Chapter Three
The loud clanging of the church bell roused Galfrid from where he knelt beside his mother’s grave. Was it time for the wedding already?
Dread weighed him down as he rose from beside the weathered wooden cross at the edge of the churchyard where he had laid flowers.
With a final look at his mother’s grave, he turned and then trudged to the church doors.
He peered inside the echoing, candle-lit sanctuary to find it all but empty.
Perhaps it was not time for the wedding after all, but then, what did the bells mean?
A lone priest emerged from a door in the vestry, with a harrowed look on his face.
“Father, tell me why the bell tolls. I see it is not yet time for the wedding.” A sense of foreboding roiled in Galfrid’s stomach.
“Have you not heard? The lady has run away. Lord Eustace is forming a search party to comb the moors and find her. God willing, they will find her before the Moonlight Marauder.”
Julia ran away? A hundred curses Galfrid dared not utter in this sacred space ran through his head.
Anything could happen to her alone on the moor.
He knew she was stubborn and willful at times, but he had no idea she would go to such an extreme to escape her fate.
If only he had agreed to run away with her, then at least she wouldn’t be alone in the night with no one but ghosts to keep her company.
Whatever happened, he had to find her before Eustace. Lord knew what his half brother would do to a runaway bride. She would have been better off hiding from the Queen Dowager’s justice than suffering Eustace’s revenge. Or that bloody ghost who haunted the moors.
Galfrid turned and ran from the church, sprinting to his horse, which was tied to a nearby tree.
His fingers trembled as they undid the knot, and he cursed under his breath as he stowed the rope in his saddlebag.
Just as he mounted, a group of riders came galloping down the main road, Eustace among them.
Eustace slowed when he saw Galfrid. “Do something useful for once in your life and help me find Lady Julia.”
“What are you going to do with her once you find her?” Galfrid’s heart warned that Julia would meet with a terrible fate at his half brother’s hands.
“I’ll flay her back with my whip until she bleeds and begs for mercy in front of all the town, and then I’ll lock her in my chamber for the rest of her days. She’ll still be my lady wife and warm my bed when I want her. I still need that dowry. But she doesn’t need freedom to give me heirs.”
Eustace’s words chilled the marrow in Galfrid’s bones. Julia would never withstand such treatment. It would break her. And he could never live with himself if he let that happen. “I’m coming.”
But not to bring her to justice. With any luck, he would find her first and flee to the farthest corners of the known world where they could live together in love and peace, safe from Eustace’s revenge. As they should have done, before he delivered her into Eustace’s hands.
He mounted his horse and galloped after the group in the darkening dusk and onto the misty moors.
These were terrible conditions for tracking. How was he supposed to find anything with so little light? And the driving rain was washing away any signs of Julia’s flight. Not to mention that the other riders were muddling her tracks with their own.
Still, some sixth sense told him where to look to see the faintest signs of crushed heather where a rider had turned off the road and ridden into the wilds near a group of boulders.
He rode on with the others after spotting it, not wanting to lead them to her.
He would have to find a way to break off from the group and circle back.
He waited as long as he could stand to act. He needed them as far away as possible, but in the waning light, he feared he might not be able to find the place where she turned from the road again. He had to act before the light disappeared entirely. “I see something,” he called out.
Eustace and the other riders halted and turned toward him. “What do you see?” Eustace demanded, vengeful fire in his eyes.
“Over here it looks like hoof prints in the mud leading off that way.” Galfrid pointed in the opposite direction from where Julia had fled.
“Spread out, men. Comb every nook and cranny until you find her,” Eustace ordered. “No one humiliates me like this and gets away with it. I want her brought back alive and unspoiled so that I can punish her as she deserves for her sins.”
There would be no punishment if Galfrid had anything to do with it. He shot off in the direction he’d pointed, only circling back around once he was on the other side of a distant hill that hid him from the view of the others.
Returning to the road well away from where the others were hunting, he traversed the landscape as swiftly as he dared, keeping a watchful eye on the side of the road for the arrangement of boulders he’d observed when he’d seen the crushed heather.
With the darkening sky, even finding boulders was no easy feat.
He passed back and forth along the stretch of road three times before he saw, amidst the blanket of night, a faint glow illuminating the spot. What could that be?
But there was no time to wonder as he turned off the road and into the heather. Perhaps it was the Moonlight Marauder leading him astray, but he trusted it for some strange reason, following as the glow led him away from any possibility of help and into the rugged countryside.
Before long, darkness enfolded him, and the storm hid the moon and stars.
All that remained was the pale light ahead of him, shimmering in the pouring rain.
A thousand warning bells sounded in his mind as he rode, but he ignored them, mesmerized by the spirit that led him on.
For what else could it be? No earthly creature gave forth such a light.
Some corner of his heart trusted this spirit against his better judgment, wanting to follow where it led. As the darkness deepened, the spirit took shape. What had started as a mere wisp grew and stretched until it took the form of a young woman with flowing hair, beckoning him to follow.
A distant memory arose in his mind like a thin curl of smoke.
The Mourning Maiden. His mother had told him stories about her when he was a child.
If he recalled correctly, she was the bride of the Moonlight Marauder, searching for her lost love.
Had he found her? But where was she leading him?
According to legend, she was just as dangerous as her mate, luring unsuspecting young men to their deaths out in the wild.
A shiver wracked him as he continued to ride toward the light, unable to turn away.
But this was all nonsense. He was a knight, a warrior. He didn’t believe in ghost stories. Blinking, he willed the apparition to disappear, but she remained, leading him further into the wilderness.
There was no turning back without Julia, and he wasn’t sure he could find his way to the road even if he wanted to. His fate was sealed. He had to follow the ghost whether he trusted her or not, and he could only pray she led him to his love and not to an untimely death.
They took a winding path through the rolling hills; every so often she turned and beckoned with a slender, misty hand.
As he followed, the drenching rain chilled him to the bone, and only his abiding love for Julia kept him warm.
The memory of her lips made him ache with longing.
If he found her this night, he would never deny her kisses again.
He would drink her in and hold her close and give himself to her fully, body, heart, and soul.
Was he imagining things, or was that another light off in the distance?
The pale lady before him glowed white, whereas the other gleam shimmered an unearthly blue.
The wind howled. Or was it the ghosts? Nonetheless, he rode on, and an ominous, black shape materialized from the darkness.
What could it be? A boulder to crush him?
Haunted ruins where the ghosts would freeze his blood and feast on his soul?
The blue light grew and resolved into the shape of a headless horseman.
The Moonlight Marauder stood guard beside the door of a cottage with a partially caved-in roof.
Galfrid’s blood turned to ice in his veins.
This was the end. The ghosts had lured him here to die, and now he was going to perish without seeing Julia. All hope was lost.
The Mourning Maiden stopped and pointed to the door. Then both ghosts rippled and warped before his eyes, twisting into a single arch of light above the entrance to the cottage.
If he passed that spectral portal, would he find his heart’s desire or lose his soul for all eternity? There was only one way to find out.
His armor clanked as he dismounted. It would be no use to him in a battle against wraiths, but it gave him comfort, nonetheless.
His heart pounded in his ears as he stepped forward.
Never in all his battles had fear so utterly engulfed him.
His feet carried him forward even as everything in him yearned to flee.
He would gladly give his life for Julia, but the terror this portal held was immortal and insidious.
Even as he tried to step through, unreasoning horror ground him to a halt.
But he had to do this. For Julia. If he perished here, at least he would die for the woman he loved more than life itself. Picturing her beloved face, he took one step and then another. Icy cold washed over him, as if he were walking through a sheet of nearly frozen water.
Was he passing beyond the veil or proving the strength of his love?
I love you, Julia. And if this is the end, it was all for you.
One final step, and the spell broke. He was inside. And there, curled in the corner, was the love of his life, sound asleep as her horse stood guard beside her.
As quietly as he could, he removed his sword and took off his armor, piece by piece, setting it all on the floor. Heart full of tender longing, he lay down beside her, curling his body around hers and breathing in her sweet scent of strawberries in summer.
Her chest rose and fell in steady, even breaths as her warmth permeated him. Unable to resist, he nuzzled her neck and kissed her ear, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her close.
She stirred in her sleep. “Galfrid,” she murmured, snuggling against him.
“I’m here, love,” he whispered, pressing a kiss to her ear.
“I knew you’d come for me.” She clasped his rough fingers in her own and brought them to her lips, and he thought he might die of sweetness.
“I’ll always come for you. I was a fool to pretend I could walk away.
I am yours for all eternity, no matter what happens next or how the world tries to tear us apart.
” And the world would try. Outside, the storm raged, his half brother hunted, and the Queen Dowager’s justice threatened to fall upon them at any moment.
But he had passed through a deathly portal for his love, and fear would guide him no longer.
With Julia by his side and two fearsome specters at his back, he could face anything.
“Kiss me.” She turned her beloved face toward him and pressed her lips to his, and he was lost.
Her soft lips obliterated every thought, every care, as she turned toward him and pressed her slender body against his.
He was drowning in her light and love, and he never wanted to stop.
A moan escaped him as she opened to him and deepened the kiss, sending red-hot bolts of desire all through him.
She was his to have and to hold after so many years of trying to fight it.
Julia wanted him, lowly as he was, and was giving up every comfort she had known in life to be with him. The gift of her love humbled and overwhelmed him, even as her kiss drove him to the brink of madness.
But they had not wedded yet. He must hold himself back until they could find a church where no one knew them and seal their bond in safety.
She pulled away, and he wanted to howl in frustration, but he could not blame her for doing what he should have done. “I want you to make me yours. Now. Tonight.”
He sucked in his breath and held it, not daring to speak his own desires. “We have no church or priest,” he whispered at last.
“It is enough to speak our vows before God and witnesses.”
Certainly, many people bound themselves to each other in just such a way, and the law and the Church accepted it. “But who would stand witness?”
Julia’s gaze strayed to the door. The ghosts. “Who better than the two immortal souls bound by love who are standing guard before our bower?” Pulling away, she stood up slowly and reached out her hand. “Come.”
He obeyed, unable to resist her in anything. This was either going to be the fruition of all his deepest hopes or the undoing of his soul. He had to trust in her love. There was no turning back now.