Sorcha couldn’t quite put her finger on what was so unique about this village.
The houses looked different from the other houses in Scotland. Yes, they were humble, but their roofs had a bit of a tilt at the front of the ridge beam. The windows were lower and wider. Silver crosses were tacked up over the front doors—crosses she recognized. Crosses identical to the one she wore around her neck.
Revelation struck Sorcha with the power of a sledgehammer. This was a Beaumontagnian village transplanted to the wilds of Scotland.
“I recognize this place,” she said.
“You’ve been here before?” Arnou lifted a skeptical eyebrow.
“No. Yes.” She didn’t know what she meant. “It reminds me of my home.”
“Isn’t that a coincidence?” He didn’t sound particularly surprised. “I hear there’s a good inn here, and staying there would be a chance for you to clean up before we arrive in Edinburgh.”
“Is that really the reason you want to stay at an inn?” She shot him a flirtatious glance.
“Yes.”
“Yes.” She sighed. Why was the man so stubborn? Why wouldn’t he make love to her? Last night they had slept together in a barn, and all night long he’d been ready and willing. When he had held her for warmth, she’d felt his cock pressed against her back.
Still…“Cleaning up is a wonderful idea.” To take a bath, a real bath in a real tub, sounded like heaven. Not as much heaven as sleeping naked in Arnou’s arms, but she wouldn’t mention it again. At least not now. A covert attack might serve her better. She’d bathe and wear the nightgown that the ladies at Madam’s had given her. She’d display herself to Arnou and he’d be stricken with craving and give in to her desires….
They turned into the street that led to the town square. There she could see that the buildings were taller and wooden signs hung over the doors—the Red Rock Pub, the Glacier Peak Butcher, the Silver Springs Inn. A cluster of a dozen men and women were gathered around the well in the middle of the square. The women wore small embroidered caps and white aprons. The men wore black breeches and red suspenders. Finally, clinching her suspicion that this was a group of exiles, she saw that the well had a small pointed roof and posts painted blue.
“Look at that!” She pointed.
“It’s a well,” Arnou said prosaically.
“It’s more than a well. The point on the roof deflects any evil from above. The blue blesses the water and keeps away the evil eye. These are traditions in Beaumontagne and in Richarte.” To see the reality of it again fed a longing she’d denied for a long time.
“So Beaumontagne and Richarte share the same traditions?” Arnou sounded as if he knew the answer but was humoring her.
“They share a border. They share traditions. They share a language. They share a church. They fight about everything.” She grinned, because for Beaumontagnians to complain about Richartians and for Richartians to complain about Beaumontagnians was the most ingrained tradition of all. “Do you know? Are the people here foreign?”
“Foreign?” Arnou directed his I’m puzzled glance at her. “Like from another country besides Scotland?”
“Never mind. I’ll find out.” She urged her horse forward.
A woman with a wealth of wrinkles on her lips, her eyelids, and her earlobes sat on the bench at the well. The village priest in his traditional black cassock and three portly gentlemen stood sampling a wine. Five young women, sisters, Sorcha thought, leaned together watching Sorcha and chuckling as if they found her entertaining. One caressed the bulge of her belly where her baby rested. And two women of perhaps forty-three argued over the well’s bucket.
As Sorcha rode into their midst, the people in the square stopped speaking and stared cautiously. She broke into a smile, for the faces had sharp noses, high cheekbones, creamy tan complexions, and every eye color. She’d never seen these people before, but she knew them. They were part of the handsomest nation in the world. She burst out, “Are you Beaumontagnian?”
They drew back as if her enthusiasm alarmed them.
With a grin, Rainger let her go. She wasn’t going to get hurt here. The villagers were cautious, but they would find out soon enough who she was. Then they’d understand their good fortune. For now, Sorcha could shower them with her bubbling exuberance and, unless he missed his guess, she’d win them over before they even knew her name.
“Because I’m from Beaumontagne,” she called. “Are you exiles from the revolution?”
“Some of us are from Beaumontagne, some from Richarte.” Sharp-eyed, thin-lipped, and all bony angles, one older woman abandoned her argument over the bucket and made her way toward Sorcha. “So how do we know you’re Beaumontagnian?”
Sorcha dropped into the language of their home. “I’m a long way from home, but at the hearth of my people, I am always welcome.”
At the sound of the familiar proverb and Sorcha’s sweet and easy rhythm, the woman placed a hand over her heart.
A murmur swept the small group.
“Welcome. Welcome.” The woman broke into a smile. “Forgive my caution. We haven’t seen anyone arrive from home since we got here. We had to flee the old countries and settled here in New Prospera for safety. Safety isn’t always that easy to achieve when some people in Scotland resent the intrusion, and some are frightened of people who speak a different language.”
A stout gentleman pushed his way forward to stand by the lady. “I’m Mr. Montaroe, the innkeeper. This is my wife, Tulia. Come in and have some wine. Relax, eat, and tell us what you know about Richarte.”
“And Beaumontagne,” Talia said.
“I don’t know anything. I haven’t been home for ten years, but I’m going there now.” Sorcha glowed as she spoke.
Rainger wondered if she’d only just realized that, if all went well, she was within weeks of returning.
“What about him?” Mr. Montaroe pointed to Rainger.
“He’s from Normandy,” Sorcha said.
Tulia scrutinized him. “He looks Beaumontagnian.”
“No, he looks as if he’s from Richarte,” Mr. Montaroe corrected stiffly. “Not every handsome young man is from Beaumontagne.”
“They are if they’re fortunate,” Tulia retorted.
One of the five young women deliberately caught Rainger’s gaze. She wasn’t more than twenty, pretty and flirtatious. She indicated first the innkeeper, then his wife, and rolled her eyes. At once Rainger realized they fought like all Beaumontagnians and Richartians were prone to do. And as three other young ladies bearing a marked resemblances to Mr. Montaroe and Tulia made their way toward the front, he thought the Montaroes made love with equal fervor.
Sorcha smiled easily. “Actually, this is my traveling companion, Arnou. We were hoping to stay at your reputable inn before we continue on our way to Edinburgh and from there to home.”
“Beaumontagne seems safe,” Mr. Montaroe said, “but rumor says Richarte is a shambles under Count duBelle’s rule.”
At the sound of duBelle’s name, the old woman spat on the ground and the younger women buzzed like angry bees.
“I will go to Beaumontagne,” Sorcha said. “It’s time.”
Tulia turned to her husband. “I think we should go, too. We could stay with my parents—”
“No,” he said. “When the prince comes back and my properties are returned, then we’ll return. Not before.”
“Prince Rainger? But…he’s dead.” Sorcha looked from one to the other for confirmation.
“Rumor claims he escaped from Count duBelle’s dungeon and is even now gathering an army to take back his country.” Mr. Montaroe’s hazel eyes glowed green.
Rainger watched as Sorcha’s expressions changed from astonishment to pleasure and then, with a glance at him, to dismay.
Sorcha looked from Rainger to Mr. Montaroe. “I can’t…can’t believe that,” she stammered. “Godfrey said Rainger was taken by Count duBelle and killed.”
“I don’t know who your Godfrey is, but he was wrong. That young man was put in the dungeon for years and by God’s grace escaped.”
“When?” Sorcha demanded.
“We heard the report almost three years ago.” Tulia sounded hopeless. “In an English paper. But they’re notorious for lying, trying to build people’s hopes.”
Three of the girls surrounded their mother. One took her in her arms.
The priest spoke quietly in her ear.
Tulia wiped a tear off her cheek, nodded, and straightened her shoulders.
“So!” Mr. Montaroe slapped his hands together. “How many rooms will you require?”
“One,” Rainger said.
Everyone turned to stare at him as if he were a trained bear who had spoken.
“One? What are you talking about?” Sorcha asked. “I thought you said you wouldn’t—”
“I’m not leaving you alone.” Taking her hand, he pressed it in his. “It’s too dangerous.”
Under his intense consideration, her lashes fluttered. In her excitement, she’d forgotten to deepen her voice and now, for the discerning eye, she acted like a female with her mate.
The priest noticed, of course. He moved forward to stand before them. A tall, broad-shouldered man, he sternly examined his guests. “Are you married?”
“Married?” Mr. Montaroe harrumphed. “Father Terrance, your eyesight is failing you. These are men.”
“That little one’s a woman, you oaf.” His wife dug her elbow into his side.
“No.” But he focused on Sorcha at once, and examined her from every side. In incredulous tones, he said, “No!”
“I saw it at once,” Tulia said.
“Woman! You did not.” His eyes bulged as he glared at his wife.
“I did. Beaumontagnian women have an instinct about these things,” she said loftily.
Rainger listened in amusement as the Montaroes squabbled in an undertone.
The pregnant woman stood near Rainger’s boot. She cast him an amused glance and said, “My parents never agree on anything.”
Then, in a single voice, the Montaroes said, “You can’t stay in the same room unless you’re married.”
“Except that,” the young woman said.
Rainger shot her a grin.
“Young lady, have you remained faithful to our church?” Father Terrance asked.
“Yes,” Sorcha said in a small voice.
“You know how strict we are,” Tulia said. “We’re not like the English and Scots. Lax and immoral people!”
“We have to stay in the same room.” Rainger was using the situation to his advantage, but he wasn’t saying that for effect. He wouldn’t leave Sorcha alone. The dozen people had grown to a group of twenty curiosity-seekers, and to them he confided, “She’s being hunted by those who wish her dead.”
“Arnou.” Sorcha glared at him. “You’re making a scene!”
“I won’t leave you alone,” he said.
“You are traveling companions, obviously. You know each other…quite well. If you can tell us you are married, you may stay in the same room.” Father Terrance’s brown eyes pinned them in place.
Rainger waited to see if Sorcha would lie to the priest.
She tried. “We, um, we are definitely…” She tried very hard. But she was painfully truthful. “That is, if vows of loyalty mean that a union has been formed, then we could say—”
“We’re not married,” Rainger flatly informed the priest.
Sorcha turned on him and hissed, “Stop that, Arnou!”
“Then we have a conflict,” the priest said.
“Father, is there somewhere Sorcha and I can talk alone?” Rainger dismounted and offered his hands to assist her out of her saddle.
“The church is at the end of the main street.” Father Terrance pointed the way. “You can talk there.”
Sorcha slid into his arms with the ease of a woman comfortable to be there. He held her for a moment, looking down into her eyes, and he was pleased to see her eyelashes flutter and the color climb in her cheeks.
She might not realize it, but once again she gave off signals everyone here recognized. She was his woman.
Keeping his hands on her hips, he said softly, “Do you remember what Madam Pinchon said about the assassins? You vanquished the first one, but there are others waiting for us, and they’re smart. They’re crafty. They may be here in the crowd right now.”
She glanced around. “These are good people.”
With his finger on her chin, he brought her face back to his. “Since we left the stone circle, I’ve been feeling twitchy”—an unfortunate truth—“and I trust my instincts far more than I trust anyone here. Come on.” Taking her hand, he led her to the small chapel. It was surrounded by a small cemetery, shaded by a large oak, and painstakingly built to resemble the churches in Beaumontagne and Richarte.
Pushing open the great door, he stepped inside a memory so intense it almost brought him to his knees. He resisted only because of the deceit he must perpetrate on Sorcha. But to him the scent of candles, the wooden altar with its gold-stitched altar cloth, the silver cross, and the statue of the Virgin irresistibly reminded him of all the small village churches in Richarte he’d toured as a young prince.
He hadn’t cared for the beauty and serenity then; his visit had been a duty.
Now it was like coming home.
He didn’t really understand his own emotions. In the darkness of Count duBelle’s dungeon, he’d come to doubt God’s grace. He’d prayed so hard in prison—first for vengeance, then for escape, and finally for death. Only when he’d forsworn God had he escaped.
If God had a presence on this earth, Rainger had yet to see proof of it.
He glanced at Sorcha. She had dropped to her knees. Her gaze was fixed to the altar, her lips moved in a prayer, and between her fingers she held the silver cross still connected to a chain around her neck.
The cross Sorcha wore was identical to the ones that her sisters kept around their necks.
That cross was the only object that united Sorcha with Clarice and Amy. He’d heard the longing in her voice when she spoke of her sisters, and if he were a different man, he’d feel guilty about the letters he carried in his saddlebags. The letters written in loving script from Clarice and Amy to their dear sister Sorcha.
Guilt had no place in his plan.
Yet he found a prayer rising from his gut. It wasn’t a proper sort of prayer, but it was sincere. I need Sorcha, Lord. Let me keep her. Don’t let her die.
Because if the assassins killed Sorcha, Rainger’s schemes would come to naught.
And if she wasn’t there to nag him and tease him and ask him questions better left unspoken, the sunshine would fade, the tides would cease their motion, and he would walk forever in shadow.
But—such sentiment was silly, a temporary weakness caused by too little food and too much apprehension.
Gracefully she came to her feet and smiled at him. “Isn’t it wonderful here?”
“Yes. A good place to get married.”
“What are you babbling about?” She didn’t understand yet. She didn’t comprehend his intent—and if all went well, she wouldn’t understand why he’d urged this course until it was too late to retreat.
“We must get married in this church because I won’t leave you in a room by yourself.” Rainger managed to sound prosaic.
“I can’t marry you. It’s not necessary.”
“If they won’t let us stay in the same room, it is.” Carefully he began his argument. “Besides, it won’t count. We’re not the same religion.”
“No, we’re not.” She smiled at him fondly. “But dear, foolish Arnou, what does that matter?”
“In the Catholic church”—Rainger picked his words carefully to avoid claiming to be a Catholic—“a marriage isn’t legal unless both parties are confirmed. Is it not the same for your church?”
“No. Long ago, both Beaumontagne and Richarte were Catholic. But we’re small countries isolated by mountains. The winters are arduous and by the end of the fifteenth century, we had our own cardinal and our own way of doing things. Yet often marriages occurred with Catholics—holdovers from the old religion or visitors to our borders. So in special circumstances such as ours, Father Terrance has dispensation to immediately perform the ceremony for the couple, without a care to their religion, without banns or the other, more proper rituals.”
“What special circumstances?” As if Rainger didn’t know.
“It appears to the village we’ve already been sharing the favors of a wedding bed, and now you’re insisting we stay in the same room. It seems to them that we have already consummated our relationship.” She sighed. “Unfortunately, that’s not true.”
Wait a few more hours.
“This kind of marriage is officially recognized by the church,” she said. “The common people call it ‘sliding the banister.’”
He almost laughed. He hadn’t heard that for a long time.
“It would be better if we go to a different village and a different inn.” But her longing gaze around her belied her humdrum tone. It was clear she wanted to stay with her people.
With a little concentrated effort on his part, he would convince her. “There’s not a village or an inn close.”
“Then we should find a farmhouse or stay in a field. It’s not like we haven’t done that before.”
“More assassins are waiting, and they’re waiting where they know we must go—on the road to Edinburgh. That is what Madam Pinchon told you, isn’t it?”
Miserably, she nodded.
“If the money I got off that first assassin is any indication, Count duBelle is paying well.”
Sorcha stiffened. “How do you know about Count duBelle?”
“Mr. Montaroe mentioned him.” Rainger had to be careful. Sorcha was trusting, far too trusting, but she wasn’t stupid. He needed to convince her, not make her wary of him. “I will not leave you alone in a room. You know I would never presume more than you let me. I understand my place in your life.” Long ago, he would have flinched to tell such lies while standing in a church. Now all that mattered was winning the princess and taking back his country.
“Marriage between us is prohibited for me.”
“You said the priest could marry us.”
“He could marry us if I weren’t a princess….”
Rainger widened his eyes as if confused. “You said your church could marry across faiths.”
“The common people can marry across faiths, but we’re like the Church of England. Our rulers are the heads of the church and I, as a member of the royal family, have to marry a member of the Church of the Mountain.”
“Because you’re the head of the church.” He shrugged. “We won’t tell anyone.”
“It’s not that simple. If we marry, we can’t spend the night together in a single bed. Do you understand?”
He understood far more than she knew. “Because your prince is alive.”
She put her finger over his lips. “That’s a rumor.”
“But maybe it’s true.”
“Maybe.” She sounded unconvinced.
“Wouldn’t you be happier if you had to marry him than anyone else?”
“Rainger would probably be the lesser of many evils.”
Rainger winced. He’d asked for that.
“But I’m not going to live my life on the chance that report is true. No, Rainger isn’t the problem. The problem is—if I go into my church and repeat wedding vows which bind me to you, then I dare not consummate that marriage.”
He widened his eyes in feigned confusion.
She sighed and tried to explain. “Because there are witnesses who are my people, I’d have to tell Grandmamma and the cardinal and the bishop, and they’ll want to perform an annulment to cleanse this ceremony away, and they’ll ask me to swear nothing happened between us. I can’t swear that if we spend a night together, really together.”
“Were you really going to give yourself to me?” For the first time, it occurred to him how little she cared for the trappings of royalty, and he experienced a dangerously warm sense of worth. Sorcha liked him for who he was—a poor, ignorant, simple man.
“Of course I was going to give myself to you.”
“But you’re a princess.”
“Our coming together would harm no one, and it would make me euphoric.” She smoothed her finger along his stubbled chin. “I flatter myself it would make you euphoric, too.”
“Yes.” Stubbornly he returned to his everlasting refrain. “But we aren’t going elsewhere, and I won’t leave you alone.”
“Oh.” She lifted her eyes toward the ceiling as if seeking heavenly guidance. “You’re impossible!”
“If I deliver you to Beaumontagne alive, I could get a big reward. They won’t pay me anything for your dead body.”
“Somebody would,” she snapped, then bit her lip.
“Killing you wouldn’t be much of a challenge, would it?” For the first time, he allowed a crack to form in his doltish façade, and permitted her a glimpse of how dangerous he could be.
She stepped back. “No. No, it wouldn’t.”
“In these circumstances, Your Highness”—he used her title on purpose to remind her of her importance—“you must take advantage of any stratagem which brings you back to your country alive. Staying alive is what matters.”
Sorcha walked away from him. Turned her back on him. Slid her fingers along the polished wood of the pew. In a voice so soft Rainger had to strain to hear it, she said, “Mother Brigette told me almost the same thing.” Slowly she nodded. “All right. I’ll marry you.”
“I promise I’ll keep you safe.”
“With you, Arnou, I never doubted that.” She smiled at him.
Brave, sweet girl. She accepted this small defeat well.
When she discovered the truth, she would undoubtedly acknowledge her rout as graciously.