Catherine Archer - Fire Song

Meredyth had long since retreated to her own chamber. Nothing more could be gained by staying in Celeste’s. The truth was revealed. She knew that Roland had confronted her father, because he had come to her demanding an explanation, no more than an hour past.

Though it troubled Meredyth greatly to defy her father’s demands for information, she had refused to tell him. Celeste’s secret would not become known through her and Celeste herself had as yet to return to the keep. Her father’s men were at this moment searching for her.

Hugh Chalmers had gone back to St. Sebastian none the wiser, his parting stony stare a clear sign of his disapproval of Meredyth. She could only believe that did he know the truth he would wish for her to protect Celeste. Only that certainty kept her from blurting out all. That and the fact that she could read his illdisguised relief that Celeste had not been the one to marry Kirkland.

Meredyth looked up from her unhappy thoughts as her door opened. It was her maid, Jolie, who stood in the doorway. Her cloud of dark curls surrounded a pale face and troubled brown eyes. “My lady, he is here.”

“He…?” Meredyth asked in a ragged whisper, though she had a very uncomfortable feeling that she already knew what he the maid was referring to.

Before Jolie could say any more, the man in question pushed the door open wide with his broad shoulders. St. Sebastian then dismissed the maid without taking his narrowed cobalt gaze from Meredyth. “You may go.”

Jolie hesitated, her brow creased with concern, and Meredyth knew sympathy for her. The girl was quite young and had only been in her service for three short months. She was not accustomed to dealing with men like Roland St. Sebastian. Nor for that matter was Meredyth, but she nodded reassuringly. “All will be well, Jolie. Lord Kirkland is my…husband. I have nothing to fear from him.”

But even as a clearly reluctant Jolie dipped a curtsy and left, Meredyth wondered if he would continue to be her husband. Would he somehow find a way to set her aside? She supposed the church would allow it, considering the circumstances. Yet she could not help wondering what would then happen to her. She was no longer a virgin and surely all in the keep must know that After Roland had left her in Celeste’s chamber, Meredyth had become aware of the blood on the sheet she used as covering and the fact that Agnes seemed equally aware of it.

No other man would wish to have St. Sebastian’s leavings. Meredyth had thought she was resigned to being her father’s chatelaine, to never having a home and family of her own. But the sheer inescapability of this future should Kirkland refuse to remain wed to her was devastating.

She did not wish for him to know how very much this thought disturbed her. Surely having no husband would be preferable to being this man’s wife. Meredyth squared her shoulders and looked directly into those startlingly blue eyes. “Well?”

Roland St. Sebastian smiled but there was no pleasure in it and a sense of greater unease came over her. “Well, wife. It seems I am to keep you.” Before she could contemplate whether this revelation came as relief or curse, he continued, “Your father seems to have no more understanding of what has made you and your sister act so rashly than I. Furthermore, he has agreed that you shall have the same dower that Celeste would have brought to Kirkland.”

He shrugged. “As I have decided not to contest the fact that you wed me using your sister’s name, the matter is to be overlooked by the priest. We shall change the name on the marriage contract and notify the king of the situation, but I can see little chance of his caring greatly when he has the bulk of his attention set on his own recent marriage to Isabella of Angouleme. He has gained his end in seeing our two houses united. One Chalmers bride is as another.”

Meredyth hardly knew what to reply. His coldness toward her was not surprising, though unexpectedly painful. She pushed this hurt aside to concentrate on the rest of what he had said. The shock of learning that the marriage would be honored by Kirkland was amazing, not to mention the fact that he had just told her that she had attained a dower worth thousands of pounds.

Not that the properties and gold would be available to her. They belonged to the man before her. It was the furniture and linens, the huge copper tub, the bolts of fabric, all the household items they had gathered for Celeste’s marriage. All were now hers.

The thought was so overwhelming that it was a moment before Meredyth realized he was speaking again. “Your father will provide the men to drive the wagons, and I shall leave two of the four I have brought with me to Penacre. They will escort you to Kirkland in the morning. I assume you will be safe upon your own father’s lands. And after that you will be upon mine.”

She frowned. “They will escort me…?”

He raised a brow that was as black as a raven’s wing. “I have other matters to attend to. I shall follow in perhaps a week.”

She took a deep breath. She was to go to Kirkland, the home of her family’s enemy, alone. Meredyth met his gaze with her own deliberately cool one, though it cost her dear. “As you will.” If he thought he would see her beg him to attend her he was greatly mistaken. She would ask for nothing. Better to burn in hell than ask for this oaf’s protection.

Meredyth could not stop herself from saying as much. “If you imagine I shall beg you to act the proper husband to me, St. Sebastian, you may now learn that I will never do so. Not now, and not in the future.” She turned her back to him in dismissal.

It was with complete surprise that she heard his voice so close behind her only a moment later. Dear Lord, he had made not a sound. Meredyth was only just able to keep herself from giving a physical start, as she closed her eyes and willed her racing heartbeat to slow.

His words did nothing to assist her efforts. “Have no fear, wench, I shall act the proper husband to you when required. There will be no need to beg.”

There was no mistaking what he was referring to. The words had the effect of sending a shiver of awareness down her spine. Meredyth was appalled at her own reaction after the way he was now treating her. Even as she struggled with her own feelings, something told her that she must never allow this man to know how greatly he affected her. Calling upon all her reserves of self-preservation, Meredyth swung around to face him. “I have no fear of that or anything else about you, my lord. And allow me to tell you one more truth. You think this marriage has made me yours to command. I am not. I will act by my own wishes.”

As she looked at him, she thought for the briefest moment that she saw admiration light those compelling eyes. But the impression was short-lived, for she could see he was very obviously looking at her with that now accustomed superior expression of his. “Oh, you are mine to command and for whatever act I desire. Mark me.” Without another word he turned on his heel and was gone.

Meredyth passed through the great curtain wall at Kirkland with her head held high. What the occupants of the keep might make of the fact that she was arriving without their lord, she refused to contemplate. She had no more intention of allowing St. Sebastian’s folk to know how dazed she was by the changes that had occurred in her life over the past two days than the man himself.

That not all the changes had been disastrous did not lessen her distress one jot.

She cast a disbelieving glance backward over the two wagonloads of linens, furniture, cloth and other effects. They were hers, all hers, each and every item belonged to her, Meredyth. Never in her life had she thought to have so much.