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to heaven as she could be on earth.” Gabrielle’s fingers brushed across the gold medallion she wore on a chain around her neck. It had been fashioned from a coin and bore the likeness of St. Biel. She’d had it for as long as she could remember.
    Her mother had been buried with one just like it.
    He noticed the gesture. “I miss her, too,” he said. “But she will always be in our hearts.” Then with a sigh he said, “Do you notice how blue the sky is? As blue as your mother’s eyes.”
    “I do notice,” she said. “And I have also noticed how you have pointed out again and again how lovely this land is. Could you possibly have a motive?” she teased.
    “I want you to appreciate your surroundings, and I want you to be content here and content in your marriage as well, Gabrielle.”
    She wanted to argue. Was contentment the ultimate to be wished for? Were passion and love and excitement only for dreams? Was it ever possible to have it all? She longed to pose these questions to her father, but she could not. She held her tongue. As they continued on, she made up her mind to be more practical, like her father. She was a grown woman, soon to become a wife. It was time for her to put her childish dreams away.
    “I’ll try to be content,” she promised.

    Their pace was slowed once again because of the rocky incline. Her father saw the look on her face and the sadness in her eyes. “Daughter,” he said in exasperation, “you are not going to a funeral. It’s your wedding. Try to be joyful.”
    “I will try,” she promised.
    An hour later when the caravan stopped so that the horses could rest and they could stretch their legs, her father asked Gabrielle to walk with him.
    Neither said a word until they stopped to rest beneath a clump of birch trees near a flowing brook.
    “I have met Laird Monroe and some of his family. He will be kind to you.” She didn’t want to talk about her future husband, but her father seemed determined.
    “Then I shall be kind to him,” she said.
    The baron shook his head. “You are a willful daughter.”
    She turned to face him. “Father, what is it you’re finding so difficult to tell me?” He sighed. “Your life is going to change when you become a wife. You won’t be equal in your marriage, and you must accept this.”
    “Mother was your equal, wasn’t she?”
    He smiled. “That she was,” he admitted, “but she was the exception.”
    “Perhaps I will be the exception, too.”
    “In time perhaps you will,” he agreed. “I don’t want you to worry about your future husband. I have been assured that he will never raise a hand against you, and as you know, there are husbands who would be cruel to their wives.” There was disgust in his voice when he added that fact.
    “Father, I think you’re more concerned about this marriage than I am. Do you actually wonder what I would do if my husband, or any man for that matter, were to raise a hand against me?” Somewhat chagrined, he replied, “No, I don’t wonder. I know exactly what you would do because I saw to your training.”
    Before she could interrupt, he continued, “However, there will be changes when you marry. You’ll no longer be free to do what you wish. You’ll have to take your husband’s feelings and needs into consideration. You have been self-reliant in many ways, but now you must learn restraint.”
    “Are you telling me I must give up my freedom?”
    He sighed. His daughter sounded appalled by the notion. “Of a sort,” he hedged.
    “Of a sort?”
    “And when you are married,” Baron Geoffrey continued, “you will share your husband’s bed and—” Too late he realized where he’d taken the conversation. He stopped, then coughed to cover his embarrassment. What had he been thinking to bring up this topic? Talking about the marriage bed with his daughter was impossible for him. After a moment’s consideration he decided that he would ask one of the older women to explain what