Chapter 8
eight
Julianna had learned, after three days of slow travel, how to sleep in manly arms on the back of a horse.
Riding a horse was not a skill she had ever planned on having, but apparently it was something she was going to have to add to her repertoire.
When in Rome—rather, when in medieval England . . .
They’d elected to rise in the middle of the previous night and get going.
She hadn’t been all that excited by the idea, but when William had promised her a soft bed instead of lumpy ground if they hurried, she’d quickly found more enthusiasm for the idea.
She’d just as quickly fallen asleep in the saddle, propped up against William’s chest.
The lightening of the sky had woken her—that and a healthy poke from her quasi-fiancé. She’d opened her eyes.
And fought a healthy round of hiccups.
It was a castle, and what a castle. It looked horrendously medieval, in mint condition and—distressingly enough—inhabited.
She’d seen a few inhabited castles during her tenure in England as a student, but they’d been updated with things like electricity, AGA stoves and indoor plumbing.
There had usually been cars parked out in front and some sort of accommodations for touristy visits.
Villages had consisted of quaint brick houses, nicely paved streets and hospitable B&Bs.
Not open sewers, huts made from straw and inhabitants who looked as if they had never taken a bath in their lives.
The very functional drawbridge was down and a continual stream of humanity crossed over it either on foot or horseback.
Julianna felt incredibly conspicuous in her Keds and Donna Karan suit.
William removed his cloak from his shoulders and draped it over the front of her. It didn’t, however, cover her shoes.
“Better?” he asked.
“Oh, sure,” she agreed. “It’ll keep me warm until they stoke up the fire to burn me at the stake.”
He only snorted out a little laugh and expertly avoided trampling a peasant boy or two who were scuffling near the guard tower.
They dismounted in the courtyard. Julianna found that she could do nothing but clutch William’s hand and gape at her surroundings.
Her purse found itself hoisted over his shoulder for safekeeping, and she found herself being led up steps into what she could only assume was the great hall.
Maybe she wasn’t much of a judge in such matters, but it looked as if whoever owned this place was incredibly rich.
“You grew up here?” she managed as he opened the door for her.
He looked down at her with an amused smile. “Aye. Does that surprise you?”
“Your family must have buckets of money.”
“And my grandsire had several sons and a pair of daughters. Gold doesn’t last long with so many children to see to.”
She paused before they went inside and looked at the man who had not only saved her life, but had practically proposed as well. She wondered if he resented the wealth, since he certainly didn’t have very much of it himself. And now he had even less, thanks to her.
“I’m sorry about your castle,” she said.
He waved aside her words. “I’ve told you—how many times now?—that I feel myself well rid of the place. ’Twas a generous gesture on my grandsire’s part, and I daresay he knew I was grateful. But there is more to life than a pile of stones.”
“But—”
“It would have taken a great deal of work to have made it habitable, Julianna.”
“Well, remodeling is hell,” she agreed.
He kissed her briefly. “We’ll rest here for a few days, then see where our fancy takes us.
” He smiled encouragingly. “We’ll find someplace that suits.
And you’ll not starve. I haven’t fed you very well as of yet, but I promise I’ll do better.
For now, my uncle sets a fine table and we’ll eat our fill. ”
And that seemed to be all he wanted to say on the matter. Not that he would have had a chance for much more talking because Julianna found herself swept up into activity that was almost annoying in its intensity after days out in the boonies.
To think she had once enjoyed the bustle of New York City.
William’s uncle descended upon them with smiles and hearty hugs, closely followed by his wife and so many of William’s cousins and other assorted family that Julianna gave up trying to keep names straight.
What she did understand was the offer of clean clothes.
She worried, as the women prepared to abscond with her to places unknown, that she might not be quick enough on her feet to come up with a decent explanation about her origins, but William solved it for her.
He put one arm around her and the other around his aunt and spoke in a low voice.
“Julianna is from Manhattan,” he began.
“Where?” his aunt queried.
“A little place that would likely seem very strange to us. They have different forms of dress and the like, and she’s very tender about it all. You’ll take care of her, won’t you, and not hurt her feelings?” he finished, looking at his aunt with a devastating smile.
At least Julianna was devastated by his smile. Apparently his aunt wasn’t immune to his charms either.
“Of course, love,” she said promptly.
Julianna looked at him openmouthed, but he only winked at her and sauntered away.
“What a lovely pair of shoes,” his aunt remarked kindly.
Julianna gulped and managed an inarticulate sort of response she sincerely hoped passed as a thank-you.
A short while later she found herself in a room where she was washed, coiffed and perfumed by a handful of women she’d never seen before.
She was then dressed in clothes that were made on the fly by a handful of very speedy seamstresses.
Her shoes were examined closely, then cleaned expertly.
The beads were lovingly and thoroughly buffed to a brilliant shine.
Julianna modeled her new outfit, then looked down at her feet and burst out laughing.
If any of her professors could have seen her, dressed in medieval finery with Keds on her feet, they would have swooned.
No one else seemed to find it strange though, so she turned her attentions to other things—namely a little nap.
She had eaten heartily during her morning of beauty so when she was offered a bed, she took off her gown without a second thought, crawled under the sheets in her sliplike shift and promptly passed out.
She woke to find it was morning again, and she was surrounded by women bent on foofing her up for some kind of shindig.
“What’s going on?” she asked sleepily as she was dragged out of bed.
William’s cousins all laughed. “Your marriage, of course,” they all said together.
She was dressed, her hair was braided and done up in some sort of medieval headgear, and she was hustled to the chapel almost before she was awake enough to realize it.
The place was packed.
What she wanted was to sit down and take stock of the situation.
She spent the rest of the day wanting to sit down and take stock of the situation.
But by the time she actually managed to get a grip on the events of the day, it was evening, and she was in Artane’s tower room facing her husband who looked much less bewildered than she felt.
She looked down at the simple gold ring that he had apparently given her at some point during the wedding ceremony. She looked up at him.
“Did you propose to me yet?” she asked, scratching her head.
“I believe, my lady,” he said gravely, “that ’tis too late for that. I fear I’ve already wed you.”
“And I said yes.”
“That was the word you gasped out when I pinched you, aye,” he said, a twinkle coming into his eye.
“Well,” she said with a frown, “I don’t remember much of it.”
“Then let me remind you. We met before our beloved priest who demanded a recounting of all we would bring to the union. You offered—”
“My sacred relic sack.”
“Aye, and my family was most impressed with the sheer weight of it. I brought myself—”
She looked at him narrowly. “And quite a bit else if memory serves.” She pointed a finger at him. “You said you were poor.”
“Well, I’m less poor this evening than I was this morning,” he said with a snort. “My uncle was passing, and stubbornly, generous.”
“Of course you didn’t have any gold stashed in his castle either,” she said pointedly.
He shrugged. “I wasn’t completely without a thought for the future. I could have set aside more, I suppose, but I never planned to need it. My cache certainly wasn’t enough to make me rich. But my uncle’s gift of several dozen knight’s fees . . .”
“That was a nice thing for him to do.”
“Aye, and it will likely get us murdered on the side of the road,” he said with a grimace.
“Cheer up,” she said. “It could be worse.”
He looked at her silently for a moment or two, then smiled. “Aye. I could have passed on my grandsire’s gift and never come back to England. I could have never gone to Redesburn. And look you what I would have missed.”
She smiled weakly. “And I would still be sitting against that wall, covered in various forms of, well—”
“Aye,” he agreed. “That.”
She stood there and looked at him. He returned her gaze steadily. Julianna wiped her hands on her dress. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t thought about doing, well, it before. She had. Lots. She’d just never really had the right guy and the right time in the right place.
She put her shoulders back. All that had changed. She was now married to a gorgeous man who apparently liked her well enough to give up his inheritance for her. His future plans certainly seemed to include her in a big way.
He was waiting.
Julianna held up her bag. “What do you want first, me or my dowry?”
“Your dowry.”
Her smile faltered. “Oh,” she said. She held out her bag. “Here, then.”
He took it and set it down behind him. “That’s done, then. Now I’ll have you.”
“Oh,” she said, feeling quite a bit better.