On the way back to the castle they rode through the center of the village, Pearl sitting before him on his steed. He wrapped an arm possessively around her waist. Pearl had been used to inciting stares and whispers her entire life, but nothing like this. Several people actually began cheering.
I lived a simple life, as a fisherman’s daughter, and they despised and feared me. Now that I am marrying a marquis, they treat me as one of their own, she thought bitterly.
Still, she couldn’t help but feel a twinge of satisfaction when the mother of the boy she had saved from the runaway cart looked up at her with a mixture of awe and jealousy on her face.
“Would you mind if we stop and speak with Father Gregory for a moment?” Robert asked her suddenly.
The mention of Father Gregory made Pearl suddenly feel nauseated. Talking to the good father would make it all too real. Still, she forced herself to say, “No, I won’t mind.”
Robert pulled the steed up in front of the church. He dismounted in one fluid motion and helped her down as well. He flipped the reins over the horse’s head and let them dangle toward the ground. The mighty beast made a chuffing sound and shifted his weight onto three legs.
Robert patted the horse’s neck before taking Pearl’s arm and leading her into the church.
Father Gregory had already heard the news and was beaming from ear to ear as he greeted them. She twisted her pearl between her fingers as Robert and Father Gregory talked. Within a minute the time for the ceremony had been set and her fate had been sealed.
Exiting the church, Pearl was shocked to see Thomas kneeling next to Robert’s horse.
“Can I help you, sir?” Robert asked, sounding equally surprised.
The blacksmith rose slowly. He turned and faced them. “Your horse looked like one of his shoes was working itself loose.” He held up his hammer. “He should be good for a couple more days now, but I’ll need to check all his shoes.”
“Thank you,” Robert replied. “I’ll see that one of my servants brings him to you in the morning.”
Thomas nodded. He stared at the ground for a moment and twisted his hands about his hammer. At last he looked up again and looked Pearl in the eyes. “My pleasure.”
“What do I owe you?” Robert asked.
“No charge, milord. Consider it a wedding present. Good luck to you both.”
Shame flooded Pearl. Thomas was a good man, he deserved better than this. She didn’t know what to say, though.
Robert saved her. “Thank you and good day to you, blacksmith,” he said, before hoisting Pearl up onto the saddle. He mounted behind her, and in a moment they were off, leaving behind the blacksmith, the village, and everything she had ever known.
Back at the castle she had yet another meeting with the seamstress and then she met with the cook and the baker. Last, she spoke with a woman about decorations. By the time dinner was being served, she hardly felt like going down. Sarah dressed her, though, and sent her on her way.
The food was just as extravagant as it had been the night before and, just like the night before, she found she had little stomach for it. After dinner she dragged herself back upstairs and quickly fell asleep.
She dreamed that a woman came into her room and shook her shoulders, trying to wake her. Pearl just swatted at her hands and rolled over. Soon the woman disappeared, and Pearl began to dream again, this time the old dreams—and they were just as disturbing as always.
Mary quaked as the footman helped her into the coach. Finneas climbed in after her and sat on the seat across from her, looking as nervous as she felt. Neither of them had ever been to the castle before and weren’t sure what to expect.
The carriage started with a slight jolt, and Finneas smiled wanly at her.
“How do you think our Pearl is doing?” she asked Finneas.
He smiled. “I imagine she is well.”
She had known him long enough, though, to read beyond the smile, and the look in his eyes was one of worry.
She was worried too. She didn’t know anything about the marquis or his father, the duke. At least it’s not the blacksmith, she reminded herself. She just prayed that Pearl was happy. The marquis seemed like a nice enough man, and he could offer Pearl so much.
They reached the castle in short order and were escorted quickly through it to their room. She heard Finneas muttering beside her the entire way.
The walls were of great stone blocks, the same as the rest of the castle. They were covered in tapestries, and the floors were covered with fur rugs. There was a large bed, two small sitting tables with chairs, and a standing wardrobe. A window in the room gave a view of the village.
The servant deposited their bags and, bowing, began to leave.
“Excuse me, could you tell us where to find our daughter, Pearl?” Mary asked before the man could leave.
“I will tell her that you have arrived, ma’am,” the man said. “Dinner will be served in a quarter of an hour.” He bowed and then exited.
“It’s bigger than our whole house,” Finneas noted.
“It’s bigger than three of our houses,” Mary corrected him.
“It’s too big. What does one do with all this space?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “I have no idea.” She moved around, inspecting the bed and the other furniture. Everything was heavy-looking, made out of the finest wood.
“I guess we should go find the Hall,” Finneas noted.
Mary nodded, and they went out in search of dinner.
Mary was exhausted. She couldn’t remember ever eating so much. As overwhelming as the food had been, though, sitting at the same table as the king had been more so. She sighed, looking down at her dress. She had been sadly out of fashion, especially compared with Pearl and the girl called Faye.
“What do you think is going to be expected of us as the parents of a marquesa?” she now asked Finneas, back in their room.
He shrugged his shoulders. “I have no idea. Personally, I just hope to be left alone in our own little house.”
She rolled her eyes at him in a teasing fashion. Finneas was plainspoken, and she knew he had been ill at ease all during dinner.
“What did you think of Faye?” she asked.
He stopped pacing and looked at her. “I think she reminded me a lot of our daughter,” he said warily, taking a step closer to her.
“Me too. You don’t think …”
“That there’s a connection?” Finneas asked. “I don’t know, but it makes me nervous.”
“We always assumed that Pearl was one of a kind, unique.”
“And now we’re both wondering, ‘What if she isn’t?”
Mary nodded.
He shook his head. “We have to ask Pearl what she knows of her.”
Mary laughed nervously. “It’s strange, but after all these years, I almost don’t want to know.”
“I understand,” he said softly. “We know what we both think. Either we’re about to lose everything we’ve believed for so long, or …”
“Or have it confirmed for us,” she breathed.
Silence stretched between them. In their hearts they had always believed that Pearl wasn’t entirely human. Neither knew for sure what she was, but the thought of finding out was a bit overwhelming. Sometimes it’s better to guess at the truth than know it. Actually, what frightens me more is the thought that we might’ve been wrong all these years.
Finneas picked up a candle. “I’m going to take a look around before bed,” he told her, exiting the room.
The spell was broken, and she laughed out loud. Whether he would say so or not, she knew he was nervous at the thought of sleeping in a place he did not know.
She heard running steps outside the room and turned just as Pearl burst through the door.
“Mama!”
Pearl ran into her arms and began to sob. Bewildered, Mary just held her and let her cry.
At last, when her tears had dried, Mary sat Pearl down upon the bed. “Now tell me
, child, what is it that is bothering you?”
“Mama, there’s …just so much, I can’t …,” Pearl choked.
Mary felt tears stinging the back of her eyes. She couldn’t stand to see her child in pain. “Try, baby, please—you used to tell me everything. Well, almost everything,” she joked, waving a hand at their surroundings.
Pearl smiled a little at that, and it warmed Mary’s heart.
“Mama, tell me about that night.”
Mary frowned at her. “What night is that?”
“The night you and Papa found me.”
Mary sighed. The time for avoiding the topic was over—it had to be, even she knew that. “It was Papa who found you. Why do you want to hear it again?”
“I just do.”
Mary’s frown deepened. For years she had successfully avoided Pearl’s many questions on the topic. She didn’t have all the answers. Her Pearl was grown up, though, and the time for questions had come. She wished she felt more prepared, but she wasn’t. All she could tell her was what she knew, what she and Finneas had seen. So many nights Pearl had asked her for the details and Mary had skimmed over them. Tonight, though, it might be different, it must be.
Mary sighed and her face grew very still. “It had been a beautiful day, the sun was shining, and the sky was the brightest blue you ever saw. There was not a cloud anywhere in sight. I remember thinking that there had never been such a beautiful day, at least not in my memory.” She chuckled. “Even Father Gregory was in a good mood.”
Pearl giggled at the mention of the dour old priest. Mary laughed, and Pearl joined her. Finally, they quieted.
Mary sobered, remembering. “Even the ocean was still, as though it were holding its breath. It was Sunday, so your father didn’t take the boat out until after lunch.”
Mary stopped, remembering the feeling of trepidation she had when she saw Finneas off that afternoon. The day had been beautiful, but something had seemed amiss to her, something she couldn’t explain.
Pearl sat with an expectant look, staring at her for several minutes before prompting, “And then?”
Mary turned to look at her, wincing at the memory. “And then everything changed, in a moment. The sky turned black, and the seas started boiling. The rain began to fall in great sheets, and you couldn’t hear anyone speak for the thunder. It was so dark that even the lightning revealed nothing more than a step away from you. Folks say it was the Devil’s Storm. It destroyed half a village five days’ walk from here. I was in the market and somehow I made my way home, though I have never known how. I sat for hours waiting and praying for Finneas to come home. Finally, a voice told me to go look for him. I walked to the beach and I saw him trying to drag the boat up onto the sand. He had fallen, and the boat was slipping back into the water. I put my hands over his and helped heave the boat backward to safety.”
“Father made it home.”
She nodded. “And when he did, he wasn’t alone.”
“I was with him,” Pearl breathed.
Mary nodded. “Yes, you were.”
“The storm came up so fast, I didn’t even have time to start home.”
Pearl jumped, and they both turned to see Finneas standing a few feet away. The light from the candle he was carrying cast shadows across his face but did nothing to hide his piercing eyes.
“I started to pull for shore as hard as I could, but the sea only swept me farther out. At one point I was sure I was going to die. I prayed to God to take care of Mary. It was at that point that I saw a light in the water. I thought an angel was coming to take me. I rowed over and looked down in the water. I saw an angel—just not the kind I was expecting. I saw a little girl treading water.”
Finneas moved and sat down on Pearl’s other side. “Your hair was floating on top of the water, glowing. I pulled you into the boat. You weren’t wearing a stitch of clothing, and when I tried to wrap a wet blanket around you, you just cried and threw it off. Then I began to row again, harder than before. I knew God did not want me to die on that ocean. He would not have led me to find you if He didn’t want me to take you to shore. Eventually we made it to the beach. Mary found us and we ran home.”
“I couldn’t believe what I was seeing,” Mary continued. “You looked about four. Everything about you was small and delicate except your legs, I’ve never seen legs that long on a child.”
“And your eyes,” Finneas added. “They were so big, and such a dark blue-black.”
“When Finneas set you down you didn’t move, and you were so pale that I thought you were dead, drowned. But then you looked up at me and said something I couldn’t understand. You didn’t speak English. Not a word for almost an entire season. And then, when you did speak, the first word you said was ‘Papa.’ Then you spoke naturally, like you’d been learning all those words and saving them up.”
“Your skin was so pale,” Finneas added, “that when you held your hand up to the fire, it was as though I could see through it. We both could.”
“We told everyone that you were the child of one of my cousins who lived in the village that was destroyed by the storm,” Mary explained.
“And this pearl?” Pearl questioned, fingering it.
“You had that clutched tightly in your fist. I couldn’t get it away from you until you fell asleep and your hand loosened,” Mary explained.
Pearl sat quietly, as though she was absorbing the information. “Do you think I’m human?”
Mary shook her head slowly. “I don’t know,” she said, her voice a whisper. “I’ve never known and, God forgive me, I’ve never wanted to know.”
“It was safer that way,” Finneas explained.
“The truth is, we didn’t know and we didn’t care if you weren’t. We just knew that we were happy to have you, our darling little girl, and we weren’t going to let any harm come to you. Finneas was meant to find you, I have always believed that. We were meant to protect you, and I will believe that until my dying day.”
“There’s a young man and another girl, they look like me,” Pearl confided.
“I saw the girl, Faye, earlier at dinner,” Mary told her. “I noticed the resemblance and I confess I wondered if she was somehow related to you.”
“What about this man?” Finneas asked.
“I found him, a couple days ago, sitting by the sea. He claimed to know me, that I had been kidnapped as a child and he had been searching for me ever since.”
“Not the man they caught who’s been killing women?” Finneas asked, horrified.
Pearl nodded. “I haven’t known what to think. I do know that what he said to me had the ring of truth to it.”
Mary exchanged a glance with Finneas. It could be true, but the thought frightened her. What if their Pearl left? Worse, what if more people came looking for her and whoever kidnapped her was among them? “Have you heard where they’re keeping him?” she asked.
Pearl shook her head, and Mary sighed. “Then we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
Mary felt as though she’d blinked and three days had passed. She and Martha had become great friends, and had taken over all the preparations for the wedding. She spent a whole day discussing the wedding banquet with the chef who was a delightful man. He even gave Mary some cooking tips that she planned on using at home.
Martha had made Pearl’s wedding gown and it was beautiful, made of pale blue silk. Mary cried when Pearl tried it on for size.
Finneas spent his time scowling around and looking generally uncomfortable. If only Pearl were happier, Mary would have found the whole adventure wonderful. She hadn’t been able to get the thought out of her head that Pearl might have been kidnapped as a child. That, coupled with the fact that Faye could very well be connected to Pearl’s past, added to her unrest.
She made her way to Pearl’s room to wake her for her final fitting. “Tomorrow is the big day,” she told Pearl as she woke her.
There were dark circles under Pearl’s eyes that stood out in shar
p contrast against her skin. “Are you all right?” Mary asked, sitting down beside her.
“I’m just having bad dreams,” Pearl said.
Mary’s heart filled with great sympathy. “It’s normal to feel anxious before your wedding,” she assured her. “Why, I didn’t sleep for three days before I married your father.”
“Truly?” Pearl asked. “Were you nervous?”
“Incredibly,” Mary confided. “I worried about all manner of things, but mostly whether I was making a huge mistake.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No, I didn’t. Your father is a wonderful man and I couldn’t be happier.” She gave Pearl’s shoulder a squeeze. “It will work out for you, too. Now, up with you and let’s get this dress tried on.”
She beamed as Pearl pulled the garment over her head minutes later. She looked radiant and grown up. Her Pearl was a woman.
Things are going even better than planned, Robert thought with satisfaction. As the manservant was putting the final touches on his wedding clothes, he couldn’t help but chuckle in satisfaction.
His father sat across the room, waiting for the servant to finish and leave. The two of them had much to discuss.
For the past five days he had managed to keep Pearl and James from speaking to each other, lest either figure out his deception. He felt a momentary twinge of regret. Pearl really was a remarkable woman. Perhaps if he had met her under other circumstances …he shook his head. Under other circumstances he never would have looked at her since she was a commoner. No, she was just part of the game he and his father had been playing for months. A game that would win them the throne.
It had been Robert’s spies who had first discovered the unique relationship between Pearl and James. It had been his intention to find some way to exploit it, though the current turn of events surprised even him. Still, things were working out well. The prince was uneasy and off-balance. That made him vulnerable, and a decade of tournaments had taught Robert how to exploit vulnerability.