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

by Claire Delacroix

  Meanwhile, Darg screamed in ear-piercing fury. The cloud that must be her manifestation grew half again as large and fairly boiled against the stone walls. To Rosamunde’s dismay, rock began to fall from the tunnel walls with vigor then, crashing around them and falling into the chasm. A veil of dust rose, but still the cloud grew bigger.

  The rock began to groan, as if it could not contain the volume of Darg’s fury. Cracks appeared and spread wildly across the stone surface gaping wider with every scream the spriggan uttered.

  “The caverns will collapse!” Tynan shouted over the din. He seized Rosamunde’s hand and they ran together toward the corridor that led upward to Ravensmuir’s solar.

  The cloud screamed more sharply and a crack gaped wide in the rock above the door. Rosamunde knew they would not make the portal in time, but both she and Tynan ran more quickly all the same. Right in front of their toes, a massive chunk of stone loosed itself and fell squarely into the corridor, blocking the passage and enfolding them in a cloud of dust.

  Tynan did not hesitate. He turned to another portal, one that led to the stables. Lightning seemed to flash over their heads as they turned their steps. It snaked through the dust-filled air, striking the stone with a flash. The stone walls roared and vibrated, and another piece of stone fell to block their course.

  “We shall be trapped!” Rosamunde said. She pivoted, even as more stones fell into the other portals, then looked up as a fierce snap echoed through the chamber. The very floor shifted with its rumble and Rosamunde feared the worst.

  A fissure opened in the high arching ceiling of stone overhead, then gaped wide with alarming speed. Tynan followed her gaze and swore. Far overhead, there was the sound of stone creaking and walls buckling.

  It was more than the labyrinth falling in, Rosamunde realized. All of Ravensmuir collapsed around them, the tunnels sealing as the mighty keep was brought to its knees.

  And not a single soul knew that she and Tynan were trapped beneath the stone.

  “We are lost!” Tynan whispered, making to draw her into his embrace.

  Rosamunde was not so prepared to surrender. She knew what the spriggan wanted of her, and the fairy had loosed her ship from the fog. The debt had to be paid. She pulled the ring from her finger that Tynan had just placed there, and cast it into the midst of the angry orange cloud that assaulted them.

  “What is this madness that you do?” Tynan cried and dove after the silver ring. “That is my mother’s ring!”

  “Leave it!” Rosamunde cried over the cracking of stone, but he did not heed her. She saw him fall to his knees, desperately seeking the ring in the rubble. She glanced upward at the crumbling stone, then about herself. “Look there, Tynan!” she cried in sudden relief. “We missed one portal!”

  And indeed, there was one, gleaming with a strange golden light as if it would beckon them closer.

  Tynan glanced up. “That is no passage I know.”

  “Nonetheless, it is there.”

  “You know not where it leads.”

  “It scarce matters!”

  “I do not like the look of it,” he insisted.

  “I do not like the look of that!” Rosamunde pointed upward as the ceiling of the grotto began to shift. A hail of small stones scattered over them and she saw blood on Tynan’s temple.

  “Tynan, hurry!” Rosamunde shouted and lunged for the gleaming portal, assuming he would follow. She just barely made it through the portal, barely had time to note the curious golden light shining ahead of her, before there was another crack.

  A deafening roar filled the cavern she had just left as stone fell with gusto. She choked on the dust and saw that she was alone. Rosamunde peered through the portal, but there was no sign of Tynan, and she knew what she had feared to learn here.

  Tynan had, once again, chosen Ravensmuir first.

  Rosamunde pivoted, her tears rising with uncharacteristic vigor. Another tumble of stone collapsed in Ravensmuir’s caverns with such vigor that a vengeful deity might be sealing the labyrinth for all eternity. She had no chance to choose her course: a chance chunk of stone struck her brow and Rosamunde Lammergeier knew no more.

  Vivienne was not certain how she would escape with Erik’s daughters. The girls were so young that they could not run or fight: Vivienne would have to defend all three of them as well as ensure their escape. She was not certain that they trusted her—why would they, indeed?—or that they would follow her bidding. She also did not know how she would ensure their safety once she left this party.

  Perhaps she could wait until they rode closer to Ravensmuir, or Kinfairlie, then abduct the girls and flee to her family’s care. Of course, that was predicated upon Henry and Arabella riding as far as Kinfairlie.

  It seemed that once again she had believed her abilities to be greater than they might prove to be.

  Against her every aspiration, Arabella and Henry had taken to arguing over the merits of pausing at the Earl of Sutherland’s abode this night. As the earl was the sole person of whom Vivienne knew who might recognize Erik’s daughters—though truly, he might not have paid any heed to young girls, given his interest in ensuring succession—this decision was of considerable concern to Vivienne.

  She eavesdropped shamelessly and tried to think of a way to affect the choice they ultimately made. Astrid dozed against her chest, thumb securely in her mouth, while Mairi sat behind her sister, facing Vivienne as well. Vivienne thought the older girl dozed, too, though her fingers still caressed the smooth lines of the silver pin.

  “I cannot see the merit of halting at so late an hour,” Henry repeated for at least the sixth time. “It is unseemly to awaken a host late and demand hospitality.”

  “Surely you cannot imagine that I will ride in such weather, without so much as a hot meal, a warm bath, and a plump mattress?” Arabella retorted. “The hour is of little import. How are we to affect the distance between abodes? If you had not insisted upon taking these children in our company, we could have been miles further by now.”

  “If you had not insisted upon visiting Beatrice of Blackleith, we should not even be in these cold lands.”

  “And what was I to do? Rumor abounded about her and her rich domain in the north, and truly, the tales I heard made it sound to be a veritable paradise. I had no choice but to come, especially after I lost that wager with the Countess. Believe me, Henry, I should have dearly loved to have won. It would have done me good to imagine her in this wretched country instead of me. Doubtless she will make merry at my expense. You must ensure that she hears only good about this journey. Perhaps we should tell her that Beatrice’s riches are so great that they cannot be described.” Arabella chuckled at the prospect. “Then she will feel compelled to ride here to see for herself.”

  “Tell her whatsoever you feel the need to tell her, my dear. I need only know what I am supposed to say.”

  “Henry, you are the most gallant man,” Arabella said, drumming her fingers upon his arm. She lowered her voice to a lusty warble. “Perhaps we should stop at the earl’s abode and demand his very best bed for our pleasure.”

  The squires rolled their eyes and bit back smiles.

  “If it would please you, my lady, I believe the children would benefit from a halt this night,” Vivienne dared to say.

  “Their temperaments can only improve,” Arabella said haughtily, then waved her hand. “I have no care for their moods, girl. They are your worry until I have need of them. Children should be ignored until they prove useful.”

  Henry glanced over his shoulder, his eyes narrowing as he surveyed his small wet party. His gaze lingered overlong upon Vivienne. She thought she put too much weight upon the look in his eyes, but only until he spoke.

  “I think the maid makes good sense, Arabella,” Henry mused, though Vivienne doubted that his concern was for the children. “A fine plump bed will suit me well this night.” And he winked boldly at Vivienne as his wife preened, oblivious to his averted gaze.

&nbs
p; The two squires nudged each other, then leered at Vivienne, and she guessed that she had truly underestimated the perils of this circumstance.

  Vivienne was gone from her hiding place.

  Erik was disquieted by this fact, though there was no sign of her. She might have never been at Blackleith, and her absence had Ruari fretful as well. The horses had returned to the stable from the hill and stood shivering in the rain.

  Erik left Ruari outside of Blackleith’s hall. It was overly quiet in the village and he feared what he would find within the hall itself. Ruari stood guard at the portal and nodded once before Erik slipped into the smoky shadows of the hall.

  Not a single torch burned in the great hall, though there were embers glowing still in the fireplace. It was beyond quiet, as if no one was within these walls. No child sobbed or laughed, there was not so much as a breath of some soul sleeping. Fear seized Erik’s heart and he wondered what Beatrice had done with their daughters.

  Had she fled south with them, never to be found again?

  “I thought you might yet live,” she said so unexpectedly that Erik jumped.

  He saw her then, seated in the otherwise empty hall, a cup before her on the board. She was as lovely as ever she had been, though her lips pinched as they once had not done and her eyes seemed more shrewd.

  But perhaps he had not seen the truth before him.

  Beatrice smiled, as if there had not been so much time and treachery between them, then took a sip from the cup. “The Earl of Sutherland is not a subtle man, at the best of times, and he has asked some pointed questions of late.”

  “Where are Mairi and Astrid?”

  Beatrice’s smile broadened. “I am surprised that you have any concern for them. Does not every man desire a son?”

  “They are my children and you have no right,” Erik began but Beatrice interrupted him.

  “It is the last of the wine.” Beatrice rose and strolled toward him, the cup in her hand. She offered it to him. “Do you wish a sip?”

  “You greet me solicitously indeed.”

  She grimaced. “I suspected that you lived. I feared you to have returned when I saw Ruari. It was inevitable you would battle Nicholas for Blackleith, and just as inevitable that you would triumph.”

  She regarded him and he could not guess her thoughts. “You have always had a cursed talent for survival, and Nicholas, despite his many graces, is less of a swordsman than he might be.” She laughed without mirth. “At least with the blade he would raise against you.” She saluted Erik with the cup, then sipped of its contents deeply, watching him over the rim. “How much more interesting it would have been if you had battled Nicholas for me.”

  Erik snorted. “Why would I fight for the regard of a woman who cares only for herself?”

  Her eyes flashed and he thought that she might strike him. Instead, she studied him and grimaced. “You would strike terror into any maiden’s heart, with what has become of your face. Praise be that you will never come to my bed again.” Her smile turned bitter. “But then, thanks to you, neither will Nicholas. I assume you have left him dead?”

  “Indeed.”

  She averted her face then and he wondered whether she had cared for another soul, after all.

  “Where are Mairi and Astrid?”

  “Gone.”

  “Where?” Erik seized her arm when she did not answer him, forcing her to face him.

  Beatrice chuckled. “I do not know. Is that not the beauty of it? I do not know, so I cannot tell you. You may do your worst to me, indeed, you have already taken all that was of merit to me. And I have taken what is of merit to you.”

  “You cannot have injured them!”

  Beatrice only smiled, smiled with such confidence that Erik longed to shake her until her very bones rattled. “Why should you care? I doubt truly that they are even of your own seed.”

  Erik regarded her in shock. “I thought that was but a rumor…”

  “A rumor rooted in truth. Surely you did not imagine that you, with your clumsy manner abed and your inability to utter sweet compliments, could sate me? I was a beauty with a hundred suitors at my door! I was sought by barons and princes, I was courted by men from leagues away.” She stepped back and regarded him with disdain. “Yet I wed Erik Sinclair, heir to a modest holding, a man who could not praise a woman with poetry to save his life. Did you never wonder why?”

  “Every day I was amazed by my fortune,” Erik said with care.

  Beatrice laughed harshly. “Here is my gift to you, husband. I was no maiden when I came to your bed on our nuptial night. Indeed, I feared that I carried the fruit of a man’s seed and I knew better than to vex my own father with such tidings. He would have seen me whipped until I bled, and torn flesh tempts no man. I had to see myself wed and wed in haste, and this was the very moment when you came to my father’s gates, seeking alliance. You were of use to me, Erik Sinclair, no more than that.”

  “And once you knew that you bore no child?” Erik asked, wanting all of the truth, no matter how cruel. She could not speak of Mairi, for that child had not come until they had been married for a year.

  Beatrice sauntered back to the head table and granted herself another measure of wine. “You do not mind if I pour for myself, surely? There is a cursed lack of servants in this hall, but that, I understand, has always been Blackleith’s fate.” She spared him an arch glance as she sipped. “When it became clear that I bore no child, I welcomed my lover between my thighs once again. Is it not said that there is but one woman in Christendom who ever denied Nicholas Sinclair? It was simple enough to meet him when we lived in the same abode.”

  Erik turned away from these unwelcome tidings, delivered with such glee. “So you did couple with him.”

  “Often,” Beatrice said, smacking her lips over both wine and recollection. “It is charming that you are so certain the girls are your own, when I do not share your conviction.”

  Erik said nothing, for he was surprised at how little ability she had to injure him.

  Beatrice shrugged. “And finally, it did not suit me to have to meet both brothers abed any longer.”

  Erik looked up. “You wrought the scheme,” he murmured, seeing now who had aided Nicholas to contrive such a plot. Beatrice smiled. “You brought the missive that was supposed to come from Thomas Gunn. You were the one who urged me to aid my neighbor.”

  She laughed. “And you were too foolish to see that I deceived you.” She finished her wine, cast the pewter cup in the direction of the board and flung out her hands. “So, now you have reclaimed your deepest desire,” she taunted. “Your larder is barren, your treasury is empty, and your peasants are hungry. Your fields lie untended and you have no seed for the spring. All of your kin is dead, your wife despises you and your children are lost forevermore. How fares your triumphant return to Blackleith, husband?”

  Erik sheathed his blade and turned away from her. “It is little different than I expected,” he said softly. “For I learned early in my marriage to expect naught of merit from my spouse. You erred in granting me those daughters, Beatrice, for they are the gold in my treasury.”

  “Do you not hear me? They are likely not of your seed!”

  “It does not matter. They are mine in the eyes of the law, and mine because I believe them to be so.”

  “But they are gone!”

  “They cannot be gone far. I shall seek until I find them, and I shall raise them with honor or die in the attempt.”

  She lunged after him and seized his shoulder, compelling him to look at her. “I thought you would kill me.”

  Erik shook his head. “I have no urge to sully my hands with your blood.”

  “Do you not despise me?”

  Erik studied his wife and wondered how he had failed to see her selfishness. He shook his head then and plucked her hand from his shoulder. “Nay. I pity you. Farewell, Beatrice.”

  With that, he turned to depart Blackleith once again, his wife dismissed from his thou
ghts. His daughters must be with that noble couple who had ridden to hunt with Nicholas. Surely they would ride south to the Earl of Sutherland’s abode, perhaps even make a halt there. There had been no ship in the harbor, though they could have ridden north to the great abode of the earl’s kin at Girnigoe.

  Between his own talents and those of Ruari, he should be able to discern their direction. His pace quickened with surety and determination to retrieve his daughters before it was too late.

  “You wretch!” he heard Beatrice scream from behind him. The pewter cup struck the wall beside his head. Erik jumped at its impact, then glanced back.

  Beatrice, her face contorted with fury, dove towards him, a blade held high in her hand. She was cursedly close. Erik realized he had scant time to pull his own blade when he heard a whistle beside his very ear.

  A spinning blade flashed past him, the point embedding itself in Beatrice’s chest. She gasped and took a step back, her own hand falling to the blood coursing from the wound.

  Erik saw that it was his father’s blade, the sapphire in the hilt glinting as if it winked at him.

  Beatrice touched the hilt of the blade sunk into her flesh, coughed, and shook her head. “William always loathed me,” she said, then coughed again. She slumped against the wall, then granted Erik a baleful glance. “Trust him to ensure my demise.”

  “It was not William who cast the blade,” Ruari said with disapproval, “though it was doubtless his spirit that guided the blade home. My aim is not so good as that, upon that fact you can rely.” He nodded once at Erik. “Your father could split a hair at forty paces with that blade, to be sure, and he never failed to astound a skeptic with his skill.” Beatrice slumped to the floor, her eyes closing as she coughed more feebly. “I have never made such a good throw, though, to be sure, I never much liked Beatrice myself.”

  Erik made to step forward and ease Beatrice to a more comfortable position for her last moments. Ruari stayed him with a touch. “Do not venture near that viper,” he counseled, then nodded at the knife yet in her hand. “She grips the hilt tightly for one so close to death. Leave her be, for she will be dead in truth by the time we return.”