In Honor Bound

IN HONOR BOUND

by

DeAnna Julie Dodson

In Honor Bound

Copyright 1997, 2011 by DeAnna Julie Dodson

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the author, except as provided by USA copyright law.

Cover Design:  Jeff Gerke

http://www.wherethemapends.com/publishing_services.html

Cover Illustration: "Fair Rosamund" by John William Waterhouse, 1905

DEDICATION

To my Undefeated Champion

Fairest of Ten Thousand

Sweet Lover of my soul

My Jesus Christ–

I love You

From the window of her tower room, Rosalynde watched a noisy, spirited cluster of men and boys on horseback sweep through the early snow into the courtyard of her father's castle, followed by an ornate carriage. Horses and riders both carried all the trappings of nobility and the white saint's rose was emblazoned on every banner. Only those who bore the royal blood of Chastelayne were allowed to display it. This would have to be the Duke of Afton and his family at last.

"That one, Ankarette," Rosalynde said, picking out the leader of the party. He was tall and dark of hair and eye and sat his horse with all the handsome majesty of a king. "That must be Duke Robert." She saw him pull up and speak to the young copy of himself that rode at his side. "And that is doubtless his eldest, Richard of Bradford."

Her nurse glanced out the window, then went on weaving pink ribbon into Rosalynde's dark hair. "The boy looks of an age with your sister, my lady, and a fair match to her, if rumor proves true."

"Oh, that's been tattled about for months now," Rosalynde said, twisting around to look at her. "Ever since Duke Robert went to fight in the Riverlands."

"Your sister is near twenty," the tall spare woman said, and she turned Rosalynde's head straight forward again. "She might have been married these five years and more, keep still now, unless my lord of Afton and my lord your father have had other plans for her."

"Father would never betroth them, not without the king's consent."

"Then why have they come here, the duke and his lady and their sons, with winter coming on and all? You mustn't turn your head about, my lady. You can hear me without you see me. Anyway, Westered can hardly be on their way to anywhere but wilderness, unless they mean to put out to sea."

"They come out of friendship, Father says."

"Well, I'll not doubt his lordship's word after so long, even if it does strike me odd. Almost done now. Still, mayhap he means to match your sister with Prince Stephen."

"I dare say that would suit Margaret well enough, whatever the prince is like, but they say King Edward will have no less than a princess for his only son. Besides, I hear the prince is horribly ill-tempered."

Ankarette tucked in the ribbon's end. "Any proud-blooded man might be cross to have his command taken from himself, being a prince, and given over to a duke."

"I heard it told that the king put Duke Robert in his place because all Prince Stephen did was spoil the land with killings and burnings and never gained a foot of ground."

"Mayhap Lady Margaret would not be so set to be a princess if she heard of this."

"She has heard, but says she cares not. I think she would never care if he were old enough to be her grandsire and as ugly as Vulcan either, so long as she could be queen."

Ankarette laughed. "I doubt he is little more than thirty." She drew Rosalynde back into the chamber and sat her down so she could put on her shoes. "And handsome enough, I suppose, with the king's Chastelayne blood in him. All the Chastelaynes are long famed for beauty as well as valor." She stood Rosalynde up again, checking to see that everything was properly done, then patted her cheek. "And I somehow doubt it is the tales of their valor that makes you so eager to see Afton's sons today."

Blushing, Rosalynde scurried back to the window, glad when Ankarette finally went to see if her father was ready for her to come down.

Afton had three more sons, Rosalynde knew, Philip of Caladen, then Thomas of Brenden, then John of Rounchaux, each a duke in his own right and, as Ankarette had said, all of them famed for beauty. She searched further through the band of riders down in the courtyard, dismissing several by their garments and deference to the others as servants, but there were yet two among them who could not be any less than sons to such a man as Robert Chastelayne.

The two were so close in age, she could not decide which was Philip and which was Thomas. John, the youngest, was but ten or twelve, she had been told, and these two looked to be a year or perhaps two older than herself. Even from a distance, she could see that they were much alike, tall and dark-haired and handsome like their father.

Hearing the two laugh between themselves at something she did not catch, she moved closer to the window, then one of them chanced to look up at her, the smile still on his face, his blue eyes still warm with laughter. She froze where she stood, a surprised little sigh escaping her lips, then she stepped swiftly back into the chamber.

Eyes like heaven
, she thought, feeling an unaccustomed fluttering in her breast.
Which is he?

"You're to go to your father now, my lady," Ankarette said, coming back into the room, and Rosalynde went to her looking glass to see if there was still too much guilty pink in her cheeks.

"Am I fit to meet them?"

Ankarette adjusted one dark curl and made a final tug at the lace in Rosalynde's sleeve.

"You make a pretty picture, lamb."

Rosalynde looked at herself again and frowned. She was fifteen and looked plumply twelve, but she did make a pretty picture with her bountiful hair loosely bound down her back and her thick-lashed green eyes wide with excitement. Her frown deepened.

"You always say so."

"Because it always is so," Ankarette said calmly. "Now, come along to your father. Your sister is down there already."

"You honor us, my lady," her father was saying to the exquisite woman standing at the Duke of Afton's side. Lady Elaine was tall, up to her tall husband's ear, and slenderly built, with flawless white skin, a wealth of fair hair, and eyes like twin sapphires. Rosalynde watched as her father kissed the lady's hand with the utmost reverence, as if he dared touch a goddess, and Lady Elaine made a regal curtsey.

"You are most gracious to open your home to us, my lord of Westered," she said, her mellifluous voice in perfect accord with her golden beauty.

"You are welcome, my lady," Westered said, "and my young lords as well."

Rosalynde hesitated at the foot of the stairs, but he caught sight of her and reached one brawny hand towards her with a smile.

"And this is my younger daughter, Rosalynde."

She made a deep curtsey and took a better look at Duke Robert. He looked at most to be in his middle thirties, younger than she had expected to have a son grown and two others nearly so. He was a handsome man, she had seen that already, but now she saw there was something more in him that gave him such favor in Lynaleigh, with the nobility and with the people, even above the king himself.

"Two such fair ones, my lord of Westered," Robert said, looking from Rosalynde to Margaret. "For the first time, I regret having had only sons. Still, such as they are, allow me to present them to you. This is Richard, my heir."

Margaret dropped a practiced curtsey, smiling boldly at Afton's eldest, and Rosalynde saw the young man's obvious appreciation of her sister's beauty, then she looked at the comely, fair-haired boy at his side.

"And my youngest, John," Robert said.

The boy was as finely golden as his mother, bearing out, as did they all, the truth behind the reputed grace of the royal Chastelaynes.

Rosalynde was keenly aware that there were yet two more to be presented to her, Afton's middle sons. Still not knowing which was which, she took a furtive glance at them. They both had their mother's fair skin and her more-than-commonly-handsome features, but they also looked to have inherited their father's strength and the stubborn Chastelayne jaw line. Their knightly training had left them lithe and gracefully well muscled, every inch the noble warriors they were born to be.

"This is my next youngest, Thomas," Robert said and one of them stepped forward with an engaging smile. She let the warmth in his brown-velvet eyes coax a smile from her, but he was not the one who had caught her attention from the courtyard. That left only one other.

She looked up at the last of Afton's sons and forgot to breathe. The laughter was gone from his expression now, replaced with polite reserve, but she had never in all her life seen such eyes. They were like the sea that stretched along the west side of the castle, like the smooth summer sea when it was touched with moonlight. Even his exquisite mother's eyes were not so blue, hadn't such lights in them or such feeling. Rosalynde imagined that if she could look hard enough she would be able to see clear through their crystal depths into his very soul.

"This is my son, Philip," Robert said, a hint of amusement in his tone, and Rosalynde realized she had been staring. The others laughed and her lashes swept to her burning cheeks.

"You honor me, my lady," Philip said as he bent to kiss her hand. His voice was kind and she glanced up again, surprised to see gentleness in those wondrous eyes and not annoyance or embarrassment. She knew nothing of young men and had expected these, from Margaret's estimation of the breed in general, to be spoiled and coarse and vain. She was glad it was not so.

***

That night the Duke of Westered held a great feast in honor of his guests. Richard quickly established himself as Margaret's escort, and Rosalynde found herself seated at the long, bountifully-laden table between Philip and Thomas, listening to the quick banter that flew from one to the other, making her laugh and easing her self-consciousness.

"Will you be with us long, my lords?" she ventured as the servants set out the honeyed quince that ended the meal. "My father did not say."

"A few days only," Philip replied, the soft, caressing tones of his northern-born voice falling pleasingly on her ears. "We're to winter at home in Treghatours, then Father is to return south to the war come spring."

The war touched them little here in Westered, but Rosalynde knew of it well enough. Lynaleigh and her enemy, Grenaver, had been one kingdom until a long-ago king had decreed that, upon his death, his twin sons should each have a kingdom of his own, the two halves of his realm, Lynaleigh in the north and Grenaver in the south. The dividing line was to be the river that flowed from the western mountains to the sea in the east.

For generations, the two kingdoms lived together in peace, then one of the Grenaven scribes, looking into the old king's will, suggested that perhaps it was the northern branch of the river, a good distance into Lynaleighan territory, that the decree intended as the dividing line. The King of Grenaver, already chafing over a dispute of trade, made a demand for the immediate return of his lands.

In response, the King of Lynaleigh claimed that it was the river's southern branch, winding almost as far into Grenaven territory, that was meant by the terse wording of the decree that said only "the river". The main flow that divided the lands evenly, that had long served as border marker, was discarded by both sides. For a long time afterwards the dispute boiled between the two kings and their emissaries and eventually flared into the war that had been raging, off and on now, for years. As long as Rosalynde could remember, there had been fighting in the Riverlands.

"They say your father will win the Riverlands back for King Edward in time," she said and a fervent light sparked into Philip's eyes.

"The king'll not find a stouter champion, nor a more loyal. There's not a worthier man in Lynaleigh."

"Worthier than the king himself," Richard put in. "By blood if nothing else."

Rosalynde's eyes widened. She knew, as did the whole kingdom, the story of Robert of Afton, how he had once been heir to the throne. Now Edward of Ellenshaw, his uncle, his father's younger brother, was king and had been for almost thirty years. It was near treason to even speak of Robert's claims.

"Do not listen to his ramblings, my lady," Tom said lightly. "My father would likely box his ears for such talk and he knows it."

Philip pushed his empty plate away and frowned at Richard. "Edward was anointed king in the sight of God. Father would never challenge that sanctity. It would hardly be honorable."

Richard dismissed him with a wave of his hand. "I never said he would make good his claim, just that by right he is more king than Edward."

There was a challenge in Margaret's eyes. "I think if I were rightly king and had an army at my back, I'd not let another keep my right from me."

"Meg!" Rosalynde cried and Richard laughed.

"There, you see? And should it not be so, the right being on our side? Lady Margaret, you've won my very heart."

Rosalynde thought again of the rumored alliance between Margaret and Richard, between Westered and Afton, an alliance that would make Duke Robert strong enough to revive his claim if he desired. There was also the royal blood that flowed in the veins of his sons. Because of the direct lineage of both their father and mother, the blood they bore was more purely Chastelayne than any in Lynaleigh.

Right and might both together,
she thought. Still, as Philip had said, there was not a more loyal man in the kingdom than Robert of Afton.

"Doubtless you know your own mind, Lady Margaret," Philip said with a polite nod. "For myself, I had sooner keep my dukedom and my honor."

"My brother has a very fine sense of honor on every point, my lady," Richard said, pouring himself more wine. "He'll not leave a dog in the cold or beat a lazy page or trifle with a woman's honesty."