Kissing the Bride Read online

  SARA BENNEIT

  KISSING THE BRIDE

  Thank you to R for his love, support

  and belief in me through the years.

  I honestly couldn’t do it without you.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Lady Jenova requests that Lord Henry of Montevoy come to…

  Chapter 1

  The weather had not been altogether bad. South beyond London,…

  Chapter 2

  Alfric, son of Lord Baldessare, arrived on a snowy horse…

  Chapter 3

  The cliffs were dizzyingly high, and below them the gray…

  Chapter 4

  Henry’s mouth was firm, yet tender, persuasive as his lips…

  Chapter 5

  The great hall at Gunlinghorn was pleasantly frenetic. A log…

  Chapter 6

  No turning back now, Jenova thought. Even had she wanted…

  Chapter 7

  Lord Baldessare and his family were to come to Gunlinghorn,…

  Chapter 8

  In her own chamber, the solar above the great hall,…

  Chapter 9

  The next morning Jenova descended the stairs with her speech…

  Chapter 10

  Lord Baldessare was far from pleased. As he strode into…

  Chapter 11

  Jean-Paul closed his eyes, trying to still the ache in…

  Chapter 12

  Once again Alfric and Rhona came riding into Gunlinghorn. Alfric’s…

  Chapter 13

  The great hall at Gunlinghorn rang with merriment. The castlefolk…

  Chapter 14

  Jenova grimaced as she threaded her needle, listening to the…

  Chapter 15

  Far beyond the keep, the sea pounded against the cliffs,…

  Chapter 16

  Jenova stood in her stillroom, surrounded by her herbs and…

  Chapter 17

  “Protect me?” Jenova muttered to herself, flinging open the door…

  Chapter 18

  The Black Dog was a single-story building, with a warehouse…

  Chapter 19

  “Did she say what he looked like beneath that accursed…

  Chapter 20

  In his dream Henry could hardly see where he was…

  Chapter 21

  Jenova listened as her steward took her through an inventory…

  Chapter 22

  The lumbering old wagon took him along roads that seemed…

  Chapter 23

  There was a child crying.

  Chapter 24

  “My lady, my lady!”

  Epilogue

  The chapel at Gunlinghorn was awash with wild roses and…

  About the Author

  Other Romances

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Prologue

  London

  Winter, early 1075

  Lady Jenova requests that Lord Henry of Montevoy come to her at Gunlinghorn…

  Lord Henry sighed as the messenger, an earnest young man in baggy breeches, carried on in a piping voice.

  …come to her at Gunlinghorn as soon as his duties at court allow him.

  It was not that Lord Henry of Montevoy did not want to come to Lady Jenova at Gunlinghorn, he thought as he sent the messenger off for refreshment. He had known Lady Jenova forever, and he was very fond of her. She had once been wed to the king’s cousin and was now a widow. Even if the king had not favored her, that marriage had made her important. No, it was not that Lord Henry did not want to visit Lady Jenova. It was just that, at this particular moment, he had other things on his mind.

  King William was not currently in residence at court in London; he was across the Channel, dealing with rebels in Le Maine and attending to his affairs in Normandy. But many of the great men of England were there. There was intrigue afoot, stirrings among the barons, jostlings for more land and more power. Greed had awoken, lifting its head and casting a glance about to see who was watching.

  Lord Henry did not like the tension he felt in the air these days.

  It was not just the thought of leaving this simmering pot unattended that concerned Henry. He told himself he had always preferred to be in the thick of things, to know what was going on and with whom, to use his intelligence to untangle the problems of the realm. Henry had never been much of a one for the isolation of the country, and Gunlinghorn was four days’ ride to the southwest.

  And, of course, he enjoyed partaking of civilized pursuits. More particularly, good conversation, fine wine and beautiful women. With his clear blue eyes set in a face almost perfect, Lord Henry was often called the most handsome man in England. Henry had always treated the title with good humor—especially now, at the age of thirty-four. His handsome face hid a keen mind, and any man who at first glance dismissed him as just a face was soon put aright. Henry was an integral part of King William’s council, and as such the powerful barons saw him either as a shrewd friend to look to in times of trouble, or a man to be wary of if they were involved in anything detrimental to the king.

  The women saw him differently. Henry was also famous as a lover, and few ladies could resist so handsome a trophy to show off to their friends.

  Jenova was the only woman he’d ever known who was unaffected by his handsome face. She didn’t see him as a pretty trophy, or a shrewd adversary. That was one of the reasons Henry liked her, and why he felt so at ease with her. He could be himself with her, he could be Henry.

  If he remembered rightly, the last time he had visited her, she had sent him home with an indulgent smile and with the admonishment to be good. Henry had laughed and kissed her fingers, then left her without a backward glance. Had he been “good”? In his way, he supposed he had, but Henry knew he had done things that Jenova would quibble over. What did she expect? She looked upon him almost as if he were a troublesome mortal and she a goddess on high: a man struggling to rise to the dizzy heights she expected of him and yet never quite reaching them. Still, she accepted his faults. She accepted him.

  Such a friend, be they man or woman, was truly a rarity.

  Henry sighed again. Of course, he would have to go to her. Jenova would not have asked if she had not needed to see him, and if he left at dawn tomorrow he could be in Gunlinghorn in four days, assuming the weather held. That would give him a few hours to tie up any business he had at the court—his trusted second in command, Leon, could keep an eye on matters and report to him if or when it became necessary. That would leave this evening free for Henry to visit his current mistress, Christina.

  He could not expect to find someone like Christina at Gunlinghorn, nor would he feel comfortable preying upon Jenova’s women. She was always, to his mind, overly strict when it came to visiting lords defiling her ladies—especially when some of those ladies seemed most eager to be defiled.

  He turned the message over in his mind. It was a strange relationship, the one between Jenova and himself, and yet it was a comfortable one. She had loved her husband, Mortred, and had been grieving for him now for two years. When Mortred died, Henry recalled, the glow had left Jenova’s green eyes. As if night had come to her soul.

  Their son must be five years old. Henry tried to remember what he looked like and could not; beyond a pat on the head and a vague greeting, Henry never took much notice of the boy. In truth, children were of little interest to him; there was no place for them in his life. And as for having any children of his own…

  Henry shuddered. He did not want the responsibility. Not after what had happened to him when he was a boy.

  Shrugging off his dark thoughts, Henry let himself wonder what Jenova could want of him that required his swift attendance upon her. Was her
son ill? Was she ill? But she would have said so, surely? Perhaps she needed his advice? But no, Henry smiled mockingly at his own thoughts, to Jenova he was and had always been Henry, whom she treated with a combination of amusement and indulgence and irritation, but never took too seriously.

  That wasn’t strictly true, Henry chastised himself. When he gave Jenova advice on important matters, matters to do with land and the running and defense of her manor, she usually took it—she had always trusted him to know the best paths to follow in the murky waters of King William’s England. But once, when he had tried to tell her that a red gown suited her better than a yellow one, she had laughed until she’d cried.

  “Are you a lady’s maid now, Henry?” she had asked him at last, her green eyes brimming. “Mayhap I should ask you for reports from the court as to what is in fashion. Mayhap you will wear a likeness of the latest head-wear for me.” And she was off again, bubbling with mirth.

  Henry had tried not to take offence. They had known each other since they were children, and to Jenova he would always be that boy who followed her about, who was to be tolerated in a fond sort of way.

  He found her attitude frustrating, but at the same time oddly comforting.

  Jenova was not like other women, and he had never treated her so.

  “Reynard!” he called suddenly.

  “Yes, my lord?” Reynard, come last year from Lord Radulf’s household to serve Lord Henry, looked up from where he was slumbering by the fire. At the moment he had the appearance of a large, disheveled hound, his deceptively sleepy dark eyes fixed on Henry. But Henry knew Reynard was far from being the idle man he looked.

  “We will go south to Gunlinghorn at first light tomorrow. Prepare, will you? I do not expect our stay to be a long one.”

  “Who is at Gunlinghorn, my lord?”

  Henry smiled. “An old friend,” he said. And realized that he was looking forward to this journey, after all. It had been too long since he had last seen Jenova. Far too long.

  Chapter 1

  The weather had not been altogether bad. South beyond London, the Forest of Anderida had enclosed them like a green ocean, but Henry had arranged for a guide to lead them through its timbered vastness. Snow had fallen, but not heavily, and not enough to slow down his troop of men.

  Henry, huddled in his thick, fur-lined cloak, had thought wistfully of Christina, her long, dark hair covering the smooth, pale skin of her back as last evening she’d poured him wine from a jug. Her movements had been graceful and languid, and as she had turned to him, she had smiled. Aye, she had made a tasty picture, dressed only in her ebony locks.

  He did not love her, any more than she loved him. Theirs was a relationship of convenience, and love was not something that was part of the contract between them. For Henry, women like Christina were a necessity—a necessary pleasure. If she was not the greatest conversationalist, and her intelligence was shrewd rather than deep, what did it matter, when she more than satisfied him in bed? And as for Christina, the daughter of an ambitious minor noble, she was more than happy with her comfortable rooms and fine clothes and jewels.

  “I have to leave tomorrow,” he had told her, sipping the wine.

  She had blinked. “Go where, my lord?”

  “To the Downs in the southwest, Christina. To Gunlinghorn.”

  Her eyes had widened. “Oh, my lord, I would not like to go outside London! There are savages in the countryside!”

  Henry had grinned. “Then it is as well you are not going, Christina. You will stay here until I return.”

  She had been relieved, Henry thought now with wry humor. Christina had had no desire to share the perils of Henry’s journey. She liked him, or at least she liked the luxuries he could afford to give her, but that was as far as it went. She was glad he was going alone.

  Why were women so fickle? They couldn’t wait to get into bed with him, but none of them sobbed more than a few false tears when it was time to part. Was it something to do with him? Did he not please them in some way? Henry knew that wasn’t so—his women were always well pleased. When their relationship had run its course, and they left, they nearly always took with them a mutual fondness. Nay, the problem lay elsewhere. And Henry had lately begun to understand that something was missing.

  But what?

  As clever and handsome as he was reported to be, Henry did not know.

  In younger days he hadn’t felt the need to dwell on such puzzling and incomprehensible matters. Then all he had wanted was a lusty woman in his bed. But now…I must be getting old, he thought in disgust. Or maybe it was seeing Radulf and Lily, and Gunnar and Rose, and Ivo and Briar, all so happy, all content with exactly what they had, all so much in love….

  It was ridiculous, but it made Henry feel lonely.

  Love?

  In his heart, Henry held a dark fear. Love would mean sharing all his secrets with another person and trusting them to understand. It would mean giving more of himself than he was prepared, or perhaps able, to give.

  Henry had been more or less orphaned at the age of five, and at thirteen he had been a man well and truly. He did not look to love as a reason to survive.

  What does it matter if I haven’t found a Lily or a Briar? he asked himself angrily. He had what other men envied. He was well favored in looks and fortune, he had the king’s ear and any woman he wanted. It was no boast, but honest truth. Women never turned Lord Henry down.

  Love!

  He had no time for love; it was the least of his concerns. He admitted to himself that that was why he preferred the lighter intimacies of women like Christina; it was less trouble. It was safer.

  Henry and his troop of men rode on, into the wintry forest, through the fertile Weald and onto the windswept Downs. Here the Gunlinghorn River was born in the chalk downs and grew wide and strong, leading them into the Vale of Gunlinghorn. Winter rains had turned ponds into small lakes, and the water meadows were full of life despite the weather. Henry watched a long-legged waterbird fly low across the gray surface, momentarily surrounded by a flock of smaller linnets. Gunlinghorn had always been plentiful in its harvests of both land and water. Before the Normans came, life here had been fortunate, bountiful, and under Lady Jenova little had changed. In that regard, Gunlinghorn was truly a small slice of Eden.

  The castle stood upon a tall hill, overlooking the Vale. From the highest point of the keep, one could look out over the cliffs on the coast of England, to the very sea the Normans had sailed across to make their conquest.

  The keep itself was constructed of timber cut from the woods surrounding the Vale of Gunlinghorn. The strong wooden ramparts encircling the keep were currently being remade in local stone, with the grim-looking gatehouse already completed. Jenova was ferocious when it came to protecting what belonged to her, and Henry had suggested stone the last time he’d been here. Now, seeing with his own eyes that she had taken his advice, he felt an unexpected rush of pleasure.

  Gunlinghorn’s heavy gates opened easily to his name. Henry led his men into the bailey, casting an eye over the busy castlefolk, and nodding in reply to the many cries of welcome. He was known here. Liked, too, he thought. It was almost like coming home. With an odd catch in his chest, Henry realized that Gunlinghorn was probably the nearest thing to a family and a home that he had ever had.

  In the great hall, several servants bowed low, their voices hushed to murmurs. Henry hardly noticed them. The warmth and welcome of Gunlinghorn embraced him, laced with the aroma of roasting meat from the kitchen. Henry felt himself begin to relax, the tensions easing out of his shoulders like loosening knots. He never relaxed in London—it was neither safe nor prudent to do so. And yet now, at Gunlinghorn, the need to be constantly watchful was being replaced by a sense of well-being.

  Henry could not help himself: He smiled. Making his way to the roaring fire, he accepted mulled wine from one of Jenova’s servants. He gulped it down, feeling instant warmth spearing through his chilled body, and then set ab
out stripping off his heavy gloves and stamping the snow from his boots. Several castle dogs snuffled about him with friendly curiosity.

  “Henry!”

  Her familiar voice rose above the bustle. Henry did not realize how much he had missed her until he heard it. Or how the sight of her warmed his heart, he thought, as he turned.

  Lady Jenova was coming toward him. Her moss green gown and the hem of her creamy chemise swirled elegantly about her legs, while a jewel-decorated, golden girdle rested low upon her shapely hips. Rings sparkled upon her elegant fingers, and her silken white veil drifted about her head and shoulders. Even from the far end of the hall, Henry could see the smile glowing in her green eyes.

  Surprised, Henry wondered why he had never noticed that her skin was as creamy and as smooth as milk. And he knew the brown hair beneath her veil to be lush and curling, perfect for a man to tangle his fingers through. Her eyes, a haunting deep forest green, were set within long dark lashes and topped by slim, arching brows. Such eyes…they were really quite remarkable. Would they darken with passion when she was in the arms of a man?

  With her wealth there must have been many suitors hoping to win her approval. And not just because of her riches, either. Jenova was an extremely good looking woman.

  Although he had known many very beautiful women, Henry realized there was something about Jenova…something unique, something he had never noticed until now.

  “I did not expect you so soon,” Jenova said.

  “I did not think it worth sending your messenger with a warning I was on my way—I would have arrived before him.”

  She gripped his hands firmly with her own cool fingers and smiled straight into his eyes.