Breath of Heaven by Cindy Holby

would say such things about you?”
    “Because he has always wanted Aubregate, just as his father did before him.”
    “Spreading unflattering rumors about the heiress of Aubregate would keep the competition of unwanted suitors away, would it not?” Madwyn explained.
    “Yet he came,” Eliane said. “Milord de Remy came.” She went to the window. The solar was in the southwest tower of the keep, which sat atop a small hillock close to the forest. From the window she could see all of the lands of Aubregate to the west. In the distance the gray sea faded into the pale blue of the sky. Everything was covered with snow, then a crust of ice, which was blindingly white in the noonday sun. The landscape appeared to be encrusted with jewels. The ice gave the illusion of richness, an illusion that many had pursued through the generations. The fools did not know that the treasure was the land itself. The land that was hidden beneath the blanket of snow, sleeping, waiting to come back to life with the spring thaw. “He came because of my father.”
    “You told your father to choose,” Madwyn said. “And you would accept.”
    “Yes,” Eliane agreed. “Yet I do not know what I have accepted.”
    “ ’Tis the way with most brides,” Madwyn said. “And you are luckier than most.”
    “How is that?” Eliane asked.
    Madwyn laughed again and shook her head in disbelief at Eliane’s question. “Do you not find Lord de Remy fair of face and strong of arm?”
    Eliane closed her eyes against the brightness of the day and imagined the close, dim light of the forest on a wintry afternoon and a pair of eyes, dark as night, looking up at her in challenge. His face had bristled that day with beard, but this day it was clean shaven, revealing a strong jaw and chin and smooth, unmarked skin. He was as tall as she, nay, taller, which was an oddity since the only men she’d ever met who were taller than she were of the forest. “He is both,” Eliane said. “To say otherwise would be a lie, and you know it.”
    “Then what is the problem?” Madwyn asked. “It is more than most heiresses can claim when a husband is chosen for them. Did you not admit to having a lustful heart just this day past?”
    Eliane felt her cheeks flame and she resisted the urge to lean against the glass to cool them. “I cannot stand about discussing what is done,” she said. “When there is much to be accomplished.”
    “At least you may congratulate yourself for not killing him,” Madwyn said as they left the solar to begin the preparations.
    “I have yet to decide whether that was a good thing.”
    “What did he mean that you kept your word?” Mathias had been strangely silent since they’d left Lord Edward’s chambers. It was a good thing, since Rhys had much on his mind. He placed the brush he was using on the ledge in the stall and looked at his squire over Yorath’s wide back. Mathias perched on a barrel outside the stall with a piece of straw dangling from his lips. A black and white cat circled around the barrel and arched its back against it in hopes of a rub.
    “Lord Edward saved my life when I was younger than you. I told him then that I would repay him whenever he asked.”
    “You will pay your debt by marrying the Lady Eliane?”
    “It is one way to look at it,” Rhys agreed.
    “I think Lady Jane and Lady Marcella will find another way to see it.” His blue eyes danced with humor and Rhys knew he was considering their reactions to Rhys’s surprising choice of bride.
    “Let us hope that word reaches them while we are a great distance away.”
    “I am sure we will hear their shrieks no matter where we hide,” Mathias said.
    Rhys turned so Mathias would not see his grin. The boy was entirely too irreverent. But at the present Rhys needed to see the humor in his situation.
    He’d come to the stable because he was not sure if he could continue to hide the sense of great relief he’d felt upon finally seeing Eliane. Where had