Claimed by the Baron

ADALENE could not believe what was happening.

Shocked, numbed, and scared as she was, she could only gasp as she was lifted to the Baron’s horse. She could barely hear him as he apologized for not having a pillion seat for her. He had not expected to have a rider on his way back to his chateau today.

Today.

Today was her wedding day, but it was not to the Baron to whom she was married to this morning.

No, of course not.

She was a peasant maid, the daughter of a villein—a peasant farmer. How could a Baron marry someone like her?

The real story was that her pere, in what they all suspected was a drunken state, was convinced by a man named Louis Didier to marry her off to him. She had never even met him. Her father said he was a vineyard owner and had considerable amount of money, which meant Adalene would live a comfortable life as his wife and her immediate family would gain from the betrothal, too. They needed the payment for the farm. They had not had good harvests for several seasons now. Her parents were worried her nieces and nephews would starve during the coming winter and they had lost one child the last time. Adalene worried as much as they did—terribly so—so she knew she must go through with the wedding.

But this morning was the first time she met her groom, and it was very, very distressing.

Louis Didier was possibly one of the ugliest men she had ever met, but it wasn’t just about the way he looked, which was already very bad. He had this constant expression of nastiness on a face that had no discernable shape, except that of a fallen avocado from its tree. He seemed to have no strength in his jaw and his nose was too crooked and long. The expression that he constantly smelled something bad very near his nose seemed to be permanently etched onto his face, so it might very well true. She cringed inwardly as his mouth was nearest his nose.

He was also older, which was announced to her just days before.

Her father said he was in his forties, but he looked twenty years older. He was so small and stocky that, even though Adalene’s slender composition and straight poise gave her the deceptive look of being taller than five feet, five inches, she was taller than Louis. His brown hair was stringy and balding, and he had gray eyes as dull as an old rat’s. Overweight, he wheezed like an old man. He also acted like he was in a constant state of drunkenness, though he was not exactly slurring his words.

Adalene wasn’t particularly picky, and her poor mere taught her all her life to bear her cross in silence, and yet her mother fainted at the first sight of the man. Once she recovered, the look she threw her husband’s way cowered him to become the smallest she had ever seen him. They were all thinking he must have made the arrangement in an intoxicated state, for her father imbued much alcohol when he was nervous and arranging marriage for his only daughter was not something he did every day.

Her brothers were also very upset. She was groomed for the hopes of marrying someone well off, like a merchant or a landowner who was slightly higher in status than the villeins. But never one that looked and acted like this. She was going to live with him her entire life! She had been chaperoned almost all her life. They couldn’t believe they took so much care of her so she could marry a man like Louis Didier!

But it was far too late to withdraw from the arrangement. Her father’s words would have become nothing if this was broken. Louis Didier hastened them through the disbursement of the bride token, which decided the arrangement in the first place. An agreement had been previously arranged that there would be no dowry and Louis would pay a bride token for her.

But as soon as the pouch was given and counted, her father protested that it was considerably smaller than what was originally discussed. Her mother had feverishly informed him that if that money counted right, she would kill herself, wisely deducing that someone who acted like Louis Didier was going to swindle them.

Her mother was right. The money was considerably less than the agreement and the family hoped she was going to be saved after all. Her father would not be accused of breaking his word if the vineyard owner broke it first!

“She is plain! You said your daughter is the fairest in the village. If this is what the fairest is to you peasant people, Rene, then I cannot fathom how the other maids in the village fare!” he angrily announced, much to the offended gasps of the villagers who happened to be there.

He continued to complain loudly. Her blue wedding dress, which she and her mother took pains to construct out of the meager allowance her pere could afford to give them, was cheap and coarse to him. And how dare she have freckles? Did she have those all over her person, too?

“It is the most contemptible thing on a woman!”

Finally, the priest harrumphed and announced that the ceremony would start.

When she turned to Louis, she thought of all the years she would spend living with him. She stood there, frozen between him and her family. She felt the cold creeping up her skin, seeping inside her body and consuming her heart. She felt she was in shock. He wasn’t showing any feelings that told her he would at least care for her or be gentle. She wanted to tell them she did not want to go with him. But there was nothing she could do. It would just be a month before the heaviness of the winter came. There was no time. They needed the money very badly. She did not want to lose another niece or nephew. She did not want to lose other animals that needed to be fed. What was she to do?

Adalene began to cry.

ADALENE TURNED to her mother as more protests erupted from Louis.

“She isn’t going to be a willing wife, Rene! See that?! I told you I wanted a wife who knows how to please a man! Have you given me a virgin?”

“What?” her mother hissed beside her husband. “What does he mean? Of course, my daughter is a virgin! Rene, tell him we’re not going through with this arrangement. Rene!” her mother asked her husband in the ugliest voice she had ever used on him.

“We need the money for the fields, Mama!” her father protested.

“Oh, you stupid…”

“You cannot back down. I have already handed over the bride token,” Louis Didier protested, and turned to the priest to hasten with the ceremony.

She held on to her mother for dear life, so engrossed in the horrible unfolding of her worst nightmare that she was not aware of new voices amongst the crowd—male baritones that were certainly not those of her relatives. One voice was most authoritative of them all. Her mother began to tremble as she held her, muttering unintelligible words that she was only able to understand in the end.

“The Baron. The Baron’s here. Ah, la vache! He’s really here!”

The Baron?

Adalene turned and saw huge horses, bigger than any horse she had ever seen in the fields. And there were equally daunting men riding them. They all looked formidable—men and beasts—wearing the coat of arms of the Baron.

As she adjusted her eyes to the height of the man atop a black stallion in front of the procession, she instinctively felt he would be the one to look out for. He was talking in low tones to one of her uncles. He was the owner of the voice she heard while she cried.

Baron Fabian Deschamps wore a blue surcoat over a gray shirt. She could see his leather boots as they rested on the stirrup, of high quality and so finely crafted. His surcoat was simply cut but it was obvious that expert hands sewed it. Sewing, embroidery, and weaving were the activities that Adalene most enjoyed, and on the few occasions when the aristocracy deigned to venture out to visit the village, all she could notice were the expensive clothes and how beautifully they fit their owners. She attributed this more to the seamstress’ craftsmanship than to any other, and she had wished she could acquire the same skill one day. It was her greatest dream.

But she only had seconds to notice the Baron’s clothes because the man himself was more magnetic.

He had the widest shoulders and broadest chest, as if he worked hard labor all the time like the men here in the fields. The rich did not look that broad, or what she could remember of them, which was reasonable because they had many servants doing the hard work for them.

The Baron looked very manly. When she dared look at his face, she beheld a very handsome man. No wonder she heard excited murmurs from the women around her.

But it was his eyes, coppery and light enough that they were almost gold. They were as piercing as a cat’s eyes but were also strangely kind. She did not know she was stupidly staring at him until her mother poked at her ribs and she hastily brought her eyes down.

She had not ever seen such a handsome face! She felt her face getting hot.

She became aware of Louis complaining in his wheezy voice to the Baron about how her father had played him for a fool that he paid a price for a bride that did not appear to be what was promised. And it appeared she would not continue with the marriage now that the money was in her pere’s greedy hands!

She was doomed. One look at her and the Baron would know she was indeed resisting her marriage. She still had tears on her face. She had not even realized that Louis had been holding on to her shoulders, frozen from prying her away from her mother.

What sight must they look!