The Baron's Bride Read online

  After what seemed hours to Eva, unused to walking and with her soft shoes beginning to fall apart so that her feet were both cold and sore, the moon sank and she was left with just the weak illumination of the stars to guide her.

  She had not slept, and only forced her weary legs to continue moving forwards by thinking of the hated Sir Piers behind her. When would the pale wintry sun begin to rise, she wondered wearily, and when would she leave this endless heath and find a stream where she could slake her thirst? Why, she chided herself angrily, had she left the house in such terrified haste that she had not thought to bring with her some food. If only she had been less frightened and more sensible she would surely have been able to find something which would have sustained her on what was beginning to look like being a far more arduous journey than she had imagined in the first excitement of escape.

  With bowed head, her eyes fixed on the track, and her footsteps dragging slowly, Eva scarcely noticed the sky lightening behind her. All her attention was concentrated on putting one foot before the other and staying upright. It was only when she heard noises in front of her that she looked up.

  It was well past dawn and she could distinguish the greens and browns of the winter herbage about her, and the reddish soil where bare patches showed. But there was a much brighter orangey red glow a few yards in front, to the side of the path and beside some low bushes. As Eva looked up and saw the fire, and heard the crackle of the flames, the fragrant scent of a roasting rabbit smote her nostrils.

  Bewildered, wondering if she dreamt, she halted and stared at this welcome sight of food and warmth. Then it occurred to her exhausted brain that where there were fires and meat there would be people. She looked about her, and at that moment a young, burly man, unshaven and with long unevenly shorn hair, wearing a short ragged homespun tunic, emerged from beyond the bushes, carrying another rabbit which he was skinning with a short dagger as he walked.

  He looked at Eva in surprise, then a crooked grin split his face.

  'What's this? Come to keep me company, wench? I was wondering when I'd find a woman again, I've been living like a monk for too long. Come here,' he added and tossed the rabbit down beside the fire as he stepped towards Eva.

  She had a horrified glimpse of big clumsy hands streaked with blood stretched out towards her. His grin revealed black broken teeth behind fleshy lips, between which a fat pink tongue flickered. Eva instinctively turned to flee as he sprang towards her, grasping her cloak in one hand and reaching for her shoulder with the other.

  *

  Chapter 6

  Eva felt the cloak drag at her neck and almost fell, and then in desperation she wrenched herself forward. The cloak, insecurely fastened, became loose and slipped away from Eva's shoulders. She heard the man behind her curse as his feet became entangled with it and the brief respite enabled her to shake his tenuous grip from her shoulder.

  Before his appearance she had been unutterably weary, scarcely able to move, but the terror induced by his obvious intentions spurred her on and Eva ran back along the track as swiftly as she had ever moved. She was unable to maintain the cruel pace for long, however, and was already slowing down when once more she heard his lumbering footsteps behind her coming closer and mingled with rasping breaths and angry curses.

  There was nowhere to hide on this desolate heath, no trees, only low, inadequate bushes. There was not even the darkness which she had earlier wished away but which would have been friendlier now than the thin wintry dawn.

  Her head thrown back, Eva strained to draw air into her labouring, exhausted body as she ran blindly on.

  She had no weapon, she could do nothing to defend herself from this horror which pursued her so relentlessly.

  There was a loud drumming in her ears, her head throbbed, and she knew her sudden spurt of energy was almost spent. In a last desperate effort at evasion she swerved away from the path as she sensed her attacker draw close to her, and tripped on a tuft of heather, rolling over and over down a slight incline until she came to a stop against a prickly thorn bush.

  For a moment she lay there, the breath driven from her body, scarcely conscious of the thorns pricking her skin through her thin woollen gown. She could do no more. Then as the expected attack did not come she ventured to open her eyes and look about her.

  The track was behind and above her, and she had to turn around in order to discover what had caused the man to abandon the chase. The enormous shadow of a horse loomed over her, partly blotting out the rising sun, and Eva realised a rider had appeared at this opportune moment. He was in the process of whipping the man, who screamed his innocence as he twisted to escape the heavy lashes of the whip. Freed from that overwhelming peril, Eva gradually became aware of the pricks of the thorns. She eased her body away from contact with them before disentangling her skirts, which were restricting her movements, and struggling to her feet.

  She looked up to see the ruffian hobble away, howling imprecations against all womankind, and turned to thank her rescuer.

  *

  'I am surprised to find you so fastidious of a sudden, my dear, rejecting amorous advances,' Sir Piers drawled, and Eva stared at him helplessly, raging inwardly against malicious fate which had rescued her from one peril only to cast her back into this detestable man's power.

  'How did you come here?' she asked, too exhausted to fight against him.

  'I followed you,' he replied impatiently. 'You surely can't think I am dolt enough to permit you to escape me so easily?'

  'But, how? How did you know I had gone, and which way?'

  'I heard the outer door opening. Naturally I went to investigate.'

  A spark of animation came into Eva's eyes as she stared up at him.

  'Leaving your paramour, Sir Piers?' she demanded scathingly.

  He raised his eyebrows and looked at her consideringly.

  'What is that to you?' he drawled.

  'What is it?' Eva demanded in a fury. 'You carry me off by force, knowing my unwillingness to marry you, and compel me to spend the night not only in your mistress's house but in the room next to where you and she are sporting with one another! Where I can hear your merriment! Do you hope for yet another son, Sir Piers?' she flung at him and he suddenly stepped forward and grasped her wrists in a cruel grip.

  'Take care how you abuse Blanche!' he warned in a voice full of menace. 'She is no concern of yours and neither are her children. As for my sons, I'll have them by you, my dear, have no doubt of that. Today is our wedding day. The men will catch up with us soon and we will be at Granfort in a few hours.'

  'How did you know which way I had gone?' Eva asked, too weary and dispirited to maintain her anger.

  'I guessed, but to make sure I followed you.'

  He walked to where her discarded cloak lay, picked it up and threw it about her shoulders. He dropped his hands to her waist and began to swing her up to sit on the pillion, but when she spoke he held her, suspended, her eyes level with his own.

  'You followed me? You mean you permitted me to walk throughout the night?' she demanded, an irrational anger seizing her.

  He grinned and brought her face close to his.

  'I thought the exercise might tire you, make you more amenable tonight,' he said with a laugh, and Eva, struggling to free herself began to beat on his shoulders with her hands in helpless fury.

  'Let me go! I hate you!' she cried, but suddenly grasped at his tunic as he set her down sharply and her legs almost collapsed under her.

  Then she found her arms pinioned to her sides and she was being ruthlessly kissed. Exhaustion, a wave of helpless anger, and the same odd sensations she had earlier experienced in his arms drove every thought out of Eva's mind, and after her first instinctive resistance she went totally limp, too weak to care what happened to her.

  *

  He laughed shortly, lifted his lips from hers and swung her onto the pillion. It was all she could do to hang on as he spurred the horse into motion, and by the time h
e came to his own large and imposing manor house she was almost asleep, clinging to his cloak by instinct.

  Sir Edmund de Beauville was already there and he bustled forward eagerly when Sir Piers rode into the small courtyard to one side of the large house.

  'You are early, Sir Piers, I had not expected you yet awhile,' he greeted them, trying ineffectively to shoo away several excited dogs which had appeared and were trying to reach Sir Piers.

  'We set off very early,' Sir Piers replied easily. 'So early, in fact, that my dear Eva is catching up on lost sleep. I think she must rest for a while before supper.'

  He bent to pat each dog, and then with a stern command sent them back into the house.

  'The ceremony?' Sir Edmund said doubtfully, after bestowing a cursory greeting on Eva.

  'It can wait until tomorrow.'

  Eva roused herself sufficiently to walk into the house, and there she found her old nurse, Alice, waiting for her. She collapsed into the old woman's arms and almost cried from weariness.

  'My dove, my pet, what is it?' Alice crooned over her.

  'I am so stiff,' Eva complained, but permitted Alice to assume it was from the long journey and the riding rather than her long walk through the night. She contrived to hide her torn shoes and bruised feet from Alice, fretfully demanding to be allowed to sleep, and woke only to eat some venison broth Alice brought her a few hours later.

  'Sir Piers said you must not attempt to get up for supper. A very pleasant kind gentleman, to be sure, my dove,' Alice said with satisfaction. 'Your father has done well for you in choosing such a man. He'll make you content.'

  Eva did not reply, and she was so exhausted she was asleep again the moment Alice left her. She awoke, only partly refreshed, late the following morning.

  'I've smoothed out your best gown, the watchet one,' Alice announced as she came in carrying a bowl of warm water. 'Come, the colour makes your eyes look green.'

  'My eyes are blue,' Eva said petulantly. 'Alice, what is happening?'

  'Your husband is waiting, all is prepared, you're a fortunate wench,' Alice enthused, and Eva stifled her desire to cry out to this woman who had soothed all her childish hurts that she hated Sir Piers, dreaded the very idea of marriage with him, and wanted another man.

  It would serve no purpose but to make Alice unhappy for her. She could do nothing except grieve that her nursling was in trouble. If the wedding was to be that day Gilbert would have no chance of reaching her father, for he would have gone to Rudge Manor even if he had been able to leave Holdfast soon after she herself had gone. The only possible hope of averting the fate she feared was an appeal to her father.

  'Alice, where is my father?' she asked after dressing in the blue-green tunic with self-coloured sleeves, tight at the wrists but wide where they joined the bodice. Alice was combing her long hair and braiding it ready to coil round her ears in the latest fashion.

  'With Sir Piers, looking at his horses, I think.'

  'I was so tired yesterday I had no chance to talk with him,' Eva said with an attempt at nonchalance. 'I would like a few words before I have to meet Sir Piers.'

  Alice gave her a puzzled look, but Eva was concentrating on removing a few threads of dark wool from the russet gown Alice was wearing which had rubbed off onto the blue-green of her own, and did not look at the maid. When she had finished Eva's hair Alice departed, saying she would ask Sir Edmund to come up and speak to her.

  Too restless to sit still Eva paced about the small room, wondering how best to appeal to her father. She still had not decided when he came into the room, looking flustered.

  'Well, daughter, what is it?' he demanded irritably, eyeing her closely.

  'Father, I don't wish to marry Sir Piers,' Eva said baldly, too confused and desperate to lead up to this statement in the tactful way she had been planning, and which she would have been the first to advise.

  Sir Edmund's already red face grew purple and he blew out his cheeks, then sat down heavily on the stool Eva set before the small table under the window.

  'What infernal nonsense is this, child?' he demanded angrily. 'It is not for you to say who you will and will not choose to wed! What a thing! Whoever heard of such nonsense? The world would come to a pretty pass if girls were allowed to make such decisions for themselves. Besides, all is arranged,' he suddenly recalled, and smiled at Eva as though this solved all the difficulties, she thought in helpless fury.

  'I hate him, he frightens me,' she declared, trembling, her own temper dangerously close to being totally out of control.

  'What's this? Utter nonsense, you haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about. All girls are frightened of marriage, your mother was in a dreadfully nervous state. But there's no need, Sir Piers will be considerate and gentle,' he said in a clumsy attempt at reassurance.

  'That has nothing to do with it,' Eva flung at him. 'I hate Sir Piers and love Gilbert! I want to marry him, only him!'

  That caught her father's attention. He stared at her, his countenance becoming puce as he struggled to speak.

  'Gilbert? That spawn of your mother's family? What has he been doing to you? How can you love a villain like that?'

  'He's no villain!' Eva cried out in defence of Gilbert.

  'His father was, and all the family apart from your mother. He's no different,' Sir Edmund almost shouted. 'What gratitude has he shown me, when I helped his poor mother all those years ago? Not a word, no thanks, until he wants to take the rest of my possessions by marrying you. Never! Do you hear? Even if there were no match arranged, I'd never think of it for a single moment!'

  'He can't help what his father and uncles did,' Eva protested, knowing she was doing all the wrong things to make her father change his mind, but with some demon inside her driving her on despite herself.

  'Enough, I want to hear no more of this. You'll wed Sir Piers and forget this ridiculous nonsense.'

  In a last attempt to sway him Eva sank to the floor, seized his hand and looked beseechingly up at him.

  'Father, I beg of you! Wait at least until Gilbert can come to speak for himself. You have seen so little of him, he is not as you think. Please don't force me into a life of unhappiness such as you have had since Mother died. I shall be worse, unhappy instead of just lonely, and knowing it was all so unnecessary.'

  'You'll thank me one day for not listening to you,' her father said, hurriedly getting to his feet. 'Come, my dear, you must show a brave face, Sir Piers is waiting.'

  *

  The next hours were a blur to Eva, her despair and weariness overwhelming her once more. She had a faint recollection of standing with Sir Piers in the small painted chapel which led out of the solar. He was dressed in a scarlet and gold tunic which made him look startlingly handsome. The priest droned on, but she could not recall whether she made the right responses or refused at the last to give them. From the smiles bestowed on her by her father, however, his beaming face looming up at her from time to time in that nightmare day, she judged he was satisfied, and she was considered correctly married to the hated Sir Piers.

  There was a feast attended, it seemed, by a few of their neighbours and Sir Piers' own household. Eva recalled laughter and singing, but she ate almost nothing and refused all the wine she was offered. Then she found herself helped into the solar by Alice, who sniffled as she undressed Eva and prepared her for bed.

  'My baby, a bride,' she gulped. 'Sir Piers has promised to bring you to visit at Rudge Manor soon, my dove. Your father insists on riding back tonight, it's less than an hour away. I wanted to stay with you but Sir Piers thinks you will settle better to your new life without the reminder of me all the time. I can't see it, but he's the master. Be sure and do all he says, my dove, he'll be kind if you please him.'

  She made her tearful farewell and Eva was left alone, apprehensive as she lay in the large bed. Was she really married to that so hateful man? She shivered. She was not ignorant of what to expect, for the ladies at Holdfast had giggled to them
selves often enough about the supposed mysteries of the marriage bed, but she recalled the strange sensations which had gripped her on the previous occasions when Sir Piers had held her in his arms, when she had almost lost her senses and had been no longer in control of herself. Would it again be like that when he finally came to her? How could she endure to be made a creature so dominated by another she was unable to force her body to obey her will?

  She lay for a long time and the early winter dusk darkened the sky, which she could see through a small gap in the wooden shutter over the windows. She heard the bustle of her father's departure, together with their neighbours, riding together for mutual protection. She trembled as she lay in the big bed, knowing that all too soon the man she had eventually been forced to marry would be coming to her and would demand his husbandly rights.

  He delayed for so long, however, that despite her apprehension she almost fell asleep. The emotion of the day and the strangeness of it, with her memory so vague and all her recollections seen as though through a mist, had exhausted her. It was with some surprise that she eventually heard the latch of the door and opened her eyes to see Sir Piers, carrying a candle in a pewter candlestick, entering the room.

  He put the candle down on a chest and came to stand beside the bed. She stared up at him, striving to appear calm.

  'Well, my lady wife, I trust you have seen the folly of resisting me and are prepared to submit now to my will.'

  'Never freely,' she replied through suddenly dry lips. He laughed, a harsh sound.

  'That will come, I do assure you, in time.'

  'You think yourself irresistible, do you?' Eva demanded, stung out of her unnatural calm by his arrogance.

  'You no doubt have views on that,' he replied. 'I shall be most interested to discover what you find irresistible in a man. What did you have against the poor fellow I found you with yesterday morning?' he asked suddenly, and Eva gaped at him in astonishment.