The sun was lowering and soon the forest would be dark. ’Twould be next to impossible to follow the trail in the dark, and this realization was the impetus that drove him on.

He could not lose her.

Dirick swallowed back the unmanly urge to cry in frustration. She was his, she was to be his…tonight, he was to wed with the only woman he’d ever wanted with such deep, certain need. He drove his heels into Nick’s middle, pushing the destrier even harder than he did in battle. This was the most important battle he’d ever fought, he realized numbly. He could not lose it.

He almost missed seeing the shadow that rushed out from a deep thicket, until it was nearly beneath Nick’s hooves.

“Help me!” it cried.

“Maris?” Dirick pulled back on the reins, wheeling Nick aside on his hind legs, landing just next to her. He was out of his saddle in an instant, aware of the rest of his men gathering around them in the forest.

“Dirick?” she cried. “Is that you?”

He pulled her into his arms in one fluid motion. She was shaking, and her face was suspiciously wet. She was running her hands all over his face and shoulders as if to ensure that it was really he.

“My God, I thought I’d lost you,” he murmured, burying his face in her neck, smelling the rosemary and lemon and touching the tangles of her hair. “Maris, Maris,” he said her name over and over. “Beloved, have they hurt you? How did you escape?”

She sniffled in the first show of womanly weakness he’d ever witnessed. “I am not hurt,” she told him, looking up with wide golden green eyes. “But ’twas Bon de Savrille who saved me.”

“What?” Dirick guided her back to his horse as the others gathered around, listening and yet remaining at a distance.

“Aye, he came after us and in the confusion, I managed to get away. It wasn’t far from here.” She looked over her shoulder, gesturing in that direction, “and no one came after me. I do not know what happened.”

With a curt nod, Dirick sent several of the men scattering to see what they could find. “Are you truly not hurt?” he asked, drawing them away from the rest of the party and angling Nick so that he stood between them and the gawking men. “My beloved, I cannot tell you what fears I had for you!”

She reached up and smoothed a cool hand over his face, touching a scrape from his fall. “They told me you’d been hurt, that you’d fallen from a horse. I was afraid you were dead.”

He nodded. “Aye. And I suspect it was Michael or Victor who slit the girth of my saddle, nearly causing me to be trampled among Nick’s hooves. I am fine, now that you are safe.”

She pulled him down, covering his lips with her own. He felt the dampness of her tear moisten his cheek. When she pulled back after a sweet, tender kiss, Maris was looking up at him with those green-gold eyes.

“What is it?” he asked, some new tension tightening his chest.

“I—I nearly didn’t have the chance to tell you…but you must know. I am well pleased to be your wife. I‘ve come to love you, Dirick, and I am sure you will make a find husband, and a good Lord of Langumont.”

When he would have spoken, she pressed a finger to his lips, shaking her head. “Nay, do not speak. ’Tis enough for me that you came after me…I do not expect that you should feel the same. And, in sooth, Dirick—I do not care.”

He would have spoken, but a shout drew his attention. Gathering her into his arms, he gave her a well placed kiss on her lips and lifted her into his saddle. Vaulting gracefully up, he settled behind her and they started off toward the shout.

A group of men gathered in a small clearing, and when they drew near, Raymond of Vermille caught Dirick’s eye, shaking his head slightly. Maris should not see, was the message in his gaze. But it was too late.

She slid from the saddle and pushed her way through the gawking crowd of men, ignoring Dirick’s shout. The scene that greeted her was one that would surely leave nightmares, but nevertheless, she moved forward. She had to see it.

Victor d’Arcy lay on his stomach, head turned to one side, and his back soaked with blood. Bon de Savrille was arranged so that he lay in a similar position, with his hands reaching eerily for Victor’s. His beard was wet with the blood that oozed from the spot where his nose had been, and his neck was bent at an awkward angle so that, although he lay on one cheek, his face was tilted back and his eyes looked at nothingness.

Nausea gathered in the back of her throat, but Maris was able to keep it at bay until she saw the horse. Then, she could control it no longer, and she turned to empty her belly into the bushes.

Dirick caught her in the middle of her wild retreat and held her while she vomited in a thicket. The violence left her shaking and trembling, and in the wake of her experience, Maris felt unaccountably weak.

Coughing and spitting, she raised her face and he offered her a corner of his tunic. There was gentleness in his eyes and tenderness in his touch. Placing a comforting arm around her waist, he walked her back to Nick.

“Come, let me take you back to the castle.” Despite the grimness in his face, his words were solicitous and he placed a gentle kiss on her forehead. Once again, he lifted her onto Nick.

“Our wedding day is ruined,” she told him tearfully, suddenly overwhelmed with emotion.

“Nay, my lady, our wedding day is saved.” He pulled her back against his broad chest, pulling his cloak about them to ward off the spring evening, and turned Nick back toward Westminster.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

“I do,” Dirick said clearly, looking straight into Maris’s eyes.

The bishop joined their hands, intoning, “I pronounce you man and wife. Let no man tear asunder what God has thus joined.”

Dirick’s hands closed tightly over Maris’s smaller, rough ones, and she could not help but smile up at him.

“Congratulations, Ludingdon,” the king boomed from his stance off to the side of the chapel.

“My thanks, your majesty,” Dirick did not release Maris’s hand as they walked over to bow to their king.

Though their return to Westminster had been late in the day, and the other two wedding ceremonies had already been performed, Dirick had refused to wait any longer to finalize his marriage to Maris, despite the fact that he now had an excuse. His mother would likely be furious that he had not waited for the family—and for Thomas to say the ceremony—but she would be pleased that at the least the deed had been done.

Henry, when told of the events of the day, had agreed to witness the wedding and rousted the bishop from his prayers in order to say yet another marriage. Thus, the guests and witnesses to the joining of the Lord of Ludingdon and the Lady of Langumont had been limited to Henry and Eleanor, several men-at-arms from Langumont, Madelyne and Gavin of Mal Verne, and Gavin’s cousin Judith. Maris’s mother, Allegra, had not been found in time for the ceremony.

Maris pressed close to her new husband after she curtsied to the royal couple, enjoying his warmth and solidness. Though she’d had time to bathe and dress for the ceremony while Dirick was making the arrangements, she’d been unable to shake off the horror of the scene in the wood…and the knowledge that Michael d’Arcy had not been found. There, she realized, lay the reasoning behind Dirick’s insistence that they wed immediately.

She remained in a happy daze throughout the quick meal of cold pheasant, cheese, and bread that they ate in the great hall, and she imbibed a more generous amount of wine than usual. It made her warm and trembly, especially when she thought about being with Dirick in the marriage bed. Though she’d expected this wedding between two of the more powerful nobility to be a grand affair, with feasting, dancing, and entertainment, Maris was not altogether displeased at the outcome.

Taking another sip of the rich Bordeaux from Aquitaine, she reflected that ’twas just as well that she did not have to make merry among a throng of guests and well wishers until it was such a time as to go abovestairs, else she would surely go mad from the wait.

Her heart skipped a beat every time Dirick looked at her with the hooded grey eyes that bespoke of his own impatience for the evening to end. He offered her a small bit of cheese and lightly caressed the center of her bottom lip as she opened her mouth to accept it. The lids of his eyes swept down, and he looked at them from under them. The flare of desire was unmistakable.

“Let us go abovestairs,” he told her.

“Aye,” she breathed, nervous heat rushing through her body.

They stood and the chatter of their companions stilled. “Whither are you off to, Lord Dirick?” grinned the king.

“I am certain you are wise enough to divine my destination, your majesty,” growled Dirick.

“Aye, then, be off with you.” Henry waved them away.

Maris looked at Dirick in surprise as they backed away from the king and the other well wishers. There was to be no bedding ceremony?

“Come,” Dirick hissed, taking her hand and pulling her quickly from the hall, “before they decide to follow us!”

She stumbled along as quickly as her long skirts would allow, thankful that she was not to be disrobed in front of a gaggle of women and gawking men before being urged into bed with her husband.

They reached the chamber that had been set aside for them, safely and without escort.

Dirick ushered Maris within, closing the door firmly behind him. Agnes had stoked the fire into a low blaze to keep the night chill from the damp room, and now she dozed on the floor near their bed.

Maris shook her maid awake and dismissed her. “There is no need to attend me this night,” she told Agnes, watching as Dirick sat to remove his boots. “My husband will assist me.” She found those words—my husband—to be both exciting and welcome, coming from her lips.

She barred the heavy door behind Agnes, then turned slowly to face her husband. He’d pulled off his surcoat and tunic, and was naked from the waist up: a golden statue of muscle and glittering eyes and coarse dark hair in the firelight. He sat on a stool near the blaze, watching her as he had done the night she treated his stab wound.