Stolen Brides: Four Beauty-and-the-Beast Medieval Romances

by Claire Delacroix

  Elizabeth noted that the best silver was laid upon the altar at Kinfairlie chapel, and Alexander himself was dressed as regally as a prince. He was wearing his favored tabard, the one of deepest sapphire with gold embroidery, the one which made his eyes more strikingly blue. His boots were polished and the hilt of his sword gleamed. The entire village seemed to be gathered at this unlikely hour, their expressions bright with expectation.

  Elizabeth took no encouragement from what she saw when she peered through the portal. She and her sisters retreated as one and exchanged grim glances.

  “We have guessed aright,” Isabella said. “I know it well.”

  “You cannot know for certain until we have evidence of it,” Annelise said, her manner quite reasonable. “There are no men at the altar save Alexander.”

  Elizabeth took a peek and grimaced. “Though his preening can be no good portent for any other than himself.”

  “Oh, my lasses,” Vera said, her voice tremulous. “I will pray for all of you, that I will.” She clutched the hands of each in turn. “Remember, though, that a fine match oft begins poorly. A start does not a finish make.” The maid looked between the three maidens and seemed disappointed to hear no agreement fall from their lips. She patted Elizabeth’s cheek, then turned to enter the church.

  “I will never wed a man so foolish as to think he can buy my hand,” Isabella declared. She straightened and flicked the edges of her shimmering green veil. “If Alexander means to see me wed this day, he will have no easy time of it.”

  With that, Isabella hauled open the door, her manner striking for its lack of her usual poise, and stalked down the aisle of the church. Annelise and Elizabeth watched as their sister fixed a stern eye upon their elder brother.

  Alexander, with exquisite manners, bent low over Isabella’s hand and pressed a chaste kiss upon her knuckles. She glowered at him, but he smiled as innocently as an angel.

  “But I am eldest, if Vivienne is gone,” Annelise said, the waver in her voice revealing her fear.

  “I will hate Alexander forever if he sees you treated poorly,” Elizabeth said and squeezed Annelise’s hand, wishing she could offer greater encouragement than that.

  Annelise squared her shoulders and forced a brave smile to her lips, then entered the church in her turn. Elizabeth held her breath as she watched, but Alexander greeted Annelise as courteously as he had Isabella.

  There was no doubting, though, the expectant light in his eyes when he looked back to the portal. Though Elizabeth knew herself to be the most unlikely to be wed next, still her heart fluttered. She felt her cheeks burn as she opened the wooden door to the church and kept her gaze downcast beneath the perusal of every soul in the chapel.

  She reached Alexander’s side and was so relieved when he kissed her knuckles then looked again to the portal that her knees nearly gave out.

  It was Vivienne, then. The sisters clutched each other’s hands as Alexander eyed the door with a mix of impatience and pride.

  No other shadow touched the door.

  Moments passed and no one came.

  Alexander frowned, he spared a glance for the priest who shrugged. Elizabeth interpreted this as no good sign.

  “If we await Vivienne, you should know that she was gone this morn,” she whispered to him.

  Alexander nodded once, and not with surprise. Elizabeth felt her eyes widen that her brother had known that Vivienne would be gone.

  Which meant that he probably knew where she had gone.

  Alexander beckoned to his castellan and the elderly Anthony came quickly to his side. The villagers shuffled their feet, clearly wondering at the delay, and watched with interest as Anthony departed on swift feet.

  The priest lit the candles upon the altar in the interminable moments that followed.

  Just when Elizabeth thought she could bear it no longer, Anthony returned. He paused just inside the portal and shook his head minutely.

  “Not in the chamber?” Alexander cried.

  Anthony shook his head again.

  “Not in the bailey?” Alexander demanded, his agitation clear when Anthony shook his head. “Not at the inn?” The young laird began to stride down the aisle of the church. “Not approaching the gates?”

  “I am sorry, my lord, but there is no sign of the pair.”

  “The cur!” Alexander spun on his heel. He swore and drove his fist into his palm. The priest cried out in recrimination but Alexander was clearly so furious that he did not care.

  He raised his fist in the middle of the chapel, his ringing voice carrying to every ear. The silver ring that bore the seal of Kinfairlie gleamed upon his index finger. “There was to be a wedding celebrated this morn in this chapel, but the cur to whom my sister’s hand was pledged has broken his word to me!”

  The villagers whispered to each other in consternation, though Elizabeth could not look away from Alexander’s fury. Never had he so resembled their father than he did this day.

  “And I pronounce a price upon his head for his treachery. Should any person bring to Kinfairlie one Nicholas Sinclair, be he alive or be he dead, I will pay that person four golden sovereigns!”

  The company gasped at the sum and the whispering began immediately. Annelise began to softly recite a prayer, while Isabella glared at Alexander.

  Nicholas Sinclair? Elizabeth remembered him well enough, for he had had sufficient sweet words to compliment all the women in Christendom. She had never liked him and had taken enormous pleasure in vexing him while he courted Vivienne years past. That had been before she understood that men had any allure, and Nicholas had endured many practical jokes due to her.

  She had not even known that he had returned to Kinfairlie, and could not imagine that he would plea for Vivienne’s hand with any sincerity.

  Nor did she imagine that Vivienne would have him.

  But Alexander dug in his purse, and held the glittering coins before the gasping company. The villagers craned their necks to see more coin in one man’s hand than most of them would see in sum in all their days and nights.

  “My lord, it is inappropriate to make such an offer in the house of God…” the priest began to protest but Alexander silenced him with a scathing glance.

  “And any soul who brings word of my sister Vivienne,” Alexander continued, “shall have four sovereigns—” the villagers inhaled as one at the prospect of so much coin “—eight if she is returned to Kinfairlie unscathed.”

  He glared at the company, as if willing confessions to fall from their reluctant lips, then turned to his castellan when none were forthcoming. “Anthony, see that my proclamation is sent to all surrounding regions immediately. They cannot have fled far.” The older man nodded and bowed.

  With that, Alexander Lammergeier, Laird of Kinfairlie, left the chapel, his brow as dark as thunder, without participating in the mass he had ordered for so early in the day. The sisters did not have to glance at each other to know that their eldest brother was fearful of Vivienne’s fate.

  “What has he done?” Isabella whispered, but no one answered her.

  “Let us pray for the lady and her safe return!” the priest cried and every voice was raised to join his.

  Elizabeth, for her part, prayed that she could find Darg again, for the spriggan might be their best chance of aiding Vivienne.

  Vivienne, too, was thinking of how she might win aid, when she was not wrestling with her disappointment. Each detail her captor confided in her made her circumstance seem more dire. He had chosen her solely that she might bear him a son, though that was not an uncommon desire among men.

  And he had been wed before. His terse manner indicated that he felt strongly about the matter—doubtless his heart had been possessed so fully by his wife that her death had left him a grim shadow of his former self. Vivienne knew that it was thus in most tales and she felt some sympathy for her captor in his loss.

  But these were poor tidings for her own future. Vivienne had thought her captor’s insist
ence upon a handfast had been merely due to his being from the Highlands, where old ways held more sway, and that it was but a precursor to a more enduring match. She had thought that the passion they had kindled abed, from their first moment together had been cause for optimism for their entwined future ahead.

  But he loved his deceased wife.

  If nothing else, Vivienne had hoped to be desired for more than any child her womb might surrender.

  Despite all of this, Vivienne was achingly aware of the man behind her, she felt every breath he took, she was aware of the strength of his hands where he held the reins. She fancied that she could hear the beat of his heart and wished that she did not remember the taste of his kiss.

  How much of a fool was she?

  They rode in silence until the sun was past its zenith, then approached an abandoned structure on the coast. The stone walls were crumbling into the soil and the thick vegetation hinted that few had come this way of late. Vivienne guessed it had once been a hermit’s cell, as it was located far from even this day’s temptations. The coast was rocky beneath the point, the wooden roof over the structure itself was rotten, though part of it had been repaired of late.

  Her captor gave a command to the horse which halted and stood its ground, ears flicking. He dismounted then and lifted Vivienne to the ground. He led the horse away to a patch of grass where it might graze. He took his time in tending the steed, removing its saddle and brushing it down, evidently confident that she would not flee.

  And in truth, there was nowhere she might run and not be caught again first. She had seen how quickly her captor could move, even with his limp, and he was much taller than she. Vivienne was well aware of the high tower of her uncle’s keep of Ravensmuir still to their north, but it was sufficiently distant that even the sharpest gaze atop that tower would not spy them here. She thought she could see ravens circling over it, the merest black pricks against the azure summer sky, but dared not glance overlong in that tower’s direction lest her interest rouse suspicion.

  Vivienne folded her arms across her chest and watched her captor, noting how he pulled up his hood once more, as if accustomed to hiding his marred features. Perhaps he meant to hide his thoughts from her!

  Not that his expressions were readily interpreted. He had been impassive most of the time, more impassive when annoyed. Vivienne bit her lip, reminding herself to recall that detail.

  He wore undistinguished dark garb, none of it wrought of fine cloth or embellished with so much as a symbol or a thread of embroidery. His chausses were dark, his boots darker, his chemise rough and undyed. He seemed to not care about the hue or state of his garments. Perhaps he was not vain. Perhaps he was but pragmatic. He was not poor if he had granted Alexander a sack of coins in return for her.

  Perhaps he did not wish to be robbed while he traveled. Vivienne could not guess which was the truth.

  His jerkin was of boiled leather, his dark cloak wrought of thick wool coarsely woven. The garment fell to his knees and was cut full. His belt was thick and heavy, a sheathed sword hanging from one side and a sheathed dagger from the other. The hilts of both blades gleamed with fastidious care, though they were simple of design. So, too, with the horse’s trap, which was sturdy but without ornament. He had stuffed his leather gloves into his belt.

  The sole ornament he wore was a silver pin that fastened at the throat of his cloak. It was about the size of his palm and shaped like coiled rope, though Vivienne knew better than to ask to see it more closely.

  He appeared, after all, to be in a foul mood. He brushed the horse with care, giving every sign that he was unaware of her perusal though Vivienne doubted that was the truth.

  She wondered how he had found this refuge so readily. They had ridden without catching so much as a glimpse of another living soul. That was a feat, Vivienne knew, for this corner of Scotland was fairly thick with monks and traveling priests, with peasants and shepherds, and journeying noblemen, and the moors did not offer many places to hide.

  Her captor knew this land, she guessed, though she wondered whether he had learned of it lately or whether he had been raised hereabouts. She did not deign to begin a conversation with him to find out. She decided that she would flee, at the first opportunity, and lull him into complacency until that time came.

  Let him find another maiden with a fertile womb. There was no future for her with a man who loved his dead wife, a man who had need only of her womb and meant to abandon her after claiming its fruit. She would escape, while her family was yet within reach.

  He granted her a piercing glance in that moment and Vivienne wondered whether he could hear her very thoughts. Would he ever grow complacent? She doubted that he fully trusted another living soul.

  Save his horse. The beast grazed, clearly accustomed to such care, and truly its chestnut coat gleamed with good health. It was a destrier, a knight’s horse, with a white star upon its brow.

  Vivienne watched with reluctant interest as her captor located a leather sack hidden within the shadows of the structure she had believed abandoned.

  He had been here earlier, then.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked. Without waiting for her answer—as if he had guessed that she had no intent of granting him one—he began to lay a simple meal upon the flat stones outside the small enclosure. Vivienne would have liked to have refused whatever he chose to offer her, on principle alone, but her belly growled. She moved closer, drawn by the sharp scent of a ripe cheese, and saw that he had bread and apples, as well.

  “The bread grows hard,” he said without glancing up at her. “But as it is dark bread, it was not overly soft in the first place. I suspect you have never eaten the like of it.”

  Vivienne could not resist the chance to surprise this man. “On the contrary, at Kinfairlie we eat brown bread every day but Sunday. My father always preferred to sell the fine flour and he said the coarser bread would not harm us.”

  Her captor glanced up. “Then coin must always have been scarce at Kinfairlie.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Few noblemen would choose to eat the bread of peasants. Perhaps you are unsurprised that your brother accepted my coin so readily.”

  “Perhaps I am. My father was unlike most noblemen and my brother follows his lead.” Vivienne decided she had little to lose by provoking him. “Perhaps Alexander accepted your offer readily because he was deceived as to your intent.” She bit into the bread and met his gaze, fairly daring him to correct her.

  He studied her in silence for a long moment, then looked across the sea without saying more. It was hardly an admission of guilt, but neither was it an argument against her conclusion. Indeed, once he had glanced away, he ignored her so thoroughly that she might not have been present.

  Perhaps he had not thought their night together to have been so wondrous.

  Perhaps his beloved wife had been more ardent than she.

  Vivienne ate, astonished at how hungry she was and how good the simple fare tasted. When she finished, noting that he ate no more, Vivienne rolled the remainder of the cheese into its piece of cloth. He returned the remnants of their meal to the leather satchel in silence, then spared her a bright glance.

  “We travel at night and only at night. I would suggest you sleep now.” Without waiting for her reply or assent, he pushed to his feet and paced the small area. He glanced to the sky and to the sea, then studied the empty stretch of land between themselves and Kinfairlie.

  Vivienne had no desire to sleep, but she would not accomplish much else while he was so watchful. She retreated to the cool shadows of the tumbling structure and gathered her cloak about herself as she sat against a wall with some discontent.

  A far cry from fated love this had proven to be! She drew up her own hood and narrowed her eyes, hoping she gave the appearance of slumber.

  Indeed, Vivienne intended only to wait until her captor eased his vigil. Then she would steal his horse and flee back to Kinfairlie, and have the truth from
Alexander.

  In the end, Vivienne did doze, because her captor showed no signs of taking a repose himself. He paced and he stood, he leaned against the wall and studied her, he surveyed the sea. He moved silently, with the grace of a warrior, but he was restless indeed. Vivienne stifled the urge to tease him, as she would have teased one of her brothers, that he must be tormented with guilt.

  This man might well be. He kept his hood raised and his dark cloak furled around him, as if hiding his marked face from the very birds.

  Exhausted from recent events, Vivienne felt her eyes drift closed as the sun rose high. The sound of the waves lulled her toward slumber, though she was yet half-aware of her surroundings.

  She was startled at the cry of a merry voice close at hand.

  “Hoy, lad, there you are!”

  Vivienne’s eyes flew open and she saw her captor pivot at the shout and draw his blade. The tension in his shoulders eased slightly as he evidently recognized whoever called him, though he still was wary.

  Vivienne peered around the wall and saw a stocky older man approaching, leading a dappled palfrey. The horse was shorter than those in her family’s stables, and its fur grew long.

  “Well met, lad!” the man shouted, raising his hand in salute. His face was as merry as his voice. “Though you did grant me a merry chase, to be sure.”

  “Ruari Macleod,” the younger man said. He placed the tip of his blade against the ground and braced his hands upon the hilt. “I never thought to lay eyes upon you again.”

  The arrival grinned. “Ah, there is no evading me when I am charged with a mission, lad. My errand was to seek you out, and so, you see, I have done it.” He bowed with a flamboyant air and Vivienne wondered if this portly man would burst his belt buckle at the effort. She was tempted to smile, so charming was his manner, though her captor spoke coldly.