“Brinna,” she breathed miserably.
“Well, Brinna, are you saying that since my daughter has arrived here, you have been Joan?”
“Aye,” she confessed, shamefaced.
“Even in the stables?”
Her face suffusing with color, Brinna nodded, wincing as Royce cursed harshly.
“And where is my daughter now?” Lord Laythem asked, ignoring the younger man.
“She ran off to marry Phillip of Radfurn last night,” Brinna murmured, turning to peer at Royce as she said the words and wincing at the way he blanched. Knowing that all his hopes for his people were now ashes at his feet, she turned away in shame, flinching when he grasped her arm and jerked her back around.
“You knew her plan all along? You helped her?” he said accusingly with bewildered hurt, and Brinna bit her lip as she shook her head.
“I helped her, aye, but I didn’t know of her plan. Well, I mean, I knew she did not want to marry you and that she was looking for a way to avoid it, but I did not know how she planned to do so. And…and had I—I didn’t know you when I agreed to help her, I just—she offered me more coins than I had ever hoped to see and I thought I could use them to make Aggie comfortable and—” Recognizing the contempt on his face and the fact that nothing she was saying was helping any, Brinna unconsciously clutched her mother’s amulet and whispered, “I’m sorry.”
“Look, girl,” Lord Laythem began impatiently, only to pause as his gaze landed on the amulet she was clutching so desperately. Stilling, he reached a trembling hand to snatch at the charm. “Where did you get this?” he asked shakily, and Brinna swallowed nervously, afraid of next being accused of being a thief.
“It is my mother’s,” she murmured, recalling what Aggie had said as she placed it around her neck. Brinna had always known that Aggie was not the woman who had birthed her, but since Aggie had always avoided speaking of it, Brinna had never questioned her on the subject.
“Your mother’s?” Paling, Lord Laythem stared at her blankly for a moment. Then, “What is her name?”
“I don’t know.”
“Of course you know, you must know.” He gave her an impatient little shake. “What is her name?”
“She doesn’t know.”
They all turned at those words to see Aggie framed in the chapel door. Mouth tight with anger, she moved her wretched old body slowly through the parting crowd toward them. “She’s telling the truth. She doesn’t know. I never told her. What good would it have done?”
“Aggie?” Brinna stepped to the old woman’s side, uncertainty on her face.
“I am sorry, child. There was no sense in yer knowing until now. I feared ye would grow bitter and angry. But now ye must know.” Turning, she glared at Lord Laythem grimly. “Her mother was a fine lady. A real and true lady in every sense of the word. She arrived in the village twenty-one years ago, young and as beautiful as Brinna herself. The only difference between the two was that her eyes were green.”
Her gaze moved from Brinna’s gray eyes to Lord Laythem’s own eyes of the same gray-blue shade before she continued. “I was the first person she met when she arrived. She told me she was looking to buy a cottage and perhaps set up shop. My husband had just passed on and we had no children. We used to run an ale house from our cottage, but it was too much for a woman alone to handle, so I sold her our cottage. When she asked me to stay on and work with her, I agreed.
“As time passed, we became friends and she told me a tale, of a pretty young girl, the older of two daughters born to a fine lord and lady in the south. The girl was sent to foster with another fine lord and lady in the north, where she stayed until her eighteenth year, when the son of this lord and lady got married. The son returned from earning his knight’s spurs three months before the wedding.”
She glanced at Lord Menton meaningfully, nodding when his eyes widened at the realization that she spoke of him. Then her gaze slid to Lord Laythem again. “He brought with him a friend—and it was this friend who changed our girl’s life. She fell in love with him. And he claimed to love her, and to want to marry her. Young as she was, she believed him,” Aggie spat bitterly, making Lord Laythem wince despite his confusion.
“They became lovers, and then just before his friend’s marriage, her lover was called home. His father had died and he had to take up his role as lord of the manor. He left, but not before once again vowing his undying love and giving our girl that.” She pointed to the amulet that hung around Brinna’s neck and grimaced. “He swore to return for her. Two weeks later a messenger arrived to collect our girl and take her home. She returned reluctantly only to learn that her parents had arranged a marriage for her. She refused, of course, for she loved another. But her parents would hear none of it. Marriage was about position, not love. Then she found out she was pregnant. She thought surely her parents would cancel the marriage and send for her lover then, but they merely pushed up the date of the marriage, hoping that the intended groom would think the babe his own. Our girl collected all the jewels she had and took part of the coins meant for her dower and fled for here, where she knew her ‘love’ would eventually return for her as he had promised.
“She came to the village because she knew that if she approached Lady Menton…your mother, my lord”— she explained, with a glance at Robert—“she would have sent her home. She thought that if she hid in the village, she would hear news of when her lover returned, yet not be noticed by the people in the castle. So, she waited and worked, and grew daily with child.
“Time passed, and I began to doubt her lover, but she never did. ‘Oh, Aggie,’ she’d laugh lightly. ‘Do not be silly. He loves me. He will come.’ ” She was glaring so fiercely at Lord Laythem as she said that, that Brinna was getting the uncomfortable feeling that she knew how this was going to end.
“He didn’t, of course, but she kept her faith right up until the day she died. The day Brinna was born. She had walked to the village market as she did every day for news, and she returned pale and sobbing, desperately clutching her stomach. She was in labor. A month early and angry at the upset that had brought about her birth, the babe came hard and fast. She was barely a handful when she was out. So wee I didn’t think she’d survive the night.”
Aggie smiled affectionately at the tall strong girl beside her as she spoke. “But you did. It was your mother who didn’t. She was bleeding inside and nothing I did could stop it. She held you in her arms and named you Brinna, telling you and me both that it meant of nobility. Then as her life bled out of her, she told me what had upset her and brought about her early labor. She had heard in the village that her lover had returned. He was here visiting the young Lord Menton. He had arrived early that morning.…With his new bride, our girl’s own younger sister.” Aggie’s hard eyes fixed on Edmund Laythem. “Brinna’s mother was Sarah Margaret Atherton, whose sister was Louise May Atherton Laythem.”
Brinna gasped and turned accusing eyes on the older man standing beside Royce. She was blind at first to the tears coursing down his face.
“They told me she was dead,” he whispered brokenly, then met Brinna’s gaze beseechingly. “Robert knew of my love for your mother and sent word to me that she had been called home. I moved as quickly as I could, but winter struck before I got affairs in order and could leave. As soon as the spring thaw set in I hied my way south to Atherton, but when I arrived, it was only to be told that she was dead. Her parents offered me her younger sister, Louise, in her place. I was the lord now and expected to produce heirs as quickly as possible to ensure the line, and she looked so like Sarah I thought I could pretend…” His voice trailed away in misery. “It didn’t work, of course. In the end I simply made her miserable. She wasn’t my Sarah. Sarah was full of laughter and joy, she had a love for life. Louise was more sullen in nature and shy, and all her presence managed to do was remind me of what I had lost. In the end I couldn’t bear to be around her, to even see her. I avoided Laythem to avoid the pain of that rem
inder.”
Taking Brinna’s hands, he met her pained gaze firmly. “I loved your mother with all of my heart. She was the one bright light in my life. I would give anything to be able to change the way things worked out in the past, but I can only work with the now. I am pleased to claim you as my daughter.” Pausing, he glanced at Royce, then squeezed her hands and asked. “You love him?”
“Aye,” Brinna whispered, lowering her eyes unhappily.
Nodding, he then turned to Royce. “Am I right in assuming that you love my daughter?”
Royce hesitated, then said grimly, “I don’t know who your daughter is. I thought she”—he gestured toward Brinna unhappily—“I thought this was your daughter, Joan. Now, it seems she is a scullery maid who is your illegitimate daughter and that she was pretending to be Joan so that the real Joan could run off with my own cousin. I won’t be married, I won’t get the dowry my people need, I—” He paused in his angry tirade as Brinna gave a despairing sob and turned to hurry out of the church.
Lord Laythem watched his daughter flee, then turning determinedly on Royce, he straightened his shoulders. “Leave your anger at her deception aside and search your heart. Do you love Brinna?”
Royce didn’t have to think long at all before saying, “Aye, I love the girl, whether she is Joan or Brinna, lady or scullery maid. I love her. But it matters not one whit. My people depend upon me. I have a duty to them. I have to marry a woman with a large dower.” He heaved a sigh, then straightened grimly. “Now if you will excuse me, I shall leave and see if I cannot accomplish that duty and at least—”
“You have the dower.” At Royce’s startled look, Laythem nodded. “We had a contract. Joan has broken it. Her dower is forfeit. Now you need not marry for a dower. You may marry as you wish. If you love Brinna, I would still be proud to have you for a son-in-law.”
Royce blinked once as that knowledge sank in, then whirled to the priest and grabbed him by the lower arms. “Wait here, Father. We’ll be right back,” he assured him, then whirled to chase after Brinna.
Lord Laythem watched him go with a sigh, then smiled at his friend Lord Menton as he and his wife stepped forward to join him.
“I didn’t know,” Robert murmured, and Lady Menton stepped forward to squeeze Edmund’s hand. “Had I realized that Sarah was in the village, I would have sent a messenger to you at once. And had I known she had a daughter here—”
“I know,” Edmund interrupted quietly, then arched an eyebrow at his friend’s daughter, Christina, as she stared after the absent Royce, shaking her head with slight bemusement. “What is it?” he asked her.
“Oh nothing really,” she murmured, giving a small laugh. “I was just thinking that if Brinna is your daughter, she too is half-Norman and they really were three French hens after all.” When he and her parents stared at her blankly, she opened her mouth to explain about the day she had found Sabrina, Brinna, and Joan in a huddle, and the comment she had made about “three French hens,” then shook her head and murmured, “Never mind. ’Twas nothing.”
Royce rushed out of the chapel just in time to see Brinna disappear into the stables. Following, he found her kneeling in the straw where they had made love, sobbing miserably. Swallowing, he moved silently up behind her and knelt at her side. “J-Brinna?”
Her sobs dying an abrupt death, she straightened and turned, her eyes growing wide as she peered at him. Then she scrambled to her feet, turning away to face the wall as she wiped the tears from her face. “Is there something you wished, my lord? A pot you need scrubbed or a—” Her voice died in her throat as he turned her to face him.
“I need you,” he told her gently. “If you will have me.”
Her face crumpled like an empty gown, and she shook her head miserably as tears welled in her eyes. “ ’Tis cruel of you to jest so, my lord.”
“I am not jesting.”
“Aye, you are. You must marry someone with a dower. Your people need that to survive the winter and I—” Pausing suddenly, she bent to dig under her skirt until she found the small sack she had fastened at her waist. The sack jingled with the coins Joan had given her as she held them out to him. “I have this. It is not much, and I know it won’t make up for what you lost with Joan, but mayhap it will help until you find a bride with a dower large enough—”
“I have the dower.” He pushed the hand holding the sack away and drew her closer. “Now I need the bride.”
“I-I don’t understand,” Brinna stuttered as his arms closed around her.
“Joan broke the contract. The dower is mine even though we won’t marry. My responsibility to my people is fulfilled. Now I can marry whom I wish,” he whispered into her ear before dropping a kiss on the lobe of that shell-like appendage.
“You can?” she asked huskily.
“Aye, and I wish to marry you.”
“Oh, Royce,” she half-sobbed, pressing her face into his neck. “You don’t know.…I hoped, I dreamed, I prayed that if God would just let me have this one gift, I would never ask for anything ever again.”
“This gift?” Royce asked uncertainly, leaning back to peer down at her.
“You,” Brinna explained. “You came to me on Christmas Day, my lord. And you were the most wonderful Christmas gift I could ever have hoped for.” She laughed suddenly, happiness glowing in her face. “And I even get to keep you.”
“That you do, my love. That you do.”
LEIGH GREENWOOD
Father Christmas
For Brandon, who never got to celebrate Christmas.
CHAPTER ONE
“I’ve got to be a fool to come here. I should be headed for California, where nobody would ever find me.”
Joe Ryan glanced over at his dog, Samson. The big, yellow, short-haired mongrel was sniffing among some rocks, a growl in his throat, the hair on his back standing up.
“Stop looking for coyotes and listen to me.”
The dog looked up but almost immediately turned back to the tangle of boulders and desert broom.
“You keep poking your nose into every pile of rocks you pass, and you’re going to find a wolf one of these days. Maybe you can talk to him,” Joe said to his horse, General Burnside. “He never listens to me.”
Joe rode through the Arizona desert with care. He kept away from the flat valley floor, where a man could be seen for miles. Rather than stop for water at the cottonwood-lined San Pedro River, he looked for springs and seeps. He had shaken the posse before he left Colorado, but the law would soon figure out where he was. He planned to be gone by then.
“I can’t imagine why Pete wanted a ranch in this country,” Joe said aloud. “Even a coyote would have a hard time making a living.”
He had fallen into the habit of talking to his dog and horse just to hear the sound of a human voice. He’d seen few people since he broke out of a Colorado jail a month earlier.
Sometime after midday, Joe pulled up just short of the crest of a small ridge. He paused to light a cigarette and let his gaze wander over every part of the landscape. When he was satisfied that there was no movement, he started forward. Using the cover of juniper thickets, scattered mesquite, and greasewood, he crossed the ridge and rode into a basin.
Pete Wilson’s ranch lay below.
Joe studied the land closely as he rode in. It was good land. It would be hot in summer, but there was plenty of food for cattle. A small creek passed close to the house. He was surprised Pete had had enough sense to choose such a good spot. His former partner hadn’t struck him as a far-sighted man. Impatient and bad-tempered was a better description. But then, a shrewish wife could ruin any man. And from what Pete had said, Mary Wilson was a thoroughgoing harridan.
Well, it didn’t matter to Joe. He meant to find the gold, clear his name, and be on his way. It wasn’t cold for December, but he was looking forward to the warm breezes of California.
“Come on, Samson. Let’s get it over with.”
Pressing his heels into the flanks of
his lanky, mouse-gray gelding, Joe started toward the ranch.
Mary Wilson struggled to sit up. The room spun violently before her eyes. She closed them and concentrated hard. She had to get up. She was too weak to stay here any longer.
“Get the horse,” she said to the blond child who watched her with anxious eyes. “Don’t try to saddle him. Just put a halter on him and bring him to the porch.”
“He won’t come to me,” Sarah Wilson said.
“Offer him some oats. I’ll be outside in a moment.”
The child left reluctantly. Mary didn’t like forcing Sarah to fetch the animal, but she had no choice. She wasn’t even sure she was strong enough to make the twenty-two-mile trip into town. She didn’t know how she could be so weak without being ill. She had felt fine until two days ago. Then her strength had just vanished. Taking a firm grip on the bedpost, she pulled herself to her feet. The room spun more rapidly than ever. Gasping from the effort, Mary refused to let go of the bedpost. She would stand up. She would make it to town. She had thought she had more time. The baby wasn’t due for another month.
She attempted to take a step, but her swollen stomach unbalanced her. She used a chair to steady herself. No sooner had she regained her equilibrium than she heard Sarah scream. Fear gave Mary the strength she lacked. She stumbled across the room to the rifle she kept on the wall next to the door. She took it down and managed to open the door about a foot. Leaning against the door jamb, she pushed herself forward until she could see into the ranch yard.
Sarah came flying up the steps. She almost knocked Mary down as she buried herself in Mary’s skirts. Mary’s gaze found and locked on the rider who had reached the corral. What she saw frightened her.
A stranger dressed in buckskin and denim, astride a huge gray horse and accompanied by a large dog, was riding into the yard. A big man with very broad shoulders, he wore a gun belt and carried a rifle. His hat was tilted too low to allow her to see much of his face, but his chin and cheeks were covered by several weeks’ growth of dark blond beard. He rode right up to the porch.