Claire Delacroix (15 page)

“Then you will not wed me!”

“Of course I will.” His shaving forgotten, Bayard strode after his retreating lady. “I have bedded you and I shall wed you and we shall live upon that estate and you will be as comfortable as ever a woman might be.”

“Never!”

Her defiance infuriated him, and though he was not given to shows of temper, Bayard found his voice rising. “Not never, but on this very day, my lovely lady! On this very afternoon, you will stand before the priest with me and we shall exchange our vows.”

“Nay, I will wed no man to ensure he wins a holding!”

“You will wed me!” he found himself bellowing.

“Nay, I will not!” the lady cried and tossed her hair like a flighty filly. “I will wed no man to fatten his purse.”

“But your father offers Ceinn-beithe as your dowry. For what other reason would a man wed you?”

“Oh!” He thought for a moment that Esmeraude might strike him. Her eyes flashed dangerously, then she turned abruptly. She ran but Bayard was fast behind her.

He snatched her shoulders and spun her to face him. “Why would you be wedded, then?” He took a deep breath and held her firmly, though she tried to wriggle free in a most annoying way.

“For love! For naught less than love!”

Bayard blinked, her answer so astounding him that he could not hide his response. Truly he had spent years amidst those who wedded solely for advantage, then had those matches annulled to make another, more advantageous match.

Surely she could not give credence to such whimsy as love?

“This madness is not...” he began, thinking his tone most reasonable under the circumstances.

“Love is not madness,” Esmeraude said with heat. “You have asked for my hand and I have declined you. Let me go! I care not what you might say to persuade me.”

“But I do care to persuade you.”

“Then there is but one confession you might make to me,” she cried, her chin tilting in challenge.

Bayard regarded her in amazement. “Surely you do not expect some confession of love? We do not know each other...” he began firmly, then gasped when she punched him in the nose. His grip loosed for only a moment, though that was time enough for his betrothed to slip away.

“Yet you still would wed me. Your confession, sir, is not sufficiently persuasive.” Esmeraude plucked up her skirts and ran.

“What nonsense is this?” Bayard shouted. “Halt!” he cried, but Esmeraude paid him no heed.

Bayard swore as he raced after her. He had never met a more infuriating woman in all his days. He watched her swing into the saddle of one of his palfreys far ahead of him and shouted at the boys to halt her.

But they had no chance. For a heart-stopping moment, Bayard thought Esmeraude mad or inexperienced with horses, and feared to lose her again. Indeed, she clung to the beast’s back so easily that she might have been born to the saddle.

“What of Fortune’s favor for you, Bayard?” Esmeraude cried in jubilant challenge. She made a striking sight, her hair escaping its bonds, her eyes bright, the steed fully beneath her control. Bayard’s desire for her trebled, as did his anger that she denied his will.

The lady was clearly oblivious to his mood.

Esmeraude turned the palfrey and cantered briskly around him, daring him to snatch her from the saddle. Bayard tried, but she anticipated him and expertly directed the steed out of his range at the last moment.

He was more furious than he could ever recall. Indeed, his blood fairly boiled and she, she enjoyed what she wrought!

“It seems the lady’s smile fades, for you at least,” Esmeraude charged cheerfully. “Indeed, I should be the first to encourage Dame Fortune to cast her glance elsewhere, for you have won too much from her indulgence.”

“By the piety of Saint Martin de Tours -” Bayard roared “- I shall see you as my wife!”

“Oh, you are angered, sir,” she taunted, then clicked her tongue. “Is it because none have ever denied you your will?”

The audacity of her! Passion was one matter but outright defiance quite another, and a much less desirable trait in a wife.

“I am angered because you defy me!” he shouted. “A wife should be biddable and obedient and
submissive
to her lord and husband’s will!”

Esmeraude laughed heartily, then blew him a kiss. “You see? I am right and you are wrong. We are ill-suited, after all. Farewell, sir.”

And with that, she gathered the reins and urged his own beast to flee from him as swiftly as the wind. Indeed, she cast him an impish smile over one shoulder as the palfrey took the bit in its teeth and galloped.

“I am not wrong!” Bayard bellowed, but the lady did not grace his claim with a reply.

Bayard was livid. Aye, he was well aware of his squires watching this travesty of a betrothal. He stormed toward the steed whose reins Michael quietly offered and leapt into the saddle.

Without another word, he lent chase to the madwoman he had pledged to wed. He drove the horse hard in pursuit. His thoughts raced as quickly as the steeds’ hooves with the prospect of what he would do to this vexing woman to tame her once he caught her.

He would seduce her a thousand times, taking her to the brink of pleasure then retreating, teasing her with fulfillment until she begged him for release, until she could look upon no man with desire save himself. He would tame her with the passion that defined her, he would make himself the sole possible source of pleasure for her.

The very prospect made his heart pound. He was hard and hot, he took risks with his steed that normally he never would countenance, he rode as if he escaped the bonds of hell.

And still he did not gain upon her.

The horses ran like quicksilver, darting through the woods on sure feet. Esmeraude’s earlier departure and her knowledge of these woods proved to be to her advantage. He shouted her name in frustration, then roared that she should at least have a care for the health of the steed.

She ignored him. Indeed, he thought he heard her laugh, as if delighted with some whimsical game.

His blood boiled. Had he ever met a more vexing woman? What had happened to his good fortune that he had been condemned to win the hand of this one? Oh, he would catch her and he would wed her and he would spend a month abed with her if that was what it took to calm her wild spirit. He would persuade her that what he offered was more tangible and more durable than the foolery of love.

But ’twas not to happen this day. To his dismay, Bayard heard the sound of the palfrey’s hoof beats fade, despite his efforts to the contrary.

Before long, he found himself alone in the forest, seething and without a hint as to where his lady had gone. All because he would not lie to her and confess a love he did not and would never feel.

The sole blessing was that he had not had the chance to confess that ’twas Montvieux he sought to win, not Ceinn-beithe. Had he admitted that, Bayard would have expected a heated response, for women oft did not care to leave their families far behind.

But Esmeraude did not know that detail.

Yet.

That was another battle he might anticipate. Aye, Bayard understood his lady would not leave him wondering about her feelings upon any matter.

He took a deep breath, halted his steed, and glanced over his shoulder. There was one who knew the lady better than he.

He turned about, resolved to seek counsel from the elderly maid. And when he faced Esmeraude again, she would have no chance to surprise him.

At least not afore they were wedded.

The prospect of that nuptial night made Bayard smile in truth.

* * *

Dame Fortune - or Fortuna as she had long been known - had been drawn by the mention of her name. She peered down from her lofty perch and shivered slightly in the Scottish mist so unfamiliar to her. Why had men ever left the glorious sun of the Greek isles? She would never understand it. Golden beaches and azure seas, wine and clear skies were a gift of the gods indeed - but men had abandoned such bounty for...this.

Fortuna shuddered in distaste. But when she recognized one of many knights upon whom she had smiled, she understood why she had been invoked in this distant place.

The truth of the matter was that Fortuna was feeling somewhat strained. Had she been a mortal woman, she might have concluded that her irritability and exhaustion were the mark of a change in her body, but Fortuna was immortal and thus had no body. Oh, she cloaked herself in the appearance of a body for the sake of courtesy, but ’twas a choice she made to comply with the old agreement. In point of fact, there was little reason for so complying, since one did not often encounter mortals in the heavens, which made it much more difficult to surprise them here.

She rather missed spooking the occasional mortal. It livened up the monotony of timeless existence. Indeed, Fortuna had always thought retreating to the heavens to be a bad idea, but one did not argue with Zeus - or at least, one had not argued with him in those days and survived unscathed.

She peeked down and admitted that this knight she had so often favored did show some similarities to the uncompromising Zeus. He, too, had always been certain that he was right.

Fortuna felt a certain sympathy for the demoiselle’s plight, for men were even more determined in these times to control a woman’s path than they had once been. She sighed, recalling her heyday all too well and regretting its passage.

Much had changed in the last thousand years or so. Too much, in Fortuna’s opinion. She held up a hand and scowled at how insubstantial she was becoming. Fortuna was old-fashioned, she knew, for she felt compelled to at least take a peek whenever and wherever she was invoked. But she had never felt so tired from fulfilling what she perceived as her obligations.

It was true that she was absurdly popular in these times. Dame Fortune this and Dame Fortune that - the invocations never stopped. Fortuna rolled her eyes. Mortals!

Then there was the matter of her wheel of fortune being appropriated and adapted by those who would predict the future, by alchemists and gypsies and men generally too bold to understand where they should not meddle.

Though she had had a hand in that. Oh, she should never have confided in Boethius. Fortuna should have known - after all these eons! - that men have to tell what they know.

But what was done was done.

The worst of it was that not only was she overly burdened with responsibilities, but her labor was so very thankless. Men were beginning to think that they alone controlled their futures. Fortuna snorted their folly. This knight was not the only one upon whom she had smiled who insisted that naught existed that he could not hold within his own hands.

It was most annoying. The trouble with such skepticism was that Fortuna could not recall when there had been a ritual slaughter on her behalf, with incense and songs and burning flesh, and feasting and wine.

Such flattery always was bolstering, but it seemed that the Romans had been the last to understand the importance of such doings. Oh, she remembered all too well that the caesars of Rome had kept golden statues of her, that she had been exalted beyond all others.

Fortuna sighed. Those had been the days. She had been everywhere - on vases and jars, represented as statues of grace and beauty. She had burned so radiantly with the power of the faith in her that she could have challenged the sun itself.

She looked at her hand and it flickered faintly, more like a distant star than the sun.

It is the nature of women, both mortal and immortal, to dislike the sense of being taken for granted. Fortuna fell prey to that dissatisfaction in that moment.

Perhaps this knight had won too much too easily and needed to learn some appreciation. Perhaps this woman was precisely the one to teach him. Fortuna had a trick or two of her own to help. The prospect cheered her enormously.

Only when Fortuna sat back on her puff of cloud did she realize that she was not alone. Saint Martin de Tours - or his unearthly representation - was striding through the clouds toward her.

Fortuna recognized him, and not only by his halved cloak. She had favored this one-time warrior with a smile or two in his time, and in fact, she had been disappointed in his conversion to Christianity after sharing his cloak with a beggar. He had kept the physique of a warrior, even after he became an influential bishop, and was more manly from Fortuna’s perspective than these pale celibates who now held the power of the church she loved to loathe. He was from a past era, not one so far past as her own, but Fortuna felt a commonality with Martin all the same.

Indeed, Fortuna might have welcomed Martin warmly had the globe of fire that burned over his head not been far brighter and more substantial than any part of herself. There was a reminder she did not need of how times and mortals were changing.

An educated man, Martin nodded in acknowledgement as he drew near, despite her hauteur. “Invoked again?” he asked with a tired smile, apparently needing no answer. They would not be both in the vicinity otherwise and Fortuna had to admire that he held the same work ethic as she. Martin dropped onto the cloud opposite her and sighed as he shoved a hand through his hair. “’Tis a curse to be so popular.”