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

by Claire Delacroix

  Alexander would never find a spouse for her now, of that she was certain. In truth, Vivienne did not much care, for the sole spouse she desired was a man who clearly had a spouse already.

  She wished fervently though that her bold choice did not reflect badly upon the natures—and the marital opportunities—of her remaining unwed sisters.

  The maids were as inept as Erik had suspected. He and Ruari crept up behind the two women with ease, for they were unaware of their surroundings.

  Save for the location of their patroness. The pair disparaged her choice of garb and manners with savage glee and ensured that they could not be overheard. The maids lingered on the perimeter of the forest, letting their horses graze as they laughed over their lady’s choice of silks.

  “That hue of gold makes her look to be dead,” chortled the one.

  “And the embroidery is more fitting for a wall tapestry than a noblewoman’s hems,” said the other.

  “Yet Lord Henry continues to pay the price of her every whim. Is the man blind or besotted?”

  The second maid laughed. “He cares not what the cost is to keep her blind.”

  “What is that to mean?”

  “You will know when he finds you alone in the larder one night.”

  “You cannot mean that he beds you?” the first gasped.

  The other was clearly not prepared to share all of her secrets. “This cursed rain,” she muttered. “I seem to always be obliged to relieve myself.” She dismounted, leaving the other with her thousand questions, and made her way into the forest.

  Fortunately, there was that length of rope in the saddlebag, the one Erik had used to scale Kinfairlie’s walls. It would be of use this day, for certain. He eased it from the bag and pursued the maid stealthily. She was just in the midst of lifting her chemise and utterly unaware of any threat when Erik pounced upon her.

  She lay trussed on the forest floor, eyes wide in astonishment, in no time at all. She made but one sound of protest before Erik shoved a length of cloth into her mouth.

  That sound was sufficient to kindle the other maid’s curiosity. “Adele?” she asked, then Erik heard her dismount as well. “Adele? Did you slip?”

  She asked no more before Erik granted her the same fate as her companion. The two women wriggled together helplessly on the ground. “I have need of your horses,” Erik said to them. “You will be released when all is resolved.”

  They did not appear to be reassured by this pledge, but he had no time to further placate them. He and Ruari swung into the saddles and rode in pursuit of Nicholas.

  Vivienne did not know how long she sat despondent, but it was raining in earnest when six horses came galloping wildly across the meadows. So erratic was their pace that Vivienne rose to her feet, convinced that they were a mark of bad news.

  But Erik was not among them. It was the other three nobles from the hunting party, the two women and the other man, followed by the three squires. All of them were soaked to the skin, their fine garb looking bedraggled in the rain.

  Beatrice fairly flung her hunting hawk at a squire, then marched into the hall. Vivienne bristled that any soul would treat a tethered and hooded—thus helpless—creature so poorly. A peregrine was a noble huntress, worthy of respect for its nature as well as the sheer cost of acquisition and training. Daughter of a family engaged in the training and trade of such birds, Vivienne was outraged.

  She might well loose that bird, just to ensure that it did not have to endure such treatment again. It would be a small strike against the woman whose very existence had shattered Vivienne’s dream, and perhaps a petty one, but a deed that would aid the bird which could not aid itself.

  Vivienne eased closer to the lip of the forest. The other couple remained upon their steeds, though the woman complained bitterly about the weather. The squires made themselves scarce, hastening toward the stable with the hawks. Their palfreys stood with their heads down, clearly discontent to be left in the rain.

  Two of the boys then made their way into the hall, pausing en route for a quick word with the man, while the third cast the barest glance toward the hall before he mounted his palfrey and gave the beast his heels. He galloped in the direction the party had just come, and did so with such haste that he might have feared to be caught.

  With that squire’s departure, Vivienne sensed that something was afoot. This party must have seen Erik to have come so quickly from the forest, though their plan was far from clear. She would listen, and perhaps she would hear some detail that would be of aid to Erik. The forest curved closest to the new stable and she made her way to that point, clinging cautiously to the shadows though the rain would make it more difficult for them to see her.

  “Look,” the noblewoman said, her shrill voice carrying easily to Vivienne’s ears. “The finest damask that could be had in Paris, the most choice samite from Constantinople, and all of it ruined! What person of sense would abide in this foul clime? If it does not rain, then the rain has halted but moments before, or the rain will begin in moments.” She shuddered elaborately. “And the fare is scarce worth the journey. I tell you, Henry, if I am compelled to ingest another hare, no less one with all its bones yet lingering in some thin excuse for a mustard sauce, then I shall scream in fury.”

  “We leave shortly, my love,” the man said calmly. He was clearly accustomed to his wife’s manner, though he glanced grimly skyward. “Must we leave this very night?” he asked plaintively. “Surely the rain will halt by the morning?”

  “We cannot leave soon enough, in my opinion, though it is vulgar for Beatrice to hasten us from her portal on such an evening as this. I always knew her to be common beneath her fine attire, to be sure. Why do we linger, at all? Why do we even wait for Beatrice and her foul children?”

  Vivienne’s ears pricked at this morsel. She slipped around the stable and strained her ears to hear more.

  “Because I have given her my pledge that we shall protect them, of course, my dear.”

  The wife turned upon her spouse in vexation. “But why? What earthly good is a pair of young girls? If they were boys, they might train in your service, but girls? They will have to be wed and they will have to be garbed, and almost certainly they will be as vain as their mother which will cost you dearly in the end. And for what? They can scarcely be said to be of noble birth, and I doubt they are beauteous enough to make a good match on their own merit alone. Girls are impossible, after all. Look how unreliable those maids have been! They cannot keep themselves in their saddles. I do not care if it takes them all the week to walk back to the hall: Beatrice is welcome to their abilities.” She tossed her head. “I do not know what you were thinking in making such an agreement.”

  “Beatrice’s daughters will make a fitting donation to the local convent, of course,” the man said softly and his wife stared at him in silent awe.

  Vivienne almost gasped aloud, so great was her shock. They could not do this to Erik’s daughters! It was one matter to donate one’s own child to a life of contemplation, but no man had the right to do as much with another man’s child.

  How dare they scheme thus?

  But clearly, she had not heard incorrectly. The woman smiled. “Oh Henry, you are clever. We shall make a contribution and that without emptying our treasury. Will we not have to make a donation for their care, though?”

  “Rely upon me, my dear. I shall make a fair wager for them, one way or the other.” Henry laughed shortly. “After all, if the convent does not desire them as they are, then we can sell them into service.”

  Never! Vivienne forgot the falcons in her newfound determination to aid Erik’s daughters.

  The woman chortled. “We shall see some advantage from visiting this ghastly abode. I like your scheme well, Henry.” She smiled then, as Beatrice tugged two small girls out of the hall of Blackleith. “And here are your beloved angels!” she called in honeyed tones.

  The two girls scarce behaved like angels. It was clear to Vivienne that th
ey did not accompany their mother willingly, as if they guessed the fate in store for them. The youngest one dragged her feet in sullen discontent, until Beatrice muttered something and caught the child around the waist, lifting her with an effort.

  “Come along, my dear Astrid,” she said, as if the child was merely slow. A young serving girl, perhaps of fifteen summers, her eyes narrowed, slipped through Blackleith’s door to watch. She made no move to aid Beatrice, but folded her arms across her chest and stood her ground.

  “They do not seem to wish to leave you, dear Beatrice,” the noblewoman said, her words too sweet.

  “They were sleeping,” Beatrice insisted. “And a child awakened suddenly oft awakens in less than sweet temper.” She pressed a kiss to Astrid’s temple and the child snarled openly at her. Beatrice feigned a laugh. “Oh, she is so accustomed to her nanny that she scarce recognizes me when she is sleepy!”

  The little girl punctuated that comment with a hefty kick to her mother’s leg. Beatrice grimaced, then swung the child into her arms, holding her elbows and knees fast against her own chest. Astrid began to kick and struggle with vigor then. Beatrice marched toward the couple, a gleam of determination in her eyes.

  “Come, Erin, you could be of aid in this,” Beatrice said to the girl standing by the portal.

  That girl shook her head and did not move.

  “I shall see you whipped for such disobedience,” Beatrice said, even as she held fast to the flailing child.

  Erin smiled. “You shall have to catch me first,” she said, then turned and fled into the forest.

  The three nobles looked after the girl, aghast at her disobedience.

  “One cannot find a decent nanny in this land, to be certain,” Beatrice said, clearly speaking through gritted teeth. “You can imagine the difficulties I face. I am convinced that the girls will be well served by the journey south and you will not regret this small favor to me. Truly, they are usually sweet beyond compare.”

  The older girl, Mairi, trailed behind her mother sullenly, clearly having no inclination to be sweet.

  “Hasten yourself!” Beatrice snapped at the girl, whose expression turned mutinous even as her mother pivoted to smile sunnily at her guests.

  With three younger sisters and a house that had not always been tranquil, Vivienne knew the gleam that lit Mairi’s eyes. She braced herself for trouble, the kind of trouble a small angry child can make.

  Mairi moved with uncommon speed. She leaped forward with vigor and trod determinedly upon her mother’s hems. She ground the finely embroidered cloth into the mud with her heel, so vengeful that Vivienne knew there was no affection between mother and this child.

  So long and elaborate were Beatrice’s hems that that woman managed half a dozen steps, unaware of one child’s deeds as she struggled with the other, before the cloth was suddenly taut around her knees. Beatrice only had time to gasp and see the truth before she tripped on her full skirts and fell into the mud. Astrid took advantage of her mother’s loosed grasp to leap from her arms. Vivienne saw Mairi’s face light with satisfied malice as Beatrice’s kirtle audibly tore.

  Beatrice spun with startling speed and smacked Mairi full across the face. The little girl sat down in the mud with a splat and began to wail in protest. Beatrice hauled her hems out of the muck with vigor, snatched up Astrid and cast that child into the noblewoman’s lap.

  The woman recoiled in disgust. “I cannot carry the child!” she cried, raising her hands as if she feared to so much as touch the girl. She looked about herself in dismay. “Surely, they have a maid, or a nanny, or some person who must accompany them. Look how the child soils my kirtle! Henry!”

  Astrid took one look at the woman’s face and began to cry in earnest. Beatrice tried to haul Mairi closer to the couple but that child was sufficiently tall and heavy that she could not be readily moved against her will.

  The squires, meanwhile, brought several plump saddlebags from the hall. They moved with purpose as they burdened the pair of palfreys still standing in the rain.

  “You must go with Henry and Arabella,” Beatrice told the protesting Mairi. “They will give you fine gifts, beautiful garb and fare so delicious that you will think yourself in paradise.”

  Mairi glared at her mother. “Do you accompany them?” she demanded with suspicion.

  Beatrice smiled for her guests. “I know that you will miss me, Mairi, but I must remain here for the moment. We shall see each other shortly.” She bent to kiss the child’s cheek, but Mairi pushed her aside, leaving a muddy handprint upon Beatrice’s cheek.

  The little girl rose from the mud, marched to Henry’s stirrup, then lifted her hands toward him. “Up,” she commanded, and Henry seemed to not know what to do.

  Vivienne imagined that this pair suddenly saw the merit of the two maids they had abandoned in the forest.

  And that granted her an idea. She fastened her cloak more fully about herself, the better to hide her fine kirtle. Her cloak was soiled so would not raise suspicions. She hastily moved Erik’s pin so that it was hidden beneath her cloak, then stepped out of the shadows, her hood pulled over her hair.

  “I would offer my aid,” she said and the group spun in their shock to regard her.

  “Who are you?” Beatrice demanded.

  “I am a serving woman, a freewoman seeking a noble family to serve. I heard tell at the abode of the Earl of Sutherland that there was a fine abode further north, perhaps in need of my skills, and so I came this far.”

  “What skills have you?” Arabella demanded.

  “I have been a wet nurse,” Vivienne lied. “And I have been responsible for young girls. I can teach embroidery and matters of etiquette.”

  “Then what brings you so far?” Beatrice demanded. “Why did you leave your previous abode?”

  Vivienne wished she could have conjured a flush. “I feared,” she began, striving to think of some plausible detail. Henry granted her an appraising glance, one that did make her blush in truth and granted her an idea. “I feared to become a wet nurse again,” she said and the women nodded in unison.

  Arabella jabbed Henry with one fingertip. “Fortunately, you will have no such fears in our household—will she, Henry?”

  “Of course not, my dear,” that man said with some discomfiture. “But are you certain that we have need of such a woman? It will be another mouth at our board, after all.”

  “Up!” demanded Mairi. Astrid grasped a pearl sewn to Arabella’s kirtle and did so with such vigor that the gem popped from the cloth. It sprang into the mud and rolled away. Vivienne hastened to pick it up and offer it to the noblewoman.

  “You must have journeyed far,” Arabella said, her gaze assessing as she accepted the pearl.

  “My lord’s lust was potent indeed,” Vivienne said, her cheeks stained an even darker hue at this confession.

  The woman assessed her openly, then nodded once. “If you so tempt another nobleman in my abode, I shall see you flogged.”

  “Understood, my lady.” Vivienne bowed her head as the servants did at Kinfairlie. “It is my intent to please, my lady.” Vivienne emphasized that by picking Astrid out of the woman’s lap and cuddling her close. The child regarded her with suspicion, but to Vivienne’s relief, she did not scream.

  “Baldwin, you shall ride along with Algernon and grant the other palfrey to the maid,” Henry commanded his squires. “Come, if we ride immediately, we can reach the hospitality of the earl’s hall before midnight.”

  It was Mairi that almost foiled Vivienne’s scheme, for once in her lap, the child slipped beneath Vivienne’s cloak. Vivienne thought the girls were cold and let them ease closer, but Mairi’s fingers rose to touch the silver pin.

  Her fingers closed over it and Vivienne’s heart nigh stopped. The clutch of the child’s fingers and her sudden stillness made Vivienne fear that the child knew the pin.

  “Shhhhhh,” Vivienne whispered to her, striving to not attract the attention of the noble couple riding
just ahead. “There is no need to cry. We shall be in a warm bed soon enough, with fine fare in our bellies.”

  Mairi continued to finger the pin, her bright gaze—of a vivid blue reminiscent of Erik’s own—more knowing than it should have been for her age. She held Vivienne’s gaze so solemnly, her grip locked upon the pin, that Vivienne wondered how much this child recalled of her father and his supposed demise.

  “I saw the ship,” Tynan said, clearing his throat as if he felt as awkward in this moment as Rosamunde.

  She said nothing.

  “I saw the ship and I knew you returned. I had hoped that you might come alone.”

  “Why?” Rosamunde asked, not daring to hope for any kindness from him after his harsh words when last they had parted.

  Tynan inclined his head and seemed unduly fascinated with the toes of his boots. “Because I owe you an apology, and I lack grace with such matters.”

  Rosamunde felt her resistance to him soften, for she knew apologies came no more readily to this proud man’s lips than to her own. “You lack grace in no matters.”

  A fleeting smile curved his mouth then, easing the tension from his face for a bare instant before it disappeared and he frowned anew. “I thank you for that, though I think you too kind.” Tynan took a few steps closer and Rosamunde saw new lines of care around his eyes.

  Perhaps this interval had been as difficult for him as for her. It was a tantalizing possibility.

  Tynan swallowed visibly. “I believed the worst of you when you supported Rhys FitzHenry’s suit for Madeline, instead of asking you for the truth of what you knew.” He referred to their resounding battle over the welfare of their niece, a fight which had occurred months ago yet still had the power to infuriate Rosamunde. “I assumed he truly was a traitor to have been so charged, but you must have known that they were false charges brought against him.”

  “I did.”

  “I apologize that I believed you had cast Madeline into peril for no good cause. I was too troubled to see that it would have been unlike you to have done so, for you have always been protective of your own.”