Second eldest. My eldest was wed several years ago.” Was there a note of sadness to her father’s tone, or had Anice imagined it?

  “Pity.” Laird Graham’s mouth puckered and he sucked at his teeth. “This chit still comes with a dowry, aye? Coin and land?”

  Irritation rankled through Anice at the man discussing her as though she were a transaction to be handled. As though she was not within earshot of both men.

  Beside her, the Earl of Werrick cast a deep sigh. “She does come with a dowry of coin and land.”

  “Verra well. I have agreement then.” The aged laird nodded. “My men will leave so long as the lass will agree to marriage.”

  Though she’d been somewhat expecting such words, shock still rocked through Anice. Shock and disgust. To imagine kissing this man, letting his fetid breath near her mouth and his spotted, age-pruned hands on her body. She suppressed a shudder. There was no other choice, though. Her people would starve if she refused, and her sweet Piquette would no doubt be murdered. Her life with this man was a small sacrifice for all that would be gained.

  A lump settled in her throat at the dismal options she faced. She would not allow Piquette to come to harm for her decisions.

  Her father shot to his feet. “Absolutely not. I will not sell off my daughter like a piece of horse flesh. Certainly not to the likes of you.”

  She stared up at him in gratitude for his consideration, to not so easily cast her away for his own well-being. There were few fathers who so loved their daughters as he did. It was for that reason she spoke up, as well as for the love she held in her heart for all the people within Werrick, and for her dear Piquette who was both loyal and brave.

  Anice got to her feet beside Lord Werrick. All eyes shifted to her. Her blood raced uncontrollably through her veins, powered by the raw energy of the decision she had made. A decision she had to swiftly speak lest she lose the nerve.

  “All is well, Father.” She regarded Laird Graham, the crumpling figure of a man who would surely kill all her girlhood dreams of love and passion and replace them with the reality of survival and necessity. To think, all those wasted hours trying to get poor Thomas to kiss her, all the nights she’d lain awake imagining what it would be like to be well-loved by a brawny man. All those blossoming girlhood fantasies withered away under her decision.

  She inclined her head to her soon-to-be husband. “I will agree to marry you.”

  Disgust curdled in James’s stomach at the woman’s agreement to wed Laird Graham. Anice, her father had called her. An earl’s daughter, one of youth and incredible beauty. James’s father aimed high, even for a laird.

  She kept her gaze fixed on Laird Graham, her face an emotionless mask. Surely, she
could not be pleased with her decision, and yet he knew she did this to save her people. The lass was brave.

  Exceptionally so. A woman willing to sacrifice anything to save those she loves.

  Laird Graham threw his head back suddenly and laughed. The barking depth of it echoed off the stone walls surrounding them. James regarded his father with confusion. Had the old man’s mind deteriorated along with his body?

  “Ach, I’m flattered, lass. Truly.” James’s father wheezed out another laugh and panted for breath before speaking again. “I dinna want a wife. I’ve had enough nagging and harassment in my years.” He slid a sly glance toward James. “Ye’re for my only son.”

  James stilled. Surely his da jested. “I dinna want—”

  “Marry the lass,” Laird Graham said. “Or ye condemn these people to die in this castle.”

  Anice’s stare settled on James, her face unchanged, her expression still shielded. He wished he could see into her mind at that moment, to read her thoughts. James was not the withered man his father was, but nor was he handsome. Experience had taught him all too well how beauty craved beauty.

  Bitterness frosted over his heart at the memory he never fully pushed away. Anice would be trouble.

  “Dinna ye want to marry the lass?” James’s father slapped him on the back, urging him forward, but James held his ground. “Dinna ye think she’s bonny?”

  Contrary to her impassive expression, Anice’s cheeks blushed and her back went stiff. This was not going well.

  “I dinna want to marry,” James replied as delicately as he could.

  “Why no’, lad?” Laird Graham gestured to the woman and lowered his voice. “She gets ye everything ye want. If ye decline, these people will die.” He shrugged with clear disinterest either way. “Do ye agree to wed her or no’?”

  James glared at his father, hating the decision forced on him. He’d never wanted a wife. Not with the life he currently led, not with the fear of letting himself be so vulnerable again. But he could no sooner allow more innocent lives to be lost. Damn his father and the impossible decision he lay at James’s feet.

  James regarded Anice and nodded. “Aye. I’ll marry her.”

  Her eyes burned into his, but he still could not read her expression.

  “I have one other demand.” Laird Graham drew their attention with his declaration. “I request that my son and I remain at Werrick as guests until the wedding. To ensure ye canna back out of the arrangement once ye have yer stores replenished, aye? And I want the wedding to be proper, with the banns read. I dinna want ye sneaky bastards to find some way to have it annulled.”

  The Earl of Werrick sat mute, his face slack with stunned shock at what had transpired. In truth, James felt much the way the man looked.

  “Very well,” Anice replied. “So long as your men are gone today by the time the sun sets.”

  “Consider it done. We’ll remove our men from yer lands and return to be shown to our chambers.” Laird Graham clapped his hands with the finality of a job done and departed.

  James stared at the woman he would soon wed. Her fair brow furrowed in a pained expression. While he was a better choice than his father, James doubted this was a marriage she wanted.

  She lifted her head and stepped off the dais toward him. “I have not been afforded the opportunity to make my own demands.”

  A smile quirked on James’s lips. The lass had spirit, and he liked it.

  “Ye are no’ in a position to ask for anything,” Laird Graham said from the doorway.

  James put a hand up to stop his father. “Have a care how ye speak to my wife, da.” He threw a warning look over his shoulder prior to returning his attention to Anice and nodded. “Go on.”

  She flicked her tongue over her lips, the only sign of nervousness she had exhibited thus far. “I want my dog back. And I’d like to know your name, please.”

  “Nay,” the Earl of Werrick said suddenly, as though the grip of his shock had finally loosened. “You need not do this, Anice.”

  Anice. It was such a lovely name, sweet and delicate, like the woman.

  “It is my decision to make, Papa.” Anice lifted her arched brows at James in silent reminder that she still waited on his reply.

  “I’ll have them fetch Piquette posthaste. And I am called James Graham.” He inclined his head. “Well met, Lady Anice.”

  “Well met,” she murmured and offered a short curtsey.

  The air between them congealed into something thick and uncomfortable.

  “Damn it, Anice,” the earl hissed. “Do not do this.”

  “It is done.” Anice’s tone and manner were strong with confidence. “My dog,” she said to James, giving him leave to sever the awkwardness burgeoning between them.

  James was all too eager to accept her offer, ready to remove himself from the aged, shocked earl’s presence and that of the woman he was to wed.

  Once outside, his chest swelled with an inhale of fresh, clean air to sweep away the stink of the castle’s desperation. It clung to him like a second skin and made his body itch with the need to bathe. The people had watched him intently, large eyed and hollow cheeked, hungry for food and safety and peace. His clan had done this to them, turned them into such miserable creatures they didn’t bother to shield their stares or shy from his path. They craved life as they were shadowed by death.

  His father waited for him just beyond the castle gates, which had been thrown open in a show of peace. The old man leaned over with exhaustion from the show of force he’d exhibited in the bowels of Werrick Castle. James suppressed a shudder. He did not ever want to go back into that castle again, especially not in compliance with his father’s demands—that they remain until the wedding.

  Laird Graham’s spine jutted from the thin fabric of his leine and he reached out blindly when James’s shadow fell over him. James caught his father’s withered hand in his and held fast. “No’ much farther now, da.”

  “Ye’ve no’ thanked me yet.” His father’s body weight bore shakily against James through the heel of his palm. After a moment, the old man straightened upright with a wink. “I dinna ever have so fine a wife.”

  James grunted.

  His mother had been one of the laird’s wives, a woman known for her ability to heal. Regardless of all her skill and knowledge, she had not been able to save herself when the baby she carried had died in her womb.

  James remembered her in bits of broken memories, blurred from the time passed since his boyhood when she’d died. The delicate notes of lavender that perfumed her embraces, the warm gentleness of her hands when she tended his many scraped knees and cuts, the way her silky brown hair tickled his cheeks when she bent over him to kiss his forehead. Her kind, green eyes had sparkled every time she looked upon him.

  To James, she had been beautiful. Perfect. Too good for his father.

  Laird Graham had remarried immediately after her death, never loving any of his wives.

  They neared camp and Piquette barreled toward them at full tilt, not stopping until his body slammed into James’s thighs. The dog stared up with his sad brown eyes, as though imploring to be taken to his mistress.

  James grimaced, knowing he had to return the dog to Lady Anice, that he had to face that castle, those people, and her again. His future wife, a woman too fine-looking for her own damn good. And certainly, for his own.

  4

  Anice’s father was vexed.

  He paced up and down the lushly appointed solar, his face furrowed into a map of hard lines. “There has to be another way.”

  Anice had looped through the circular conversation again and again with him. She swallowed down her sigh. Marin, after all, would have been patient in such a situation.

  “You know there is no other way,” Anice said levelly.

  “First your mother and now you.” The earl scrubbed a hand at the back of his head where a lifelong cowlick had begun to reveal a patch of flesh beneath his thick gray hair. He stared at h
er, his eyes large and haunted. “You’re too beautiful, my sweet Anice. They’ll destroy you, crush that loveliness and leave you wilted.”

  “I’m no flower, Papa.” Anice said it as gently as she could, but it was hard to keep from giving way to her frustration. She was his beautiful daughter, the one whose merit of note was relegated to her appearance. How she longed to be more, to have a talent or a skill worth noting.

  “Do you want to do this?” he queried.

  She hesitated. It was the first time he asked what she truly wanted.

  She met his gaze, sure of her answer as it rose from her heart. “I want to see our people fed and healthy. I want to ensure the family I love remains safe and comfortable. I want this for all of you.”

  Her father’s gaze searched the floor. “Marin would have known what to do.”

  His words ground at Anice’s nerves like salt. “Marin is not here.” Her heartbeat pounded at her temples and the air was growing thick. She couldn’t stay in this room any longer, going over the same conversation, bearing the reminder that she was the lesser daughter.

  “I’m here,” she said. “And I did find a solution.” Nothing more could be said to that. Anice strode toward the closed door, desperate to be free of this bothersome discussion with no logical end.

  “What of Timothy?” her father demanded of her back. “This is not like what you shared with him. This is no love match.”

  Her cheeks went hot with rage or guilt or shame, or possibly a combination of all three. “Timothy is dead.”

  With that, she pushed through the door and strode with clipped steps to the quiet privacy of her own room. Or rather, Marin’s former room—the one that had once belonged to their mother. Regardless of its ownership, it would be silent within.

  Anice didn’t want to think of Timothy even as his image edged into her mind. The thick golden waves of his shoulder length hair, his clear blue eyes. He had smiled solely for her, always thinking to send her trinkets and flowers and poetry.

  Anice’s heart flinched.