Keeper of the Stone (36 page)

Nathan thought he had managed to conceal his ill-temper from his wife, but he should have known better. For all her innocence she was very sensitive to his moods, and to those around her.  He crossed the room to where she stood by the window and reached for her hand.  “You’ll catch a chill standing by the window.”  He tugged her towards the fireplace and sat her down in one of the chairs placed before it, then turned to stoke the fire.  The small reprieve gave him a chance to gather his thoughts and to gain control over his body’s immediate, instinctive lust at finding himself alone in his room with his wife, the bed tantalizingly close.

When he regained his discipline over his body’s insistent urgings he turned to face his wife.  “Yes, I’m angry with you.”  He ignored the immediate tears he saw shimmering in her eyes at his harsh admission.  He could not allow himself to be swayed by her distress.  Doing so would likely only serve to get her killed the next time an enemy from her past came looking for her.

“Rhiann, you need to learn to trust me.  Now, wife. I can no longer be patient with your hesitancy.  There is too much at stake. How can I protect you if I am ignorant about who your enemies are?”

She dared to raise a confused glance to his face.  “But Nathan, I do not have any enemies.”

Nathan bit down hard on the impatient retort that sprang instantly to his lips.  “Who were the men who kidnapped you?”

“I told you I don’t know who they were.  Why won’t you believe me?”

It must be the innocence of her wide-eyed gaze that had him almost believing her.  He deliberately averted his glance and turned to face the fire, hoping to recover his previous certainty she was keeping dangerous secrets from him.  “Perhaps you do not know his name, but you suspect who he is, or who sent him and why.”

The silence that greeted his remark extended so long Nathan turned away from the fire to observe his wife’s reaction to his suspicion.  She was staring at the fire now, her gaze far away, her thoughts obviously in some mysterious place he knew nothing about.  He could feel her inner debate, understood the divided loyalties assaulting her, but he could not grant her the reprieve she so obviously longed for.

When she finally broke her silence, he didn’t move from his place before the fire, afraid any distraction would cause her lips to stop moving and halt the quiet flow of revelations pouring forth from them, leaving him no better off than he was before.

“There is no real queen of the Salusians.”  Nathan hoped his surprise didn’t show on his face, not that his wife was looking at him.  She was staring into the fire.  Her thoughts obviously far removed from the confines of the small room they currently occupied. “The old guard called her that, and the others who were drawn to them, and later joined them, followed their example.”  Nathan didn’t move an inch.  He barely allowed himself to draw breath into his lungs.

“My grandmother was married when she was little more than a child to a king of a small but wealthy land.  You would not recognize the name.  It was far to the east of Normandy. My grandfather and their sons were killed when a rival lord invaded their land, seeking its wealth. My grandmother was pregnant with my mother.  My grandfather’s loyal household guard led her to safety.

They could never return home.  The land was claimed by the rival lord, but they found no peace in their conquest. Those loyal to my grandfather kept raising armies in his name and contesting the new lord’s right to rule.  He too was finally dethroned and killed along with his sons and family.

The victors sought my grandmother, hoping she would return and bring legitimacy to their rule, but she refused.  Her husband’s home was not hers.  She refused to involve herself or the daughter she gave birth to in exile in the wars of men.  They tried to force her to return, but once more my grandfather’s loyal men intervened and took her away. I guess they were loyal to her by then.

My grandmother was reluctant to involve her own family in the dispute, so she fled west into Normandy without the comforts of the wealth she was surrounded by her entire life.  The stone her mother placed around her infant neck with her dying breath after giving birth to her was the only treasure she took with her.  But even as they crossed the wilderness, forced to hunt for food and find shelter among the trees and animals, she wouldn’t part with her inheritance from the mother she never knew. It was her last tie to who she once was.  The stone had been in her family’s care for centuries.  She would not be the one to break the chain and betray her mother’s trust.

The men who accompanied her relied on their training as warriors to survive.  They rounded up the wild stallions they found in the wilderness and trained them to serve men at war, thinking there would always be lords and knights in need of a strong, fast horses.  Eventually the men took the name of the horses they trained and the two became indistinguishable in the eyes of the world.  The Salusian stallions and the Salusian warriors.

There were always stories surrounding the mysterious woman who led them.  The queen with the odd stone she wore about her neck. Whispers from the land they fled followed them, and more than once messengers arrived seeking word of my grandmother and asking her to return to the life she once knew, to claim the throne that was rightfully hers until her daughter came of age, and that would one day belong to her grandsons.  Too often those seeking her hoped they would claim the throne, or at least control it, by wedding the daughter of the former king.

You can imagine how pleased my grandmother was at the prospect of  my parents’ marriage because she knew my father would keep my mother safe from anyone from her old world who still hunted them.  My mother’s value was considerably lessened with her marriage to my father for she could no longer become a wife to the man who sought my grandfather’s throne. There were messengers over the years, hoping to persuade my father to allow one of his sons to return and reclaim the throne that was rightfully theirs. My father refused and the messengers eventually stopped coming to Heaven’s Crest.

I don’t know who the man was who took me.  I am your wife, now.  I cannot imagine why, even if he was somehow from my grandfather’s lost kingdom, he would be interested in me.  I could not wed one of them.

Then the man kept asking me about the stone, as if he was convinced of the truth of the foolish legends about it possessing some strange power.  He was deranged, Nathan.  Do you think if the stone possessed any magical powers my grandmother would not have used them to ease the plight of those early years in the wilderness?  Do you think my mother would not have called upon them to save my father and brothers and, forgive me, to keep the Normans from stealing our home?”

Nathan remained where he was standing by the fire as his wife’s voice trailed off.  The stone nestled at her breasts glowed softly in the flickering light from the fire.  She didn’t lift her gaze to his.  She sat alone in a world that existed no longer and one he could not share with her.  That world died along with her family.  Only she and her grandmother remained as a testament to it.

He believed her when she said she didn’t know why the man took her, but he believed he knew.  Some men clung to the past, to memories of former glory and thought they could find a way to resurrect them.  A long lost princess would represent a treasure of immeasurable worth to such a man, particularly one who now possessed the stone worn by their former queen, who survived when every other member of her immediate family was killed in the war.  With her youth and glowing beauty, Rhiann would be a symbol to such a man of all he lost.  He would give anything to possess her, believing she could somehow restore his past glory to him with the help of the magical stone she wore around her neck.

The fact she was already married would not deter him.  He would consider her husband’s death but a small obstacle to overcome.  There was always someone close to a powerful lord willing to sell their soul for the right price.  Nathan’s blood ran cold at the thought of what his unborn son or daughter’s fate would be in the hands of such a man.

He left his place beside the fire and knelt in front of his wife’s chair.  She refused to meet his searching glance.  He used his hand to lift her chin.  He smiled at her wary expression.  “Thank you for sharing your family’s history with me.  I swear to you, your family’s past will remain between us.”  He saw the relief flood her eyes and she leaned ever so slightly into his arms.

They closed around her.  He understood he was only just beginning to peel off the layers of mysteries surrounding his wife and her family but for now he was content to wait a while longer until Rhiann was willing to share more with him. He breathed in her feminine fragrance and let his hands play in her soft curls, smiling at the sound of the bells jingling in protest. 

              She nestled her face against the side of his neck and asked softly, “Do you think Luke will be back soon with Melissa and Michel?”

              Nathan clamped down on his instinctive impulse to squelch his wife’s unreasonable hope.  He conveyed to her often enough his belief her brother and sister were both dead, and their bodies would likely never be recovered.  She didn’t need him to hold up that particular mirror to her face right now. So instead he gave her what he knew she needed. He gently brushed his lips against the top of her head and whispered, “I hope so, Rhiann.”

The End..

Keep Reading for a Sneak Preview of

Book Two in the Norman Brides Series

SNEAK PREVIEW BOOK TWO IN THE NORMAN BRIDES SERIES

FINDERS KEEPERS

The sound of someone moaning in pain brought Melissa out of her semi-conscious state. It didn’t take her long to realize the moaning was coming from her own lips.  She ran her tongue over them and tasted the tangy salt of the sea. Her memories flooded back along with the rising tide on the beach where she lay sprawled amidst the wreckage of her small craft.  She struggled gingerly into a seated position and took stock of her limbs and her surroundings. She recognized the secluded cove. Stoney Point was its name and hers wasn’t the first craft driven to its doom by the deadly current surrounding the seemingly tranquil waters.  She was angry at herself for falling victim to it, believing her familiarity with the treacherous currents should have prevented her present predicament.  She and her twin brother, Michel, sailed these waters ever since they were children playing at pirates hiding smuggled booty in its narrow caves and the old forest surrounding it. 

The broken remnants of her vessel lay scattered around her, not unlike the wreckage of the life she once knew, before the war, before the greedy Normans killed her father and brothers and lay siege to their home, Heaven’s Crest.  Once aptly named, the grand keep she was raised in would soon fall before the Norman onslaught and become a gathering place for the demons from hell who stole her family, her life, and most grievously, her beloved, Michel.

Surveying the damage to her scratched and bleeding limbs, the torn, damp gown that lay upon her like a wet blanket and the pieces of her broken craft, Melissa heaved a defeated sigh and acknowledged her bold venture was a fool’s errand from the start and she was a fool to attempt it.  Her only regret at its predictable ending was that death wasn’t the price exacted from her for its failure. At least not yet, anyway. 

She shivered with cold and thought to wrap her cloak more closely around her before realizing the damp garment was contributing to her discomfort rather than easing it.  Since from the looks of the wreckage scattered on the beach she was unlikely to find anything drier to wrap around her shivering form, she huddled closer within the covering’s damp folds and took what comfort she could from its weight enfolding her, reminiscent of a tomb.  She shook off the dark thought, though she recognized she would likely be in need of one in the very near future.

There was no salve to tend her wounds.  It was cold now, but it would grow much colder as the sun, already hanging low in the western sky, dipped below the horizon and night fell over the secluded beach where she was stranded with no hope of rescue. She supposed she should count herself fortunate not to be in the same condition as her boat.  She must have been tossed out of the craft in the storm and miraculously ended up on the beach rather than her body being torn to pieces by the sharp stones beneath the now gentle waves lapping the shoreline.

Whether her current circumstances were a blessing or a curse was yet to be determined. Given a choice she thought she might prefer the quick death drowning would have afforded her, rather than the prolonged one she now faced from exposure or starvation.  Likely she was indulging her low spirits in a bit of self-pitying melodramatics.  Her father’s soldiers were no doubt out searching for her even now. She wasn’t certain how long it would take them to figure out she’d taken a boat and headed north, particularly as their attention was somewhat occupied at the moment by the very real threat of a Norman siege on Heaven’s Crest. 

It was the thought of being forced to surrender to, and being taken captive by the hated Norman pigs, that propelled her to set her crazy plan in action.  She would not kneel before the Norman duke who would be king and pledge her loyalty to the man responsible for the deaths of her father and brothers.  Surely death was preferable to the indignity and humiliation awaiting her beneath the thumb of their enemy.  If death was to be her lot regardless, she would take it at the hands of the icy winds or the vicious claws of some wild beast lurking in the forest hunting its next meal, rather than at the end of the noose no doubt awaiting the former Saxon nobility in the realm of the new king.

Her stomach growled insistently forcing her into action.  She wondered how long she was unconscious and decided at most it was a few hours.  The storm came up suddenly in mid-morning, and by the looks of the sun it would be dusk soon.  She performed a quick check of her aching limbs and was surprised to discover she suffered no broken bones as a result of being shipwrecked and then rose on shaky legs to discover if there were any supplies to be scavenged from her broken vessel. Her leg brushed against something sharp, and wincing in pain, she reached down to adjust her skirts to seek the cause of her discomfort. She hoped it wasn’t a broken shard of her vessel lodged in her leg, or some creature that attached itself to her while she was in the water.  Despite being a trained warrior she was ashamed to admit she was still squeamish about certain foolish things…like sea creatures and vermin that hid in the dark places of the world and fed on death.