Ensnared (Knights of Brethren #3)(60)

I took in the stark furnishings of the room: a leather satchel hanging from the bedpost, a stack of parchment and a pot and ink upon a writing table, and a long black robe hanging from a peg in the wall, a robe that belonged to one group of people—the wisemen. I didn’t need anyone to inform me that I was in the room of the earl’s advisor, the Sagacite, Pontus.

What could this possibly mean? Certainly not what I thought it did.

I shrank against the door and groped for the handle. I tugged it, hoping it would open and that I could flee. But even as I wriggled it, I knew I’d never escape. I was locked inside. And the guards were no doubt waiting on the other side for the arrival of the priest. And Pontus.

Bernhard was giving me in marriage to Pontus. It didn’t matter that I’d never spoken to the man. It didn’t matter that he was old enough to be my father. It didn’t matter that he made my skin crawl every time I saw him. Bernhard intended to marry me to the Sagacite. And there was nothing I could do to stop it from happening.





Chapter

29





Gunnar


I slid from my mount and took off at a sprint across the bailey, not bothering to give instructions to the groom. The high sun overhead indicated that the noon hour was fast approaching, which meant I was hours later than I’d anticipated.

Bernhard’s men had chased us for some distance before we’d lost them. Even then, I’d led Sven and my squires deeper into the moorland before finally deciding they would be safe without me. I’d urged them to keep up the punishing pace until reaching Vordinberg and finding sanctuary with the king.

Then we’d parted ways, and I’d circled back around, using an alternate route to return to Romsdal.

Now as I took the steps two at a time and barged into the front entrance hall, my heart pulsed with the need to be with Mikaela, a need that had grown as I’d drawn closer to the castle, so that now she was all I could think about.

Although I wanted to go directly to the nursery and pull her into my arms, I had to make the arrangements for our wedding first with both the priest as well as Bernhard.

My footsteps pounded hard in the quiet passageway that led to the chapel. My leg wound slowed me only a little now, hardly paining me after the poultice had soaked in and worked its healing. Though a throbbing at the back of my head reminded me I hadn’t slept in hours, I pushed myself.

The chapel door was open, and the priest was pacing back and forth in front of the altar, clutching at the cross that hung from a long leather strip around his neck. At the sight of me, he stopped abruptly and heaved a breath.

“I have been praying for your arrival, sire.” The priest was new since I’d last visited Likness Castle years ago. Attired in a brown woolen cowl, he bowed his head, which was shaven except for the tonsured ring that circled above his ears. His smooth face was youthful, and he’d struck me as a sincere man of faith in the few interactions I’d had with him thus far.

His prayer request was a strange one, but I didn’t have time to think on it now. “Make ready. I will be here with my bride shortly for my wedding.”

“Then you have set her free?” His voice held a hopeful note.

My thrumming pulse slowed to a crawl. “Set who free?”

“Mikaela.”

Even as he spoke her name, my body tensed with a terrible foreboding, and a dozen scenarios flashed through my mind. “What has Bernhard done?” If he’d harmed her in the least, I would make him pay.

“He is planning to give her in marriage to the Pontus, the wiseman.”

“Pontus?” My mind tried to register what the priest was saying, but panic ripped through me with the force of a winter gale. “Has he already . . . ?”

“Not yet. But the earl has ordered me to be ready for the ceremony. And I have been praying he would not summon me until I had the chance to speak with you first and discover if the rumor is true that you intend to marry her for yourself.”

“’Tis true.” Nothing had ever been truer. How dare Bernhard even think about giving Mikaela away to someone else. It didn’t matter that legally she still belonged to him. She was mine in body, soul, and spirit. And I intended to have her.

“That’s what I thought, sire. And I’ve been praying you would return before I was required to perform the ceremony.”

Silently, I cursed myself for leaving her here. I should have known I couldn’t trust Bernhard and that he would devise a way to torment me now that I’d made a stand against him.

I needed to find her and marry her immediately. “Where is she?”

“She is locked in the advisor’s chambers.”

I spun on my heels only to find myself face to face with Bernhard. And half a dozen of his guards. Pontus waited several paces back, his plump face pale and his eyes wide. He wrung his hands in front of his protruding belly as though he wanted to run off and hide.

Was he afraid of me? Of what I might do to him now that I knew he was planning to marry Mikaela? Or was he afraid of Bernhard? Either way, he ought to be fearful. I would do anything to keep him from having my bride.

As though sensing the same, Bernhard’s lips turned up into a calculated smile. “You are just in time. We are about to begin the wedding of Mikaela and Pontus.”

My fingers twitched with the overwhelming need to squeeze Bernhard’s neck and strangle him. “You wouldn’t dare try to wed her to another man.”