My Highland Bride (Kingdoms of Meria Book 2) Read online

  As expected, Reyne is surprised by that news.

  “You truly believe this Shadow Warrior tells the truth?”

  God, I wish I knew the answer to that question.

  “If he does not, we should be able to root out an ambush. Either way, the king will know our interest in peace is sincere.”

  “I heard some talk of King Galfrid’s nephew gaining support as his replacement heir. They say he is now officially backed by the church?”

  “One of many, many rumors you will hear circulating here at court. But aye, that one is true enough. And by Father Aiken’s own words, the Prima was involved at Saitford and this attack as well. Which means Father Silvester is as complicit as anyone.”

  How did we get so far astray from more important matters? I’d prefer to turn the discussion back to us, to our marriage, and I also do not want Reyne to worry. “We will stop the attack, expose both Whitley and Rawlins, and reopen the path to peace.”

  “What will happen to them?”

  The Curia discussed that as well.

  “Both will be arrested, and likely hung, as traitors.”

  “Whitley too?”

  I nod. “Aye, Whitley too. Cettina is hoping to discover her sister’s whereabouts before the fighting.”

  Reyne noticeably tenses. “Cettina?”

  “She is coming to Craighcebor. We tried to dissuade her, but knowing Lady Hilla travels with her husband, she insists on being there. Which is one of the reasons we chose Carwell Castle. It is as fortified as any castle, more so after so often being ravaged by Borderers.”

  I stop, seeing her expression.

  Reyne is no longer looking at me with appreciation, as if she would very much like to remain in this chamber, as I would, until dawn. She’s tense suddenly. Withdrawn.

  “You met her,” I say. “Surely you know now there is nothing more between Cettina and I than respect and mutual admiration. She trusts me, as she always has. I just ask that you do the same for me.”

  Reyne says nothing. I stand, frustrated at this turn of events.

  “Why do you think so poorly of me, Reyne? Have I given you cause to do so?”

  She makes a face nearly identical to one I’ve seen before. On her father.

  “I was thrust upon you, Erik. And she is . . .” She purses her lips together and does not finish the thought. “I shall go with you.”

  “No.”

  Not the right answer.

  “It is too dangerous. We go there to fight a battle, Reyne. Mayhap one we are not as prepared for as we believe. I would not see harm come to you. Nay, you will remain here.”

  I’ve been looking for the fire in her eyes.

  I see it now . . . directed at me.

  “But it is safe enough for Cettina?”

  “I’d not have her come either, but she is the queen and wills it so.”

  “And I am naught but your wife, so you may tell me what to do.” She stands and mutters, “Just like my father.”

  My only thought is to keep my wife safe from harm. And she is angry because of it?

  Stalking back to my shirt, I lift it over my head, then pull the surcoat on top of it. Running my hands through my hair, I wonder how a night that began with such promise could fall apart so swiftly.

  “Shall we go to supper?” I say, my words clipped.

  Without answering, Reyne walks toward the door and swings it open, waiting for me.

  Aye, she and Cettina will get along quite well.

  26

  Reyne

  The very woman causing my current misery is watching me now. And though I’m attempting to converse with Lord Scott, the queen’s first commander, and Gille, whom I’ve gotten to know fairly well on our travels, I cannot help but watch her as well.

  On the dais above us, Cettina sits surrounded by her ladies. It is odd to see so many women up there. Often only a lord’s wife and daughters would be seated so prominently. But here, there were no men on the dais at all.

  Her father is dead. She has no uncles. As she told me earlier, she is in many ways quite alone in the world. And yet, she smiles easily. Eats and drinks with effortless grace. It is as if she were born for the role.

  When I catch Erik watching me, I quickly look away.

  Angry both with him and myself, I stab the meat on our shared trencher.

  “’Tis already dead,” Erik says.

  Gille chuckles next to him. “You should join us, Lady Reyne, on our next hunt. You’ve clearly much skill with the bow.”

  Pleased someone at this table has noticed I am not some simpering maid, I thank him. “I will willingly accept your invitation.”

  The meal passes with few words between Erik and I. Then, without warning, the queen stands. She holds out her hand, apparently to indicate that all others in the hall may remain seated.

  “Most often, when she is finished, the meal is officially over,” Erik says, watching me. “Tonight she will apparently retire early.”

  As he explains, one of Cettina’s ladies approaches us from behind.

  “Lady Reyne?”

  Both Erik and I turn to her.

  “I am Lady Gwenllian. When you are finished with your meal, the queen would like to speak with you.”

  Erik seems less than pleased. For myself, I know not what to think. When I stand, Lady Gwenllian stops me.

  “It is not necessary to leave now.”

  “I am finished,” I say, standing. “Pardon me,” I say to the others, “I bid you a good eve.”

  Erik moves to stand as well, but I stop him.

  “There is no need for you to accompany me. Unless Queen Cettina wishes to speak with us both?”

  Gwenllian shakes her head.

  “Then I bid you a good eve as well, husband.”

  Following Lady Gwenllian from the hall, I do not spy the queen anywhere even though she left but a moment ago.

  “She moves quickly,” Gwenllian says, hiking her skirts up as we move past a set of guards and ascend the circular stone stairs behind the hall.

  “This will take us to the upper chambers.”

  I am truly lost by the time we arrive in a long hall, again flanked by guards.

  “The queen’s private chambers are up here,” she says. “Come.”

  We pass wall torches and at least five separate doors before stopping in front of the one at the end of the hallway. Gwenllian knocks, and the door is immediately opened by a maid. She moves to the side, and though I wait for my companion to join me, she does not.

  “Queen Cettina asked for you alone,” she says without hesitation, making me wonder if she is the dear friend the queen mentioned earlier.

  “Go inside,” she prompts, and I do.

  Two additional maids are already assisting the queen as she undresses. One unties her gown at the back while the other stands in front of her, hands held out. Cettina is reaching into her hair, pulling out pins one by one and handing them to the maid.

  “I did not expect you so soon,” she says. “Come in.”

  Though the bedchamber is large, it is no bigger than my mother and father’s back home. It is modest for a queen, although it is as opulently appointed as I would expect. A fire is already lit in the corner. Cettina nods to one of the two chairs next to it.

  When I move to sit, the maid with the pins hands me a goblet. I accept, peering inside.

  “I visited Sindridge once,” Cettina says. “The region where that wine hails from.” She steps out from the crimson gown, dressed now in a simple but fine undergown. Nodding to the maids and retrieving her own goblet from a cupboard against the wall, she joins me as the two women leave the chamber.

  “Do you not find it a relief to be rid of such things?” she says, indicating her gown, now laid out atop the largest trunk I have ever seen. “Have you worn men’s breeches before?”

  Not knowing which question to answer first, I say “nay” to the breeches.

  “I wear them in the training yard. They are quite freeing. �
��Tis said the women in Murwood End wear them most days. But I confess, I’ve not been there for many years, so I cannot confirm that particular rumor. Although even as a child, I suspect I would have noticed women dressed as men.”

  Sipping wine by the fire and listening to her, I can almost forget this woman is the queen.

  “I’ve never been to Murwood End,” I confess. “My father says they do not welcome Highlanders.”

  “Hmm. They do not welcome most anyone who is not native to Murwood End. Did Erik tell you he traveled there not long ago?”

  “Aye. He said the king’s commander was there at the same time.”

  “A man by the name of Lord Vanni d’Abella. The king’s son who is not his son.”

  I’ve heard the name, but I know little of the man.

  “They say he married a Garra from Murwood End. A woman he met on that very visit.”

  “A Garra,” I repeat, almost whimsically. Although the woman who sold me the Kona pin is the only Garra I’ve ever seen, I’ve read all their teachings. “My sister loved to read. Our tutor procured many books, some teaching of the Garra. I think there is much to be learned from them.”

  Cettina takes a sip of her wine.

  “There is much to be learned from everyone. Tell me of her. Your sister.”

  I do, sadness creeping into my voice more than once. And yet, I find myself recalling happy memories more and more lately, through the haze of grief. It makes me hopeful to think there will be a day when I can again think of Fara with joy.

  Cettina says nothing of her own sister.

  “You told me earlier that Erik did not force you to wed him,” she says, abruptly changing the topic. “I see how he looks at you. And when you think he does not notice, how you look at him. So tell me, why do you let our past come between your present?”

  I’m so startled by her question, I simply stare.

  “I’ve spent a lifetime enduring looks of jealousy, of discerning others’ thoughts sometimes before they say a word.”

  If a hole were to suddenly open beneath my seat, sending me tumbling to the very depths of the castle, it would please me greatly.

  “Do you know my favorite thing to do?” she asks, and then, before I can answer, “I imagine how it must be to live as the person I’m speaking to. My maids. The Curia. My enemies. And you.” She takes another sip. “I’ve thought of how I would feel had I arrived at the Tournament of Loigh thinking I would return home, only to fall for a man who is both glorious and complicated. To marry him, wondering the whole time if he cared more for me or his sense of duty and the task he’d been given by the queen he serves. And then to meet that very queen, knowing she once shared a kiss with the man who is now my husband.”

  My chest and face are aflame. Did she just say that aloud?

  “And if I loved that man? I would feel lost and confused, excited at times but saddened at others. I would wonder how to forge a new life without having a chance to mourn my old one. I would feel further away from the sister I’d lost . . .”

  The beginnings of tears sting my eyes.

  “And confused by how to treat with a woman who is all at once a queen, a woman, a potential friend, and the person who stands between me and the happiness I’m unsure that I deserve.”

  I pull out the ever-present handkerchief in the pocket sewn into the side of my gown and dot both corners of my eyes. I cannot look at her just yet. My chest hurts, my eyes sting. Embarrassment would have me rushing from the room, yet I’m filled with a sense of awe that compels me to speak.

  “How?” I ask, hoping she understands what I cannot put into words.

  “’Tis not difficult,” she says, “if one simply listens and imagines how they might feel in a similar situation. Listen, and love. Naught else matters.”

  The sentiment is so close to something Fara would have said.

  “You’ve read the Garra’s teachings,” Cettina says, “and I too believe in the power of love.”

  Sipping the wine, I think on her words and realize they’re true. All of them.

  “As for that kiss, one I know Erik must have told you about, given the way you looked at me through supper . . .” She leans forward in her seat. “We knew immediately it was all wrong. Erik and I were both in a dark place, and we attempted to console ourselves. Your husband is quite handsome and kind, a combination that is sadly rare in men who wield any modicum of power. But there was not—” she waves her hand, “—the connection you share.”

  She smiles.

  “He loves you, Reyne. I can see it clearly.”

  The goblet freezes on my lips.

  “I know him as well as any man. He cared for Isolda, but he did not love her. He does love you.”

  I lower the goblet onto my lap after a lengthy sip, though I did not drain it down the way I did at Havefest.

  “He will not allow me to travel with him tomorrow,” I confess.

  Cettina frowns.

  “You wish to come?”

  I think about it for a moment. And realize that, aye, I’d prefer to be there than to be like my mother, waiting for Father to return, not knowing when or even if he would.

  “Aye. I wish to come.”

  She shrugs, as if it is not a problem at all.

  “We leave at dawn. If you return to your chamber, Erik will see you rising with him in the morn. Stay here this night. I’ve an empty bedchamber just down the hall. We will send him word and then—” she smiles brightly, “—he will say nothing when you ride out with me in the morn.”

  I cannot. “Nay, it would not be proper to abandon him this night.”

  Cettina all but rolls her eyes. “You determine what is proper now. Not Erik. Not protocol. Not your father. You, Reyne. If you wish to come to Craighcebor, then come to Craighcebor. If you wish to stay behind, stay behind. If you allow others to dictate your life, then it is their life you live.”

  Could I do such a thing? Should I do such a thing? What will Erik think or say?

  Suddenly it occurs to me, Cettina sits here advising me, helping me, when she rides out tomorrow to save her sister. To avoid a war for her kingdom. And yet she appears calm and relaxed, and I think I begin to understand the reason why.

  If you allow others to dictate your life, then it is their life you live.

  After my sister died, I honored her life by living as she would. These past weeks, I’m unsure whose life I’ve lived, precisely.

  He loves you.

  If her words are true, and I sense they are, then he will forgive me for living as myself in the days to come.

  “I will do it,” I say as Cettina smiles back. “But only if you allow me to borrow a pair of breeches.”

  Her laugh is a healing ointment to my battered soul.

  27

  Erik

  I should have expected as much.

  When I received word Reyne was staying in the queen’s rooms and she would see me off in the morn, I was not surprised. Cettina had whisked her away from supper for a reason. That reason, I supposed, had to do with our uncomfortable supper. And the queen was not the only one to have noticed the tension between us.

  Gille asked me about it too, and I confessed to some of our difficulties. He had little advice to offer, except to reiterate that which he’d said once before. But I don’t need anyone to tell me I’m different with Reyne. I know it. I feel it.

  When I see her, with Reyne having said she would meet me in the courtyard this morn to see me off, I understand precisely what they were planning—for as Cettina rides toward me, wearing breeches and a surcoat with the Tree of Loigh prominent on her chest, a woman in an identical outfit rides beside her.

  See me off indeed. When I catch my wife’s eyes, she is unapologetic. Brazen, even.

  My inclination is to laugh. This minx is every bit the girl who hid under a trestle table in her father’s hall to spy on a meeting. There’s little I can say now, and she well knows it. Besides which, the riding party is fifty strong, and it is my duty
to ride in front of the group, Lord Scott in back. Any more than fifty, we surmised, would be too difficult to hide well at Carwell Castle. Much of our plan hinges on the bastards planning this heinous attack not knowing we are there. Unless, of course, Father Aiken lied to us and we are being betrayed by him.

  By staying at Carwell and not somewhere closer to the border of Firley Dinch, we’ve planned for such a circumstance. Thankfully, we will not be close to the fighting if any should occur, the only fact that consoles me about Reyne’s presence.

  It is only much later that I have occasion to look back for my wife. The stream is small, hardly notable, but I still mean to cross it with her.

  She meets my eyes and shakes her head slightly, or so it seems from the distance.

  Does she not want me to escort her across?

  I wait as she and the queen approach the water, and now that she’s closer, I can tell she is indeed waving me off. Because she is still angry? Aye, likely so. I ride ahead but feel compelled to turn once I reach the other bank so that I might watch her cross. Though it is but a stream, most of the rocks at the bottom visible, I hold my breath as she makes her way across. Relieved when she does it without hesitation, I ride back to the front.

  All day, she rides with the queen.

  We stop only once. Though I wish to speak with Reyne, I’m too stubborn to do so, and she clearly has no great wish to treat with me. It rankles that she does not trust me to make this journey alone, even more so because she does not appear to hold the situation against Cettina, only against me. So even though my eyes are strained from trying so hard not to look back at her, I do not attempt to speak with her until we stop for the eve.

  As the men set up the tents, the Curia having agreed it is too dangerous for us to stay anywhere well-traveled enough to boast an inn, I stride toward the two women. The only ones on this journey.