The Rose Red Bride JK2 (44 page)

“What is it? I think you know,” Mairi accused with childish conviction.

Erik smiled. “I think I do.” He picked up his daughter, holding the fairy gem fast in his hand. “Let us get Astrid, and go to Vivienne, and she will tell us a tale.”

“Is it the tale about Thomas the Rhymer?”

Erik smiled, for his daughters already pestered Vivienne to recount that tale again and again. “Nay, not that one.”

“Is it a tale about the red drop?”

“It is that and more.” He tapped Mairi’s nose with a fingertip. “And if you are very good and listen very intently, it may well be that this magic stone - for that is what it is - will do something very special.”

“As a gift for me?”

“As a gift for all of us, and a reminder that there is much we cannot see or explain.”

In moments, they were all together in the chamber he and Vivienne had shared, the girls tucked into Vivienne’s fur-lined cloak and their expressions expectant. Erik laid the gem upon the floor before them and pulled all three of them into his embrace. Vivienne laid her head upon his shoulder, her smile telling him that she too had guessed the import of the gem.

“Once upon a time, there was a distant keep known as Kinfairlie,” she began. “And that keep was burned to the ground. It was rebuilt by the Laird of Ravensmuir, a tall and handsome man whose wife was the sole surviving descendant of Kinfairlie, and he had her legacy rebuilt, it is said, merely to see her smile.”

“A nice man,” Mairi said, nestling deeper into the cloak.

“A kindly man indeed,” Vivienne agreed, sharing a smile with Erik. He watched his daughters, knowing that Vivienne already held them in thrall with her tales, and knowing that they would come to think of her as their true mother in little time. He leaned back and watched the red gem, which had already begun to sprout another petal.

“Kinfairlie had a castellan to mind its halls and storerooms while the laird and lady were not there, a castellan who held the keys to every door in the keep,” Vivienne continued. “And that castellan had both a wife and a daughter, a beautiful daughter, a daughter who loved to play in the castle. As it was newly built and it was assumed that she could find no trouble within its walls - and truly, it must be said, because she had more than a measure of persuasive charm - she was allowed to go wheresoever she would within Kinfairlie’s walls.”

The red gem already had a greater resemblance to a bud, though the bud was yet small. Erik saw that his daughters’ eyes were closing, that Vivienne concentrated on the telling of her tale, and he savored the promise of their surprise.

The gem fattened, as a bud will before it opens.

“But what the castellan and his wife did not know was that there was an old tale about Kinfairlie, a rumor that Kinfairlie was a portal between the realms of fairy and that of men,” Vivienne said and both girls opened their eyes at that to regard her with awe. “Further, it had been known to happen that a fairy suitor spied a mortal lass through that portal and lost his heart utterly with a single glance. It was said in the village that such fairy men courted their mortal sweethearts for three nights, then captured them forevermore, leaving a bride price of a single red red rose wrought of ice.”

* * *

So they passed a good portion of the morning, the sunlight playing upon the hair of Erik’s wife and his daughters, Vivienne’s tale holding them ensnared within a cocoon of myth.

And when the last word of the tale had crossed Vivienne’s lips, Erik indicated the gem with a single gesture. He savored the wonderment of his three companions, for they had been so enthralled with the tale that they had not noted its transformation.

The gem had become a red red rose, one so cold that it might have been wrought of ice, and when Vivienne lifted it in marvel, Erik saw the glimmering puddle it left upon the floor.

“You brought me this,” Vivienne said, her smile all the thanks that he could ever need.

“Your bride price,” Erik said, his words uncommonly hoarse. “Though I am no fairy suitor, and I would offer you more than three nights of courtship.”

Vivienne laughed. “The rose tells no lie, all the same. We are destined lovers...”

“And our paths entwined forevermore,” Erik agreed, just before he claimed Vivienne’s lips with a kiss.

For that was a good portent indeed.

* * *

Ready for more of the Jewels of Kinfairlie?

Read on for a taste of

THE SNOW WHITE BRIDE,

the third book in

the Jewels of Kinfairlie trilogy.

* * *

Excerpt of THE SNOW WHITE BRIDE ©2005, 2011 Claire Delacroix, Inc.

Kinfairlie, Scotland - December 24, 1421

The snow was falling fast and thick, the starless sky was darker than indigo, and it was well past midnight when Eleanor knew that she could flee no further. The small village that rose before her seemed heaven-sent: it was devoid of tall walls and barred gates. She did not believe that it truly could be this peaceful anywhere in Christendom, but the town’s tranquility was seductive all the same.

She did not know its name and she did not care. She spied the church and decided immediately that this sleeping town, with its quiet surety that the world was good, would be the place she chose to rest.

The night would not last much longer, for darkness already gave way to dawn’s light. Eleanor did not know where she would go from here, but knew she could make no decision when she was so exhausted.

The church portal was unlocked, and Eleanor sighed with relief as one last fear was proven groundless. She stepped into its embracing shadows and let the door close heavily behind her. She waited, half-expecting the illusion of tranquility to be shattered, but only silence reached her ears. She stood on the threshold and inhaled deeply of the scent of beeswax candles, the air of prayer and devotion, the aura of a holy place.

Sanctuary.

There was a single small glass pane over the altar, and the light cast by the snow illuminated it and the chapel’s bare interior. It was a humble church, to be sure, for she could see its emptiness even in the shadows. The altar was devoid of chalice and monstrance, evidence that even this community believed that treasures should be locked away.

Eleanor spied the bench near the altar, perhaps one used by the priest, and eased herself onto it. She sat down and stopped running for the first time in what seemed an eternity.

Then she listened, fearing the worst.

There was no sound at all beyond the pounding of her heart. No hoof beats echoed in pursuit. No hounds bayed as they found her scent. No men shouted that they had spied her footprints.

The rapidly falling snow might prove a blessing, for it would quickly hide her path and disguise her scent. She sat, intending to wait the necessary interval until she knew that she was safe.

Eleanor felt every ache in her exhausted body, and she realized only now how cold she had become. She could not feel her fingertips, so she crossed her arms and pressed her hands into her underarms. She supposed that her belly must be empty, but she was too numb to be certain. She had a keen thirst, to be sure.

Had it only been three days and nights since everything had changed, and changed irrevocably? She shied away from considering what would happen to her now, was too tired to speculate beyond the nigh impossible goal of escape.

Instead, she sat and marveled that she could hear only the faint roll of the sea. It was a gentle sound, its effect not unlike a lullaby. Was it possible that Ewen’s kin had abandoned the hunt for her?

Eleanor could not believe as much. She sat vigilant and she listened, but slowly, she began to feel warmer. That warmth betrayed her, undermined her resolve to remain awake, coaxed her to succumb to exhaustion. She fought against slumber, but she had endured too much of late. It was not long before she gathered her booted feet beneath her, wrapped her ermine-lined cloak more tightly about herself, and dared to consider sleeping for the first time since Ewen had died.

Although she murmured a prayer, Eleanor did not pray for her husband’s recently departed soul. She knew that Ewen was lost beyond redemption, she knew that he roasted in hell.

Worst of all, Eleanor knew that, deep in her heart, she was glad. She was also sufficiently wicked to believe that he deserved no less.

With the dawn, she would begin to atone for her sins of thought and deed. In this moment, she managed only to draw her hood over her hair before her eyes closed and she welcomed the bliss of sleep.

* * *

The first morning services in Kinfairlie’s chapel were attended mostly by the women, both from the keep and from the village, and though it was the day of Christmas Eve, this morning was no different.

Madeline arrived with her sisters: Vivienne, Annelise, Isabella and Elizabeth. Both Madeline and Vivienne were ripening with child, though the other sisters were yet maidens. They were a noisy party, for Madeline and Vivienne had not been home to Kinfairlie since their nuptials earlier in the year, and all five sisters chattered even as they arrived in the village chapel.

The woman kneeling before the altar started at the sound of their arrival. She caught her breath and glanced over her shoulder, fear etched on her features.

She was so beautiful that Madeline gaped in astonishment.

And she was a stranger. There were few strangers in Kinfairlie, particularly at this time of the year. Madeline was intrigued, as was probably every other soul who followed the Lammergeier sisters into the chapel.

This woman was no maiden, for she wore a gossamer veil and circlet over her hair. What Madeline could spy of the woman’s hair was more golden of hue than flaxen. In that moment that she stared at the sisters, Madeline noted skin so fair that the woman might have been carved of alabaster. Her eyes were a startlingly vivid green and her lips as red as rubies. She might have been of an age with Madeline.

But the stranger’s fear was almost palpable. She pivoted abruptly after scanning the arrivals. She drew the hood of her sapphire cloak over her hair to hide her features, and bent to her prayers once more. Madeline wondered what horrors this woman had faced that she should be so fearful of strangers.

The woman’s cloak was remarkable in itself, of wool spun finer than fine, and trimmed with a king’s ransom in ermine. The stranger was noble, then, for no common person could have afforded such a garment.

Yet she was unattended, and there was no fine horse outside the chapel. Surely such a woman would not travel on foot, or alone?

Not unless she was in dire peril. Madeline caught her breath at the simple truth of it, and immediately she yearned to be of aid. Indeed, any other noblewoman would have rapped on the gates of the keep and demanded hospitality of a fellow Christian.

But this woman had no steed. Her boots were mired, there was dirt on the hem of her cloak. She must have been afraid to ask for help, which said little good about her circumstance.

Father Malachy granted the praying woman a benign smile, then frowned at the boisterous sisters. Madeline and her sisters meekly genuflected and became silent as mice as they took their places at the front of the chapel, alongside the stranger. Madeline could fairly feel the questions of her sisters, and was not surprised to find herself eased closest to the stranger by mutual and silent consent.

As eldest, she had been appointed to learn more.

The service seemed impossibly long, and Madeline found herself thinking more about the stranger beside her than her prayers. Finally, the priest was done and the woman tried to leave the chapel immediately behind him.

The sisters had other ideas. The stranger jumped when Madeline touched her elbow, even with the barrier of that cloak between them. When the stranger paused, Annelise and Isabella slipped around her to block her exit from the chapel.

“You are unknown here,” Madeline said.

The woman’s eyes widened at the realization that she had been surrounded, though she nodded acknowledgement. “I mean no harm to any soul. I halted only to pray.” She tried to leave, but the sisters stood resolute.

“Someone means harm to you, though,” Vivienne said with conviction. “You would not have sought sanctuary in the house of God otherwise.”

The woman’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Who are you, and with whom are you allied?”

“Do you not know where you have come?” Madeline asked.

The woman shook her head.

That in itself was intriguing. She must be a far from home indeed. What would compel her to flee into the night without a clear destination? Madeline herself had done as much once and felt a certain kinship with this woman as a result.

“I am Madeline FitzHenry, once of Kinfairlie and now Lady of Caerwyn,” she said, softening her words with a smile. “These are my sisters. We are gathered to celebrate the Yule together in our ancestral home of Kinfairlie and mean no harm to any guest of our hall.”

“Kinfairlie.” The woman’s gaze flicked between them. “You must be kin with the Lammergeier then. I have heard tales of them.”

“Lammergeier is our family name,” Vivienne agreed.

The woman took a deep breath as if to steady herself, as if the news of where she stood was unwelcome. “The Lammergeier are said to ally long with no man.”

“That is somewhat of a harsh charge from one who does not know us...” Isabella began, but Madeline laid a hand upon her arm to silence her.

“Of what import is our alliance? Have you need of aid?” Madeline asked. “Do you fear someone who might have allies in these parts?”

The woman gathered her skirts and made again to leave. “I thank you for your concern, but it would be safer for you to know no more of me.” She pivoted and, faced with her determination, Isabella and Annelise stepped out of her path. The chapel had emptied now, save for the sisters and this woman who strode away from them with the grace of a queen.

“And what would be safer for you?” Madeline asked quietly, her words carrying through the chapel.