Ronan's Bride
GAYLE EDEN
Copyright © 2009-2012 Gayle Eden (reissued 2012)
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The right of Gayle Eden to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First E-book Edition 2009
First Edition
All characters in this publication are purely fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.
Published by Air Castle Books at Smashwords
Smashwords Edition
Chapter One
Sefare stood atop the ancient Keep, her aqua eyes peering beyond the thick forest and hills, to the road winding up toward the castle. Ronan of Duhamel, the Crimson Knight, rode astride his white destrier, before two lines of armored guards, knights, plainer clothed males, and what appeared to be wagons of goods. No doubt, armor and weapons, and the last few, people in the one cart pulled by a team of oxen.
He apparently survived the judicial duel and melee, and more importantly, was obviously cleared of both treason and whatever other crimes one faces for escaping the tower and setting on a path of righteous vengeance.
Sefare thought of what her friend Illara had said of Ronan, her brother in law. A man like her husband, Pagan, called the Black Knight, the beast of Northumberland. Of Ronan, she confided; he is that armor and that mask, inside and out. He has a heart for his brother, mayhap for me, but be warned, my friend, be aware, that Ronan is the flame left from the fire that burned his home, killed his kin, and he is the red blood that they shed. He is in some ways, the blood scourged from himself once captured, and of himself and Pagan in the tower. The steel—the armor, its red emblazon, is as skin to him.
Sefare rubbed her arms. They were too far away to see ought but the highest towers of the old castle. A mild wind ruffled her blond hair, shorn to her nape and curling around her face now, as Ronan had ordered her to disguise herself before sending her from Dunnewicke that night.
This man, the Crimson Knight, the man who lived half his life under another name to exact vengeance, justice for himself and his family, was her husband. A man, who, like his brother, survived hell but even apparently absolved, could not show his face to the world. He was a stranger to Sefare.
* * * *
Ronan of Duhamel had not sent his bride to his richest castle. Nay, he had sent her to a virtual fortress—a rugged stronghold with thick towering walls of dark gray stone. An ancient keep that had seen its share of sieges and survived them.
Sefare, the former widow of the Italian Count, Baiardo di Matteo, a cruel man some years her senior—was so weary and ragged from the hard riding the guards did to reach it, that she hadn’t cared what it was they brought her to. It had been pitch dark upon arriving, and it was not until morning that she had viewed the massive old castle as a whole.
It was nothing like the chateaus and fortress’ she had lived in before. It reminded her of some seasoned and indestructible old knight—a giant looking down on the budding and thickening forests around its outer defense walls, daring anyone to challenge it.
For a woman of petite size, its rugged exterior, high beam ceilings, and heavy interior, was quite a sight. The interior stairs were carved out of sheer rock, and no delicate furnishings or trappings relieved the heavy iron candelabras, massive chairs and benches. The archways and warrens leading to chambers and hidden quarters, halls and such, were wide enough for an army to pass through.
She swiftly gathered it was more a military bastion than home, and soon discovered from a few of her husband’s knights, that it had been used as both a prison and a stronghold for standing against enemies. The impregnable appearance gave her no reason to doubt this truth. From the moat to the highest towers, and slits or murder holes, with their sliding iron shutters, it would keep a prisoner in, or enemy out. There was an entire sub chamber and tunnels, which she had no desire to explore, fearing to come upon forgotten prisoners—or un-ransomed corpses. Her husband certainly had chosen a place no one would expect her to dwell in.
Her husband…
That phrase connected to Ronan of Duhamel, was a strange one for Sefare. He’d wed her under duress—for her protection, and likely, because his brother Pagan de Chevel, ask it of him. He’d wed her to protect her against her husband’s uncle, Guardi, who wished to force her back to Italy—to have her and her wealth, to visit more of that dominating family’s possessive cruelty on her…
When she had stood in the chapel at Dunnewicke and let her friend Illara talk her into uniting with Ronan, who was, like his brother, famous for his prowess on the battlefield and at Tourneys…terribly intimidating—known from England, Spain, to Italy, and the holy land, as the Crimson Knight, Sefare had been thinking only of her freedom.
That very eve, all the reasons he and his brother had lived most of their lives under false names, on vengeance toward their enemies, for absolution of their family—slaughtered, falsely accused of treason… was about to culminate in a life or death duel.
Sefare had barely an hour to hear the whole of the story, particularly the part of why the brothers were cloaked and masked always—a tale filled with torment and loss, and of amazing courage and bravery.
She had come to England and offered those knights who were pledged to her, for the judicial duel at Dunnewicke, on their behalf. And Illara, wed to Ronan’s brother, was also in need of defense for murder, for killing a baron who was a breath from killing Pagan on the tourney field.
Yet everything happened too quick, even the information Illara had given her was rushed. Her introduction to Ronan was rushed—if one could call his hostile hearing of her need for his help, that. And, the wedding, her being secreted from Dunnewicke hasty…
It was only when she had arrived here, rested, and began the uncertain wait with Ronan’s men—to discover if they all survived the duel and melee and were absolved, that what she had been told began to sink in.
Sefare had her own troubles, her own uncertainties. She did not think it entirely selfish to be preoccupied with them then; considering she had had good reason to believe her dead husband’s uncle was dangerous.
There was much on her mind aside the fact that she did not know if this husband would live or die in the melee. It helped that legally she was his bride. Simply Lady Sefare, wife of a knight, although that complex past of his, the one kept hidden, made him aristocracy through bloodlines on his mother’s side. He was still in essence, Lord Ronan, through his fifes. Landed gentry, even if over half went to the king, before the Tourney, to pay fines, to bribe, to play the well-known game of favor. At the very least, to beg fairness, a fair chance to absolve themselves and clear their family names.
His wealth was gained from rich prizes at the tourney, from hiring his sword, and carefully playing those who took part in betraying his family years earlier, until their lands were mortgaged to him, their rents and incomes and rich fields, their goods, in his possession. How much of that he sent to the king and forfeited, she did not know, but Illara hinted it was substantial.
The hasty wedding had only meant to Sefare, at the time, that she could not be forced back to Italy. That her husband’s uncle, had no claim on her. It had only meant—freedom.
She had forfeited what her husband had left her—wanted nothing of his nor that family. She had some wealth of her own, which she and those knights who had fled with her, had taken with them. Having been so long in the grip of her husband’s hand, fleeing had become an obsessive goal, after his death.
Illara’s plea for her to come to Dunnewicke with any help had reached her at the right time. She could not have guessed that she would find herself wed, disguised and spirited off again—as Ronan insisted, for her own safety.
Many mornings since, as now, she stood atop the old castle, peering into the distance, beyond the forests and hills—things began to sink into her mind about the knight she had wed.
The horrors of his boyhood and past, the scars that were the reason he wore a mask—the burning for vengeance and justice. His ruthless skill that brought him renowned, as the Crimson Knight, which, he ate and breathed for many years.
Aye, Sefare thought too, of those hard as steel gray eyes that pierced her upon meeting. When he had growled at what he had thought was her flinching from him. Apparently, because of the mask and scars. When he had snarled at her, he said he’d wished no bride, and as he put it emphatically, not one who looked as she did.
He had towered above her scant five feet height by a foot, and with a knight’s powerful build and brawn. With that mask, which left only eyes and the downward U exposing lips and chin exposed, it had given her pause. Not enough to back out of her only chance at freedom, but enough to promise him, he could put her away, should he live, or that she would do a wife’s duty and ask nothing further of him, than the protection of his name.
What she could see of him, like his brother, was long raven hair, which he twined and corded into a rope down his broad back. What she remembered were those harsh gray eyes, like a sharpened blade of a sword. His knight’s body and frame was of muscled, long legs, broad shoulders, and chest. The kind of warrior’s brawn that could wield a broadsword and fight for days…
Her attractiveness seemed mocking to him, as if a deliberate insult.
She was not vain, and had too at times past, cursed what others considered her beauty. She knew it was why Baiardo had wed her, why the uncle wanted her. Her slight stature and fairness was unfortunately some idyllic picture of defenseless and saintly womanhood. It was also, why some laughed and snorted when she tried to point out, that like Illara, she had been trained to fight by Lord John, Illara’s father. She had a learned mind, educated by Ysoria, Illara’s mother, who taught most of the young females, daughters and wives of knights in that country. She had other assets, other skills—and she once… had dreams.
To her dead husband, she had needed no assets save her looks. So long as she gowned herself richly and wore her jewels in company, was subservient to himself and his relatives. When she rebelled at being displayed, he had to restrain her into submission for his beatings, whippings—and for his sexual appetites in private, because she detested his brutal assaults.
The entire di Matteo family was a polished and sparkling jewel on the surface. In private, the men ruled their females through corporal discipline, as they viewed it, and yet arrogantly displaying their attractiveness and riches in public. For someone like Sefare, loved as a child, able to fight, given the chance, it was a nightmare existence.
Her small stature was only one disadvantage against her husband, who was a warrior and much older and larger. She had been cut off from her parents too, who had remained in the Holy land, eventually dying there.
In a large noble Di Matteo family, where the females seemed to fully expect her to obey, to submit to anything, to be thankful to be a Countess and chosen—she’d found herself trapped. Soon, simply surviving became uppermost.
Freedom… became an obsession.
There was her half-brother, Mshai who had come to England and mysteriously vanished amid circumstance that she half suspected the Count had traitorously maneuvered. Yet essentially, she had been alone.
Perhaps, only her friend Illara, who had shared that childhood and young girlhood in Egypt, their freedoms, love and joy, would understand what enduring had been like.
When the Count died in battle, still suffering from his beating the night he had departed, Sefare had known she must swiftly flee. It was only when his young uncle had begun to dominate her, to hint at his plans for her, that she had openly rebelled.