Once Upon a Castle - Jill Gregory [65]
Marcus stared at Nicholas, then at Arianne, and grinned.
“Not a bad day’s work,” he said. “Little sister, you have done well. If not for your efforts to find him, this rapscallion might not have arrived to free me from the dungeon—I’d have missed all this day’s festivities…”
“Festivities!” Katerine exclaimed with a shudder.
Marcus grinned at her and kissed her hand.
“If I hadn’t arrived, your sister would have found a way to free you.” Nicholas’s gray gaze was fixed intently upon Arianne’s sparkling face. “She is the most determined woman I’ve ever met.”
Marcus chuckled. “Aye, she is determined.”
“And the most courageous.”
“Well…”
“And the most beautiful.”
Marcus suddenly glanced back and forth between his sister and his friend. There was no mistaking either of their expressions. They might have been the only occupants of the castle.
He flashed a surprised grin at Armand, who raised his eyebrows.
“Well, then…” Marcus began, but Nicholas cut him off.
“We’ll have the wedding at the same time as the coronation,” he announced.
“Wedding!” Marcus and Katerine burst out together.
Arianne had not taken her eyes from Nicholas’s intent face, but a smile gently curved her lips. She nodded almost imperceptibly.
“Well done, my son!” From the handsomely appointed feather bed, the old duke beamed up at his son. “I see you’ve learned wisdom during these past years.”
“I trust so, my lord.” Nicholas’s eyes still held Arianne’s. She looked so beautiful, even with her torn and crumpled gown, her wildly flowing hair, and the pale lavender shadows of weariness from the events of the day beneath her eyes. “We shall be married at the earliest time possible—if Lady Arianne has not changed her mind.”
“When you know me better, my lord duke, you will know that I never change my mind,” Arianne said sweetly, and now laughter and love shone from her eyes, banishing the weariness as she went into his arms.
“A woman who never changes her mind,” the archduke chuckled dryly. “You have a challenge before you indeed, my son.”
“I pledge to meet the challenge—and to surmount it.” Nicholas’s quick, flashing grin lit his face as he tilted her chin up with a gentle finger. “We will be wed and we will be happy until the end of our days,” he promised so quietly that she alone heard the words. “I will devote my life to your happiness, safety, and well-being.”
“And I to yours,” she whispered back.
“It is customary in Galeron to seal such agreements with a kiss,” Marcus pointed out gravely.
“In Dinadan as well.” Nicholas’s eyes held a distinct gleam as he pulled Arianne close.
“Far be it from me to defy custom, my lord,” she murmured with such unaccustomed meekness that he grinned and then kissed her so thoroughly, so deeply, so hungrily that Arianne forgot completely where she was and who was watching, and imagined herself on the very brink of heaven.
9
The bedchamber was redolent with fresh, sweet-smelling rushes, with wine and candlelight. Arianne brushed her hair before the fire, impatient as she waited for her bridegroom. Growing more and more annoyed as the moments passed, she began to pace back and forth from window to door.
She glanced once or twice, fuming, at the magnificent feather bed with its rich scarlet hangings and fur coverlets. This was her wedding night—and it appeared that she was doomed to spend it alone.
The day had been a blur of noise, color, confusion, of ceremony, laughter, and feasting. First the coronation and wedding ceremony held in the Grand Cathedral, brilliant with candlelight and torches and all the lords and ladies in their richest finery. The knights of Dinadan, Galeron, and Nicholas’s own loyal legion of mercenaries had all been in attendance, as had the gypsy, smiling as she watched the royal procession from the very rear of the cathedral.
When Nicholas had watched her glide down the aisle in her gown of pale cream velvet trimmed with mulberry satin, her slender throat and dainty hand adorned with her mother’s amethyst necklace and ring, he’d looked appropriately