The Faery Bride (The Celtic Legends Series Book 2) Read online

  THE FAERY BRIDE

  by

  Lisa Ann Verge

  Rhys is a man accursed, forced to hide his scarred face behind a leather mask. When rumors reach Wales of an Irishwoman with healing powers, he crosses a sea to kidnap her. But Aileen is no frightened girl, and she will move the Welsh lord as no blue–blooded beauty ever has.

  Possessed with the gift of ancient magic, Aileen knows her captor is a man more afflicted in spirit than flesh. She despises him for stealing her from home, but she can’t deny the passion that flares between them. Time may heal the scars on Rhys’s face … but Aileen fears it will take a miracle to change his unbelieving heart.

  Praise for Lisa Ann Verge and THE FAERY BRIDE

  “Let yourself be swept away by the utterly enchanting atmosphere of a best–loved fairytale, and you’ll find yourself caught in Ms. Verge’s marvelous, magical tale. As always the author delivers a book that is uniquely wonderful.”

  – RT Book Reviews

  “An excited, fast–paced medieval romance … Lisa Ann Verge is on the verge of climbing to the top, a position she definitely deserves.”

  – Affaire de Coeur

  Finalist “Best Innovative Romance” – RT Book Reviews

  Finalist, “Best Time Travel Romance” – Affaire de Coeur

  Finalist, RITA for “Best Paranormal Romance” – Romance Writers of America

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty One

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Epilogue

  Sneak Peek

  About The Author

  Prologue

  The Year of Our Lord 1275

  It was a frightful visitor who came to us that strange Midsummer’s Night.

  It could have been yesterday, I remember it so well. Twilight had blackened the crags of my lord’s kingdom. The dying gasps of the pagan fires still glowed upon the hillsides. I’ve been the keeper of this house for enough years to turn my hair white, yet never had a visitor come so high in the mountains in the midst of night. And none welcome for these past five years, mind you, with all the changes in the house of Graig. So you can imagine how I nearly leapt out of my skirts when someone banged at the door fit to split the wood.

  I knew that the entire household was snug inside. They’d scurried back to their hovels from whatever pagan things they do at those fires on Midsummer’s Night, like rats to their holes in a storm, not one of them brave enough to risk seeing whatever demons are set loose after the sun sets. I myself was hanging another sprig of St. John’s wort over the doorway to the kitchens to guard against demons and the like.

  At first I thought to ignore the banging. No good news comes after dark, you know, and the master…well, it’s no secret that the master wouldn’t take kindly to having his refuge invaded. Faith, the master was no fit company for wolves these days. It was not always that way, you know. But now I feared—even not knowing who stood behind that door—for the poor unwitting creature’s health. No man deserved the full wrath of this Lord of Graig.

  But you see, I’m Irish born, Welsh bred, and Celtic to the bone, so I found myself padding through the rushes to pull the door open in welcome.

  An Irishman, he said he was. Snarling and snapping at the delay, and me wondering how to keep him quiet so as not to disturb the master in his chamber at the other end of the hall. I spoke as kindly as I could and ushered the visitor to the center hearth, offering him a bit of mead and oatcake. Only then did I get a straight look at him. He was a strange spark of a man, too limber and sprightly for the wild night. There was a brightness to him, like to outshine the fire that the girls work day and night to keep burning. I found myself lingering until he barked good and loud for the mead I’d promised him.

  Then the far door banged open and my heart leapt to my throat, for the master tore out of his chamber breathing fire like the dragon that’s said to live amid the caves of Snowdon. He caught sight of the visitor and I scurried out, not wanting to be burned by the hot edge of his tongue.

  Faith, it’s true I had no business lurking in the shadows with my ears cocked, me being no more than a servant in the house of Rhys ap Gruffydd, the Lord of Graig. But I’ve earned my meddling, you see, having been with this house long before the present lord took his first squalling breath. I’ve known the family as if it were my own. I’ve watched through the good years and now, yes, in the darkest. So I took no shame in peering around that splintered old wall. Surely it was my duty to stop the master from tossing the Irishman out into the cold. We’re still Welsh, after all, no matter what curse God has put upon this lord and this house. I’ll see myself begging in some English village before the Graigs deny hospitality to anyone whose shadow darkens the door.

  Oh, and the two went at it, the master and the Irishman, my master roaring his displeasure and the little man talking back with no mind to the danger to his own hide. Octavius, he said his name was, recently come of Ireland, though what he was doing wandering in this place so far from sea or road was a puzzle to all. He was having none of my master’s rudeness—none at all. Never did I hear any man talk to my master the way this little tattered fellow did. He even made my master pause a moment with the shame of finding such a harsh welcome in a fellow Celt’s house.

  Then my lord made to stomp off to that lair of his he lets no one into, when Octavius called out and made a comment on the lights he saw upon yonder lake. Ah, you know the one, the enchanted lake with the faery isle my master has been trying for years to build a castle upon. The Irishman was trying to engage my master in conversation, after all the harsh words that had passed between them! The little man began talking of faery rings and dancing lights and all such things—not a strange conversation for a Midsummer’s Night, for all the people of Graig had been talking of the old days this night. But my master interrupted the Irishman as I knew he would. My lord scoffed as he does at all un–Christian imaginings and mocked the little man, which sent the Irishman to true temper at last.

  “Listen to you, believing only what you can see,” the Irishman said. “I’d curse you for your ignorance, but for all that leather upon your face there’s no hiding that you’ve been cursed already.”

  Didn’t that set my blood to freeze! For no one dared to make mention of it, though all men knew of the curse upon my master. One look at that masked face set my heart to choking me. I thought my lord was to take the creature in his two warrior’s hands and strangle the life out of him. If it weren’t for the Welsh blood rushing thick in his veins he might have done the same. Instead he spoke quiet like the wind in the trees before a storm—like to make the hairs stand up on the back of my neck—and banished the creature into the night.

  Before the words were full out of my master’s mouth I made to hurry out and stop such discourtesy—to take the Irishman aside and give him food and shelter in our kitchens, humble though they may be. It was no fit night for man or hound.

  But the Irishman stood his ground by the warmth of the hearth and smiled, he did. It was the
smile that stopped me—as did the look in his bright black eyes. My heart dropped to my stomach. It was Midsummer’s Night, after all, and Christian though I am, I’ll not mock the old ways. This creature had come from the air itself.

  The Irishman said that he knew a healer unlike any other who lived on an island off the west coast of Ireland. A woman who had healed every ailment she’d touched. A woman with a touch of faery blood who could cure my master’s curse with a pass of her hands. A miracle worker, like to be a saint.

  I felt the heat of my lord’s anger, for hadn’t he made a hundred thousand pilgrimages and seen every charlatan and witch from Myddfai to Paris, all to rid himself of this curse?

  On the Aran Isles, the Irishman continued, as thick as mud to my master’s silent rage. By the name of Aileen Ruadh. Aileen the Red.

  Then what happened I never could be sure, for it happened so quickly I wondered if my old eyes had deceived me, or if he had just moved so quickly that I hadn’t noticed the closing of the door. For one moment, the Irishman was there, standing as whole as you or me before the red glow of the hearth fire, and the next moment there was a sparkling around him, and suddenly there was naught but a wisp of smoke and an echo of laughter that chilled my skin from my scalp to my toes.

  After a moment, my master threw open the door and sent the wind howling through the house, spewing bright red embers across the paving stones. Then he was back and glaring up at the smoke–hole while the wind tossed his black hair wild.

  I saw a light come into his eyes. I’d seen that light before, long, long ago, before the curse, when the master was young and handsome and still full of blind ambition. It was like before he set off with Llywelyn, the Prince of Wales, to burn the English off Welsh soil for the last blessed time.

  And a shiver went through my soul for the likes of Aileen the Red.

  Chapter One

  Inishmaan, the Aran Islands, Ireland

  Aileen let her eyes drift closed. She skimmed her hand just above her mother’s left shoulder, a sensation like passing her fingertips through clotted cream.

  “A right fine mess you’ve done of this, Ma.” Aileen dropped her hand. “You should have told me about this sooner.”

  “It’s not so bad.” Her mother paused from cutting vegetables and rolled her arm through the stiffness. “It only started hurting this morning.”

  “Next you’ll be telling me it wasn’t the seaweed–gathering that got you so tight. Ah”—Aileen arched a brow as her mother opened her mouth to protest—”don’t deny it. It’s no use, not to me.”

  “Aileen, my firstborn.” Deirdre arched the same eyebrow that her daughter was arching at her. “Anyone would think you were the mother the way you boss me about. Mind you remember it was I who changed your linens as a babe—”

  “Five–and–twenty years ago. No.” Aileen touched her mother’s hand as her mother reached for the knife again. “Leave that be for now. I’ll set my hands upon you. Then we’ll have nothing more to argue about.”

  Aileen drifted her fingers closer to her mother’s shoulder. It felt as if she were compressing a bladder full of mead. When she touched the flesh, a ringing sounded in her head. In her mind’s eye she envisioned the threads of sinew drawn overlong and frayed, stretched far beyond their capabilities. It felt as if she strummed her fingers over her brother Niall’s lyre, and the strings gave loose beneath her hand.

  Wasn’t it like her mother, proud Deirdre of Inishmaan, to get herself in such a mess? Her mother was well past her fortieth year, and still after every gale Ma heaped her seaweed–basket over the rim, then hefted the whole on her back to drag it up the limestone cliffs. Not a bit of sense in her, and she the mother of four sons and four able daughters, all healthy enough to do the work for her.

  But Aileen knew there was no use in scolding. The words would fall silent upon her mother’s ears. And when Aileen’s mind wandered during a healing there was no room in her heart for a sour thought.

  It’s a blessing that you have one daughter destined to remain in your house a spinster, Ma, else who would look after you when Da’s not about?

  She began the gentle rubbing in earnest, falling into quiet concentration. A bee buzzed in through the open doorway of the hut. It circled the small room with its stone walls stained a mellow brown from years of peat fires, then wound its way upon its own path until it tumbled back into the sea air. The chill of the paving stones seeped through the calfskin of her slippers. The stinging scent of onion, the crisp sweetness of new–dug turnips, and the tartness of fresh greens wafted up from the table.

  Her mind drifted away to a late Sunday afternoon. She’d long been in the habit of perching upon the rock–pile fence while all the islanders played games in the field just beyond. Often her cat would come and nestle beside her on the stones warmed by the day’s sun. She would stroke the creature while it purred and arched beneath her hand. Stroking, stroking, stroking, until something tingling collected on the palm of her hand, like the crackling of dry fur shed in autumn–time. She flicked it off into the air, before returning to the stroking until all felt smooth and silky–warm beneath her palm.

  “Och, lass… .” Her mother sighed. “It’s done, the pain is all gone.”

  Aileen blinked as the world rushed in upon her: The muted roar of the waves beyond the cliffs, the shouts and laughter of some children down the road, the sting of peat–smoke and the mist of water bubbling too hot. Her mother was gazing up at her, her hand lying upon Aileen’s own.

  “You’ve a fine, fair gift.” Her mother patted her hand. “You’re likely to outshine the skill of your own father someday.”

  “Listen to a mother’s pride talking.”

  Aileen let her hands slip off her mother’s shoulder. If Aileen ever came to the point of outshining the great Conor of Inishmaan it would be because he’d never set his mind to healing with his hands. Sure, it came to her easily by virtue of her birth, but she was convinced it was something anyone could learn to do if they set their mind to it.

  But no one ever set their mind to it. If they did, there would never be any trouble from it at all.

  She swiped a tress of hair off the bridge of her nose then strode to the hearth where the cauldron threatened to bubble over. Poking at the fire, she shook off the last of the lethargy which fogged her mind after a healing. “No more gathering seaweed for you this week, Ma. It will take more than a pass of my hands to set that shoulder to right.”

  “God gave me two shoulders. I’ll carry my burden on the other.”

  Aileen clattered the poker into the basket by the wall and headed toward the door. “For the wife of a doctor, a body would think you’d be a far better patient.”

  “Where are you going, child?”

  “To fetch your other daughters.” Aileen whirled a cloak around her shoulders “They’re out prancing about in the sunshine with no more care than newborn calves. And here you are, with a sore shoulder and a stew to make before sunset—”

  “Let them race about on such a rare sunny day and leave us free of their chatter.” Her mother waved to the vegetables on the table. “You and I have enough hands for this.”

  Aileen gave her mother a suspicious look. It was more than a sore shoulder that had her mother wanting company. Ma had had an eye upon her since she came in from the milking, and a nervous eye at that. Aileen knew that look—it made her flush. Wasn’t it a ridiculous thing for a woman of her age to be blushing as if Ma had caught her kissing Sean the son of the fisher again? There was no reason for this sudden embarrassed guilt. It had been a fine long time since any boy had wanted to curl with her into that cavern beyond the southern shore. Then, she’d been a girl of thirteen years and as flat–chested and boyishly hipped as all the others upon the island. But as the years passed and the other girls ripened, she’d remained as stringy and shapeless as a bean.

  “It’s been four years,” Aileen said as she slipped the cloak off her shoulders. “Sean the fisher’s son is happily mar
ried to that girl from the mainland with the long blond hair. No chance of getting caught with his tongue in my mouth, Ma.”

  “Four years, has it been that long? You all grow up before my eyes, like the rye in the fields. Now come, and set to those cabbages. Don’t be giving me that silver–eyed look of yours, daughter. Can’t a mother want a bit of peace and quiet and the company of her oldest child?”

  Not when there’s work to do on the thatching, and a whole field of seaweed drying on the grass waiting to be spread over the northern field, and butter to be churned before the setting of the sun.

  There was no knowing her mother’s mind, but Aileen had an inkling, considering the weather. A patch of brilliant sunlight stretched over the paving stones to lick the wooden trestles of the table. A sea breeze gusted in through the doorway, flattening her tunic against her shins. No ocean gale muddied the clouds, no morning mist breathed a haze between the island of Inishmaan and the mainland, no sea fog hung a veil across the sight of the salt–stained sails of foreign ships anchored in Galway Bay. Their island home lay naked and vulnerable and dangerously open to the curious. Her mother had never shaken off that fear of outsiders that she’d brought with her to Inishmaan as a bride. But Aileen knew that she and her family were safe here—safe where the good island people knew who and what they all were, and understood.

  Then a shadow darkened the room.

  “Aye, Ma,” she stuttered, startled at the silhouette looming in the doorway. “We’ve a visitor.”

  Unexpected visitors were no surprise at the door to a doctor’s house, but as the man stepped in out of the light, Aileen froze. He was tall and draped in layers of cloth the likes of which she’d only seen upon the backs of the English invaders on the mainland. The cloth was bright in shimmering hues of yellow, like the primroses which clung to the rocks in the springtime.