The Knight's Redemption

“I do not wish to wed under false circumstances, Ceara, so I tell you this now.”

He looked at her expectantly, his eyes slowly growing more gentle until he tipped her chin with his fingertip. “I tell you this in the interest of being fair to you. If you choose to become my wife, your position will be respected. Though I cannot commit my heart to the union, I vow you will have my protection and I assure you a place of honor.”

Ariana struggled under the weight of his words, as if now there were a stone tied to her foot, too.

“You are very honest,” she managed, her voice sounding husky and emotional even to her own ears.

Dear Gwydion, but Eleanor said obstacles would fall away if he were the right one. Right now, the obstacles mounted by the moment.

Yet…

Something about the man’s intensity appealed to her. She believed him when he said he would protect her. There was a certain inner strength and determination about Roarke Barret that Ariana admired. This was a man who would never dream of backing down from a fight. He was no Thomas Glamorgan to cave under the weight of unhappiness.

“It is still a genuine proposal, my lady. You would have a keep of your own to tend, and children.” He grinned broadly—much to her embarrassment. “’Tis more than you can say for your convent.”

And it was far better than living under the weight of family legend and fruitless dreams. She wanted to know the love of children, even if she did not know the love of a man. Besides, he needed her. After a lifetime of near invisible servitude to her unappreciative father, Ariana knew well how to give of herself. She could make this man happy. Bring light and laughter to her household in a way she’d never been able to at Glamorgan. Not only that, but she would also be helping Roarke to fulfill his own destiny.

Surely fate would handle the rest.

“Aye.” She smiled back at him, her face still warm with embarrassment, but her mind resolved. “It is preferable to the convent, my lord. If my uncle consents, I will be your wife.”

Finding her footing, she sensed a long climb in front of her. But she felt more keenly alive than she had since she was a young girl. Her world was suddenly bursting with possibilities.

“Excuse me, Ceara,” Thomas Glamorgan haltingly interrupted them. “But it grows late and the guests grow restless. I think ’tis past time we call an end to the meal.” He looked questioningly to Roarke. “That is, if it is acceptable to our guest of honor?”

At Roarke’s nod, Thomas signaled for the entertainment to commence. A neighbor to the Glamorgans brought out a small reed instrument and joined his daughter in a lilting duet homage to their Welsh homelands while the servants finished clearing the tables and picking up the trenchers for the village’s poor.

“Have any of our girls caught your fancy then, sir?” Lord Glamorgan inquired.

Ariana only half listened to Roarke’s exchange with her father, her nerves jittery and her resolve faltering. Roarke’s speech about honesty had her questioning her motives, doubting her cause and overall sick to her stomach. How could she go through with her ploy, knowing Roarke only expected truthfulness from her?

Worse, how could she get married to a man who practically admitted he would never love her?

Her mind wandered as her father announced that Ceara Llywen would marry Roarke Barret in the morning. She kept envisioning someone among the crowd pointing her out as a fake. But apparently she really could pass for Ceara. They possessed similar features and identical amber eyes, though few people noticed their resemblance because of the stark contrast of their hair. Once Ariana put Ceara’s red locks over her own and dotted a few freckles across her nose with the help of a few ashes from the fireplace, they looked like twins.

Except for their figures. Even at sixteen, Ceara had surpassed her cousin in curves. The extra padding Ariana used around her bosom and hips was uncomfortable, but the difference was quite noticeable without it. She would shed a little padding each day after she left Glamorgan until she was back down to her usual size.

With any luck, her husband would never notice.

By now, cups were raised from all sides in toasts to the new couple. Even Lord Glamorgan offered his blessing.

“You seem distracted, my lady,” Roarke remarked. “Do you feel well?”

His question reminded her the charm might very well be wearing off. Either that, or perhaps her sense of daring merely faded now that her fate as Roarke Barret’s wife had been decided. Something about the English knight unsettled her on a fundamental level. Rendered her breathless and a bit weak-kneed.

“Would it seem terribly rude if I were to withdraw from the celebration, my lord?”

“Not considering the haste of our wedding tomorrow. I wish to leave by the time the bell tolls for tierce at mid-morning.”

“As you wish,” she agreed before backing out of the hall into the keep’s entryway where the front doors were thrown open to the night.

She only took a few steps before he followed her. “Aren’t you forgetting something, mor-forwyn?”

It was not his sudden use of Welsh that caught her off guard so much as what he called her.

Temptress. Siren.

“You are familiar with our tongue, my lord?” Her mouth went dry, as much because of the glittering intensity of his gaze as the warmth behind his endearment.

“I learned my first word tonight.”

“You are aware of what you just called me then?” She could not guess where he had run across such a term.

“Temptress.” The slow smile that crossed his lips called forth a peculiar weakening in her knees. He closed the distance between them until he was a hand span before her. Unwilling to move away, she tilted her chin to look up at him.

“And I heard the word in reference to you, lady. I overheard a bold cupbearer remark you went from nun to mor-forwyn in the course of one day. I admit I was curious to know exactly what he meant regarding my future bride, so I had him explain himself. I trust he did not give me false information?”

Judging from Roarke’s intimidating height and far too intense manner, Ariana guessed he had scared the unfortunate lad out of his wits.

“No, my lord. But I hardly think ’tis a flattering name, whether it comes from a member of the kitchen staff or a future husband.”

“Perhaps not. But for now, it is all I know of your language and I rather like the sound of it.” His grin was utterly disarming, perhaps because it seemed a rare occurrence for the serious foreigner. Ariana could not help the answering smile that twitched at her lips.

“I expect one more thing before you retire, lady,” he reminded her as she began once again to take her leave.

Ariana half turned, thinking he was going to mention another detail about their trip, like “bring warm garments,” or some other practical concern.

She was not prepared for his sudden nearness. Nor did she have time to consider the heavy arm that swiftly encircled her before it pulled her toward him.

“I wish to seal our agreement properly.”

Green eyes searched hers for a long moment, seeking her response. His words warmed her lips, sending a surge of sensation racing through her limbs and tripping along every nerve. Her blood seemed to dance in her veins, as spellbound as she was by the promise of his touch.

His mouth descended to hers slowly, increasing the dizzying swell of unfamiliar sensations in her body so that she had to hold on to him for support. He kissed her fully on the mouth, his lips tasting faintly of cinnamon and ale. The rough skin around his mouth surprised her when it prickled her, though she guessed all men who shaved their beards must feel as such. The scents of freshly bathed skin and an autumn afternoon mingled, as if he had just stepped from Glamorgan creek.

She would have put her arms about him to draw him even closer had he not pulled back at that moment. Their gazes locked for one long moment, each taking measure of the other.

Caught up in the pure pleasure of the moment, Ariana wished he would kiss her again, create more of the shimmering magic that danced and skipped through her.

Then she saw the shadow that crossed his face, dimming the emerald eyes to mossy green, turning the softness of his just-kissed lips into a hard, straight line.

“Good night, Lady Ceara.”

Setting her away abruptly, as if her kiss had been distasteful somehow, Roarke left her to wonder if he regretted his choice of brides.

Regretted having kissed her.

Regretted his need to marry.

She assumed he rejoined the merriment in the great hall, though her eyes did not follow him as he left. The night air grew suddenly chill in his absence.

“Nos da.” Whispering the Welsh words to the vacated darkness, she sought her chamber with a kiss and a song on her lips, the refrain of a haunting melody echoing the fears she felt inside.

The morning mist hung shroudlike over the keep, enveloping it in gray stillness. Typical weather for a September morning, but it made for a depressing wedding day.

The heavy mantle of fog weighed as much as the guilt that burdened Ariana’s shoulders. She had remained awake almost the whole night, working with Ceara to alter a wedding gown and two other tunics and kirtles to accommodate the more curvaceous figure she adopted in her guise as Ceara. As the night wore on, she felt less triumphant about her successful encounter with Roarke Barret and more remorse about using him so shamelessly to gain her own ends. How could she make sacred vows in front of witnesses under false pretenses?

Worse yet, how could she enter a consecrated holy church knowing in her heart that she misrepresented herself to Roarke?

And yet…

How else was she to restore her family honor and fulfill her mother’s dying wish? The Glamorgan legend had plagued her family for a century, affecting generations of women who did nothing to deserve such a cruel and lonely existence. Although many of them took solace in the convent, the greater number did not have such a calling and remained a burden to their families, growing more unhappy with each passing year.

One aunt, two generations back, was rumored to have killed herself because of the misfortune of her birth, though the family asserted she fell from a slick window ledge while gazing out over a cloudy moor. Ariana’s mother had struggled her whole life to bring joy to this sorrow-filled household, to coax her husband from the dark depression of the curse that cloaked his keep more thoroughly than any Welsh mist.

Now, it was Ariana’s turn to heal that darkness.

The bell tolled for prime, reminding her she had two hours until her wedding. Three hours until she rode off with a man she’d known for less than a day. The man who was to be her destiny.

If he did not discover her secret before then.

“Ariana!” Ceara snatched a length of linen from Ariana’s hand and stuffed it into a traveling bag. “You must finish packing so you can get dressed! We will never finish if you keep brooding. Are you having second thoughts about this wedding?”

Ariana laughed, feeling nervous and edgy. “Second thoughts? I have not had time to have first thoughts about it yet.” She laid a few other personal items into her bag, wondering if she had packed everything she needed.

“Is it so wrong to fight this fate, Ceara?” Fear constricted her throat. Had she been so wrong to deceive last night? “Is it too much to want a family, a home with a husband and children?”

“Nay.” Ceara neatly arranged the garments in the bag before packing any more. “I do not think you will be forsaken for trying to rectify a grave injustice that has gone on for too many years.”

Emotion knotted Ariana’s belly. “You are so good to me, Ceara.”

Her cousin smiled as she went about her work, single-handedly packing everything Ariana needed on her journey. “You must remember your aim is worthy.” Ceara put down the shifts she was holding and went to her cousin. “But as much as I want you to succeed in this, if you do not wish to go through with it, there is still time to admit our deception.”

Tears burned Ariana’s eyes. “Nay! That is not what I want! But he is bound to find out sooner or later and when he does, what will happen?”

“He is full of pride and has fought for what is his. Just look at how coldly he goes about the business of choosing a bride. He doesn’t even know your father, yet he is perfectly willing to accept whomever Uncle Thomas puts in front of him. He will be equally cold about dispensing with a wife who does not serve him well.”

“Perhaps he seems aloof because he is in a hurry,” Ariana remarked, trying to reign in her scattered emotions.

Ceara shook her head sadly. “This is a far cry from the ‘grand adventure’ you spoke of last night.” Amber eyes that mirrored her own fixed Ariana in their unblinking gaze. Ceara looked older and wiser than her sixteen years, and Ariana was tempted to heed her advice. “You can end this before it is too late.”

There was still time to call it off. She would be safe from Roarke here, and protected.

And alone for the rest of her life.

“I cannot. I must go through with it now, and we both know it.” She would simply look at this as another way to use her healing skills. Only now she’d be healing her family. Her heritage. “Eleanor said if it is right, all obstacles will fall away.”

“Obstacles have surrounded you at every turn already, cousin! And doesn’t the curse stipulate that the man must love you?”

“Not exactly.” Ariana pulled the woolen shawl more tightly about her shoulders as she paced the cold stone floor. “There are no real instructions for how to break the curse, only speculation by Glamorgan women. But gaining the genuine love of a man might not be necessary. It might be broken merely if he—that is, if we—” She made a helpless gesture with her hands.

“Are intimate?”

“Yes.” Ariana tossed a last handful of things into her bag. “I am going through with it. If anything, our conversation has only made me sure that I am doing the right thing. Would you ask the maid to bring in the bath now? I want to start getting ready.”

Ceara stepped into the hall to do her cousin’s bidding and soon ushered two servants into the room with a tub. When they were gone, she helped Ariana settle into the warm water.

“So is this charm of Eleanor’s still affecting you now?” she asked, throwing rose petals into the water before she took up the soap.

“No. Indeed, I don’t know that there is any real power to Eleanor’s herbal potion.”

Ceara frowned. “I thought this was something very powerful, something Eleanor had been working on for years?”

“Aye. So she told me.” Ariana splashed water over her face and shoulders. “But she would also do anything to help me marry. Including trick me into thinking I could face the English knight even when I stood trembling in slippers.”

“By the rood, Ariana. You think she merely pretended to have concocted some powerful potion?” Ceara scrubbed more forcefully.

“Ow!” Ariana finished her hair herself. “I don’t know, but I cannot fathom how she would have come by the recipe for something so fanciful as a brew to make a woman more appealing. She is a healer, not a sorceress, after all.”

“Praise God.”

“Aye. Except that now I will have nothing to inspire false confidence. I think I will attend the wedding heavily veiled. Which is just as well because my hair will still be wet at this rate.” She rinsed the thick black mass quickly and stepped from the tub, drying the tresses vigorously with several linens until it was just damp.

They worked in silence, nervous and tense about the day ahead of them. Ariana combed her waist-length hair, plaiting the strands to be pinned atop her head.

Ceara handed her a newly worked hairpiece over her shoulder. “I sewed my old hair to a strip of cloth this morn, so you will have an easier time fixing it in its place each day.”

The hair was tightly bound together in small sections, then sewn to a strip of cinnamon-colored linen, not much darker than the hair itself. The cloth would allow Ariana to secure the hair easily to her head without all of the elaborate pinning and tying they did last night before dinner.

“Thank you, cousin,” Ariana whispered, tears springing quickly to her eyes. “I feel so awful about taking your hair.”

Ceara ran her fingers through the short strands that fell between her chin and shoulders. “Think no more of it. It is not as if I were bald as Uncle Thomas. I think when I join the convent I will keep it this length. It would be much cooler under a habit. And if I change my mind, it will grow back.”

While Ariana fretted, Ceara smothered a giggle. “Besides, if I decide I really would rather wed, I shall wait ’til I am an old maid like you before I choose a husband, and by then it will be long again.”

Ariana laughed, too, though her heart felt heavy with guilt and worry. Her scheme had the power to hurt Ceara and Roarke….

But it would save her brother’s little girls. If she were successful, they would benefit, which made her guilt a little easier to bear.

Distracted with such concerns, the morning raced by until she was dressed and ready to go below stairs. Then she recalled Eleanor’s charm. Quite probably a bogus brew designed to help Ariana feel more brave. Should she bother mixing the herbs today?

It certainly couldn’t hurt. Especially when the thought of facing Roarke Barret while memories of his kiss teased her senses. She needed all the courage she could muster. Slowly and purposefully, Ariana added all the right ingredients. She whispered a healer’s chant, mixed the herbs and then threw the mixture into the flames.

Nothing.

No shimmery sensation.

No blaze of fire.

Her father called to her, though of course it was Ceara’s name he called, not her own. They were waiting for her so they could begin the procession to the chapel.

But she tried one more time. Using all of her concentration to block out the various knocks that came to Ceara’s door, and the shouts for Ariana to please talk to Ceara so she will come down, Ariana went through the ritual one more time, focusing on her goal the way Eleanor taught her to. She put all of her strength and all of her hopes into the herbal concoction as she crushed the herbs beneath her pestle and once again threw the mixture into the flames.

For nothing.

The charm would not work today. Had probably never worked outside of Ariana’s wishful imagination. She had no choice now but to face Roarke Barret with only the help of a few false freckles and a cinnamon-colored hairpiece on her own wedding day.

Chapter Five

S aints protect me.

Whispering one last prayer that she was doing the right thing, Ariana pulled her heavy veils over hair and face and hoped Roarke did not seek to lift them. She might not look any different today then she had the night before, but she felt less sure of herself without the help of Eleanor’s mysterious charm.

Quietly, she stepped through the door that adjoined her room to Ceara’s and then out into the passageway from Ceara’s room. She ran into her father, whose face was mottled pink with annoyance.

“I am ready, Uncle,” she said sweetly, her voice low and modulated the way Ceara’s was. It mattered not how she spoke to Roarke, but to fool her father she had to be especially careful.

Thomas Glamorgan opened his mouth as if to chide her, then smoothed one hand across his bare head, as if taming unruly locks that were no longer there. “You look lovely, niece,” he said, his voice straining with the effort to be pleasant.

Ariana wished she did not have to deceive him today. For all of his flaws, she loved her father, and it grieved her to leave him without saying a real goodbye. No matter how difficult he made her life, or how much he blamed her for the unhappiness he suffered, her father was not solely to blame for the pall that hung over the keep. Misery, like the curse, had a way of clinging to Glamorgan.

As they proceeded to meet the well-wishers, her mood brightened. With a holiday declared until after the wedding cup was drunk, the villein made merry into the night and then slept well past prime. Now they welcomed the cause of their celebrations with shouts and autumn wildflowers, which were strewn along with brightly colored fall leaves in Ariana’s path. Shades of red, yellow and orange carpeted her every step while the chapel bell announced her arrival.

Her worries returned as she climbed the church steps and spied Roarke, who appeared more forbidding than the fierce gargoyles that silently waited for the ceremony to begin.

He was not outfitted in wedding attire. He could have been dressed for a day of riding or a day of battle except for the gold medallion he wore about his neck, hanging from a slender flaxen rope that was so fine and sleek it looked as if it were woven with a woman’s hair.

Aside from that peculiar decoration, the English knight showed no outward sign it was his wedding day. His lack of finery caused Ariana to wonder if he would bother waiting for the toast to be raised before he mounted his horse to leave Glamorgan Keep far behind him.

Even dressed as he was, he would have been quite handsome, Ariana thought, were it not for the scowl that furrowed his brow.

Was it because she was late?

Or because he resented having to wed her at all?

Wondering where the man who had tenderly kissed her last night had disappeared, she was not eager to take the steps that would close the space between them. But the ancient, stooped village priest who would officiate beckoned and her wedding day commenced.

Her groom barely acknowledged her, but the women who attended the ceremony seemed to admire her. She could see their assessing glances as they noted the rich fabric of the exquisite gown, one of many her father had ordered for her over the years. During the long night of preparations for the ceremony, she and Ceara altered it to accommodate a fuller figure, so the fit was just right. A deep crimson velvet, the material alone had cost a fortune. The bodice boasted rich embroidery and a few small jewels along the neckline.

The veils were hardly unbecoming, either, though they completely hid the bride from the world’s view. Red-and-black silk covered the back of her head and neck in a wimple. Over top of it, two layers of heavy white Flanders lace fell from a thin silver circlet to cover her face and fall midway down her back. The intricate fabric was artfully arranged to allow the less decorated portions of the lace to cover her eyes so she might see through the veils.

When she reached Roarke, he turned formally toward the priest and awaited his words.

He was going through with it.

Ariana breathed her relief. Doubts had plagued her all morning that the English knight would change his mind and choose another bride. And it was not just because the charm failed. The fact he ended their kiss so abruptly the night before made her think he found her lacking.

Now the sacred words were being read that would officially bind them together as man and wife, a surge of guilt spread through her. She vowed she would be a good wife to Roarke to make up for the way she had tricked him into wedding her. Heaven knew the man didn’t seem to care much about whom he married.

Her hand shook slightly as Roarke slid a heavy band of thick silver upon her ring finger. Devoid of any decoration, the ring was not particularly becoming around her finger, but the weighty silver comforted Ariana as it slid onto her hand. Although Roarke Barret came to her with no love in his heart, his commitment to her was strong and true. A man of honor, he would not take his vows to his Welsh wife lightly.

As she looked forward to the wedding night that would free her from the Glamorgan legend, she could almost feel the stranglehold of her family heritage begin to loosen its grip.