The Longing (45 page)

It was said lightly and with fondness for which Susanna was grateful. When she had told Annyn that she wished Sir Rowan to present her at her wedding, the pronouncement had not been received with the enthusiasm of one soon to be reunited with a dear friend, but with weighty hesitation. But the lady had said it would be done, and the awkwardness with which Sir Rowan and she had first greeted one another had resolved over the past few days. There was a tale there, but Susanna knew it was not hers. She was only glad its ending—perhaps better called a new beginning—found Sir Rowan and Annyn once more easy in each other’s company.

Lady Isobel sighed. “I am sure Jonas strains his ears to hear Sir Rowan’s story.”

“Indeed.” Annyn raised her eyebrows at Susanna. “As I believe you have discovered, my children are not fond of sleep. But be forewarned, ’tis not an uncommon trait among the Wulfriths.”

Susanna hoped there would be such a day when the trait passed to her own children.

“Will you dance with me, Wife?” Everard’s voice tickled her ear.

She looked around and found his face so near hers that, were they alone, she would have drawn nearer and closed her eyes so she could feel his kiss all the way through. “I will.”

He moved his hand from her back to her arm and guided her among the gathering to the floor where celebrants danced to the sedate but joyous melody birthed by the musicians in the gallery above.

“Sweet woodruff,” he murmured as he drew her into his arms.

She had worn the pendant for her wedding day, this time on the outside of her bodice, and the petals and leaves wafted their lovely fragrance between them.

“I am happy,” she said, “as I never thought to be.”

He touched his lips to her brow. “As am I.”

“I fear you will miss Wulfen.”

“I shall, but you I would miss more if I did not loosen my hold upon my lordship, and there is much to be done at Cheverel to ensure it is fit for the baron our nephew will become.”

Our
nephew. There could be no sweeter tears than those that filled Susanna’s eyes. Everard would remain the Lord of Wulfen, but it had been decided amongst the brothers that until Judas assumed his title in full, the duties of training young men into knights would be divided among the three of them. Everard would preside over Wulfen during spring and autumn, Garr would take winter, and summer would fall to Abel. All that remained to be settled was Annyn’s proposal that wives be permitted to discreetly visit their husbands in their seasons. At first, the Wulfrith men had rejected the idea, but Annyn had proven persuasive enough that it remained under consideration.

“Have you thought any further on Lady Annyn’s proposal?” Susanna asked as her husband guided her over the floor.

He raised an eyebrow. “Have she and Lady Helene tasked you with prodding me whilst I am at my weakest?”

“Weakest?” She smiled. “Can such a word be applied to a Wulfrith?”

“Certainly on his wedding day that much too slowly approaches his wedding night.”

Though Susanna felt the pink in her cheeks, she also felt bold. “Then for this, women ought to be allowed within Wulfen’s walls.”

He laughed. “You may be right, dear Susanna.” He drew her closer and she laid her cheek on his shoulder. As he moved her, she saw they were no longer the only Wulfriths in one another’s arms. There was Garr with his Annyn and Michael his Beatrix. And when Everard turned her, she saw Christian with his Gaenor and Abel his Helene.

I am part of this. This is my family. So like a dream…

She drew back, met her husband’s gaze, and slid her fingers into hair that was nearly as golden as Beatrix’s. “Are you truly mine, Everard?”

He lowered his face near hers. “My beloved is mine.” He lightly kissed her. “And I am hers. Now and ever.”

Dear Reader,

And so we come to the end of our tale, the fifth and final book in the Age of Faith series— Well, maybe. Though our lingering hero, Sir Durand, has yet to entrust me with his story, I do believe there’s one in the future and have even glimpsed a shipwreck, soaring chalk cliffs, our hero washed ashore, and a heroine who is so different from his beloved Lady Beatrix that he won’t see her coming. So maybe there is more to the Wulfrith story. Not that Durand is a Wulfrith, but pretty close, hmm?

Coming up next, a rewrite of the second of my earlier award-winning medieval romances—the 1994 Bantam Books release,
Virgin Bride
, retitled
Lady Of Eve,
sequel to
Lady At Arms.
Though infused with inspirational elements that naturally fit into any tale set during what has been called the Age of Faith,
Lady Of Eve
falls more into the “clean read” than the “inspirational” category. For a look at the fabulous new cover, visit:
www.tamaraleigh.com
. For a peek at what’s inside, this book includes an excerpt.

I’m so glad you joined me on my
Age of Faith
journey. May you be blessed with hours of inspiring, happily-ever-after reading.

TAMARA LEIGH

P/S: If you enjoyed THE LONGING, would you consider posting a review at your retailer, even if only a sentence or two? Thank you!

EXCERPT

LADY OF EVE

A “Clean Read” rewrite of the 1994 bestselling

Virgin Bride
from Bantam Books

Available Summer 2014

CHAPTER ONE

Arlecy Abbey, England

Early Autumn, 1156

Of what benefit was it to be a vision in virginal white if one’s groom was not of one’s choosing? 

Hoping to calm her racing heart, Lady Graeye Charwyck lifted a hand and pressed it between her breasts. She loved the Lord, but she did not believe He was any more pleased to have her as His bride than she was to have Him as her groom. If it was true what she had been taught, He knew her heart. He knew she did not want this. He knew there was no worth—nothing precious—in vows grudgingly given.

“Dear Lord,” she breathed and bowed her head to stare at the toes of her shoes peeking from beneath the skirts of her bridal habit.

“Be still!” the novice mistress reprimanded, her deep voice jolting her charge’s slender frame.

Graeye lifted her head, stiffened her spine with well-learned obedience, and sighed—a lack of deference for which she immediately repented. Though not of late, she had more than once felt the sting of Mistress Hermana’s strap, for that part of her spirit which had not been broken picked the most inopportune times to declare that this life was not of her choosing. Of the three vows she was about to take, she knew obedience would be the most difficult to keep.

Digging her short nails into her palms, she slid her gaze up the black-clad woman. She need not have gone farther than that square, unmoving chin to know of the novice mistress’s displeasure, but she did.

With a snort of disapproval, Hermana reached forward and tugged on the wimple where it passed beneath Graeye’s chin up to the stiffened band around her forehead.

Heart sinking further, Graeye lowered her eyes and forced herself to be still. Over the years, she had become painfully accustomed to such ministrations—a vain attempt to conceal the faint stain marring the left side of her face. Starting just shy of her eyebrow, the mark faded back into the hairline at her temple. Though it was not very large or conspicuous, it might as well have covered her entire face.

The mark of the devil, Hermana often pointed out. Always, the devil in Graeye was responsible for the trouble she got herself into. What might otherwise have been viewed as simple, childish pranks or the foolishness of youth, the superstitious woman attributed to evil. When the other novices skipped matins or devised tricks against one another, their punishment was a verbal reprimand and prayers of repentance. For Graeye, it was that and more—a strap across the back, hours on her knees scrubbing floors and pulling weeds, and, always, humiliation before her peers.

Though she did not believe the devil was responsible for her penchant for trouble, she knew well the curse her physical flaw afforded. It was, after all, the shape of her destiny thus far.

Her father, unable to bear the sight of her any longer, had dedicated her to the Church when she was seven, only days following her mother’s death. The handsome dowry he had provided the convent at Arlecy had ensured her acceptance no matter what mark she bore. And no matter her own feelings. Now she was to wed—not to a mortal as she might have wished, but to the Church.

On this, the day of her Clothing, she would become a nun, her profession made, hair sheared, a black habit her only garment. It burdened her, but still there was a blessing in it, for her passing into sisterhood would finally free her from Hermana’s dominance. Though the woman was not a nun, for she had once been wed and her chastity forever lost, she had held the esteemed position of novice mistress for as long as Graeye could remember.

Now Graeye would have a kinder master to serve—the Lord.

If only I could rejoice in that and be content…

When the faint sound of music from within the chapel indicated the commencement of the ceremony, Hermana snapped, “Eyes forward!”

Graeye began a mental recitation of her prayers—not those devised for a novice preparing to take the veil, but her own pleading that she be freed from this obligation.

Minutes later, the large oaken doors to the chapel groaned inward.

Squaring her shoulders, Graeye pressed her bouquet to her abdomen, gripping it so tightly her fingers crushed the delicate stems and leaves. But though she commanded her legs to take that first, fateful step forward, she could not.

Hermana had the solution. She always did, in this instance, a sharp nudge that would likely leave a bruise.

“Halt!” The command sliced the cool morning air.

As if joined, Graeye and Hermana whirled around to search out the intruder.

Though the half-dozen knights who emerged from between two of the outlying buildings came disarmed, as was the only permissible entrance to this holy place, a small group of clergy were vainly trying to halt their advance.

“You dare enter consecrated ground without permission?” Hermana demanded as she hurried forward to place herself in the intruders’ path.

“Forgive us,” a tall, thin knight said, though he sounded less than repentant. He withdrew a rolled parchment from his belt and handed it to the novice mistress. “I carry an urgent message from Baron Edward Charwyck.”

Graeye sucked in a breath. A message from her father? Had her letter of appeal brought a change of heart? Biting her inner lip so hard she tasted blood, she watched as Hermana turned to put the sun at her back to better read the missive.

The woman’s thick eyebrows drew closer, ever closer. Then she lifted her eyes to stare over the top of the parchment at her charge.

Suppressing the desire to wrap her arms around herself, Graeye shifted her gaze to the right. There, a young, fair-headed knight stood beside the messenger, eyes intent upon her. She lifted a hand to the wimple, ensuring the mark remained covered.

The crackle of parchment broke the silence, then Hermana traversed the stone walkway and ascended the steps to the chapel. The abbess stood at the top, having come outside to discover the cause for the delay.

The exchange between the two women was hushed. While the abbess, a woman Graeye regarded with affection, listened, the other began to gesticulate wildly. The abbess raised a hand to quiet Hermana, took the parchment, and examined it. Shortly, more words were spoken and the novice mistress descended the steps.

Venturing a look past the stern-faced woman approaching her, Graeye was startled by the abbess’s serene countenance. Though she could not be certain, she thought the woman’s mouth curved toward a smile.

When Hermana stopped before her, Graeye met her gaze.

“’Tis your brother, Philip,” the woman began, her voice strained as if weighted by emotion. “He is deceased.” As the words passed her thin, colorless lips, she crossed herself.

Graeye could only stare. Then, remembering herself, she also made the sign of the cross.

Philip dead. There was an odd fluttering in her chest, but she felt little else.

Contrite over her lack of deep emotion, she offered up a silent explanation for her un-Christian reaction. She had hardly known her half sibling, for he had been quite a bit older than she, and her few remembrances of him were seeped in pain.

She had seen little of Philip while he had been in training, first as a page, then a squire, at a neighboring barony. However, she had seen enough to dislike the loud, foul-mouthed boy with whom she shared a father. He had taunted her about her “devil’s mark” and played cruel pranks on her when he caught her out from behind her mother’s skirts.

God forgive her, but she could not mourn one whose memory dredged up old pain, and whom she had not seen for nigh on eleven years. He was a stranger, and now would forever remain one. Still, she would pray for his soul.

“Your father has requested you attend him so that your brother might be given a proper burial,” Hermana went on, her voice choked, eyes moist.

Graeye wondered at the woman’s peculiar behavior. She had never known Hermana capable of any deep emotion other than anger and displeasure.

“And as you are now his only hope for a male heir,” she continued, “’tis not likely you will return to us.”

Leave Arlecy? Forever? Graeye’s heart swelled as she stared into that wizened face, her hand reflexively opening to release the ravaged bouquet. With a soft rustle, it dropped to the cold stones.

My prayers have been answered. I am freed.

In the next instant, she suppressed the smile that tried to bend her mouth into a shape with which it was mostly unaccustomed. Why had God waited until the last moment to grant her desires? Had He been testing her? Had He—?