The Elusive Bride. Deborah Hale

into the ranks of the lepers, blessing the rough cloth mask that hid her supposedly grotesque features.

      The ruse would never have occurred to her but for Empress Maud. Besieged at Winchester, she’d allowed herself to be wrapped in a winding sheet and laid in a coffin. Smuggled out of the city for burial, Maud had escaped the tightening circle of her enemies to pursue the fight another day.

      Cecily had every intention of doing the same.

      But where to go once she got clear of Brantham? Grudgingly, Cecily admitted she hadn’t thought that far in advance. Most of their neighbors were the King’s men—though none so contemptibly as Fulke DeBoissard. All the same, if she showed up at their gates, few would scruple to take her hostage and marry her off to some he-creature of the family in hopes of enlarging their holdings. As an unwed heiress, she was now a tempting prize for an ambitious man. Clearly, she had only one way open to her.

      “You there!”

      At the shout from behind her, Cecily turned, silently berating herself for a dangerous lapse in concentration. When and if she got safely away from Brantham there would be time enough to mull over the problem of where to run for sanctuary.

      One of Fulke’s men-at-arms strode toward her. What could he want? Did her disguise not fool him? Through her mask of loose-woven sacking, Cecily cast a futile glance at Brantham’s gate. The last of the genuine lepers were making their halting way through. Did she dare make a bolt for it?

      Fulke’s man towered over her. Cecily’s heart galloped like a stag beset by a pack of baying hounds.

      “Where are ye bound, leper?”

      Fearing her voice would give her away entirely, she hesitated.

      Before she could think what to do or say, a shout from behind drew the guard’s attention away from her.

      “Damn you to hell, Maud!” Her father charged into the bailey with his sword upraised.

      What madness was he talking?

      “Who let you in?” he roared. “I’ll show you the welcome you can expect at Brantham from now on!”

      In his grief-addled mind, did he think these were the Empress’s men entering the keep?

      Cecily opened her mouth to call out to him, even though it would expose her identity.

      One of Fulke’s bowmen was quicker.

      An arrow tore into his shoulder, spinning him around. The guard who had been questioning Cecily forgot all about her, running toward the wounded man.

      Though she longed to follow, Cecily dared not.

      In his present state of mind, her father was more than likely to give her to DeBoissard with his blessing, to spite the Empress. Once he had wed the heiress, Fulke would not hesitate to kill her father. While she was at large and might wed some other man, Fulke would see her wounded father well tended.

      The best service she could do him was to keep on walking out the gate. Why, then, did it feel like a betrayal?

      Cecily shuffled past Fulke DeBoissard with her eyes downcast, even though she reminded herself he could not see them through her mask of sacking. To her relief, the ambitious coxcomb took no notice of a humble leper. Instead, he demanded loudly to know what was going on.

      The last voice she heard was her father’s. Still fulminating against Maud, in spite of his wound. To Cecily, it felt like his bitter denunciations were aimed squarely at her.

      She lagged behind the lepers until she was out of sight from Brantham’s walls. Then she dived into the hedgerow and began peeling off the mask and bandages.

      Her father’s outburst would not buy her much time. Once in possession of Brantham, Fulke would demand to see his bride. After a brief search for her, they would surely guess the manner of her escape. Then they would set out to hunt her down.

      Cecily quailed at the thought.

      Could she hope to evade Fulke’s hounds and horsemen long enough to reach help? Again the question of where to run reared its thorny head. Would Maud still be at the Devizes? And if she was, could she spare arms and men to retake Brantham?

      Conscious that she must move, no matter where, Cecily set off through a familiar stand of forest. Hopefully she would gain a little time by going northeast and doubling back, rather than heading due west as they would surely expect her to do. As she moved through the trees, keeping one ear cocked for sounds of pursuit, she reluctantly decided upon her goal.

      Ravensridge. The DeCourtenay stronghold in Gloucestershire.

      With luck, Rowan DeCourtenay might also have received the Empress’s marriage edict. Cecily would barter herself in exchange for his help in liberating Brantham from Fulke. Though the idea of marriage appealed to her as little as ever, she acknowledged the unpalatable truth that an heiress needed a husband.

      If she must accept the yoke of matrimony, she might do worse than a warrior newly returned from the Holy Land. The Christian kingdoms there were under increasing pressure from the powers of Islam. It would take but a word from the Pope, or a few inflammatory sermons from some charismatic preacher, to touch off another Crusade. Which might lure DeCourtenay back to the Holy Land and leave his wife her own mistress once again.

      What would he be like, this Rowan DeCourtenay? From the deepest recesses of her memory, Cecily recalled hearing his name spoken at Brantham. She tried to summon up the details, but they would not come. All she could remember was that it had been long ago—before the war. And whatever was said had been in low, scandalized tones.

      So engaged was her concentration that Cecily did not hear the sound of voices ahead until it was almost too late.

      “Where have ye come from, traveler?”

      She recognized the baiting contempt underlying this inquiry. Freezing in her tracks, she peered through the leaves into a small clearing.

      Two roughly clad men confronted a third, somewhat better dressed. The late morning sun glinted off a wicked looking knife in the hand of one. His partner, almost a head shorter, tossed a small pouch in the air and caught it again. A modest chink of coins issued from the purse.

      Bandits.

      Indignant wrath swelled within Cecily. During King Henry’s reign, parasites like these would never have dared to venture so near Brantham. During Stephen’s lax tenure, they had become insufferably bold.

      “I’m bound for London from Shrewsbury,” said the thieves’ victim, as good-naturedly as if he was talking over a flagon at the local alehouse. “Now that you’ve relieved me of my purse, may I be on my way?”

      Oddly lacking in fear, the voice sounded familiar, though Cecily could not place where she had heard it before. Who did she know from the distant Welsh border town of Shrewsbury?

      It hardly mattered, she told herself, gingerly picking her way through the woods to circle the clearing. This was no affair of hers. She could not afford the time to stop and intervene. Nor did she dare risk drawing attention to her presence.

      The smaller thief continued to toss the pouch of coins. “It’s a very light purse, to carry a man so far.” The tone of menace sharpened his words.

      “So I told my master.” The purse’s owner chuckled, still uncowed. “I expect he didn’t trust me with more.”

      Sparing only a crumb of her attention to the exchange, Cecily smiled, in spite of herself. If the bandits believed their mark was a simple hired messenger, they were fools indeed. It was a good try on his part, though, aiming to solicit some fellow-feeling from them. At least they might spare his life.

      Just then, some trick of the light or scent of the woods rekindled her memory of another noontide encounter in another forest clearing. Cecily recognized the voice belonging to the traveler she’d met in the convent garden. Could it be only six weeks ago? It felt like several lifetimes.

      Though she tried to force