Joanne Rock - The Knight's Redemption

“Are intimate?”

“Yes.” Ariana tossed a last handful of things into her bag. “I am going through with it. If anything, our conversation has only made me sure that I am doing the right thing. Would you ask the maid to bring in the bath now? I want to start getting ready.”

Ceara stepped into the hall to do her cousin’s bidding and soon ushered two servants into the room with a tub. When they were gone, she helped Ariana settle into the warm water.

“So is this charm of Eleanor’s still affecting you now?” she asked, throwing rose petals into the water before she took up the soap.

“No. Indeed, I don’t know that there is any real power to Eleanor’s herbal potion.”

Ceara frowned. “I thought this was something very powerful, something Eleanor had been working on for years?”

“Aye. So she told me.” Ariana splashed water over her face and shoulders. “But she would also do anything to help me marry. Including trick me into thinking I could face the English knight even when I stood trembling in slippers.”

“By the rood, Ariana. You think she merely pretended to have concocted some powerful potion?” Ceara scrubbed more forcefully.

“Ow!” Ariana finished her hair herself. “I don’t know, but I cannot fathom how she would have come by the recipe for something so fanciful as a brew to make a woman more appealing. She is a healer, not a sorceress, after all.”

“Praise God.”

“Aye. Except that now I will have nothing to inspire false confidence. I think I will attend the wedding heavily veiled. Which is just as well because my hair will still be wet at this rate.” She rinsed the thick black mass quickly and stepped from the tub, drying the tresses vigorously with several linens until it was just damp.

They worked in silence, nervous and tense about the day ahead of them. Ariana combed her waist-length hair, plaiting the strands to be pinned atop her head.

Ceara handed her a newly worked hairpiece over her shoulder. “I sewed my old hair to a strip of cloth this morn, so you will have an easier time fixing it in its place each day.”

The hair was tightly bound together in small sections, then sewn to a strip of cinnamon-colored linen, not much darker than the hair itself. The cloth would allow Ariana to secure the hair easily to her head without all of the elaborate pinning and tying they did last night before dinner.

“Thank you, cousin,” Ariana whispered, tears springing quickly to her eyes. “I feel so awful about taking your hair.”

Ceara ran her fingers through the short strands that fell between her chin and shoulders. “Think no more of it. It is not as if I were bald as Uncle Thomas. I think when I join the convent I will keep it this length. It would be much cooler under a habit. And if I change my mind, it will grow back.”

While Ariana fretted, Ceara smothered a giggle. “Besides, if I decide I really would rather wed, I shall wait ’til I am an old maid like you before I choose a husband, and by then it will be long again.”

Ariana laughed, too, though her heart felt heavy with guilt and worry. Her scheme had the power to hurt Ceara and Roarke….

But it would save her brother’s little girls. If she were successful, they would benefit, which made her guilt a little easier to bear.

Distracted with such concerns, the morning raced by until she was dressed and ready to go below stairs. Then she recalled Eleanor’s charm. Quite probably a bogus brew designed to help Ariana feel more brave. Should she bother mixing the herbs today?

It certainly couldn’t hurt. Especially when the thought of facing Roarke Barret while memories of his kiss teased her senses. She needed all the courage she could muster. Slowly and purposefully, Ariana added all the right ingredients. She whispered a healer’s chant, mixed the herbs and then threw the mixture into the flames.

Nothing.

No shimmery sensation.

No blaze of fire.

Her father called to her, though of course it was Ceara’s name he called, not her own. They were waiting for her so they could begin the procession to the chapel.

But she tried one more time. Using all of her concentration to block out the various knocks that came to Ceara’s door, and the shouts for Ariana to please talk to Ceara so she will come down, Ariana went through the ritual one more time, focusing on her goal the way Eleanor taught her to. She put all of her strength and all of her hopes into the herbal concoction as she crushed the herbs beneath her pestle and once again threw the mixture into the flames.

For nothing.

The charm would not work today. Had probably never worked outside of Ariana’s wishful imagination. She had no choice now but to face Roarke Barret with only the help of a few false freckles and a cinnamon-colored hairpiece on her own wedding day.

S aints protect me.

Whispering one last prayer that she was doing the right thing, Ariana pulled her heavy veils over hair and face and hoped Roarke did not seek to lift them. She might not look any different today then she had the night before, but she felt less sure of herself without the help of Eleanor’s mysterious charm.

Quietly, she stepped through the door that adjoined her room to Ceara’s and then out into the passageway from Ceara’s room. She ran into her father, whose face was mottled pink with annoyance.

“I am ready, Uncle,” she said sweetly, her voice low and modulated the way Ceara’s was. It mattered not how she spoke to Roarke, but to fool her father she had to be especially careful.

Thomas Glamorgan opened his mouth as if to chide her, then smoothed one hand across his bare head, as if taming unruly locks that were no longer there. “You look lovely, niece,” he said, his voice straining with the effort to be pleasant.

Ariana wished she did not have to deceive him today. For all of his flaws, she loved her father, and it grieved her to leave him without saying a real goodbye. No matter how difficult he made her life, or how much he blamed her for the unhappiness he suffered, her father was not solely to blame for the pall that hung over the keep. Misery, like the curse, had a way of clinging to Glamorgan.

As they proceeded to meet the well-wishers, her mood brightened. With a holiday declared until after the wedding cup was drunk, the villein made merry into the night and then slept well past prime. Now they welcomed the cause of their celebrations with shouts and autumn wildflowers, which were strewn along with brightly colored fall leaves in Ariana’s path. Shades of red, yellow and orange carpeted her every step while the chapel bell announced her arrival.

Her worries returned as she climbed the church steps and spied Roarke, who appeared more forbidding than the fierce gargoyles that silently waited for the ceremony to begin.

He was not outfitted in wedding attire. He could have been dressed for a day of riding or a day of battle except for the gold medallion he wore about his neck, hanging from a slender flaxen rope that was so fine and sleek it looked as if it were woven with a woman’s hair.

Aside from that peculiar decoration, the English knight showed no outward sign it was his wedding day. His lack of finery caused Ariana to wonder if he would bother waiting for the toast to be raised before he mounted his horse to leave Glamorgan Keep far behind him.

Even dressed as he was, he would have been quite handsome, Ariana thought, were it not for the scowl that furrowed his brow.

Was it because she was late?

Or because he resented having to wed her at all?

Wondering where the man who had tenderly kissed her last night had disappeared, she was not eager to take the steps that would close the space between them. But the ancient, stooped village priest who would officiate beckoned and her wedding day commenced.