The Knight's Redemption

Wide-eyed, Ceara listened, then shook her head. “I think you have to accomplish more than getting him to marry you,” she whispered.

“What—Ceara,” Ariana chided her cousin with dawning realization. The Glamorgan woman always suspected it would take physical union with a man for the curse to be broken, though they had no way of knowing for sure. “Once we are married it should only follow that he would claim his marital rights.”

Ceara laughed, appearing more at ease now that the burden of dinner was lifted from her shoulders. “I hope you are correct, cousin. I would hate to see you wed this intimidating foreigner for naught.”

Silence fell for a long moment before Ceara continued, “Why would you pretend to be me? You want this man to see you for who you really are, but you would pretend to be someone else? I do not understand.”

“You know Father would never allow anyone to marry me who did not know about the legend surrounding our family. But if Father thinks it is you the stranger wants, he will gladly speed things along just to be spiteful.”

Ceara’s eyes widened. “You really think you can fool Uncle Thomas?”

“Yes, although I will do my best to keep my distance from him, lest he discover the trick.” Ariana stood, impatient to begin the necessary preparations. She still needed to collect a few of the herbs she needed to bring her luck tonight. “But if we are to succeed we must hurry. Are you willing to try?”

All obstacles will fall away if Fate wishes to see you wed….

“But I won’t actually be marrying anyone?”

“Of course not!” Ariana laughed, her spirit soaring along with the song in her heart. She pulled Ceara over to the small looking glass that hung near her wardrobe. “But you would have to part with something very special.” Absently, she twisted one of Ceara’s long red locks between her fingers, so different from her own raven tresses.

Explaining her scheme to her cousin as she gathered her cloak for one final herb-gathering venture, Ariana felt the first real stirring of hope—an emotion she had feared long squashed by her father. But just now, as the afternoon shadows lengthened and the evening loomed full of possibility, Ariana dared to believe in her dreams.

Under a smattering of warm spring sunlight, Roarke dived into the bracing waters of a Welsh stream, hoping to wash away his fiery attraction to the lord of Glamorgan’s daughter along with the dirt from the road.

His long strokes knifed through the murky water, focusing him on his one goal—obtain a Welsh wife to secure his Welsh lands. The English king’s command had been explicit and Roarke planned to fulfill it in the morn. At long last, he would accomplish his most closely held ambition.

Despite his noble parentage, Roarke’s bastardy had cast a shadow across his name and rendered him all but penniless. Although he’d been raised as a legitimate son of the Barret house, he’d later discovered his mother had forsaken her wedding vows during the Crusades when she thought her husband dead. She’d kept the secret her whole life, but shortly after she died the truth had been revealed, much to his devastation.

Since then, he had tracked down his real father—a man he would never be proud to claim as kin—and relentlessly pursued his own lands. It had taken constant attendance to King Henry to earn a place at his side and finally a respected place as one of his closest knights, but at long last, his lands were within his grasp.

Of course, true to his luck he had been given a keep among the notoriously rebellious Welsh. The keep would be difficult to hold, but worse yet, his claim was contingent upon marriage to a Welsh wife.

Another man might have taken his time to find just the right woman to wed. Not Roarke. When last he’d chosen the ideal woman to marry—a vibrant childhood friend who had been sold into the convent by her parents—his half brother Lucian had wooed her away. Likewise, Lucian’s father had loved their mother to distraction and it hadn’t prevented her from straying the moment she thought he was dead. Roarke had come to think he’d be better off choosing a practical woman of a more grounded, sensible nature.

His new wife would be respected as part of his household, but she would never be a part of his heart.

Scrubbing his hair clean in the glistening waters of the stream, Roarke tried to forget a voice inside him had decried his own dictum concerning a wife when he had gazed into Ariana Glamorgan’s eyes. For one awkward moment, he felt as if a lightning bolt had struck him; his senses overloaded by a wisp of a Welsh girl. But as they’d spoken in the corridor afterward, he’d realized she was too fanciful, too dreamy-eyed to be the kind of woman he needed.

The sharp snap of a twig on the south side of the stream brought his ruminations to a halt. Ceasing his strokes, Roarke tread water, waiting for another noise to follow.

He was being watched.

Not a superstitious man by nature, he knew the eyes that followed him were no ghostly trick of the haunting Welsh landscape. If ten years of service to King Henry had taught him anything, it was the sixth sense of knowing when he was being observed. The further he advanced in the king’s good graces, the more often predatory eyes followed him.

“Show yourself,” he ordered, irked when a bird chirped heedlessly above him. He swam to the shore, hoping to draw out the watcher. Before he reached the bank, a feminine voice called down to him.

“I did not mean to interrupt your swim, my lord.” Ariana Glamorgan stepped from the thicket, a fistful of herbs in one hand, her lightweight cloak clenched to her bodice with the other. Dark hair tumbled around her shoulders while her lips curled into a saucy grin. “But since you commanded I present myself, I thought I had better come forward.”

Shoving aside thoughts of the watcher who had been following him of late, Roarke wondered if he imagined the teasing note in her tone. No daughter of the dour Lord Glamorgan could possibly be indulging in open flirtation. Yet there she stood, peering down into the water at him with curious eyes. “You are gathering herbs so late in the season, Lady Ariana?”

“Aye.” She sifted through the small green stalks she carried and tore away some excess stems in favor of the waxy leaves. “Herbal knowledge is a Glamorgan tradition. Perhaps you are familiar with the women of my clan?”

“I know naught of Welsh custom or nobility.” Although he wouldn’t mind getting to know this brazen creature with eyes that seemed to peer into the water for some hint of his nakedness. He could not recall meeting a more engaging female than this dark-haired temptress who appeared everywhere he wandered today, but Ariana’s curious gaze and teasing smile were hardly the qualities he sought in a wife. And he would never make an overture toward the daughter of his host without her father’s consent. No matter what stray stirrings he felt for this woman, he would not act upon them. “But I do not wish to detain you in your search.”

“Very good.” Nodding slowly, she seemed unusually satisfied at his response. “And I do not wish to detain you, either. Surely you have important plans afoot if you are to meet your bride this eve.”

True enough. Though he found he didn’t look forward to sitting in the great hall tonight half as much as he wished to keep Ariana nearby for a few more moments.

“I trust you will be joining us at dinner?” He surprised himself by asking the question since he could not act on his attraction to the woman anyhow.

“Perhaps.” She shifted on her feet as if suddenly nervous. Wary. Lifting her gaze to peer into the sky quickly shifting to twilight, she reached one slender arm to point heavenward. “There is the first star of the night, my lord. Let us wish upon it that you may find the maid of your dreams for a bride.”

Damn.

She could not have found a faster way to cool the fire in his blood than with her fanciful wishes. “I assure you I am no dreamer.” The chill of the water seeped into his skin, calling their conversation to an end and drawing Roarke to the task at hand this eve. “Perhaps I should allow you to do the wishing for us both.”

As if sensing the darkening of his mood, the lady took a step back, her hand falling to her side once again. “Although I am quite accustomed to casting extra wishes on behalf of those around me, I would not steal that right from a stranger. May you find that which you seek, Lord Barret.”

She disappeared into the forest as quickly as she had arrived, noiseless and invisible in the growing dark. Roarke knew a moment’s pang at having scared her off with his surliness, but there had been no point in idle chatter with a woman he would never see again after tonight.

Hauling himself out of the water now that the maiden had left, Roarke scaled the slippery moss-covered rocks in time to spy his friend and fellow knight Collin Baldwin tromp down the bank opposite where Ariana Glamorgan had recently stood. Friends from Roarke’s days at Barret Keep, he and Collin had traveled together ever since—Roarke seeking to expand his fortunes, Collin seeking any joy that life had to offer.

“I thought you were growing fins down here, Barret.” Collin scrubbed a hand over a scruffy beard he’d been growing since they entered Wales and threw Roarke a length of linen. “Are you aware Glamorgan’s dinner awaits?”

“Aye.” Unwilling to speak of his interlude with the lady Ariana, Roarke blotted at the rivulets on his chest before taking up his tunic. “And though you are simply eager for your next meal, I am seeking a wife. Such pursuits are not easily forgotten.”

“Should be a pleasure fondly remembered if you did it the right way. Do you even speak the Welsh tongue?” Collin had been scouting Glamorgan lands for signs they were being followed. Now, he whickered to Roarke’s horse while he waited for Roarke to dress. “If you wed a low-born wife, as you seem intent upon, she will not know English or French.”

“And what, pray tell, will we need to speak to one another about?” Roarke wondered aloud, mentally plaguing his friend for raising the subject again. “The last I knew, the begetting of heirs did not require a great deal of talk.”

Searching his saddlebag for fresh clothing, his fingers brushed the small lute his mother had given him. Although she bade him play the stringed instrument for peace of mind, Roarke associated it with his mother and her dreamy-eyed weakness. The lute rarely left the bottom of his traveling bag, but he could not help his occasional need to prevail upon it, taking solace in the haunting sounds of the strings.

“Ah, you may have to talk a little, my friend.” Collin raised a blond brow, his big body lounging against a tree. “You would not be so cruel as to force a woman the way Fulke Kendall did your mother.”

Roarke tensed. Only Collin could push him this far. And only Collin had interpreted Lady Barret’s faithlessness as merely an act of aggression on Lord Kendall’s part. “Since when does a man have to force his own wife? I plan to wed the woman who will bear my sons. ’Tis more than my father did.”

“Speaking of your sire, what news have you from Southvale? Surely you must have inquired after Lord Kendall’s health while you were in London.”

“Reports of my father come to me without my asking, as you well know,” Roarke muttered, seating himself on the mossy bank to lace well-worn leather boots.

Collin skipped rocks across the creek while he waited. “Has he heard of your new lands? Do you think he will try to make peace with you so he might add Llandervey to the Kendall holdings?”

“I will not allow hard-earned lands or wealth to be sucked into the noble house of Kendall.” He tugged his bootlaces harder, the leather lightly biting into his hands. “Fulke can maintain his wealth of holdings and I will be happy to keep my own.” Strapping on his sword and smaller knife, he strode toward Glamorgan Keep, alert to any small movements in the forest.

In case the watcher returned? Or did he hope to catch another glimpse of Ariana?

Collin hastened to catch up as the bell tolled the hour for vespers. “Think you Glamorgan has found a suitable wife by now?”

“If by suitable, you mean Welsh, then I am certain he has.”