Was she running away from her only chance at happiness? Cecily feared so.
Between the steady downpour of rain and the vexing flood of tears that rose in her eyes, she could scarcely see the road before her. She could feel it, though. By turns, the mud sucked her feet down or forced them to skid out from under her. As long as she sailed this river of mud, it would eventually cast her up at the gate of Ravensridge, like a piece of flotsam.
What would she find when she arrived there? Cecily tried not to dwell on the subject lest her resolve weaken and she fly back up the road and into John FitzCourtenay’s waiting arms.
The questions continued to nag at her, like persistent insects whining in her ear. However he had reacted to the Empress’s edict, Lord Rowan had evidently decided to follow it. Else why would he have sent his brother all the way to Brantham to fetch her?
Would he change his mind once he discovered the bothersome baggage his bride brought with her? It would take more than an exchange of wedding vows for Baron DeCourtenay to gain control of Brantham. For that he would have to venture outside his stronghold in Gloucester, cross another county with a large enough force of arms to wrest the castle back from Fulke DeBoissard.
And if he did not succeed, he’d be saddled with a dowerless wife. One whose heart belonged irrevocably to another man.
What little she knew of her intended husband led Cecily to doubt he would accept such a situation with good grace. Not that she believed Ranulf Beauchamp’s horrible insinuations about DeCourtenay murdering his first wife…exactly.
There was some dark mystery, though, swathing the events of Lady Jacquetta’s death. One so impenetrable that even Lord Rowan’s own brother could not fathom it.
Cecily shivered.
The rain and wind had turned colder. The sound of the latter had risen to a high keening wail. A great hulking shadow rose up before her, suddenly shielding Cecily from the worst of the storm.
Ravensridge. She had reached her destination at last.
Swiping the tight sleeve of her kirtle across her face, Cecily smoothed back her hair as best she could. Would Lord Rowan’s guards admit such a bedraggled creature into his keep? Or would they laugh themselves hoarse at the very notion that she might be the Tyrell heiress?
There was only one way to find out.
With the edge of her fist, she hammered on the porter’s wicket beside the main gate.
“Hallo! Is anyone there?” Could they hear her above the high whine of the wind? “I pray you, let me in!”
Someone peered through the wicket.
“By Our Lady!” came a voice from within. “What are you doing abroad in weather like this, lass?”
“The storm gathered quickly and I was caught in it. I am Cecily Tyrell of Brantham. I have journeyed here to wed Lord Rowan, by order of the Empress.”
“What? All the way from Berkshire? On foot? By yourself?”
Cecily opened her mouth to say that she had been escorted by Lord Rowan’s own brother. She shut it again before the words got out. If she mentioned John FitzCourtenay, the guard would surely wonder what had become of him. In truth, Cecily wondered that herself.
She had half expected him to catch her up during the last league to Ravensridge. More than half hoped he might try one last time to convince her they belonged together.
Those thwarted hopes and the rain’s chill sharpened her temper. “Leave off with your questions until I am dry and safe within. Mark me, in a very few days I will be mistress of Ravensridge.”
“Aye, milady. Beg pardon, milady.”
The stout gates of the castle opened the merest crack to admit her.
Following the guard’s astonished gaze, Cecily glanced down at herself. Had she been prone to swoon, she might well have done so for shame.
The rain had drenched her kirtle, molding it to her body like a second skin and rendering the light, pale cloth all but transparent. Crossing one arm over her breasts and bringing the other hand down to screen her nether parts, she snapped, “Give me your cloak and be quick about it.”
His face the color of ripe cherries, the guard nearly strangled himself in his haste to doff his cloak.
Cecily threw it around herself, grateful for the warmth and the cover. “Now, can you take me someplace where I may prepare for my audience with Baron DeCourtenay? Are there any women of rank at Ravensridge from whom I might borrow suitable attire?”
“Beg pardon, milady, but Lord Rowan is not here. He rode out a fortnight since for the Devizes and hasn’t been seen, nor has he sent word, since. You’d best talk with Lady Aenor, his sister by marriage. She’s a mite smaller and stouter than you, but I reckon she’d see you clothed proper.”
“Sister?” The word stuck in Cecily’s throat like a fish-bone.
Was John FitzCourtenay already married? The bounder! Bad enough that he’d taken every opportunity to seduce his brother’s intended bride. But to have done it when he was not free to wed her himself…!
The outrage must have blazed on her face, for the guard stepped back from her. “Aye, milady. Widow of Lord Rowan’s brother, Baldwin.”
“Oh, of course.” Cecily’s bated breath came out in a hiccup of laughter.
How foolish of her to have forgotten the younger brother, now dead. And how disloyal. The John FitzCourtenay she knew would never have been capable of such perfidy.
“Please send word to Lady Aenor that I would speak with her. I beg refuge at Ravensridge until such time as Lord Rowan returns or we can discover his whereabouts.”
“Very good, milady. I’ll summon one of the maid servants to show you the way to her ladyship’s bower.” The guard swept her one final glance from head to toe, an unspoken question in his eyes that Cecily could not read. “Welcome to Ravensridge, milady.”
Was she? Cecily wondered as a serving wench led her through the ominously silent great hall and up a flight of steps to Aenor DeCourtenay’s bower. Was she well come to Lord Rowan’s Gloucester stronghold?
Or ill come?
“Welcome home, Brother!” Lady Aenor gave Rowan the kiss of peace. “What ill befell you on your journey? I have been worried to distraction when day followed day with no word from you. Mind how I warned you that these are evil times, not fit for a body to venture abroad alone and unarmed. But you would not heed my warning. And now there is some mad creature arrived from Berkshire, or so she says, on foot and all but naked, ordering the servants about with the arrogance of Empress Maud, claiming she is to be your bride. At this rate, I shall need a sleeping draft before bed tonight, my nerves are that wrought up.”
The speech boiled out of her, making Rowan’s own heart gallop apace and his stomach constrict. When she got upset, Aenor reminded him of the strange holy men of Islam he had seen in the Outremer, who expressed their devotion to Allah by whirling and howling.
He held up his hand for silence.
“You were right, Aenor.” Might as well say it first as last and forestall more nagging. With wistful fondness, he recalled how Cecily had refused to say “I told you so,” after his plan to seek aid at Lambourn had gone so disastrously awry. “I had not fully grasped the lawlessness so rampant in England nowadays. I am only thankful to have returned to Ravensridge unharmed. As for Cecily Tyrell, we are to be wed, by Maud’s order, and I am willing.”
For once Aenor looked bereft of words. Rowan warmed to anything, even marriage, that would produce such an affect upon his sister-in-law.
At first her fair, bland features betrayed shock. She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came. Then her brows rose in a question. Again she made as if to ask something, but appeared to think better of it at the last moment.
Finally she heaved a sigh of resignation. “I suppose all preparations for the ceremony and feast will fall to me. How soon do you mean to marry the girl?”
Having expected a worse reception to his news, Rowan drew an easy breath. Perhaps this boded well for his marriage to Cecily. “Soon. A few days. Could be as much as a week. I must raise an armed force to recapture her keep, and that could take time, especially during harvest. We must be wed by the time my army rides for Berkshire, though. That way I fight to regain what is mine, in her name.”
“So you have it all worked out, then?” said Aenor in a small, plaintive voice. “A week is not much time to arrange a proper wedding feast.”
“I’m sure you’ll manage.” Rowan spared his sister-in-law no more thought, for at that moment a servant appeared in the great hall, bearing a platter of food. Another followed with a beaker of ale.
Rowan all but hurled himself upon the hastily prepared meal. “Fetch Cecily,” he ordered Aenor, between bites. “She must be as badly starved as I am after our journey.”
“Your journey? If you traveled together, why did she arrive alone? You talk as if you know the lady well, Rowan. But she sounded as though she had never met you.” Aenor planted herself squarely before him, as if to say she wasn’t budging until she got satisfactory answers.
“Oh, very well.” Rowan tipped a deep draft of his ale. It sluiced down his throat with the rich, hearty flavor of a Gloucestershire harvest. “You’re bound to hear sooner or later.”
Punctuated by eating and drinking, he recounted the tale of his journey east and back west again. His meeting with the Empress. Being waylaid by thieves in the forest near Brantham. How Cecily had come to his aid and together they had escaped those in search of them.
“So she knows you only as John FitzCourtenay?” ventured Aenor at last, her expression utterly blank.
“Aye.” Rowan could not restrain a smile. “And loves me.” He tapped his chest. “Me. The man. Not my name or my sword or my manors. Now go fetch her as I bade you.” He could hardly wait to surprise Cecily with the news that John and Rowan were one.
“Love?” Aenor sniffed. “Men have such romantic notions. It would do you well to cultivate a woman’s practicality, Brother. The lass knew she was to wed Baron DeCourtenay, yet she let herself become attached to some baseborn fellow traveler. And all in the space of a few days. I would not prize her constancy. Who knows what man might catch her eye next?”
“Enough!” Rowan smashed his fist on the table. “You know nothing of Cecily. She is not like that at all. Now go get her or I will send someone else.”
Aenor clucked her tongue. “Touched a tender spot, have I?”
She flounced away. “Do what you will, then. Pay me no heed. If a girl like that was to wed my young William, I’d advise him to keep her on a good tight leash, for both their sakes.”
Before Rowan could snarl a reply, she was gone.
He bolted down a piece of cheese, then almost spat it out again. It was much too sharp for his taste. He tried to wash out his mouth with ale, but suddenly it had a bitter flavor as well. Exasperated, he called for mead.
Aenor’s bolt had found its mark. Worse yet, it was a poisoned arrow.
As he quaffed his mead, Rowan thought back on all that had happened in the past several days. This time, he saw John FitzCourtenay as another man altogether.
His rival.
Aenor was right. Cecily had already betrayed him.
His heart had betrayed him, too. For he was smitten with her. Familiar with the pain of inconstancy, how could he wed a mercurial creature like Cecily, who might fall out of love as easily as she had fallen in? Who might at any moment succumb to an attraction for someone else?
But he must wed her. By decree of the Empress and by decree of his own heart. He could not bear to lose Cecily, at least not without the fight of his life.
He would have to keep a vigilant watch on his bride, though. Curb her headstrong ways with a firm but loving hand. For her own safety and the protection of her immortal soul, as much as for his own peace of mind.
That was where he had erred with Jacquetta, Rowan realized with bitter hindsight. He had left her too much to her own devices, trusted too completely in her fragile self-control. He would not make the same mistake twice.
As she combed the many tangles from her sodden hair, Cecily quailed at the thought of the mistake she had almost made. Now that she was no longer in John FitzCourtenay’s potent presence, she could see the folly she’d come so close to committing. Imagine! Abandoning Brantham. Flouting the Empress. For what?
A man who challenged her at every turn, yet who valued all those quirks in her character that others condemned. A man whose strength she admired and whose wounds she ached to heal. A man whose touch turned her inside out.
Her fingers went slack on the comb as she remembered.
“How are you getting on?” asked Lady Aenor, suddenly appearing at the door.
Cecily fumbled the comb, certain every guilty thought must be emblazoned on her face. “Very…well. Thank you.”
“Thank goodness I remembered those old gowns of Lady Joan’s. If I’d lent you anything of mine, the hem would barely cover your knees. The old folk tell me she had an even slighter figure than you. Did you have much trouble getting into them?”
“None at all,” Cecily answered brightly, eager to follow any topic that bid fair to lead her thoughts away from John FitzCourtenay. “The fashion in underdresses hasn’t changed much in thirty years. Will you look at the length of these sleeves, though?”
Aenor DeCourtenay gave her an appraising look. “That mulberry shade does suit you. Well, finish combing out your hair. Lord Rowan has summoned you to attend him in the great hall. Imperious creature—he does not like to be kept waiting.”
“Lord Rowan is back?” squeaked Cecily. Though she tried to convince herself this was a good thing, her empty stomach fluttered and her knees quivered like calf’s-foot jelly. Would he take one look at her face and know what she’d almost done? Would he take one look at her and decide she was no fitting successor to Jacquetta DeNevers?
“Aye,” Lady Aenor chuckled. “He arrived out of the blue, shortly after you got here. The storm must have blown the pair of you in. Come along now, Mistress Tyrell. You will soon learn the penalty for keeping your husband waiting.”
Something in the other woman’s voice made Cecily’s gullet tighten—an unpleasant gloating note Lady Aenor tried to disguise as jest. It brought back all the accusations Lord Ranulf had made against Rowan DeCourtenay.
As she followed his sister-in-law to the great hall, Cecily chided herself for her fears. She had never been of a timid or spleeny disposition. She did not flinch at the sight of blood. Rats, toads, snakes and spiders held none of the terror for her that they had for many of the novices at Wenwith. Fear of the dark she had never understood.
Something about Baron DeCourtenay unsettled her, though. Was it the mystery surrounding his first wife’s death? A known threat she could face down, lay plans for and conquer. But how could she deal with an enigma? Perhaps she feared the power this unknown man would wield over her, as her husband. It might have been a compound of both, heightened by the secret of her feelings for his half brother.
Recognizing the basis for her disquiet did nothing to ease it, unfortunately.
Cecily kept her eyes downcast as they entered the great hall. She did not want her future husband to read her feelings in them. That would give him still more power over her.
The rushes on the floor looked freshly strewn. They smelled so, too. Candlelight did battle against the shadows in the huge chamber, keeping them at bay but by no means conquered. The rustling footsteps of the women echoed off the bare stone walls.
Lady Aenor led her around and between several long trestle tables, now empty. Cecily’s foreboding lightened somewhat at the sight. If Baron DeCourtenay could muster a force of armed men large enough to fill his hall, they would stand a good chance of reclaiming Brantham.
A fleeting, furtive glance showed they were approaching a low dais to one end of the head table. This must be where the baron held court when he was in residence. Of the man who occupied the imposing thronelike chair on the dais, Cecily noted little.
Dark of hair, like his brother. And, like his brother, bronzed by the relentless eastern sun. He wore a gray robe, not ornate or fussy, but somehow rich looking. He also wore an unmistakable air of authority. Here was a man accustomed to command and accustomed to being obeyed.
The very notion make Cecily’s stubborn knees stiffen.
Meekly. Go meekly! she urged herself. You will not win his lordship’s favor with bold speeches and proud airs.
“Here is your bride, Brother,” said Lady Aenor.
Averting her gaze, Cecily swept a deep curtsy in the direction of the dais.
He must have nodded or motioned for his sister-in-law to leave, for she withdrew immediately. Though Cecily did not feel entirely comfortable with Aenor DeCourtenay, she wished his lordship had permitted her to stay. It might have eased the awkwardness of this first meeting—if anything could.
A heavy, portentous silence hung in the great hall of Ravensridge like a fog. Cold, chilly, impenetrable.
Then he spoke. “Have you been well tended since you arrived?”
The question made Cecily start, for its suddenness and for the unsettling similarity between this voice and another—familiar and beloved.
“I have no cause to complain, my lord. Lady Aenor has made me welcome. Found me clothes to wear.”
“Have you eaten?”
“A little mulled wine, my lord, and bread.”
“You must be hungry still after your journey. Come dine with me and eat your fill.”
Cecily curtsied again. Mabylla would be so proud of her. “Your lordship is very kind.” She failed to mention that her stomach seethed so, she doubted she could keep a full meal down. She heard Lord Rowan rise from his chair. Then he posed an odd and wholly unexpected question.
“You are, truly, Cecily Tyrell?”
He had expected something different. He had been disappointed in his hopes.
“Aye, my lord.” A breath of her natural impudence revived. “Would Lady Aenor have said so if it were not true?”
The baron chuckled. A sound that tugged at Cecily’s heart, for it sounded so like his brother’s.
“No indeed. I cannot imagine Aenor trying to pass off an imposter as my bride. She’s an estimable lady in many ways, but rather limited in imagination.”
Cecily stifled the urge to laugh. If her father had had his way, she would have grown into the perfect likeness of Lady Aenor. “The reason I doubted your identity, Mistress Tyrell…” He moved a step closer to her. Cecily kept her eyes fixed on the hem of his robe. “…is because you bear little likeness to the brazen chit I traveled with for the past four days.”
As his meaning began to dawn upon Cecily, he took another step toward her. “Perhaps if you bare your backside, I will be convinced at last.”
For the first time since entering the hall, she looked him full in the face at close range. There could be no mistaking him. After the days they had spent together, she would recognize that face in a thousand.
The strangely attractive creases that framed his eyes, a legacy from years squinting against the fierce desert sun. The few strands of silver at his temples and fretted through his dark beard. The dense black brows that arched so expressively above the compelling depths of his eyes.
“John FitzCourtenay!” She clouted him on the arm. “What prank are you pulling here? For shame! You had me convinced you were Lord Rowan.”
He clasped her upper arms. To support her in case she swooned? Or to hold her in case she tried to run?
“I am Rowan, lass. There is not, nor never was such a fellow as John FitzCourtenay. I am the man you rescued from the footpads. I am the one who traveled with you over Lambourn Downs and through the Cotswolds. I am the man you must wed.”
Rowan. John. One and the same?
“But how? Why—?”
“I wanted to tell you before now, believe me. When first I gave you my name, I had no notion who you were or whom you served. I could not afford to entrust you with the knowledge of my identity. So John FitzCourtenay was born. I tried to tell you when we first came to Lambourn, but you fell asleep on me before I could finish. The longer I kept up the deception the harder it became to admit the truth.”
His voice came near to choking off, and for the first time in their acquaintance, his gaze faltered from hers. “Are you sorry to discover we are one?”
Shock and doubt fell before an onslaught of joy and relief. Her laughter welled up like the head on a beaker of robust ale. It filled the great hall of Ravensridge, ringing through the vaulted arches of the ceiling.
“Sorry?” She bounded into his arms, clasping him around the neck. “You shall see how sorry I am. Aye, feel it and taste it, too!”
She kissed him with all the pent-up, thwarted ardor of the past days and nights. And of the many nights she’d dreamed of him since their first meeting.
He kissed her back with a tenderness that bespoke deep relief and an intensity that claimed her as his own.
Even as her blood stirred at the thought of sharing his bed, soon and forever, a brooding whisper of suspicion slithered among her bright hopes like a serpent in the garden.
Can you trust a man who lied to you so long and so convincingly? it asked.
What did become of his first bride?