Love at First Sight
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.
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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
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PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
CLS 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Prudnuts,
who cut the diamond,
and for Juice,
who continues to polish.
ROLOGUE
England 1074
A
NXIOUS 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. D
ragon-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 sellin’ 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.”