Love at First Sight Read online

  A SIGHT TO BEHOLD

  Sparks flew as a flint was struck and a small pool of yellow light flickered to lfe. Golde’s gaze immediately latched onto the baron where he stood encircled by horses and the remaining liegemen.

  Her heart leapt upward to clog her throat. Sword drawn and legs braced, it appeared he looked directly at her. A lusty barbarian. A savage who would enjoy a contest between himself and the devil. A powerful chieftain of yore who would embrace her unholy eyes as a sign of good fortune, not evil.

  His gaze shifted away. . . .

  She sighed. Would that the baron could see, and that his fearless heated look was meant for her. . . .

  LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT

  A Bantam Fanfare Book / January 1999

  FANFARE and the portrayal of a boxed “ff’ are trademarks of Bantam Books, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 1999 by Sandra Carmouche.

  Cover art copyright © 1999 by Franco Accomero.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  For information address: Bantam Books.

  ISBN 0-553-58008-6

  Published simultaneously in the United States and Canada

  Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Random House, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words “Bantam Books” and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca Registrada. Bantam Books, 1540 Broadway, New York, New York 10036.

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  CLS 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  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

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  For Prudnuts,

  who cut the diamond,

  and for Juice,

  who continues to polish.

  PROLOGUE

  England 1074

  ANXIOUS TO HIDE the smirk that besieged her lips, Golde lowered her head and pretended to study nonexistent images in the flickering reflection of a small silver plate.

  Patience, she admonished herself. Had she not awaited this opportunity almost the entire twenty years of her life? To visit vengeance on the hateful Dorswyth?

  Though it was full noon outside, few threads of light penetrated the wattle and daub of the windowless cottage. It could scarce be more perfect were it midnight, Golde thought with relish. Before the glow of a lone candle, she should appear fey as the fairies she claimed to consort with.

  Summoning an ominous look, she returned her gaze to the wide-eyed woman who sat across the table from her.

  “’Tis not good wot ye see?” Dorswyth’s reed-thin voice cracked. “I know’d it!”

  Golde scowled against the prick her inwit gave her. She would not feel pity for the woman, she vowed.

  Dragon-hag. Grendelskin. That was what she should be remembering—the names Dorswyth had tormented her with in childhood. It mattered not that Dorswyth was hardly the adversary she’d once been; that at three and twenty her face was already lined from years of toil in the fields, her limp hair showing the first strands of gray.

  Golde blinked. ’Od rot! What was she thinking? Had she not just vowed to feel no pity? Counseling her features to reveal nothing of her consternation, she picked up an egg that lay beside the silver plate.

  Dorswyth clenched her rosary in a begrimed fist. “Mercy, Lord God. I always been yer loyal servant.”

  The egg trembled in Golde’s palm. Dorswyth would never see the tiny needle-hole in the brown shell. Once the egg was cracked, she would be too horrified to notice aught but the bloodstained cow’s hair—a terrible omen.

  Truth tell, ’twas only berry juice, but Dorswyth would never know.

  Yet Golde paused, fidgeting, unable to crack the egg. Considering their longtime enmity, Dorswyth had shown great courage in asking Golde to read her fortune. Only her husband’s recent disappearance had prompted the request, for Dorswyth hoped to hear there was another man in her future. Otherwise, she and her children would be reduced to begging.

  Nay, and nay! Golde longed to bang her head on the table. She would feel no sympathy. Instead, she forced herself to recall Dorswyth’s rhyme about her unholy eyes.

  One eye black

  T’other eye green

  She dances wi’ the devil

  On Allhallows e’en.

  “Well? Go on.” Dorswyth’s fretful voice broke into her dark musings. “Crack the egg and have done.”

  Golde tried to reclaim the anticipation of retribution, but it eluded her. Rather, she could see naught but Dorswyth’s anxious, work-worn features. “I think I should use the runes along with the egg,” she hedged.

  Dorswyth gaped. “Ever’one knows the runes is not safe.”

  “They will give me a more accurate reading,” Golde lied. Laying the egg aside, she picked up a small leather pouch. “Here. Shake it gently.”

  “But—”

  “Do as I say and no harm will befall you.”

  Golde crossed herself and closed her eyes against Dorswyth’s anguished countenance. Dragon-hag. Grendelskin. As Dorswyth shook the pouch containing the runes, Golde focused on the hurtful names, letting them sluice through her head until mortification settled like worms in her stomach.

  Her lip curled at how the village folk, including Dor- swyth, believed her disparate eye-coloring marked her as the devil’s seed. Indeed, her existence was tolerated only because everyone feared her truculent great-grandmother, Mimskin: the village witchwife.

  “Enough,” Golde intoned without opening her eyes, determined anew to have her revenge. “Lord God, I appeal to you for aid. Say it thrice, then place the pouch in my hands.”

  Dorswyth’s voice shook, cracked, and finally broke on the third appeal. “I ar’nt always the best of persons, Lord God,” she whimpered, then pleaded, “But it’s fer me children. They done nothin’ wrong.”

  Before Golde could prevent it, respect welled up to claim her. Unwilling respect for a woman able to admit her own shortcomings. Respect for an adversary who would humble herself before an enemy on her children’s behalf. Respect, more powerful for the very fact that it was so hard to give.

  Dorswyth’s breath hitched as she placed the pouch in Golde’s hands. And Golde knew in her heart she would not vanquish her old foe this day, or any other. To begrudge Dorswyth’s hope would be too cruel. No woman deserved to watch her children go hungry.

  Opening her eyes, Golde untied the drawstring and spilled the stones into the silver plate. A dozen black pebbles of varied shapes, their polished surfaces etched with gray symbols; what they meant, she knew not. Mimskin deplored her fraudulent practices and would not tell her. “Ye destroy yer swevyn with the se
llin’ of yer false prophesies,” Mimskin would oft grouse.

  Dorswyth sniffed, pulling her from her thoughts. “Ye can tell me wot ye sees. I ar’nt no babe.”

  “Sss,” Golde hissed, turning her attention to the stones. Would that she could make sense of just one. Would that she had Mimskin’s Celtic gift of sight, and that she could see some hope for Dorswyth’s future.

  Nothing.

  Angry, Golde felt like pounding the runes until they released their power—like the toad she’d once beaten.

  Part of a spell that would change the color of her cursed eyes, the toad had struggled. It had croaked, pleading for release, when she’d raised a rock over its head.

  Golde caught herself before she winced. The toad had died for naught. Her eyes had remained the same, just as she would remain a fearsome miscreation to her dying day.

  Of a sudden, she felt like weeping. For the poor toad. For the lonely little girl she’d been. For the once mighty Dorswyth, who now commanded only pity.

  Golde stared at the useless runes. ’Twas well and good she was adept at deception, she thought, as a most logical idea struck. If Dorswyth would clean herself regularly, she would stand a much greater chance of attracting a man. Not that she could say such to Dorswyth without insulting her.

  Abruptly, Golde pushed two stones off the plate. “The sun shines around you. There is a man who will bring you much happiness.”

  With each prediction of good fortune, she moved another rune from the plate as evidence. At last, only two remained. “And you are to purify yourself by bathing twice each week until you find a man.”

  Dorswyth’s face shone with the light of redemption. “That is all? Wot about the egg?”

  “’Tis not necessary.”

  Eyes shining, Dorswyth rose from her seat and held out a small silver coin. “’Tis all I can spare.”

  Golde shook her head and stood, flinging strands of black hair over her shoulder. “I cannot take your money.”

  “Wot?” Dorswyth puzzled.

  Taller than most men, her body more solid than her slender appearance indicated, Golde propelled Dorswyth toward the door. “’Twas a bright new tunic I saw you wearing in my vision. Your money is meant to buy cloth.”

  “But—”

  “Off with you.”

  She fair slammed the door in Dorswyth’s face, then scowled. A new tunic, indeed. Marching back to the table, she plopped down on the stool and glared at the candle.

  Whatever ailed her? ’Twas the third time this week she’d refused coin for her services. At this rate, she’d soon be paying her culls. The money she’d saved against the day her father grew too old to work would dwindle away. Then where would she be?

  A shriveled old beggar-woman, she answered herself, for no man would take a spawn of the devil to wife.

  And what of her father? Though he’d e’er eased her hurtful childhood with words of love and affection, had he been embarrassed by her, too? Were there even now occasions when he secretly wished she’d never been born? She’d brought naught but misery upon him since her birth. Even as she’d drawn her first breath, her mother had died.

  Sighing, she rested her elbows on the table and cupped her chin in her hands. If her father’s future comfort were to be ensured, she must cease feeling sorry for her culls.

  Extending a finger, she darted it back and forth through the candle-flame. If only she could garner a new group of culls, people she didn’t know, perhaps some of the wealthy Norman elite . . .

  Without warning, the door swung open. Thinking Dorswyth had returned, she swiveled about, only to find Mimskin.

  She inclined her head as her great-grandmother ushered a narrow-set man into the cottage. Attired in an immaculate blue tunic with matching braises and sporting a knobby Adam’s apple, he appeared just past the middle of life.

  “This fellow has need of yer aid,” Mimskin supplied in her usual brusque tone. She tilted her white-tufted head back to squint at him. “Who’d ye say ye was, boy? Spurvul?”

  “’Tis Sperville.” His nasal tone emphasized the ville. “Sir Sperville, chamberlain to Sir Gavarnie Delamaure, Baron of Skyenvic.”

  Mimskin snorted. “Ye looks more like a Spindleshanks.”

  Golde pursed her lips to hide her amusement. The oaf’s dignity would suffer permanent injury were he not careful with her great-grandmother.

  “The boy’s liege lord, this Delamaure, has lost his sight.” Mimskin’s watery green eyes bore into Golde’s. “He wishes to acquire yer services to heal the man. Ye’ll have to travel, though to reach this Skyenvic.”

  Golde couldn’t prevent the smile that curved her lips as she rose. She’d travel to the mythical Valhalla if she must. Sir Sperville was the answer to her prayers. “Come and sit, sir. Might I fetch you something cool to drink?” The chamberlain shook his balding head. Though he tried to stare down his thin nose at her, he was little taller than she, and the ploy failed.

  Mimskin beamed. “Let us discuss matters, then.” Golde’s smile dipped at the corners. If Mimskin thought to appear angelic with such a look, she’d failed. She more resembled a goblin about to devour a small child. Indeed, it could mean naught but trouble that Mimskin would suddenly promote the fraud she claimed to abhor.

  Before Golde could ponder further, Sir Sperville commanded her attention. “Your great-grandmother says you are a great mystical healer. Thus, I am prepared to offer you fifty pieces of gold to heal my liege lord’s eyes.”

  Golde frowned as a sense of foreboding rippled through her belly. Mimskin had even called her a great, mystical—

  Abruptly her brows climbed her forehead. Fifty pieces of gold! No wonder Mimskin was willing to suspend her disapproval of Golde’s duplicitous practices.

  Golde’s thoughts raced forward. Why did Mimskin not heal this Delamaure herself? She could easily do so without ever leaving her cottage. Her great-grandmother must think this Delamaure was unworthy of a cure, and deserved to be fleeced. Thus, the trick would be for Golde to secure the fifty gold pieces without restoring the man’s sight.

  “Money cannot cure blindness, sir,” she intoned, instinctively slipping into her mystical role even as she wondered how she was going to accomplish such a feat. “However, you are come to the right woman.”

  ONE

  SQUINTING AGAINST the midmorning sun, Golde crouched beside Sir Sperville where he slumped with his back against the boat’s bow.

  The answer to her prayers, she thought sourly to the whining screech of sea gulls.

  Seven days ago, they had left her home in Cyning. Upon reaching Portchester last eve, they’d secured passage aboard a small sailing vessel that would leave at dawn. A short ride across the Solent, Sperville had said, and they would arrive at Castle Skyenvic on the Isle of Wynt long before dusk.

  Only, it appeared the chamberlain might not survive the “short ride.”

  “If you would drink this”—Golde gestured with the cup she held—“you would feel better.”

  The chamberlain puckered his thin lips and turned his head away.

  Unable to brace herself against the sway of the boat, Golde was forced to sit beside the stubborn fool. “Why did you not say something of your problem with sea travel? I could have saved you this misery.”

  Sweat dripped down the chamberlain’s pasty face and he closed his eyes.

  ’Od rot, Golde cursed. The three seamen who manned the boat glanced at her surreptitiously, as if she might call monsters from the depths of the Solent to sink them. Did they think she could not see them crossing themselves and making the sign of the evil eye at her? She would not be surprised if they pitched her overboard while Sperville was in his weakened state. And though the boat had remained in sight of land since leaving port, she could not swim.

  Fear-borne determination knotted her jaw. She had not traveled in an ox-drawn cart over bone-rattling roads for six days, only to drown on the final day of the journey. Sperville would drink her potion or she would—
/>   Abruptly the chamberlain’s Adam’s apple jerked spasmodically and he lurched to his knees. Golde grabbed the back of his tunic as he wobbled about to clutch the bow, his face aimed over the side.

  “Faith,” she muttered, rising on her knees beside him while maintaining a steady hold on the cup. “’Twill be a miracle if your toenails do not fly forth.”

  Sperville groaned, then heaved, and Golde ordered a cease to her sharp tongue. Remarks about toenails would hardly improve Sperville’s spirits. Not that her spirits were any better.

  Indeed, a sense of unease had plagued her since she’d left Cyning. A sense of disquiet that had ripened with each dawn, despite the clear days and tranquil weather. A sense of impending trouble that had begun with Mimskin’s beaming countenance and sudden approval of Golde’s false practices.

  Sperville’s ragged coughing broke into her thoughts. Wiping his mouth, he slumped back down against the bow.

  “You will drink this—” Golde stuck the cup under his nose, “or I will shove it—”

  The chamberlain grabbed the cup and gulped its contents. “There!” he rasped and flung the cup in the briny Solent. “With luck, your potion will kill me and I will be free of this wretched suffering.”

  “Pff,” Golde huffed, hiding her relief that Sperville was finally speaking to her. “’Tis I who am in danger of being killed. While you snivel and whine, yon seafolk are plotting to throw me overboard.”

  “An idea that is not without merit,” the chamberlain grumbled. Wrapping his cloak into a ball, he eased himself down on his side and pillowed his head.

  Golde gritted her teeth. “How long before we make landfall?”

  Sperville pulled the neck of his tunic over his head, ignoring her.

  “You said it would be a short ride.”

  When the chamberlain did not respond, Golde scowled. “Your cloak and tunic will be wrinkled beyond measure.”

  Still, he said nothing.

  Golde crossed her arms over her chest and shot a sullen look at the three seamen, who immediately began crossing themselves. Plague take them, and the useless Sir Sperville. She had yet to reach Skyenvic, and already she longed for home.