Enchanted
Authors: Elizabeth Lowell
In the British Isles of the
eleventh century, honor and loyalty weren’t merely virtues;
they were a matter of life and death. The more I thought about this
simple fact, the more I wondered what a loyal man would do when
faced with choosing between a terrible insult to his honor and his
loyalty to his lord Dominic.
Simon had learned the bitter
lesson of loyalty, life, and death in the First Crusade. He had
learned it so well he was called Simon the Loyal, and his loyalty
was to his brother (and his lord) Dominic. When his brother faced
war in the Disputed Lands over a vassal’s broken engagement,
Simon stepped forward to marry the jilted lady.
Ariane was a lady with secrets
as dark as her midnight hair, as dark as her songs. A woman
betrayed. A woman without hope. A woman who no longer believed in
anything, especially love. No longer a virgin, she had been sent by
her father as a living insult to her future husband’s honor.
She expected to die when Simon discovered the truth.
She didn’t expect to
find herself drawn so intensely to Simon,
enchanted
by a man whose loyalty was to his
brother. A loyalty so great that he swallowed the insult to his
honor, kept his non-virgin bride, and the peace of the land.
And then he learned there
would be no peace unless loyalty and honor, were joined by
something magical—love.
Lowell
ENCHANTED
for
DEBBY TOBIAS
first class all the way
“Which will it be,” Ariane
whispered to herself, “a wedding…
The teasing words of the newlyweds
filled the taut silence…
Melancholy, subtly clashing chords
quivered through Ariane’s corner room. Although…
A brazier sent warmth and a small bit
of fragrant…
Between shouts of wind and bursts of
icy rain, the…
The marriage toasts from the assembled
knights grew more and…
If I cut my throat, how can I be
certain…
Simon watched while his wary bride
approached him. The hand…
Dominic swept aside the last scraps of
the previous night’s…
“’Tis a beautiful day,
lady,” Blanche said. “Almost worth the…
When Cassandra came into the great
hall a short time…
Brightly colored fleets of leaves
sailed toward the distant sea…
As soon as Ariane heard Simon’s
warning shout, she hauled…
“’Tis like an oiled
eel,” Meg muttered, turning to Cassandra.
Cool water soothed Ariane’s dry
lips and poured gently over…
For nine days Simon had been tending
Ariane as though…
Warily Simon eyed the pot of fresh
balm Cassandra was…
The cobblestones in the bailey of
Stone Ring Keep were…
Thunder leaped down from the peaks and
through the glen…
The possibility that Ariane might
actually have shared his dream…
The lord’s solar in Blackthorne
Keep was spacious and luxurious.
Dominic flashed a silvery glance at
Meg, who shook her…
For the rest of the day Ariane sat in
her…
Sensing someone coming up behind him,
Simon looked away from…
Ariane got up from the supper table
and went to…
The candle died in the fierce wind
that howled around…
“Horsemen!” cried the
sentry.
No sooner had Erik and Duncan arrived
than sleet began…
“My lady?” asked
Blanche.
Silently the four warriors watched
Baron Deguerre ride up to…
Long after Baron Deguerre had been
settled in the lord’s…
“Vanished?” Simon
demanded. “What do you mean she has vanished?”
Simon and Erik rode as though pursued
by demons, but…
Baron Deguerre stood at
Blackthorne’s moat bridge and saw the…
Autumn in the reign
of King Henry I
.
Stone Ring Keep, home of Lord Duncan and Lady
Amber, in the Disputed Lands at the northern reaches of Norman
England
.
“W
hich will it be,”
Ariane whispered to herself, “a wedding or a wake?”
Ariane stared at the dagger in her hands, but no
answer came to her save that of candlelight running like silver
blood over the blade. As she looked at the ghostly blood, the
question rang again within the silence of her mind.
A wedding or a
wake
?
The answer that finally came was no comfort to
Ariane.
It matters not. They are but
different words for the same thing
.
Beyond Stone Ring Keep’s high walls, the wind
wailed of coming winter.
Ariane didn’t hear the mournful cry. She
heard nothing but echoes of the past, when her mother had pressed
the jeweled dagger into her daughter’s small hands.
In her mind Ariane could still see the dark flash
of amethysts and feel the cold weight of silver. Her mother’s
words had been even more chilling.
Hell has no punishment greater
than a cruel marriage bed. Use this rather than lie beneath a man
you do not love
.
Unfortunately, Ariane’s mother had not lived
long enough to tell her daughter how to use the weapon, or
upon whom. Whose wake should it be, the groom’s
or bride’s?
Should I kill myself or should
I kill Simon, whose only crime is to agree to marry me out of
loyalty to his brother, Lord Dominic of Blackthorne
Keep
?
Loyalty
.
A yearning tremor went through Ariane, making the
rich cream and russet of her tunic quiver as though alive.
Dear God, to be so blessed as
to know that kind of fidelity from my family
!
Dark nightmare turned, threatening to break through
the wall Ariane had built against it. Grimly she shifted her
thoughts from the night she had been betrayed first by Geoffrey the
Fair and then by her own father.
The blade of the dagger bit delicately into
Ariane’s hand, telling her that she was holding the weapon
too tightly. Distantly she wondered what it would feel like when
the dagger bit far more deeply into her flesh.
Certainly it could be no worse than her
nightmares.
“Ariane, have you seen my—oh, what a
lovely dagger,” Amber said, spotting the quicksilver gleam as
she walked into the room. “’Tis as finely made as any
brooch.”
The voice startled Ariane out of her grim reverie.
Taking a slow, hidden breath, she loosened her grip on the jeweled
dagger and looked toward the young woman whose golden outer tunic
highlighted the color of her eyes and hair.
“It was my mother’s dagger,”
Ariane said to Amber.
“Such extraordinary amethysts. They are the
exact color of your eyes. Were hers violet, too?”
“Yes.”
Ariane said no more.
“And your thoughts,” Amber continued
matter-of-factly, “are the exact color of your hair. The
darkest part of night.”
Ariane’s breath caught. Warily she eyed the
Learned
lady of Stone Ring Keep, who could
discern truth simply by touching someone.
Yet Amber wasn’t touching Ariane now.
“I don’t have to touch you,”
Amber said, guessing the other girl’s thoughts. “The
darkness is in your eyes. And in your heart.”
“I feel nothing.”
“Ah, but you do. Your emotions are a wound
that has been concealed rather than healed.”
“Are they?” Ariane asked
indifferently.
“Aye,” Amber said. “I felt it
when I touched you the first time. Surely you must feel it
too.”
“Only when I sleep.”
Ariane slid the dagger back into its sheath at her
waist and reached for the lap harp that once had been her joy. Now
it was her consolation. The dark, graceful curves of the wood were
inlaid with silver, mother-of-pearl and carnelian in the form of a
flowering vine.
But it wasn’t the harp’s elegance that
lured Ariane. It was the instrument’s voice. Her long fingers
moved, calling from the strings a chord that was in eerie harmony
with the storm wind, a wildness that was barely contained.
Concealed, not
healed
.
Hearing the harp speak for the silent harpist,
Amber wanted to protest the combination of fear and rage and grief
that burned just beneath the Norman girl’s calm surface.
“You have nothing to dread from becoming
Simon’s wife,” Amber said, her voice urgent. “He
is a man of intense passion, but it is always
disciplined.”
For an instant Ariane’s fingers paused. Then
she nodded slowly. Gradually the sounds she drew from the harp
became less wild.
“Aye,” Ariane said in a low voice.
“He has been gentle enough with me.”
Much gentler than he will be
when he discovers that his wife is no maiden
.
Wars have begun over lesser
insults. Men have killed. Women have died
.
The last thought held a dark allure for Ariane. It
whispered of an escape from the brutal trap of pain and betrayal
that life had become.
“Simon is strong of body and fair of
face,” Amber added, “with a quickness to put the
keep’s cats to shame.”
Ariane’s fingers hesitated. After a moment
she murmured, “His eyes are very…dark.”
“’Tis only that sun-colored hair of his
that makes his eyes seem so black,” Amber said instantly.
Ariane shook her head. “It is more than
that.”
Hesitating, sighing, Amber agreed.
“’Tis the same with many of the men who
came back from the Saracen battles,” she admitted.
“They returned less light of heart.”
A minor chord quivered in the silence.
“Simon mistrusts me,” Ariane said.
“You?” Amber laughed without humor.
“He trusts you enough to show you his back. I am the one he
mistrusts. In the silence of his heart, Simon calls me
hell-witch.”
Surprise lightened the bleak violet of
Ariane’s eyes for a moment.
“If it helps,” Amber said dryly,
“your own eyes, for all their fey beauty, are as remote as a
Druid moon.”
“Should that comfort me?”
“Can anything comfort you?”
Ariane’s fingers paused in their delicate
stroking of the harp as she considered the question. Then her
fingers struck like snow falcons, ripping a harsh sound from the
strings.
“Why does he call you hell-witch?”
Ariane asked after a moment.
Before Amber could answer, a deep male voice spoke
behind her, answering Ariane’s question.
“Because,” Simon said, “I thought
she had stolen Duncan’s mind.”
Both women turned and saw Simon standing at the
entrance to the small corner chamber that had been turned over to
Ariane for the length of her stay at Stone Ring Keep. Ariane
didn’t expect the visit to be long; all that held Lord
Dominic of Blackthorne Keep here was his determination to see
Ariane wed to one of his loyal men before anything else could go
awry.
Simon was the second groom chosen for the Baron
Deguerre’s daughter. Though Ariane had never been drawn to
her first fiancé—Duncan—in any way at all, just
seeing Simon sent odd currents through Ariane. He filled the
doorway with little left over. Because most people first saw him
standing next to his brother Dominic, or to Amber’s even
larger husband Duncan, Simon’s size often passed without
particular comment, as did the width of his shoulders.
Yet Ariane noticed everything about Simon, and had
from the first instant he had strode up to her at Blackthorne Keep
and told her to prepare for a hard ride to Stone Ring Keep. She had
been vividly aware of Simon’s quickness and grace, and of his
supple, powerful body. His eyes had burned like black fire with the
force of his intelligence and will.
And sometimes, if Ariane turned to him
unexpectedly, she had seen Simon’s eyes burning with an
intense sensual heat. He desired her.
She had waited in dread for him to force that
desire upon her. Yet he had not. He had been unfailingly civil,
treating her with a courtesy and disciplined restraint that she
found as reassuring as it was…alluring.
Simon could have been standing in a forest of
giants and he would have towered over them in Ariane’s sight.
There was something about the feline quickness and male elegance of
Simon’s body that in her eyes overshadowed men more
brawny.
Or perhaps it was simply that he had been kind to
her in his own sardonic way. The ride from Blackthorne Keep, where
she had just arrived from Normandy, to
Stone Ring
Keep had been hard indeed. Blackthorne Keep was in the far north of
England, on the edge of the Disputed Lands where Norman and Saxon
still fought over estates.
Stone Ring Keep was still farther north, in the
very heart of the lands where Normans claimed estates and Saxons
held those same estates by force of arms. The Battle of Hastings
had been won more than a generation ago by the Normans, yet the
Saxons were far from subdued.
“It seems,” Simon said as he walked
into the room, “I was wrong about Amber. It was only
Duncan’s heart that she had stolen. A far more trifling
matter than a mind, surely.”
The Learned girl refused to rise to the deftly
presented bait, though the amber pendant she wore between her
breasts shimmered with secret laughter.
Simon’s smile warmed.
“I no longer think of you as the
devil’s tool,” he said to Amber. “Will you ever
forgive me for making you faint with pain and fear?”
“Sooner than you will forgive all women for
whatever one woman did to you,” Amber said.
The room became so silent that the leap of flame in
the brazier sounded loud. When Simon spoke again, there was no
warmth in his voice or his smile.
“Poor Duncan,” Simon said distinctly.
“He will have no secrets from his witch-wife.”
“He will need none,” Duncan said from
behind Simon.
On hearing Duncan’s voice, Amber spun toward
the doorway, glowing as though lit from within.
Ariane stared. In the seven-day she had been at
Stone Ring Keep, she had yet to become accustomed to the sheer joy
Amber took in her new husband. Duncan’s joy was no less, a
fact that was simply beyond Ariane’s comprehension.
When Amber rushed across the room, holding out her
hands to Duncan, Simon gave Ariane a wry sidelong
glance. The look told her that he was as bemused as she was by
Duncan and Amber.
The moment of silent, shared understanding was both
warming and disconcerting to Ariane. It made her want to trust
Simon.
Fool
, Ariane told
herself coldly.
The smile is but a charming
ruse to make you more at ease, so that you won’t fight the
brutal coils of marital duty
.
“I thought you were going to take all morning
listening to the serfs’ complaints,” Amber said to
Duncan.
“So did I.” Duncan gathered
Amber’s hands in his much larger ones. “But Erik took
pity on me and sent the wolfhounds in to lounge by the
fire.”
“Stagkiller, too?” she asked, for her
brother was rarely without his canine shadow.
“Mmm,” Duncan agreed. He kissed
Amber’s fingertips and tickled her palms with his mustache.
“Shortly afterward, everyone left.”
Simon smothered a laugh.
The serfs revered Amber’s brother Erik, the
former lord of Stone Ring Keep, but they were distinctly wary of
the Learned man’s animals. More than one tenant and cotter
had been overheard thanking God that the new lord of Stone Ring
Keep was a brawny warrior not given to ancient ways, Learned
teachings, and animals more clever by half than common folks.
“I shall miss your brother when he goes back
to Sea Home Keep,” Duncan said.
“My brother or his hounds?” Amber
asked, smiling.
“Both. Perhaps Erik could leave us a
few.”
“Large ones?”
“Does he have any other kind?” Duncan
retorted. “Stagkiller is nearly as tall at the shoulder as my
war stallion.”
Laughing, shaking her head at the exaggeration,
Amber brushed her cheek against one of Duncan’s
battle-scarred hands.
Ariane watched the newly married couple as a
hunting falcon would watch an unexpected movement on the ground far
below its wings. The words the lovers spoke were unimportant; it
was the way each looked at the other, the touches they shared, the
heightened awareness that flowed between them like an invisible
river between opposite shores.
“Baffling, isn’t it?” Simon asked
softly.
He had moved so close to Ariane that his breath
stirred the hair at the nape of her neck.
Too close.
“What?” Ariane asked, startled.
It took all of her courage not to draw away as she
looked into Simon’s clear midnight eyes. But retreat would do
no good. Nor would pleas to be left alone.
Geoffrey had taught her that, and much else that
she had buried behind walls of pain and betrayal.
“’Tis baffling,” Simon explained,
“how a formidable warrior such as the Scots Hammer becomes as
river clay in a girl’s hands.”
“I would say rather the reverse,”
Ariane muttered, “that it is the amber witch who is the clay
and he the strong hands molding it.”
Simon’s blond eyebrows rose in silent
surprise. He turned and looked at Duncan and Amber for a few
moments.
“You have a point,” Simon agreed.
“Her eyes are as lovestruck as his. Or is it
dumbstruck?”
When Simon turned back to Ariane, he bent over her
once more, ensuring the privacy of their conversation. Before
Ariane could stop herself, she pulled away. She covered the action
by pretending to see to the tuning of her harp.
Simon wasn’t fooled. His black eyes narrowed
and he straightened swiftly. While he didn’t consider himself
as handsome as Erik—and certainly not as wealthy in land or
goods—Simon was not accustomed to having a woman withdraw
from him as though he were unclean.