My Lady Beloved - Softcover

St. James, Lael

3.7

169 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0671537873 ISBN 13: 9780671537876

Publisher: Pocket, 2001

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On the way to her nuptials to Sir Cyprian Avendall, sweet and sheltered Gabriella Redclift is abducted by vengeful Morgan Chalstrey, and soon they cannot resist yielding to the passion and love building between them.

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Chapter 1

Late summer, 1369
St. Swithin's Abbey,
Devonshire, England
The uppermost branches of the oak, a gnarled and venerated tree, ancient of days and fully grown long before the first stones of the abbey's foundation had been laid, rustled beneath the bare and somewhat grubby feet of nineteen-year-old Gabriella Redclift, soon to be Lady Avendall. She peered into the distance, squinting a little, and held her breath, glad her expression was hidden from her sisters, standing below on the path.

"Can you see Sir Avendall and his men?" called Margaret, her twin, who grew vexed if addressed by any name save 'Meg.' Her voice floated up through the green, bristling leaves, high and eager, for she, like everyone else at St. Swithin's, believed the fiction that Gabriella truly wanted the marriage arranged for her, long ago, by their late father. None must ever suspect that she was merely pretending to be pleased, for the sake of her mother and sisters and the crumbling old manor house, Redclift Hall, two days' journey north of the abbey, that was her heart's home. Her body and soul, indeed all she had, were her dowry; Avendall's gold, of which there was a surfeit, would assure Meg and Elizabeth's futures, whether they chose to wed or to take holy vows and remain at the abbey, and Ariel, their ever-fretful mother, would know security and peace at long last.

"In the name of the Holy Mother," lamented sixteen-year-old Elizabeth, no doubt crossing herself as she spoke, for she, with her gentle nature and devout ways, was almost surely destined to take the veil, "do come down, Gabriella, lest you fall..."

Ignoring Elizabeth's plea -- dear Elizabeth, she was forever apprehensive about something -- Gabriella gazed into the distance, beyond the walls of the abbey, at once comforting and confining, searching the horizon for any sign of her bridegroom, come to claim her. Although the weather was already growing cooler, the days moving inexorably toward autumn and then the bitter cold of winter, the late afternoon sun was dazzlingly bright, the sky a heart-pinching blue. Gabriella tried not to think of Redclift Hall, with its fields and meadows and streams shimmering with trout, a place she would most likely never set eyes upon again. Instead, she must fix her thoughts on what lay ahead, forsaking all that lay behind.

"I think I see just a flicker of color on the horizon," she called down to her sisters, clinging to the tree trunk with one arm and shading her eyes with the opposite hand. "Still, I can't be certain -- "

"Come down," Elizabeth reiterated, striking a note of clear desperation." 'Tis sorrow enough that you're leaving us -- I should not be able to bear it if you landed at my feet in a heap of broken bones!"

"Do be still," enjoined Meg, ever impatient with any sign of trepidation, either in herself or in others. She would gladly have climbed to the top of the oak tree personally, if Avendall had been her bespoken husband instead of Gabriella's. It was a bitter if private irony: unlike Gabriella, who wanted only to live at Redclift Hall and cause the place to prosper once more, Meg yearned for romance, adventure, and travel.

"I won't be still," argued Elizabeth, who was a Redclift, after all, and not without spirit, for all her prayers and piety. "I'm the only one here with a grain of common sense!"

It was then that the speck Gabriella had glimpsed on a distant hilltop resolved itself into four horsemen, clad in red and gold -- Sir Avendall's colors.

"There they are," Gabriella said, trying to sound pleased. Instead of the wild, heady delight Meg would have exhibited, she felt a sting of poignant sorrow. Probably before she saw another sunrise, she would be a married woman, and on her way to live out her days on Avendall's Cornish estate. Redclift Hall, her sisters, the abbey -- everyone she loved and everything she knew -- were already slipping away, soon to be lost.

She swallowed hard, and blinked back tears.

"Hurry, then," Meg called up to her, breathless with anticipation. "I shall brush and plait your hair -- I'll weave the crimson ribbon through -- and Elizabeth will lay out your good velvet gown."

"We shall have to do something about those feet," Elizabeth said plaintively, as Gabriella began making her way back to the ground, moving deftly from branch to branch. "And I'm sure your kirtle is covered with wood sap -- "

"Don't fuss," scolded Meg, but good-naturedly. "After all, this may be Gabriella's wedding day, and we should all be positively delirious with joy -- shouldn't we?"

As Gabriella dropped from the lowest limb to land on her feet, facing her sisters, she saw, with dread, that Elizabeth's wide brown eyes were brimming with tears. "I know I should be happy," the youngest sister blurted out, "but I'm not. Gabriella is going away. Far away."

"Goose," Meg said affectionately, putting an arm around Elizabeth's fragile shoulders and giving her a quick squeeze. "You know Gabriella will send for us, once she's settled in her new home. She'll see that you and I have husbands -- just like we planned. Mine will be an adventurer -- perhaps a seagoing man -- and yours, Elizabeth, a gentle scholar. You'll see."

Looking at her sisters now, her beautiful, destitute sisters, Gabriella once again felt like weeping. It had been easy enough, these seven years since they'd come to the abbey, to lie in their cots in the cell-like room they shared at night, spinning dreams of wonderful futures for all of them; rich visions, they'd been, filled with love and laughter, children and sunlight.

The reality was that they were penniless, that they had been admitted to this secluded convent only because the abbess was a distant cousin to their father, Sir Alexander Redclift. Alexander had died young, and in poverty, having spent both himself and his modest fortune in service to Edward III. His widow, Ariel, had been overwhelmed by the loss of her husband, the great love of her life, and like a bird taking shelter in a storm, had remarried at the first opportunity. Hugh Mainwaring, Gabriella, Meg, and Elizabeth's stepfather, though of benign temperament, was even poorer than his wife, and no better at managing the family's meager resources than Alexander had been. As a result, he and Ariel were forever on the verge of penury.

Having three unmarried daughters, intelligent, personable, and accomplished though they were, had only compounded the problem.

Sir Cyprian Avendall's claim on Gabriella had come as a vast surprise to everyone. A year before, he had descended upon St. Swithin's Abbey unannounced, with a company of five men-at-arms, and requested an audience with the dour abbess, Mother Mary Benedict.

They had met in Mother's study, the men-at-arms standing guard outside all the while, as though expecting an attack, and during their lengthy conference, the entire abbey had been abuzz with speculations as to why such a man should venture into the Devonshire countryside to consult with a nun.

In due time, Gabriella and Meg had been called to Mother Mary Benedict's rooms, there to be presented to Sir Avendall like petitioners at court.

A handsome man, broad shouldered and strong from many years of wielding a sword in the king's service, Avendall greeted the sisters with a curt nod and then proceeded to study them as if they were horses to be sold or bartered at market. Or so Gabriella had thought; Meg had not seen the encounter in the same way at all.

Gabriella had disliked the visitor readily, and bristled during the whole of the interview, but Meg, the most impressionable of the three sisters, had been intrigued by the towering, dark-haired man, even though he did not smile once during their time together. For her, his appearance at the abbey was a wish granted, a prayer answered, an event to be passed down in legend and story. Apparently, she had paid little or no heed to mundane details, such as his hard, rather grim countenance, or the cold and measuring look in his eyes.

Presently -- though not soon enough, by Gabriella's lights -- Sir Avendall had departed, leading his weary men through the open gates of the abbey and out into the twilight. She'd been relieved to see him go.

After the evening meal, however, Mother Mary Benedict had again summoned Gabriella to her quarters, this time instructing her to come alone. There, the abbess announced that Sir Avendall wished to take Gabriella to wife in the space of a twelve-month. In his generosity, he was willing to overlook the fact that she could bring nothing to the marriage beyond her fair person, a worthy name, and excellent virtue. He'd produced a document, signed by Gabriella's father when she was but a babe in arms, agreeing to the marriage, in return for a sizable amount of gold. Gold Alexander had certainly squandered, for the barns and cellars and granaries at Redclift Hall had long been empty, as had the coffers. Avendall, in a grand and, in Gabriella's view, rather high-handed, gesture, had settled an ample sum upon the abbey, in compensation not only for his bride's upbringing, but for the care and keeping of her sisters as well. From the day proper vows were exchanged, he decreed, Ariel and Hugh Mainwaring would want for nothing. A river of florins would flow, benefiting everyone concerned.

Gabriella had never considered refusing Sir Avendall's suit; even if she had had that option, she would not have taken it. Too much depended upon this marriage, and it was her duty as the eldest daughter and the only sensible person in the entire family, to shoulder this particular yoke and carry on.

As Avendall's wife, Gabriella would live in a grand keep in Cornwall, very near the sea. She would be addressed as Lady Avendall, and could rightly expect her own palfrey to ride, and probably several servants to attend her. She would wear beautiful gowns and mayhap even jewels, and always have plenty to eat, even in winter. In time, she would bear children, and her sons and daughters would be her solace, her joy. Too, Avendall was a soldier, surely away fighting for years at a time.

Now, faced with the actual arrival of her betrothed, with the exchange of sacred vows in the abbey's main chapel, then having to bid farewell to Meg and Elizabeth, from whom she had never been parted, even for a night, Gabriella's firm resolve wavered a little. She did not allow her thoughts to stray quite so far as the threshold of Sir Avendall's bedchamber, where the mysterious rites of marriage would inevitably take place, once they reached his holding in the west.

Meg caught her hand in a brief, reassuring grasp. Although she and Gabriella were not alike physically, Meg's hair being a rich shade of chestnut, while Gabriella's was fair, her eyes a vivid green, as opposed to the changeable hazel shade of Gabriella's, they were so close that they could often communicate without speaking. It had not been easy for Gabriella to deceive her twin.

"Come," Meg said quietly. "We must prepare you for your bridegroom."

"And if Mother Mary Benedict sees you barefoot, wearing that old kirtle, with your face smudged and your hair in such a frightful mess," Elizabeth said, already moving resolutely toward the part of the abbey where their room was, along with those of the other gentlewomen, impoverished and otherwise, who made their home within the walls of St. Swithin's, "she'll make you pray on your knees for hours, in the hope of redeeming your immortal soul."

Meg sighed. "Sometimes, dear sister," she told Elizabeth mildly, "you are a trial, with all your talk of souls and saints." Meg had a distinct inclination toward irreverence, a fact that gave poor Elizabeth frequent nightmares, in which her sister was engulfed in hellfire and tormented by devils and invariably unrepentant in the face of it all.

Elizabeth linked her arm with Gabriella's, ignoring Meg's remark. "I shall say a novena for you -- nay, two novenas -- one that you might endure your -- your -- " here, she lowered her voice to an awestricken whisper, "wedding night." Clearly, she saw this prospect as the earthly equivalent of purgatory, and Gabriella secretly agreed. Elizabeth paused again, swallowed, and then went bravely on, her tone exceeding cheerful. "And one, of course, that you will reach Cornwall without being set upon by brigands and murdered in the road."

"Thank you," Gabriella said circumspectly, and gave the grinning Meg a fierce glance of warning, over the top of Elizabeth's head. "It is a comfort to know you will be petitioning the Holy Mother on my behalf."

Elizabeth bit her lower lip and looked longingly in the direction of the chapel, a white stone structure on the other side of the vegetable garden. "Perhaps I should get started right away!" she confided, her dark eyes wide and luminous.

Gabriella patted her younger sister's hand. "Yes," she agreed. "I'm sure there's no time to waste."

Elizabeth nodded and rushed away, fairly floating between the rows of pumpkins and squash as she made her way toward the tiny church where everyone at St. Swithin's gathered for prayer on a painfully regular basis.

"Little ninny," Meg said fondly, watching Elizabeth go.

Gabriella stiffened slightly. "She's doing what she can," she replied. She loved her sisters desperately, and the imminence of their parting made her peevish.

"Gabriella." Meg spoke with a firm solemnity that made Gabriella turn to face her. Meg gripped both her hands and squeezed them tightly. "Do you truly want to do this? Marry Avendall, I mean? I know he chose you for a bride, but you could feign some sort of fit, and I could offer to go in your place -- "

Gabriella freed her hands, cupped Meg's cheeks in them, kissed her sister's forehead. "Silly creature," she said, smiling through tears she made no effort to hide. "The abbess would surely see through such a ruse and, besides, I do wish to marry. Who wouldn't want such an advantageous match?"

"You, I think," Meg answered sadly. "You're doing this for Elizabeth and me, for Mother and for Redclift Hall. Don't you think I know that?" She took a breath, then launched a new volley of words, rapid and obviously well rehearsed. "Think of it, Gabriella -- if I were the one to marry Avendall, then you would be free to return to Redclift Hall. You could take things in hand, plant crops, buy cattle and pigs and horses with Avendall's gold -- "

"No," Gabriella interrupted, her palms still resting against Meg's face, which was now wet with tears. "It is decided."

"But -- "

Gabriella stood firm. Duty was duty, and honor was honor. This lot had fallen to her, and as much as she wanted to shrink from it, she knew her conscience would give her no rest if she allowed Meg to rescue her. "No," she said again, and let her hands drop to her sides.

A number of fiery emotions flared in Meg's green eyes, despair among them, and pride. "Must you be so bloody noble?" she hissed. "This is a sacrifice for you. For me, it would be a boon, a chance to do something with my life."

Gabriella smoothed her sister's chestnut hair, always a little tangled, but she did not r...

From Publishers Weekly:

Though better known for her frontier-set Springwater Seasons series, prolific St. James (aka Linda Lael Miller) has dabbled in every subgenre from time travel to the contemporary. For this feisty 14th-century romance, St. James draws readers back to a time when the war between England and France raged, the Plague ravaged Europe and the only options for a woman like Gabriella Redclift, the gently bred daughter of an impoverished knight, was to enter the abbey or to pray for an advantageous marriage. Gabriella must take the latter path to ensure the welfare of her younger siblings, Meg and Elizabeth, and she couldn't have hoped for a more prosperous husband than Sir Cyprian Avendall, a rather stern-faced knight with considerable holdings. En route to Avendall's castle, however, Gabriella is kidnapped by rugged Sir Morgan Chalstrey, the Duke of Edgerfield and Avendall's archenemy. Morgan blames Avendall for the death of his childhood sweetheart, and he plans to exact his revenge by holding Gabriella hostage. Inevitably, Gabriella and Morgan fall in lust with each other. Love will come, but only after a succession of misadventures and misunderstandings. Though her writing is not at its best here, St. James delivers a fine, fast read that fans of the genre will enjoy. (June)Forecast: This is Miller's first novel under her new pseudonym. As such, this novel's initial sales will pale in comparison to her recent April hardcover release, Springwater Wedding.

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