The Elusive Bride. Deborah Hale

her rigorous scrutiny misses.” Those mild blue eyes twinkled with amusement. “You have enlivened this place, my child, I’ll say that for you. You’ve shaken us from pious solemnity and shown us the virtue of taking delight in God’s creation. How we will miss you—even Sister Goliath.”

      Cecily opened her mouth to ask how the prioress had come to hear of her irreverent appellation for Sister Gertha. Then she realized the import of Mother Ermintrude’s benediction. “Miss me? I’m not going anywhere. You aren’t sending me away, are you?” Cecily clenched her hands together in earnest supplication. “I promise, Reverend Mother, I’ll try to do better. I won’t wander off anymore. I won’t jest in the refectory. I won’t—”

      The prioress held up her hand for silence. “You have been sent for, Cecily. You must return to the world and take your place in it.”

      “Oh no, Mother. I’ll go to Brantham. Just say I may return when Father gives me leave.”

      If she could have stayed at Brantham, among the people she loved, it would have been different. But this summons could mean only one thing. She’d be forced to wed and leave Brantham forever. The priory was her second favorite place in the world. Once she took the veil, no one could oust her from it.

      The prioress shook her head. “My dear child, have the past months not taught you the folly of trying to mold yourself in directions God does not intend? Our community took you in at your father’s behest—to give you sanctuary in these violent times, to help you recover from the deaths of your brothers and to see if you had a true vocation for the sisterhood. All three charges we have fulfilled. You are safe and sound. You have put the early agonies of grief behind you. And you have proven time and again that you will never make a good nun.”

      Angry tears welled up in Cecily’s eyes. “You don’t understand, Mother. I must take the veil. What else is there for me? Banished from Brantham and my people. Slave to the whims of some dolt of a husband. Here, at least, women have power over their own lives. I want that!”

      The prioress reached out a smooth, worn hand and touched Cecily’s cheek. “Power? You have learned little from us, I fear. We are brides of Christ. We strive always to serve him with obedience and devotion that go beyond the bounds of mortal marriage. You have a harsh opinion of men, Cecily. Long ago, before I took the veil, I was married to a good kind man—no dolt, I assure you. Have you never met a man you could care for as a husband?”

      “Never,” snapped Cecily, though her conscience pricked as she thought of the mysterious traveler she had encountered in the garden several weeks ago. He had come to her in dreams every night since. “I was plagued with suitors before the war broke out, all keen to get their hands on my dower lands. Edwin Goddard—he’s slow and stupid as an ox. Roger Vaughan—he’s a well looking fellow, but vain and boastful as a Gascon. As for Fulke DeBoissard—” her nose wrinkled at the thought of her most persistent suitor “—I wouldn’t wed that oily toad if he was the last male creature in Christendom!”

      “I have heard a story,” ventured the prioress, “of a toad turned into a prince by the kiss of true love. Many a weak man has been improved by marriage to the right woman.”

      “Our Holy Mother herself couldn’t salvage DeBoissard.”

      “Cecilia Tyrell!” The prioress looked genuinely shocked. “You blaspheme.”

      “I’m sorry, Mother,” Cecily pleaded desperately. “I didn’t mean to, honestly. It just slipped out.”

      The prioress sighed. “Do you need any further proof of how poor a nun you’d make? An ungovernable tongue is no asset in a religious community—nor in a marriage, either. I doubt Our Lord would be flattered that you chose him because you could find no worthier spouse.”

      Mother Ermintrude’s words knelled with gentle finality. Cecily would find no refuge from marriage within these walls.

      “Gather your clothes,” urged the prioress. “There is a young man waiting for you in the portress’s stall.”

      “Young man?” Cecily jumped up, her disappointment momentarily forgotten. “Why didn’t you say so? It must be Geoffrey.” Without a word of leave-taking, she bolted out the parlor door. Tearing down the hall, she then bounded straight across the priory garth. How she had missed her youngest brother—the lone survivor of four.

      “Geoffrey!” she cried, hurling herself upon the young man who sat in the portress’s stall, hungrily consuming a bowl of pottage. At the last second she checked her headlong rush.

      “Harald?” She recognized the son of Brantham’s castellan, her brother’s devoted companion. “Where is Geoffrey? I thought you were both with the Empress at Winchester.”

      The boy started back from Cecily’s voluble onrush, then recognition dawned. He fell to his knees, pressing her hand to his cheek. It felt unnaturally warm to the touch. Acting on instinct, she reached out and pushed a lank lock of flaxen hair back from his forehead. Cecily gasped. A jagged gash marred his left brow, encrusted with dirt and dried blood.

      “Harald, what happened to you?” Yet again she asked, “Where is Geoffrey?”

      The boy ignored her questions. “Lady Cecily, I was sent to fetch you. You must come at once. Brantham is in an uproar!”

      Calling for the herbalist, to dress Harald’s wound, Cecily felt her pulse quicken at the summons. She was not going back to make some odious marriage, after all. Brantham needed her.

      For the first time in her life, her father needed her.

      When they rode into Brantham Keep several hours later, Cecily took one look and wished she could scurry back to the order and peace of the priory. It was worse than anything she’d imagined during her headlong gallop from Wenwith.

      The tide of civil war had swollen, then ebbed, leaving its flotsam and jetsam washed up in Brantham’s courtyard. Wounded soldiers who had crawled away from the fray, looking for succor or a decent place to die. Refugees from little villages overtaken by the onrush of battle. A pitiful band of lepers whose lazarhouse had been put to the torch by King Stephen’s Fleming mercenaries.

      The bailey seethed with erratic, purposeless movement, danced to the jarring minstrelsy of cries, shrieks and groans. Vaulting from her horse, Cecily strode into the midst of the chaos. Drawing her lips taut with two fingers, she let loose a loud, shrill whistle that pierced the general din. In the second of amazed silence that followed, she bellowed her orders.

      “Castle folk to me!”

      Without a beat of hesitation they flocked to her, faces sweat streaked and exhausted, anxious eyes lit with a wary glimmer of hope. Cecily turned to the most familiar of her father’s retainers.

      “I want anyone who can move on to do so before night falls. Give them whatever they need to speed them on their way. Get buckets and dippers, and make the rounds with water. Carry the worst wounded to the great hall. Father Clement and Mabylla can tend them. Harald, you police the lepers. Get them food and water, but see they keep to their corner of the bailey. Tell them I’ll be around with medicines once I get things sorted out. Someone fetch me the cook.”

      “Lady Cecily. Thank God you’re home.” Piers Paston bustled out from the keep. Dropping to one knee, he enveloped her fingers in his massive hand. “We have been overwhelmed!”

      “So I see.” Cecily could scarcely contain her asperity. The big, ruddy castellan looked so distraught, she instantly relented. “This visitation landed on you out of a blue sky and you haven’t had a quiet moment to collect your wits. You did right to send for me. I have had the leisure of a good ride to mull over the problem. Take two or three fellows and find them cloth and lumber to build awnings. These poor people will need shelter from the sun tomorrow, or we’ll have deaths from the heat. Have we dead already? Is anyone digging graves?”

      Behind Cecily, a woman’s voice rang out, imperious as her own. “If only I’d had a general of your caliber with me at Winchester, Mistress Tyrell…”

      Cecily