CHAPTER 1

Langlinais Castle

England

1251

Were all brides as terrified?

Her hands felt icy, despite the fact that the air was heavy with the summer heat. How odd that her palms should feel cold and wet at the same time. Juliana wiped them surreptitiously on her surcoat. The embroidered cotte she wore was too heavy for the warm weather. A veil was attached to the toque on her unbound hair; the chin band felt as if it were strangling her.

She had dreaded this day for years. She had only been five when she’d been led by her mother’s hand to her father’s side in the solar. The room had been hot and stuffy and crowded with people. They had spoken words she’d barely understood, about vassals and oaths and territories and land. "Do you understand, Juliana?" she’d been asked. She had nodded and said the words as she’d been instructed. Then, she’d seen the boy there, the tall one with the brown hair and impatient tapping foot. He’d smiled at her, but she’d only scowled at him, then thrust herself behind her mother’s skirts again. She had not seen him again after she’d been led from the room. Only later did she learn it had been her wedding day, and the boy her husband.

At the convent she was known as the Langlinais bride, for all that she’d never seen the castle before, and her husband only once. For most of her life, she’d lived at the Sisters of Charity, preparing for the role of chatelaine of this sprawling demesne. Years had been spent inside gray walls, waiting for this very day.

She had another name bestowed upon her by the girls fostered at the convent. Juliana, the timid. Juliana, the mouse. They are jealous of your position, the abbess had told her. Ignore their words. Pay them no heed. She had never told the abbess that their teasing rang with undeniable truth. She was frightened of the dark, disliked the height reached even when standing upon a stool, avoided the pond on the convent property. On the journey here, she’d discovered that horses could be added to that list of things she’d choose to avoid if she could.

But it hadn’t always been so. Once, she had been brave and daring. The day she’d made a face at the boy who’d stared at her. The same boy who was now a man, and the husband she awaited.

She had lived in an agreeable limbo, married but not forced to be a wife. Ten years had passed, then twelve. At a time most brides would have joined their husbands, she’d been sent word that Sebastian, Earl of Langlinais, had gone on crusade. Two years later, he’d returned. A week ago word had come, explaining that her husband had been imprisoned by the infidels, ransomed and released. There was no further reason to delay joining him.

Her journey from the convent of the Sisters of Charity had taken no more than a few hours, the procession of twenty men at arms escorting her a show of honor and force expected for a knight’s bride, a lord’s wife. At dusk they had ridden through the gates of Langlinais. An hour ago she had been escorted to the Great Hall and left here beside the fireplace. She could hear a faint summer breeze sigh through it now, as if calling her name. Juliana. It was more a warning than a welcome.

The Great Hall at Langlinais was easily three times larger than her childhood home and decorated more lavishly. She traced the painted outline of one stone block on the wall beside her. Her fingertip came away shaded red and she hurriedly wiped her hand on her skirt once more. Her head was still bowed, but she glanced from beneath her lashes to see if her actions had been observed. Three men were setting up tables, and a servant girl had placed a large platter upon the head table, but they paid no attention to her.

It seemed no one knew she was here. Should she stand and announce her presence? The idea of calling attention to herself was daunting. It would be more fitting to simply wait until she was greeted. She returned to her covert perusal of the Hall.

She could not recognize all of the different flowers painted on the wall. She had had little experience in the convent gardens. Sister Helena had merely pointed to the weeds and Juliana had obediently pulled them from the soil.

Her skill lie in the scriptorium. Her joy there, too. With her husband’s blessing, she might be able to continue her work here, in this new and imposing home.

The fireplace beside her was one of two structures in the Great Hall. They were built into the walls, the stones curving over the hearth in an wide arc. Comfort was evidently a priority to her husband. The iron brackets upon the wall were filled with a profusion of oil lamps and candles. The night was being pushed back by such brightness. The rushes beneath her feet were clean, strewn with daisy and rose petals. And perhaps lavender, she thought, identifying the scent.

A dwelling not in dire need of a chatelaine.

All of the tables, the bustle of activity, and the smell of roasting meat made her wonder if there was to be a celebration to mark the occasion of her arrival at Langlinais. If so, she would sit at the dais with her husband. She would share a trencher with him, and be expected to smile and act pleased to be married to a man she’d met only once in her life when she was barely out of infancy. He had been possessed of a kind smile and an impatience to be done with it.

Would he feel the same tonight?

A soft knock was prelude to the call. "My lord?" Sebastian ignored both.

He stood in the master’s chambers looking west, toward a sun that had already reached its zenith and was slowly descending into night. He knew what his steward was about to tell him. She had arrived. His bride.

"My lord?" Jered was not going to go away, it seemed.

Sebastian went to the door, braced his hand against the thick oak studded with iron braces. This portal had stood for generations, bulwark against intrusion, but it could not protect him now.

"She is here?"

"Yes, my lord."

What kind of woman would agree to this bargain? A question to which he’d found no answer. For months, he’d wanted to avoid this moment. Had delayed it until it would have been dangerous to continue to do so.

He’d seen her only once, on the occasion of their wedding. As her father had sat at the desk signing the documents that would pass her and her dower lands into the keeping of the earls of Langlinais, she’d peeked behind her mother’s skirts, her green eyes as bright as a new leaf. She’d had her fingers crammed in her mouth. Her mother had slapped her hand away, but they’d only crept back a moment later. He’d winked at her, and like a wise little owl, she’d stared back, her eyes widening at such irreverence. Finally, she’d stuck her tongue out at him, and he’d laughed, charmed.

Their marriage had been a union of their fathers. Hers had been a vassal of his, and proud to align his family, by way of his daughter, with the Langlinais earls. Before her father left on crusade, he’d wanted her future assured, so the five year old bride had been roused from her nap to wed him. Sebastian would have done anything for his father, including marrying a child he wouldn’t see again until she matured. The bargain had been made and the Langlinais coffers increased by her dower lands in Merton. He found it ironic that he’d had to sacrifice those same lands to the Templars in order to pay a portion of his ransom.

He’d not been so prepossessing back then, only a twelve year old boy. Years had added muscle to his arms and legs, and height to his frame. Would she see him as different?

He almost laughed then. Of course she would see him as changed. He would be fortunate, indeed, if she didn’t run screaming from the castle.

Another knock. His summons, then, to the moment of truth. He opened the door only a few inches.