Ronan's Bride (2 page)

Locking her in her chambers had not gained him acquiescence. Moreover, having played passive to survive her existence with the Count, he had thought her subdued and like the rest of the females. His rage at her defiance was immeasurable. She knew he would force her. He had the power to do as he pleased, to arrange whatever scheme he needed to. If she did not flee, rape was another means the males employed to strip the females of any notion they were anything more than possessions.

Sefare hoped that Guardi would be satisfied with her giving up her widow’s rights to any holdings or possessions. She had writ that on the wedding night and given it to the priest for delivering. She prayed that would be enough. That, and the fact that she was the wife of Ronan of Duhamel now. A knight even he would have heard of.

If—Ronan decided to keep her.

She chewed her lip, hearing the small number of sentry who had dwelled at the castle, releasing the chains of the drawbridge. She remembered Ronan had snarled too, that he did not beat women.

That at least was a comfort.

A sudden bitter smile turned her soft pink lips darker. She considered the irony of her own armor. Would to God that her husband had scarred her face instead of her back, she would have been shunned, as flawed. Which was a blessing compared to the other. There were times she would rather he had killed her and be done with it, rather than strip from her all the dignity, pride—and romantic dreams, she’d came to him with.

The woman who remained was too fragmented for Sefare to be at peace with, to even recognize. Her aversions, her fears, her mistrust of intimacies, were abhorrent to her and not natural. However, they were intertwined, because of her years wed to the Count.

Straightening her shoulders, drawing in a deep, steady, breath, Sefare echoed one thought in her mind. She had made a bargain and Ronan had given her his name, a new life, and perhaps some semblance of freedom. Whether he intended to live through that duel, to see her again or not, he had done the first kindness she had known in many years. A selfless act, in spite of his fierceness. If he sent her away, she was sure t’would be in safety. If he kept her, she was certain it was because she had vowed to fill the role of wife—dutifully—within the limits of his not desiring her to start with, resenting her, likely. And, her own raw mistrust.

It was all unknown, all too uncertain, and mostly supposition on her part. He may not beat women, but he resented her for several reasons and had been fierce in it.

She turned as the party drew closer. Sefare headed below to the solar and bedchambers. She would await his decision with outward calm, because again she was alone in life. Her knights, upon their marriage, were oathed to Ronan.

As she and her husband were in essence strangers, she could hope on his sense of honor. However, as a woman who experienced subjugation on the surface, she would not count on it. At one time, the word honor meant everything idealistic and wonderful—thanks to Lord John and those, she had admired. However, reality was seldom a reflection of that.

Chapter Two

Ronan crossed the drawbridge slightly ahead of his party, with Ualtar, the Celt, beside him. They had camped early the night before, having collected men and women along the way to employ at the castle. He gave Ualtar the task of seeing them assigned according to their skills whenever they arrived, from the grooms to the guards, Ualtar would act as his man-at-arms cum steward.

Nodding to the guards, he had sent with Sefare, who greeted him stationed at the bridge. Ronan glanced at Ualtar. The man’s darkness and unique markings set him apart as much as his accents and deadly skill with weapons; and his black hair braided in thin strips, the swirls and markings on his upper arms.

The Celt’s wrists were banded with leather cuffs and leather across his palm, as he was apt to fight with short axe as much as sword. Handsome in a hard and rugged manner, he also had a pierced ear and nostril. He’d been with Ronan and Pagan so long, long enough to have saved their lives and vise versa, that Ronan and he had the same uncanny way of communicating without words, as Ronan shared with Pagan.

He was very much aware that his brother, Pagan, had asked Ualtar to go with him—but both were aware that the Celt, with his rebel heart and soul, was too fiercely independent to do anything or stay with anyone he did not want to. All of their men were in a sense, free, paid well but gathered over the years from the outcasts, outlawed in various countries, and hardest of the most hardened spirits.

Thus as they reached the keep, and men held the warhorses reins as they dismounted, Ronan knew the Celt lingered whilst the courtyard filled with the people and wagons, because Ualtar was not letting go of an argument they had the night before.

Removing his helm, running his hand down the ties of his ever-present facemask, out of habit, Ronan welcomed the spring air on his uncovered head and would be glad to bathe and remove his armor. He had deliberately worn it because he recognized word of whom he and Pagan really were had already spread across the land. He did not want anyone to assume that the Black Beast of Northumberland and the Crimson Knight weren’t those same brothers who earned their fame through battle and tourney—nor did he mean them to imagine that winning absolution for those unjustly accused and killed, was going to suddenly erase their own torment.

There were still those who wished to best them as champions. Those who would see them murdered, because they had named the betrayers to the king. There would be those who paid well to see both he and Pagan truly dead.

“Did it nay matter what her knight’s confided in ye, Ronan?”

Half expecting that, Ronan met those green eyes through his mask and replied, “I have wed her, haven’t I? I have given her protection and put her out of his reach.”

The Celt’s expression turned sardonic. “Tha’ nay be what I mean, and ye know it.”

“You’ve been with Pagan and myself so long, that you no longer see the obvious, Ualtar.”

“I see it. The Lady Illara saw it, and it ma’ no difference to her—

“No.” Ronan’s eyes bore this time. “But neither am I pagan.”

He turned to enter the castle, and then turned back, finding his friend still looking at him. “I cannot kill her husband for her. He is dead already. However, I will kill the uncle, given the chance. As my wife, under any circumstance, she will have that pledge.”

“I nay doubted that.”

Ronan grit, “Then let the rest go.”

The Celt did not waver. “Ye’ve cleared yer family, yourself and Pagan, and ye’ve still enough wealth and fierce reputation to be a man few would challenge. Why won’t you heal yer own wounds, my friend.” Ualtar turned away, striding toward the wagons.

Ronan stared after him unseeing. Sblood. He wished that Sefare’s knights had not felt compelled to seek him out and offer up an account of her life beforehand. He wished, that he had not shown his reaction when they spoke of the Di Matteo males, the sort of family they had been, and the way they treated their spouses and daughters.

He had heard enough to enrage him, and aye, to inspire disgust. Although many such Lords, and knights were brutal and abusive. With his own knights, the Count was apparently ruthless, a tyrant, disliked and mistrusted. A powerful family in that country. Ronan was not surprised at any corruption, inward or outward. Moreover, there were tales of Sefare’s missing brother that troubled Ronan—the half-Arab brother whom the knights had heard the Count call a Saracen bastard. Though many who returned from Holy wars and lands filled with Turks and Arabs and Egyptians had sailed to England leaving bastards behind, or bringing slaves—or soldiers, with them, who wished to live here. Men like the di Matteo Count considered themselves Christians, killing devils in that land. They would never understand Sefare’s father claiming a concubine’s son. Nor even would he approve of Illara’s Egyptian mother, Ronan realized.

Apparently, Sefare’s sire had fathered the boy on his first trip to the Holy land. When he wed some years later to Sefare’s mother, who was the daughter of his best knight, the wife did not object to the lad who was already in his army, and who was already claimed as Lord Oldof’s.

The Lord’s ancestors were a mixture of Norsemen and muddled up with Jewish and Arab traders back through time. He was fierce and feared enough, impressive enough in battle, to do as he pleased and be damned with opinion.

Having ridden with Lord John of Thresford, Ronan and Pagan had likely joined on the battlefield with Oldof’s army. However, there were many fierce and impressive men there; he could not remember them all.

There were hints among Sefare’s knights that Oldof had lived to regret giving his young daughter to the Count—but that he had died in battle, the wife in fever on her way back to England… and could only swear his son to see if tales of the Count’s cruelty were true. There was evidence that Mshai had made it to England, had contacted her, and hired out his sword to an overlord. Nevertheless, there was something foul in his sudden disappearance…

However, it was not those tales that kept Ronan without sleep the night before—

He turned and entered the castle, going through massive oak and iron doors, and then poised a moment in a great hall that was yawning. He had lived this much of his manhood with reality—somewhere in the back of his mind was a reflection of a comely unscarred lad that always stared in horror and fought against what he now was. He had lived too long with bitterness and vengeance kindling that fire in his guts. He did not want or need the kind of healing that Ualtar alluded to.

Ronan pulled off his gauntlets, unbuckling his breastplate and slipping it over his head, exposing the mail linen, and leather, under it. Each layer was as if his real skin now, used to hardness and fearful stares aye, he desired that. It served his purpose. He would not bare himself in any manner. Illara was the exception, having seen his face, she was unique, handsome enough, but not beautiful. Not like….his wife.

“My Lord.”

He turned and spied one of the young lads he had collected while passing through an impoverished village. Tall and lanky, dressed in leather breeches, boots, and a homespun hooded shirt, the boy had a squarish face, light brown eyes and long hair of similar hue.

“I was sent, by the Celt. To assist you. If it pleases you, milord.”

Ronan nodded and the boy, for all his leanness took the breastplate without grunting under its weight. Ronan stood still as he unlatched the rest of his armor.

“I’ll see it cleaned if you’ll show me the chambers. And I’m to see to your trunks and wardrobe… whatever you require, milord.”

Ronan had no idea where his chambers would be. He turned and took the thick stairs, emerging in the first arched hallway.

“There, you may take that room.” He pointed absently, and after the lad entered, moved on, at last seeing what was a divided solar.

The section he entered had a massive hearth, a scattering of chairs and trunks, a table of sorts with leather and wood chair at the head. There was a long copper tub slid under the dripping spout sticking from the wall. He went toward it but turned back to light some of the thick candles in the room, feeling secure, because the other arch was blocked by an oak door with the long wooden barrier in its slot, to lock it from this side.

Elongated windows, high and shuttered, lined the left wall. He pushed one open, hearing the squawk and squalls as Chickens and pigs were unloaded. He could hear horses and Ualtar’s voice shouting direction and orders. In the morning, men would hunt in order to feed themselves and the household.

Ronan turned and went back to the tub, testing the spigot to see if it worked. After sputtering air, it began to gush the rainwater caught and contained, that was its source. It was ancient compared to Dunnewicke and the water not filtered for debris.

He did not intend to call the old fortress home. He had only kept it for the land, the forest, its timbers and nuts, roes and fowl, the beasts that would bring both food and monies. He had sent her here because of the reputation of the ancient castle and its violent history, the indestructible walls—aye, its ghosts. Few would care to either enter its walls, or challenge the inhabitants.

He sat on a rough, wide, stool beside the bed, and began unstrapping his boots, which were crisscrossed with studded ties. Had he kept Beroun with him, instead of leaving him to serve Pagan, he would have hot water and wine already, but he was aware of the luxury of having any water at all in a castle this old.

It would do until word reached the uncle of her marriage, and of her forfeiting her endowment to Guardi. If that was what the Uncle desired, then it would suffice. If the man was like his brother—her dead husband—Ronan doubted it would. She had defied him, frustrated his plans, and escaped his punishments. He was all too personally aware that men did not like to be deprived of exercising their power and cruelty.

While he removed the mail shirt and was down to linen blouse and leather breeches, the lad, whom was called Daykin entered, directing two younger lads with his trunks. After collecting the mesh, the boy laid out another linen shirt, clean leather breeches and without Ronan telling him to, the fingerless gloves and softer mask, his cloak. Ronan surmised that Ualtar had instructed him on his preferences.

The boy laid out comb and linen, brought toweling, soap, and wordlessly laid a fire.

“My thanks,” Ronan called as the lad was leaving.