Her Dark Baron Read online

  Her Dark Baron

  By Nadja Notariani

  Her Dark Baron © Nadja Notariani 2011

  Acknowledgments

  Claus ~ You're ever there, listening, laughing, brainstorming. What would I do without you...

  Froderick ~ Even without a hint of the South Pole, you jumped on board – both feet. Thank you.

  Alberta ~ Bodice ripping inspiration remains my favorite reference to this story.

  Anthony ~ Writing is a joy. You make it possible.

  Chapter 1

  Northumberland, 1640

  Wild wind lashed the black curls around her face, stinging her cheeks as she surveyed the rolling landscape. Standing defiantly in its biting path, Lady Mariel Hayes contemplated her next move.

  “Oh, Father, I wish you were here,” she sighed aloud.

  The wind stole the words from her lips just as Scottish raiders had stolen her father's life. Edith, her childhood nurse, was the only soul close to her remaining from her former life, for her mother had passed away when she was a girl.

  Her situation was bleak, for every land hungry lord in Northumberland knew she must marry, and time was running out. Dread filled her at the thought of being wed to any of the foul noblemen that sought her hand, especially the cruel, aging Baron Harold Flanders, who was more than twice her twenty years. Even now, he sat in her father's great hall, squandering the diminishing supplies, feasting upon the little she had at her disposal. He meant to wait her out, for he knew as well as she that her father's wealth would only pass to her once she married. Then her husband would control her fortune, her lands, and her life. Baron Flanders' influential hand reached far and wide across the moorlands, and no one would interfere now that his intentions were known. Refusing to accept his offer would only incite him to cruelty once he snared her, but Mariel determined to resist, praying for a miracle.

  “Lady Mariel,” Edith warned in a hushed whisper, “Baron Flanders requests your presence in the dining hall.”

  The plump nurse looked aghast at Mariel's disheveled hair, frantically trying to tame the tangled mass at her return to the castle.

  “Leave it, Edith.”

  Dismissing the fussing woman with a wave of her hand, Mariel accepted her summons with resigned distaste. She smoothed her hands down the velvety green fabric of her skirt and proceeded into the great hall where Harold Flanders and his two men-at-arms sat drinking her precious stores away. From her father's chair, Baron Flanders beckoned her in.

  “Come in, girl. Sit at my side.”

  His words, tainted with the slur of drunkenness, heightened her disgust for him. She declined politely.

  “Thank you kindly, Baron Flanders, but I prefer to stand. You wished to see me?”

  Her azure eyes remained on his face daringly, but Mariel could not bring herself to look meekly at the floor as a proper lady should. She hoped that he would grow weary of her bold behavior and relinquish his pursuit of her. He laughed mockingly.

  “What a bold wench I will have in my bed, George!”

  Her cheeks turned scarlet as Harold's companions brayed their mirth. Still, she refused to let embarrassment cowl her before them.

  “Now be reasonable, Lady Mariel,” Flanders scolded. “Come here, girl. I grow tired of this game. I will consider your actions to be merely the result of your innocence and will forgive the slight you've done me, but enough of it! We will be wed, and I've no desire to deny myself your charms any longer.”

  Anger flooded her at his pompous demands, the next words springing from her lips despite the knowledge that they damned her to endure his wrath.

  “I will never wed you! Nor will I suffer your bed; I would rather die!”

  Spinning on her heel to escape his presence, Mariel heard his impatient command.

  “Bring her to me.”

  Storming away as quickly as she could, Mariel realized that Flanders' men approached from behind. Grabbing her arms, they dragged her back toward the hall. Panic welled in her chest, and she struggled against the vice-like grips helplessly.

  “Let me go at once!” she demanded. “Father Eames will hear of this! Have you no fear of God?”

  They hauled her up in front of the dining table where Flanders stood. His thick mid-section shook with heaving laughter.

  “The good Father will support my cause, Lady Mariel, once I offer the evidence of your maidenhood upon your sheet. He will have no choice.”

  Turning his gaze to his men with a wicked smile, he continued on.

  “Arthur, please do go and collect Lady Mariel's bed sheets at once. I believe I will teach our dear Mariel a valuable lesson.”

  His vulgar breath strangled her as he leaned toward her face.

  “What an unwise choice you have made. I would have been kind to you. But now you will suffer, as I recall you put it, for I will take you upon your father's table, and all eyes in this house will watch your deflowering.”

  Terror gripped her more ferociously than the arms that bound her, and a scream tore from her throat as she understood what her fate was to be. Wrenching her arm free from her jailer, Mariel broke into a run only to be hauled about the waist back to her starting point. She clawed at George Rowland's face, kicking and flailing in a desperate attempt to escape, but the knight made sport of her, groping her chest as he easily fought off most of her blows. At only five feet two inches tall, and having a petite build, she offered no real threat to the man.

  Arthur Landis returned in haste, the bed sheets billowing behind as he scurried in rat-like fashion.

  “Spread it on the table,” Flanders barked, his meaty arm sending food and dishes clamoring to the floor.

  A blood curdling scream echoed throughout the hall, Mariel fighting her captors wildly, the men scrambling to keep a hold on her. Distracted as they were, the entrance of Gervase Daltrey and his companion went unnoticed. The deep voice that sounded in the room shocked them into stillness.

  “It would appear that I have arrived just in time, Flanders, to protect my husbandly rights.”

  All three heads snapped around to stare at the imposing figure leaning casually against the doorway's beam.

  “Take a final look at her if you must. For if ever your eyes alight upon what is mine after this day, know that I will disembowel you where you stand. You'll die watching the birds feast on your own flesh.”

  The foreboding man straightened to his full height, a smile playing on his lips.

  “You may unhand the girl.”

  Mariel, free from her tormentors yet still terrified, sought to hide beneath the table, but the tall, dark stranger gently halted her retreat.

  “Are you unharmed?” his baritone voice questioned, hands turning her face in search of injury.

  “He...they...You saved me, Sir,” she stammered before Harold Flanders broke in.

  “By what authority do you claim the girl as your property? I've already made my intention to wed her plain,” Flanders challenged boldly.

  His ashen face and tremulous speech betrayed his fear.

  “By the authority of your Sovereign, King Charles,” came the flat reply.

  “Mercenary bastard!” Flanders spat. “What murderous deed did the Devil of Daltrey – Hell's Hound – commit to warrant such favor?”

  Gervase Daltrey, Baron of Ayleshind, laughed sardonically.

  “Temper, temper, man. My blood lust has not been sated this day. Take your leave, and live another day.”

  Making his way out of the great hall, Harold Flanders paused between the two men, not daring to face Lady Mariel, but addressing her, “It's the devil's wife you'll be, girl! I'll take my pleasure knowing you'll curse the day your so-called savior kept you from my bed...if ever you live so long.”

  Mariel froze
as the identity of the man who claimed to be her betrothed registered in her mind.

  The Hound of Hell.

  Heaven help her! She had prayed for a miracle, but the devil had come instead. Her wide, blue eyes remained riveted on the man before her in curious study, his face and form unreconciled with the beastly images she had always associated with the mention of the fearsome Baron of Ayleshind. Dark, wavy hair rested on his broad, muscular shoulders, framing his angular face, its features strong and proud. High cheekbones, well defined jaw, and straight, prominent nose announced the ancient Saxon and Roman blood coursing through his veins. Well over six feet tall, lean – yet of powerful build, Gervase Daltrey projected a dangerous presence that was amplified by the menacing scar that crossed his face diagonally. The sharp line tracked from forehead across the bridge of his nose before angling halfway down his left cheek, the sole blemish to his masculine beauty. A strange and tingling hum pooled deep within her as she drank in the sight of him, and her cheeks flamed at her body's traitorous, shameful behavior.

  But the devil manifests himself as an angel of light, does he not?

  Instinctively, her body stiffened at the reminder of who she faced, and Mariel watched his countenance darken, his eyes hardening at her reaction. She had made a grave error, she realized in revealing her fear. She must learn to hide her emotions well.

  “Have your bold stares produced a satisfactory repugnance, my lady?” he taunted, knowing well the rumors in circulation about his past and thinking his appearance repulsed her. “Do not fret, sweetling. There will be ample opportunity for your perverse perusal to continue once we are wed.”

  Fiery anger flared in her heart at his pretentious accusation.

  “You do me wrong, Baron Daltrey, in your assumptions. Now, if you have no further insult to heap upon my person, I wish to retire to my chambers. It has been a trying day.”

  When he made no reply, she turned on her heel and marched toward the doorway. Stopping short of her exit, Mariel turned to face the open-mouthed servants gathered to witness the spectacle.

  “Edith, send for Father Eames at once. Bring him to me as soon as he arrives. I'll have the Baron's claim over me examined.”

  Striding away in smug satisfaction at her set down of the devil himself, Mariel reached her rooms in no time, breathing quickened, cheeks bright with exertion. Alone in her room and waiting for Father Eames' arrival minute by painful minute drained the color from her cheeks. A cold dread seeped into her bones. What had she done in openly rebuking Baron Daltrey? What had she been thinking?

  “God have mercy on me!” she pleaded into the emptiness.

  But it was the Devil of Daltrey's mercy she needed. Tales of his terrible deeds rang in her thoughts, threatening her sanity as one, then two hours passed without the good Father's appearance. Below in her father's hall sat the embodiment of her childhood boogeyman. Hadn't she been told that Hell's Hound murdered men in their beds without a sound? That once he uttered his curse, no man escaped death.

  It was whispered that at the age of ten years, Gervase Daltrey had shown himself as the devil he was, vowing to end his own father's life by morning in front of many guests. They had given him a thrashing for his insolence. But when morning light produced screams of horror in his family's stronghold, every man remembered the boy's words. The old Baron lay dead in his chamber. No sign of a struggle was in evidence, but all believed the boy had committed the deed by some unseen power. No one dared accuse him, for fear he would curse them to the same fate his father had suffered.

  Mariel's father had dismissed the eerie tale, claiming that the hand of God had struck the cruel Baron justly. He was the only witness who believed the boy innocent of being in league with the devil. Many times as a girl, Mariel had heard her father's friends ascribe the guilt of vile deeds to the Baron of Ayleshind, and even though her father protested against them, he made her swear an oath that she would never wander near the border where Hayes land met Ayleshind property. She never had. A shiver of fear wracked her slender body.

  And now I am in his possession.

  She startled at the sharp knocking on the door to her private chambers.

  “My lady,” Edith's voice called through the heavy door, “Father Eames has arrived. Should I bring him to you? Or will you come down to the hall?”

  When the maid heard no reply she added, “I've brewed you an herbal draught, Lady Mariel, to soothe you.”

  “I will be down momentarily, Edith. And thank you for the kindness in making me a draught.”

  Smoothing the wrinkles her hands had wrung in her skirt, she questioned, “Edith, are you still there?”

  “Yes, my lady.”

  “Does the Baron of Ayleshind remain on the premises?”

  “He does, my lady,” the woman shuddered her answer.

  “Very well. Prepare something for our guests.”

  Lady Mariel Hayes set a deliberate and unhurried pace descending the stone hewed staircase. She may have been bartered and traded like livestock but that did not necessitate her open acknowledgment of the odious practice. Father Eames awaited her at the great hall's entrance, wearing a pitying, pious expression that reminded Mariel of her father's aged hounds when they could no longer enjoy the hunt, and in that moment she knew all was lost.

  “My lady,” he greeted solemnly.

  Mariel dipped her head in deference to the man of God, who ushered her into the hall. Gervase Daltrey and his companion rose from their seats at her entrance.

  “You have inspected the betrothal document, Eames. I'll have it back and allow you to assure Lady Hayes of its validity.”

  Gervase's clipped address allowed for no polite greetings.

  “Lady Mariel,” the Protestant shepherd began gently, “it is by decree of King Charles that you are to be given in marriage to Baron Daltrey. I am afraid, my child, that I have no choice but to perform the ceremony.”

  For the first time, Mariel lowered her eyes in meekness.

  “Let it be as God wills it, Father,” she answered.

  Her eyes remained downcast, for she had no desire to witness the gleam of victory in the devil's.

  “I will have a Christian wedding, then?” she asked.

  Gervase laughed derisively.

  “My lady, I would not dream of denying the church the humbling task of blessing my head. Eames! I must insist on your remaining with us awhile longer, for we will wed before dusk. Gather your witnesses, Holy Man. I'll leave no room for questions as to the happy event's occurrence.”

  Chapter 2

  Candles illuminated the spacious entrance hall as the bride and groom stood amid the few meager guests, all servants save for Swanson, Gervase's loyal man. Daylight waned, the sun sinking low in the western sky, long shadows creeping over the land like shrouds draping the deceased. Around the circular stand they gathered, the aroma of fresh herbs sweetening the air, originating from the kettle in the table's center.

  Father Eames pronounced the final benediction, and it was done. Lady Mariel was his.

  When Gervase had petitioned King Charles, he had simply sought to acquire a wife to produce an heir. That wealth and vast land holdings came with her was gladly accepted, but of little consequence to him. Additional lands and money were valuable only if one had a son to leave them to. Gervase Daltrey knew that no family in the whole of Northumberland would consider giving one of their daughters in marriage to the Hound of Hell! Hearing of the Hayes' death, he had seen the solution to his predicament and acted with haste to secure her hand, never expecting more than a plain country girl. The bargain, he mused, was turning out to be far more profitable than expected. Lady Mariel Hayes was a comely young woman, indeed.

  Raven hair curled delicately about her creamy skin, and her large, blue eyes sparkled within her oval face. She was dainty, possessing the soft curves of womanhood desired by many.

  She fears you. She always will. She would escape you if it were possible, and under the beautiful facade, she is a
s traitorous and deceitful as Lenore.

  The daughter of a low level nobleman outside London, Lenore Wells was to have been his bride eight years ago. Far from the moorlands, his reputation was unknown, and at twenty-four years old he had looked forward to gaining a wife. His bride-to-be had started attending Puritan meetings, and soon afterward made it plain that she had no wish to be joined to him, a heathen, Protestant in name only. Assured by her father that Lenore would forget all this Puritanical nonsense once settled with him in the far north, Gervase had fooled himself into believing the old man.

  A week before the wedding Lenore had disappeared, leaving a note behind in her journal that would have damned him to the Tower of London had it not been for his covert work for the Crown. Declaring she feared for her life at his hand, Lenore's scribbled entry claimed that should she turn up missing, surely Gervase Daltrey had murdered her in his hate for her religious beliefs. Unable to produce a witness for his whereabouts on the night in question, he had nearly forfeited his life. Only a few key men from the House of Lords besides the Crown knew of his quiet disposal of a key Scottish rebel, and they were sworn to secrecy. The public had cried in outrage at his pardon. Gervase had kept his freedom and life, but in exchange, he had been branded a murderer, adding to his infamy.

  Lenore, his later investigations revealed, had likely gained passage on a ship to Holland with fellow zealous Puritans, later leaving the religious sect altogether and traveling to the New World with an adventure seeker. But by then, whispers of his alleged deed had spread far and wide, sealing his fate.

  Gervase touched the scar that transected his face. Carrying out the Crown's business that night, he had lost his footing a split second, and the Scot had sliced him deeply before losing his life. Rumor held that the poor Puritan bride-to-be gifted him the wound as he killed her in cold blood.