My Favorite Things Page 17

  Her gaze moved from Brinna’s gray eyes to Lord Laythem’s own eyes of the same gray-blue shade before she continued. “I was the first person she met when she arrived. She told me she was looking to buy a cottage and perhaps set up shop. My husband had just passed on and we had no children. We used to run an alehouse from our cottage, but it was too much for a woman alone to handle, so I sold her our cottage. When she asked me to stay on and work with her, I agreed.

  “As time passed, we became friends and she told me a tale, of a pretty young girl, the older of two daughters born to a fine lord and lady in the south. The girl was sent to foster with another fine lord and lady in the north, where she stayed until her eighteenth year, when the son of this lord and lady got married. The son returned from earning his knight’s spurs three months before the wedding.”

  She glanced at Lord Menton meaningfully, nodding when his eyes widened at the realization that she spoke of him. Then her gaze slid to Lord Laythem again. “He brought with him a friend—and it was this friend who changed our girl’s life. She fell in love with him. And he claimed to love her, and to want to marry her. Young as she was, she believed him,” Aggie spat bitterly, making Lord Laythem wince despite his confusion.

  “They became lovers, and then just before his friend’s marriage, her lover was called home. His father had died and he had to take up his role as lord of the manor. He left, but not before once again vowing his undying love and giving our girl that.” She pointed to the amulet that hung around Brinna’s neck and grimaced. “He swore to return for her. Two weeks later a messenger arrived to collect our girl and take her home. She returned reluctantly only to learn that her parents had arranged a marriage for her. She refused, of course, for she loved another. But her parents would hear none of it. Marriage was about position, not love. Then she found out she was pregnant. She thought surely her parents would cancel the marriage and send for her lover then, but they merely pushed up the date of the marriage, hoping that the intended groom would think the babe his own. Our girl collected all the jewels she had and took part of the coins meant for her dower and fled for here, where she knew her ‘love’ would eventually return for her as he had promised.

  “She came to the village because she knew that if she approached Lady Menton . . . your mother, my lord”—she explained, with a glance at Robert—“she would have sent her home. She thought that if she hid in the village, she would hear news of when her lover returned, yet not be noticed by the people in the castle. So, she waited and worked, and grew daily with child.

  “Time passed, and I began to doubt her lover, but she never did. ‘Oh, Aggie,’ she’d laugh lightly. ‘Do not be silly. He loves me. He will come.’” She was glaring so fiercely at Lord Laythem as she said that, that Brinna was getting the uncomfortable feeling that she knew how this was going to end.

  “He didn’t, of course, but she kept her faith right up until the day she died. The day Brinna was born. She had walked to the village market as she did every day for news, and she returned pale and sobbing, desperately clutching her stomach. She was in labor. A month early and angry at the upset that had brought about her birth, the babe came hard and fast. She was barely a handful when she was out. So wee I didn’t think she’d survive the night.”

  Aggie smiled affectionately at the tall strong girl beside her as she spoke. “But you did. It was your mother who didn’t. She was bleeding inside and nothing I did could stop it. She held you in her arms and named you Brinna, telling you and me both that it meant of nobility. Then as her life bled out of her, she told me what had upset her and brought about her early labor. She had heard in the village that her lover had returned. He was here visiting the young Lord Menton. He had arrived early that morning . . . with his new bride, our girl’s own younger sister.” Aggie’s hard eyes fixed on Edmund Laythem. “Brinna’s mother was Sarah Margaret Atherton, whose sister was Louise May Atherton Laythem.”

  Brinna gasped and turned accusing eyes on the older man standing beside Royce. She was blind at first to the tears coursing down his face.

  “They told me she was dead,” he whispered brokenly, then met Brinna’s gaze beseechingly. “Robert knew of my love for your mother and sent word to me that she had been called home. I moved as quickly as I could, but winter struck before I got affairs in order and could leave. As soon as the spring thaw set in I hied my way south to Atherton, but when I arrived, it was only to be told that she was dead. Her parents offered me her younger sister, Louise, in her place. I was the lord now and expected to produce heirs as quickly as possible to ensure the line, and she looked so like Sarah I thought I could pretend . . .” His voice trailed away in misery. “It didn’t work, of course. In the end I simply made her miserable. She wasn’t my Sarah. Sarah was full of laughter and joy, she had a love for life. Louise was more sullen in nature and shy, and all her presence managed to do was remind me of what I had lost. In the end I couldn’t bear to be around her, to even see her. I avoided Laythem to avoid the pain of that reminder.”

  Taking Brinna’s hands, he met her pained gaze firmly. “I loved your mother with all of my heart. She was the one bright light in my life. I would give anything to be able to change the way things worked out in the past, but I can only work with the now. I am pleased to claim you as my daughter.” Pausing, he glanced at Royce, then squeezed her hands and asked, “You love him?”

  “Aye,” Brinna whispered, lowering her eyes unhappily.

  Nodding, he then turned to Royce. “Am I right in assuming that you love my daughter?”

  Royce hesitated, then said grimly, “I don’t know who your daughter is. I thought she”—he gestured toward Brinna unhappily—“I thought this was your daughter, Joan. Now, it seems she is a scullery maid who is your illegitimate daughter and that she was pretending to be Joan so that the real Joan could run off with my own cousin. I won’t be married, I won’t get the dower my people need, I—” He paused in his angry tirade as Brinna gave a despairing sob and turned to hurry out of the church.

  Lord Laythem watched his daughter flee, then turning determinedly on Royce, he straightened his shoulders. “Leave your anger at her deception aside and search your heart. Do you love Brinna?”

  Royce didn’t have to think long at all before saying, “Aye, I love the girl, whether she is Joan or Brinna, lady or scullery maid. I love her. But it matters not one whit. My people depend upon me. I have a duty to them. I have to marry a woman with a large dower.” He heaved a sigh, then straightened grimly. “Now if you will excuse me, I shall leave and see if I cannot accomplish that duty and at least—”

  “You have the dower.” At Royce’s startled look, Laythem nodded. “We had a contract. Joan has broken it. Her dower is forfeit. Now you need not marry for a dower. You may marry as you wish. If you love Brinna, I would still be proud to have you for a son-in-law.”

  Royce blinked once as that knowledge sank in, then whirled to the priest and grabbed him by the lower arms. “Wait here, Father. We’ll be right back,” he assured him, then whirled to chase after Brinna.

  Lord Laythem watched him go with a sigh, then smiled at his friend Lord Menton as he and his wife stepped forward to join him.

  “I didn’t know,” Robert murmured, and Lady Menton stepped forward to squeeze Edmund’s hand. “Had I realized that Sarah was in the village, I would have sent a messenger to you at once. And had I known she had a daughter here—”

  “I know,” Edmund interrupted quietly, then arched an eyebrow at his friend’s daughter, Christina, as she stared after the absent Royce, shaking her head with slight bemusement. “What is it?” he asked her.

  “Oh, nothing really,” she murmured, giving a small laugh. “I was just thinking that if Brinna is your daughter, she too is half-Norman and they really were three French hens after all.” When he and her parents stared at her blankly, she opened her mouth to explain about the day she had found Sabrina, Brinna, and Joan in a huddle, and the comment she had made about “three French
hens,” then shook her head and murmured, “Never mind. ’Twas nothing.”

  ROYCE RUSHED OUT of the chapel just in time to see Brinna disappear into the stables. Following, he found her kneeling in the straw where they had made love, sobbing miserably. Swallowing, he moved silently up behind her and knelt at her side. “J-Brinna?”

  Her sobs dying an abrupt death, she straightened and turned, her eyes growing wide as she peered at him. Then she scrambled to her feet, turning away to face the wall as she wiped the tears from her face. “Is there something you wished, my lord? A pot you need scrubbed or a—” Her voice died in her throat as he turned her to face him.

  “I need you,” he told her gently. “If you will have me.”

  Her face crumpled like an empty gown, and she shook her head miserably as tears welled in her eyes. “’Tis cruel of you to jest so, my lord.”

  “I am not jesting.”

  “Aye, you are. You must marry someone with a dower. Your people need that to survive the winter and I—” Pausing suddenly, she bent to dig under her skirt until she found the small sack she had fastened at her waist. The sack jingled with the coins Joan had given her as she held them out to him. “I have this. It is not much, and I know it won’t make up for what you lost with Joan, but mayhap it will help until you find a bride with a dower large enough—”

  “I have the dower.” He pushed the hand holding the sack away and drew her closer. “Now I need the bride.”

  “I-I don’t understand,” Brinna stuttered as his arms closed around her.

  “Joan broke the contract. The dower is mine even though we won’t marry. My responsibility to my people is fulfilled. Now I can marry whom I wish,” he whispered into her ear before dropping a kiss on the lobe of that shell-like appendage.

  “You can?” she asked huskily.

  “Aye, and I wish to marry you.”

  “Oh, Royce,” she half-sobbed, pressing her face into his neck. “You don’t know . . . I hoped, I dreamed, I prayed that if God would just let me have this one gift, I would never ask for anything ever again.”

  “This gift?” Royce asked uncertainly, leaning back to peer down at her.

  “You,” Brinna explained. “You came to me on Christmas Day, my lord. And you were the most wonderful Christmas gift I could ever have hoped for.” She laughed suddenly, happiness glowing in her face. “And I even get to keep you.”

  “That you do, my love. That you do.”

  The Fairy Godmother

  Chapter One

  Roswald Keep, England—1324

  The lid of the sarcophagus settled into place with a deep, low grinding of stone. There was silence for a moment, then everyone began to drift out, back to their daily chores and lives, leaving Odel alone. She was aware of their leave-taking and thought how funny it was that others still had chores to do. Unlike herself, life continued for them much as it had before the death of their lord and master, her father.

  The priest patted her shoulder and Odel smiled at him stiffly, then watched him follow the others out of the building. He was leaving her alone to deal with her grief. Most considerate, she thought, almost ashamed that she was not feeling any. All she seemed filled with was an empty confusion, a sort of loss as to what to do next.

  It seemed the whole of her life had been centered around the selfish wants and needs of the man who now lay entombed here. Without him to order her about, she really hadn’t a clue what to do. At a loss, she stayed where she was, staring dry-eyed at the stone likeness laid out before her, waiting.

  She was still standing there several moments later when the door opened again. An icy winter wind blew in, ruffling the black veil that shrouded Odel’s still-dry eyes. Positive it was the priest returned, she did not look about. But when a woman’s voice rang out behind her, she nearly jumped out of her skin.

  “Well, here I am. Late again as usual. But then, better late than not here at all, I always say,” the high, clear voice chimed, sounding almost bell-like in the small stone building.

  Lifting the black veil that covered her face, Odel tossed it back over her head and whirled toward the door. A round, little gray-haired lady dressed in the most horrid pink confection Odel had ever seen was trundling toward her. She was positive she had never met her before, but the woman’s words seemed to suggest otherwise. The way she now charged up and enveloped Odel in a pink silk and perfumed hug also seemed to indicate they were not strangers. Eyes wide, Odel stood stiff in her embrace and racked her brain for who she might be.

  “Toot-a-loo, dear. I am sorry you have had to see to all of this on your own. I came as soon as I could. Howbeit, that never seems quite soon enough.” Releasing her, the woman stepped back to glance down at the stern, stone effigy atop the tomb of Odel’s father, then sniffed with distaste. “Rather grim, is it not? But then he was a perfectly grim man. I never met a more cantankerous lout.”

  When Odel gaped at such irreverent words, the woman arched her eyebrows slightly. “Surely you do not disagree?”

  “I . . . He was my father . . . And he is dead” was all she could come up with in answer. Lord Roswald certainly had been a cantankerous lout. But Odel would bite her own tongue off ere being disrespectful enough to say so about her own father.

  “Hmm.” The woman’s mouth twisted at one corner. “I take it you believe that old adage about not speaking ill of the dead? Well, my dear, that is very good of you. I myself am of the firm belief that a man earns his praises or recriminations in life—and death—by his actions. And deserves every lick he earns. Your father, rest his soul, earned all the recrimination a body can spew. Why, what he did to your mother alone was enough to keep me recriminating for a century, never mind what he did to you!”

  Odel’s eyes widened and brightened suddenly. “You knew my mother?”

  “Knew her?” The odd little woman’s smile softened. “My dear, we were best friends. As close as can be. Until your grandfather forced her to marry your father. What a tragedy that was.” She moved to the second sarcophagus in the room as she spoke and peered sadly down at the likeness of the beautiful woman it held.

  “She was lovely. Even this cold stone cannot hide that,” she murmured, then glanced at Odel. “They were not suited at all, of course. Your mother was young, beautiful, and lighthearted while your father was old and bitter. He had already had and lost one family—and he was determined to subdue and hold on to Lillith and whatever children she gave him in any way he could.”

  The woman’s gaze moved back to the stone effigy and a sigh slid from her lips. She caressed the cold marble cheek sadly. “He choked all the joy and youth out of her ere the first year of their marriage was ended. Her death when you were five was a mere formality. All the life had left her long ere that.”

  Odel dropped her gaze to the likeness of her mother, touched by the first real sense of grief she had felt that day. That sadness was quickly washed away by the woman’s next words.

  “You look much like her. Your mother, I mean. That should make things easier.”

  “Make what things easier?” Odel asked in confusion, but the woman didn’t answer. A frown had suddenly drawn her lips down as she considered the pallor of Odel’s skin and the thinness of the body obvious beneath the sack-like black gown she wore. Odel knew that while her features were the same as her lovely mother’s, they were presently pinched with stress, and that there were dark smudges beneath her eyes that nearly matched the unrelenting black of the veil that shrouded her hair.

  The woman moved so swiftly that Odel couldn’t stop her start of surprise as the veil was suddenly snatched from her head. The action tugged loose several of the pins that had held her hair in place, sending them to the floor with a soft tinkle. Her hair slid eagerly down around her shoulders in waves of dull color.

  Seeing the lifeless hair that should have shone fiery red-brown, the woman pursed her lips, concerned. “He did not choke the life from you as well, did he?”

  Odel’s eyes dilated at the
rude question, then she blurted, “Who are you?”

  The old lady blinked. “Who? Me? Oh, dear, did I not introduce myself? How silly of me. My goodness, no wonder you look at me as if I were mad, dear. You haven’t a clue who I am. Why, I’m Tildy, child.”

  “Tildy?” Odel frowned over the name. Her memory nagged at her faintly.

  “Your godmother.”

  Odel’s eyes widened at that. “My godmother?”

  “Aye. Aunt Matilda. But you may call me Tildy, dear. Matilda puts one in mind of large, horsy women with prominent teeth.”

  “Tildy,” Odel murmured, obedience coming automatically to her, then she frowned as she stared incredulously at the little woman. Matilda had been her mother’s cousin—a poor orphaned cousin who had been taken in and raised by Lillith’s parents. The two girls had been as close as sisters. Closer. Best friends.

  But Lord Roswald had not suffered his wife to have friends. It had been his opinion that all of Lillith’s attention and affection should be shared only among himself and their children. He had forced her to end all contact with Matilda—or Tildy, as she preferred—shortly after their marriage. Still, that hadn’t stopped her mother from naming the woman Odel’s godmother.

  Unfortunately, it hadn’t been long after that that Matilda had taken a fall from her horse that had ended in her breaking her neck.

  Eyes widening incredulously, Odel whirled on the woman. “But you are dead!”

  “Am I?” Tildy asked, seeming not the least perturbed. “Where did you ever hear a thing like that?”

  “Well, from . . .” Turning, Odel gestured vaguely toward the stone image of her father, then glanced back sharply when the little woman clucked beside her.

  “Aye. Well, we all have our faults, don’t we?”