Prologue
Camelot
Late 5th – Early 6th Century
Arthur Pendragon stood in the doorway, watching his bride as she undressed for bed. “Beautiful,” he murmured, moving forward as her dress slipped from her shoulders, and she unbound her hair. It fell in silken tresses down her back, and his fingers longed to reach out and feel it flowing through his fingers. “There is no other woman akin to ye in all the land.”
“Truly, My Lord?” Guinevere asked him, playing the coquette.
“Truly,” he murmured, bringing a lock of her hair to his lips, where he placed a gentle kiss. He pulled an intricately carved wooden box from behind his back and placed it in front of her upon the table.
“What is this?” she smiled and stretched out her finger to trace the images of intertwined animals and vines upon its surface.
“It is a gift,” Arthur answered, nuzzling her neck. “Open it and see what lies within.”
Guinevere lifted the lid, gasping in delight as the fire’s light caught on the gold and silver contents nestled within. “Arthur,” she exclaimed, pulling a golden jeweled brooch from the box. It sparkled with the purple reds of the almandine garnet set off by a silver filigree that served to accent the contrast between the yellow of the gold and the deeper tones of the stones. “It is beautiful.”
“There is more,” he urged her to look further.
Guinevere smiled as she pulled the cloth inside the box away to reveal a matching gold and garnet necklace, ring, and hairpin. “It is too much,” she blushed with pleasure.
“Nothing is ever too much for my beautiful bride.”
Guinevere blushed again and placed the necklace around her neck. She twisted her hair up and stabbed the hairpin through the silken mass, then turned to face Arthur with a suggestive light in her eyes. “How shall I ever thank you, My Lord?”
Arthur smiled knowingly and took his wife into his arms. “I am certain that we can find a way.” He bent his head and kissed her with a passion that even then he knew would resonate down through the ages, a passion to last until the end of time.
Chapter 1
Oxfordshire, England
Thirteen Hundred Years Later
Cleo Wallace sat in front of her bedroom looking glass, placing the finishing touches on her hair. She smiled at her reflection, pleased with what she saw. She was quite pretty with her warm complexion, dark hair and eyes, offset by the creamy white lace trim of her lavender dress. “You look so much like your mother,” her father’s voice interrupted, matching her own thoughts as he came to stand behind her. He placed his hands on her shoulders and kissed the top of her head.
Her father, Henry Wallace, a university professor of Greek studies, had met Cleo’s mother, Dimitra, in Greece during a sabbatical. They had fallen in love, wed, and returned to Oxfordshire shortly thereafter. Cleo had been born a year later. Dimitra had died of childbed fever, leaving Henry to raise Cleo on his own. Henry’s older sister, Caroline, had offered to take Cleo into her own home to be raised by her and her husband, but Henry had turned her down. Cleo would forever be grateful to her father for making such a choice when so many other men in his position would have done otherwise.
“Does it pain you terribly that I look so much like her?” Cleo asked, placing her hand atop of his in empathy.
“Nay, never. You are the delight of my soul. It pleases me greatly that you resemble her so.”
“I am glad,” Cleo smiled, patting his hand. She lifted her mother’s necklace from the vanity and asked her father to aid in fastening it around her neck.
“I have something for you,” her father remarked, pulling a cloth bag from his pocket. “I wish you the most joyous of birthdays, my dear. I can hardly believe that you are now counting one-and-twenty years of age. Where the time has gone, I know not.”
Cleo took the bag from her father’s hand and opened it to find a set of milky glass hairpins and a matching ivory comb. “Oh, Father, they are lovely!” Cleo lifted the ornaments from the bag and had her father help her to place them in her hair for the best advantage.
“You are the lovely one, my dear. Now, I must be away to see to my students, but I will return this eve in time for supper. I will have Mrs. McGrath to make all of your favorites.”
“Thank you, Father! I love you ever so much!” Cleo arose and embraced him with exuberance.
“And I love you, my darling girl.” With a final kiss to her forehead, he was off to broaden young minds further.
Cleo prepared herself for the customary birthday callers and descended the stairs to the drawing room where she could look out of the front window to anticipate her friends’ arrival. Mrs. Mary Margaret McGrath, the Wallaces’ cook and housekeeper, had brought Cleo breakfast in bed as a special treat making her feel quite decadent. She smiled at the thought of the beloved, servant who had been with their family long before Cleo’s mother had died and looked up to see her enter the room with a message on a tray.
“It is from yer Auntie Caroline, lass,” the cook’s thick Scottish brogue announced as she handed Cleo the missive. “Tae wish ye a joyous birthday, nae doubt. She has nae missed sending ye such greetings from the day ye were born, the good lass that she was.”
“And I have no doubt that a great part of that is due to your influence upon her as a child,” Cleo praised. She was not certain how old Mrs. McGrath actually was as she had looked the same during Cleo’s entire life. She had that ageless quality and boundless energy that was so envied by those who did not have it.
