Fire Song. Catherine Archer

thought to withhold the dower.

      Clearly the elder man did not care for Roland’s tone, for he raised a haughty silver brow. “You are free to speak here.” He made a sweeping gesture to indicate the others who were partaking of the morning meal.

      “Nay,” Roland replied, “I will converse with you and only you. If your daughter speaks truth you will be glad I have afforded both her and you the courtesy of telling you what I have to say in private.”

      Penacre stood, frowning. “As you wish.” Without waiting to see if Roland was indeed following, he strode from the hall. Roland went after him, feeling many sets of unfriendly eyes upon his back. It was obvious that those who had overheard his brusque words to their master did not approve. Roland gave a mental shrug. He had no care for what the folk of Penacre thought of him. He was the one who had been wronged here.

      He was led to a small chamber that contained several tables and two chairs. The tables seemed to groan under the weight of the ledgers that rested atop each. Peripherally he found himself thinking that Penacre must have a care with his holdings to keep such detailed records. Then he quickly told himself that Penacre was likely only being miserly. Yet he could not help knowing that Penacre’s home was finely furnished and his daughter richly garbed.

      With a wry twist of his lips, Roland told himself it did no ill to Penacre’s lot to be good friend to King John. What matter was it to him now, whom the man supported? Richard was dead.

      Roland concentrated on the baron’s possible duplicity toward himself. Penacre made no motion for him to sit, nor did he do so, which was fine with Roland. He had no wish to affect any facade of polite civility.

      Roland got to the point immediately. “Lord Penacre, your daughter has assured me that you had no knowledge of what she was about. That is the only reason I am even here discussing this with you rather than with the king himself.”

      Penacre’s already stiff expression became even more so. “What are you jabbering about, Kirkland? What has Celeste told you that would make you go to King John in complaint?”

      Roland watched the man closely. There was no indication that he was hiding anything, but Roland was not finished. “Not Celeste—Meredyth.”

      “Why would Meredyth offer you offense?” The older man shook his head in obvious bafflement. “You have no cause to speak to Meredyth. Have had no need for contact with her of any kind. I’ll thank you to stay away from her.” The pain in his voice was clear as he said, “You’ve already taken the one person who means most to me and will have no more.”

      Roland thought this a most odd thing to say, but pushed it aside. He could not be distracted. He continued to study Penacre for any sign of treachery as he said, “Oh, I have had opportunity for the most intimate of contacts with the lady Meredyth. You see it is she who passed the night in my arms.”

      Penacre started toward him, his face a mask of anger and confusion. “You had best explain yourself, Kirkland, for I’ve no more patience in me.”

      Unmoved by this and determined to learn the truth, Roland said. “It is Meredyth Chalmers who married me in the chapel last eve, Meredyth who is my wife.”

      Even Roland could not doubt the utter shock and amazement that drained Hugh Chalmers’s face of all color. As Roland moved to help the older man into a chair, he could not explain the strange sense of relief he felt on finding out his wife had not lied to him on this matter, at least.

      He quickly dismissed it. Betrayal was the way of women; his own mother had lessoned them in that when she had abandoned her husband and children by running away with his father’s squire. Even these more than twenty years later the memory had the power to squeeze his heart in a painful grip.

      Learning that Meredyth Chalmers had told the truth of this one small matter did not change the fact that she had tricked him into marriage. In fact, it made her reason for doing so even more of a mystery. If not in some attempt to cheat him of the dower, then why indeed?

      

      Meredyth had long since retreated to her own chamber. Nothing more could be gained by staying in Celeste’s. The truth was revealed. She knew that Roland had confronted her father, because he had come to her demanding an explanation, no more than an hour past.

      Though it troubled Meredyth greatly to defy her father’s demands for information, she had refused to tell him. Celeste’s secret would not become known through her and Celeste herself had as yet to return to the keep. Her father’s men were at this moment searching for her.

      Hugh Chalmers had gone back to St. Sebastian none the wiser, his parting stony stare a clear sign of his disapproval of Meredyth. She could only believe that did he know the truth he would wish for her to protect Celeste. Only that certainty kept her from blurting out all. That and the fact that she could read his illdisguised relief that Celeste had not been the one to marry Kirkland.

      Meredyth looked up from her unhappy thoughts as her door opened. It was her maid, Jolie, who stood in the doorway. Her cloud of dark curls surrounded a pale face and troubled brown eyes. “My lady, he is here.”

      “He…?” Meredyth asked in a ragged whisper, though she had a very uncomfortable feeling that she already knew what he the maid was referring to.

      Before Jolie could say any more, the man in question pushed the door open wide with his broad shoulders. St. Sebastian then dismissed the maid without taking his narrowed cobalt gaze from Meredyth. “You may go.”

      Jolie hesitated, her brow creased with concern, and Meredyth knew sympathy for her. The girl was quite young and had only been in her service for three short months. She was not accustomed to dealing with men like Roland St. Sebastian. Nor for that matter was Meredyth, but she nodded reassuringly. “All will be well, Jolie. Lord Kirkland is my…husband. I have nothing to fear from him.”

      But even as a clearly reluctant Jolie dipped a curtsy and left, Meredyth wondered if he would continue to be her husband. Would he somehow find a way to set her aside? She supposed the church would allow it, considering the circumstances. Yet she could not help wondering what would then happen to her. She was no longer a virgin and surely all in the keep must know that After Roland had left her in Celeste’s chamber, Meredyth had become aware of the blood on the sheet she used as covering and the fact that Agnes seemed equally aware of it.

      No other man would wish to have St. Sebastian’s leavings. Meredyth had thought she was resigned to being her father’s chatelaine, to never having a home and family of her own. But the sheer inescapability of this future should Kirkland refuse to remain wed to her was devastating.

      She did not wish for him to know how very much this thought disturbed her. Surely having no husband would be preferable to being this man’s wife. Meredyth squared her shoulders and looked directly into those startlingly blue eyes. “Well?”

      Roland St. Sebastian smiled but there was no pleasure in it and a sense of greater unease came over her. “Well, wife. It seems I am to keep you.” Before she could contemplate whether this revelation came as relief or curse, he continued, “Your father seems to have no more understanding of what has made you and your sister act so rashly than I. Furthermore, he has agreed that you shall have the same dower that Celeste would have brought to Kirkland.”

      He shrugged. “As I have decided not to contest the fact that you wed me using your sister’s name, the matter is to be overlooked by the priest. We shall change the name on the marriage contract and notify the king of the situation, but I can see little chance of his caring greatly when he has the bulk of his attention set on his own recent marriage to Isabella of Angouleme. He has gained his end in seeing our two houses united. One Chalmers bride is as another.”

      Meredyth hardly knew what to reply. His coldness toward her was not surprising, though unexpectedly painful. She pushed this hurt aside to concentrate on the rest of what he had said. The shock of learning that the marriage would be honored by Kirkland was amazing, not to mention the fact that he had just told her that she had attained a dower worth thousands of pounds.

      Not