by Lynn Kurland
“Kind of him.”
“My mother had a hand in it as well, of course. Do you not remember the first time you and I came to Segrave after the wedding?”
Rhys shook his head, a small smile on his face. “I remember nothing save you, lady. I paid no heed to my surroundings.”
She couldn’t help but feel the pleasure of the compliment, though she would be the first to admit she remembered little of the visit as well. It had been a brief stay and Gwen had been mostly concerned with wondering how she might avoid Alain’s bed as often as possible.
“Then you may not have noticed,” she said, passing on those less than pleasant memories, “but my mother hid her comeliest serving wenches in the village and installed a stable lad as head cook.”
Rhys laughed. “She didn’t.”
“Aye, she did. Even Alain noticed there was something amiss with the fare. I daresay it wasn’t hard for Rollan to convince him that Segrave as a residence was not a desirable place. Collecting the rents is something, of course, that he hasn’t failed to do, but visiting seemingly doesn’t appeal.”
Rhys looked at her thoughtfully. “Then Alain has not troubled you in recent months?”
“I haven’t seen him since Amanda was conceived.”
“A blessing, to be sure.”
“He fears my mother, I think,” Gwen said. “And, of course, he has no interest in a daughter. He sends Rollan to investigate and bring him back tidings.” She frowned. “I have been a fool not to watch that one more closely. Had I known what he was about, I would have added something foul to his wine.”
“Better to leave him trusting,” Rhys said. “At least that way the enemy is known.”
Gwen sighed and rose with him. “Let us speak of something else for the night. I have no more stomach for thinking on Rollan’s schemes.”
As her mother had seen to putting the children to bed, Gwen had nothing else to do but lead Rhys to the solar. She was acutely aware of him following her up the steps and down the passageway. She’d grown far too accustomed to the light step of her mother’s feet, or the ever rushing patter of Robin’s as he ran here and there. Rhys’s solid footfall behind her was a pleasing sound indeed.
It was but moments later that she found herself sitting next to her love in her mother’s solar. Perhaps she should have occupied her hands with some sort of stitchery, but the saints only knew what sorts of abnormal appendages would result on any kind of animal she embroidered.
“So, Sir Rhys,” Joanna said, obviously feeling that stitchery was not beyond her, for she had intricate work under her needle, “why do you not tell us a tale or two of your travels. Since, of course,” she added with a small smile directed her daughter’s way, “we’ve had no word of them from you directly.”
Gwen grunted in agreement, but said nothing. She’d said too much as it was. Rhys’s ears were likely still burning from her curses.
“Well,” Rhys said, settling back in his chair with a cup of wine, “I could perhaps begin with the tourney at Toulouse.”
Gwen hardly cared where he began, for where he had ended was in the chair next to her. She leaned back and watched him as he spoke of his travels and felt for the first time in years that she might actually enjoy the evening, surrounded by those she loved.
Three years of warring had changed him—that and bearing the weight of almost a score and ten years on his shoulders. Gone were any of the soft lines of his youth. In his face were signs of the sorrows he had carried, but they showed mostly in the creases between his brow when he frowned while remembering this detail or that.
He looked at her now and then as he spun his tale and then he would smile. Gwen memorized the way the skin about his eyes crinkled and how the little dimple in his cheek appeared as if to celebrate his merriment. And the more she looked at him, the more she thought her heart just might break.
Ah, that he could be hers in truth.
“Gwen?”
She looked at him and couldn’t stop the words from leaving her mouth. “I love you,” she said.
He blinked, then another sunny smile burst forth from him. “By the saints, chérie,” he said, reaching for her hand, “I think I should go away more often—”
“Do not,” Joanna interrupted with a laugh, “lest you force me to take drastic measures. You did not have to endure her rampages for the past three years.”
“I did not rampage,” Gwen said archly. “I did but give vent to a bout or two of displeasure.”
Joanna snorted delicately. “I cannot even speak of it, for the very thought gives me pains in my head yet again. Gwen, love, why do you not make your nightly rounds. Perhaps Sir Rhys would accompany you tonight.”
Rhys looked at her and lifted an eyebrow in question. Gwen shrugged.
“I walk upon the roof to see that all is well.” And to see if anyone comes toward the keep in the evening when he might not be marked. She should have known Rhys would come in the middle of the day, and anyone who thought to deny him entrance be damned.
His smile said that he guessed a bit of what she hadn’t admitted. “You go alone?” he asked.
“Montgomery comes now and then. Usually the twins accompany me. It gives them a chance to intimidate my mother’s guardsmen yet another time before retiring.”
“I’m certain that pleases them,” Rhys said dryly. He stood and held out his hand to her. “If I might have the pleasure this evening?”
“Don’t be long, children,” Joanna said as they walked out into the passageway.
“Aye, Mother,” Gwen said, pulling the door shut behind her. “I’ve never heard that before.”
“Perhaps she fears I will ravish you upon the roof.”
Gwen looked at him. “Will you?”
“What else are battlements for,” he asked with a smile, “if not for the ravishment of future brides?”
Just one night, Gwen thought. Let me believe ’tis truly possible for just one night. The roof limited greatly what sorts of things they could engage in, which was likely just as well, but at least she might feel his arms about her and imagine that she was to be his.
He took her hand and drew her along behind him up the steps. Gwen did not even make the pretense of walking the walls. She stopped in her accustomed spot and looked out over her father’s land. It was Alain’s land now, but she rarely thought of it that way.
“Do you always look south?”
Gwen put her hands on the rock and let the chill of it seep into her fingers. “Aye.”
“Any particular reason?”
She looked up at him. “I was looking for someone to come.”
He covered her hand with his own and looked down at her seriously. “There was no purpose in earning only a fraction of what I needed.”
“Three years is a very long time, Rhys.”
“We will have the rest of our lives together.”
“And if something should happen to you, and we have no future together?”
“I am invincible, or hadn’t you heard?”
“This is not a matter for jesting—”
He put a finger to her lips and shook his head. “I will make light of it no more, Gwen. But I will not think on giving you up before I can even call you mine. Trust me, my love. We will have many happy years together, and then what we have endured will seem but a small moment. Do not the past three years seem but a blink of an eye now we are together yet again?”
“Nay,” she said shortly, “they do not.”
He only laughed softly. “Ah, sweet Gwen, but I have missed having someone about me who is unwilling to humor me.”
“I take it you have your army appropriately cowed, then?”
“Aye, they fear my temper.”
“Which I do not, of course.”
He reached out and tucked her hair behind her ear. “Is there nothing you fear, lady?”
“Losing my children,” she said promptly. “And,” she added, almost unwilling to say it lest it somehow come back to ha
unt her, “losing you. Or, even worse, never having you at all.”
“I will see to it, Gwen.”
How, she did not know, and the thought of it was enough to sour her humor. It was impossible. Even if she managed to free herself, how would she keep her children? Even Eleanor of Aquitaine, as powerful as she was, had been obliged to leave her children behind with her first husband. Gwen could not bear the thought of it.
“I don’t see how,” she said with a sigh.
“Then don’t look. At least not now.”
“But . . .”
He shook his head, then reached out and put his hands on her shoulders. Gwen immediately conceded the battle, deciding that speech was unnecessary, yea even undesirable, at the moment. Let the future see to itself—
Rhys bent his head and very softly, very tenderly kissed her on the mouth.
And the touch of his lips upon hers sent shivers down through her to the soles of her feet. By the saints, she had forgotten what a mere kiss from the man could do to her.
He wasn’t wearing mail. She discovered that almost immediately, for he enveloped her in a formidable embrace from which she suspected there was very little hope of escape. Not that escape was uppermost on her mind. Never mind that ’twas passing chilly outside, or that her mother’s guardsmen were likely all gawking at her—
“Gwen.”
Gwen blinked and looked up at him. “Aye?”
“Stop indulging in so many thoughts.”
“How do you know I’m thinking—”
“Your brow furrows. ’Tis quite attractive, of course, but leaves me wondering how well you are concentrating upon my kisses.”
She sighed and closed her eyes. Let the morrow see to itself. Tonight was perhaps the only night for some time to come that she would have Rhys to herself, and she would not ruin that time.
And so she gave herself over to the sweetness of his kiss. She sighed at the pleasure of having his hands sliding softly over her hair. And when he cradled her close, merely running the flat of his hand over her back time and time again, she closed her eyes and rested her cheek against his chest. Ah, that such comfort could be hers in truth.
“I will see to it,” he murmured.
Gwen sighed, too content to argue with him. She concentrated instead on how it felt to be in Rhys’s arms again. She listened to his breathing, felt the warmth of his body seep through his clothes and warm her, and heard the echo of his voice rumbling deep in his chest. And she realized in that instant how much more she had missed him than she’d been willing to admit. Even though they had not shared such embraces while he was her captain, at least he had been ever near her.
Three years had been a very long time.
“Would you care to hear an item of interest?”
“Hmmm,” she agreed, settling more comfortably into his arms. “As you will.”
“It would seem,” he said conversationally, as if he discussed nothing more important than what they stood to eat for supper the next day, “that Lord Ayre is out of favor with our good Lackland.”
“Is he?” Gwen asked. She almost smiled. Standing there as she was in Rhys’s arms, feeling as if it were the one place she truly belonged, it was easy enough to speak of Alain. Where she was at present, he could not touch her.
“Aye, he is,” Rhys continued, as easily as if he somehow shared the same feeling. “It would seem he made the grave mistake of deflowering the king’s cook’s daughter.”
“Poor girl.”
“And, as usual, he was caught while at his work.”
“How inconvenient for him,” she remarked. “I would say he spends far too much time in the kitchens.”
“I couldn’t agree more. Unfortunately, this is the cause of John’s understandable irritation. Having caught wind of the turn of events while I was still in France, I managed to procure His Majesty a fine new creator of delicacies, so I am, oddly enough, in the king’s good graces.”
That was enough to make her look at him. “How in the world did you manage to unearth that tidbit?”
He smiled modestly. “I can take no credit for it. My grandfather had been talking with an old friend who had quite recently been in London listening to the king rage on. My grandsire met me at the dock with a new cook saddled and prepared to venture forth from France.”
“And this man was willing to come to England?”
“My grandsire can be very persuasive when he wants to be.”
Gwen felt her contentment begin to slip away. She rested her head against Rhys’s chest and looked out over the fields. “Even if you manage to convince John, Rhys, how can you hope to convince any clergy? I have two children I will likely lose.”
“Nay, love, you will not. If they will have me, I will claim them as well.”
“They would have you, but how will you convince Alain to give them up? He will want his heir. He cares nothing for Robin save that.”
“He can sire another on Rachel. Or acknowledge one of the handful of bastards he has scampering about here and there.”
She stiffened, then pulled away. “He has bastards?”
“Aye, Gwen,” Rhys said patiently, “he has bastards. Robin would likely be better off as my son, for he will have no one crowding his hall to fight him for his inheritance.”
“You uncover too many things,” she said slowly. “I think I would rather know less about Alain’s activities.”
“’Tis all done to aid me in my goal, which is to have you. Now, come,” he said, bending to kiss one, then the other ear that seemed to have escaped with his help from their covering of hair, “and let us descend before you grow chilled. I don’t wish to ride off to Wyckham knowing I’ve left you here ailing from the ague.”
“Ride off to Wyckham,” she repeated. “Without me?”
“Well—”
“You will not,” she said distinctly, “leave me behind again. The saints only know when I’d see you next.”
“Gwen—”
“Nay,” she said. So much for any more kissing. For all she knew, Rhys intended to distract her so thoroughly that she would forget what he was about until he’d already ridden out from her gates. She took his hand and pulled him toward the tower door. “I’ll come along.”
“It would mean stopping at Fenwyck.”
She stopped and considered. Passing any time whatsoever with Geoffrey of Fenwyck was enough to make her rethink her choice. He would look at her ears. She’d only seen him a handful of times since her imprisonment in the piggery, and each time he had stared most rudely and thereafter favored her with a smirk she couldn’t help but interpret as slanderous.
She had always returned the favor by looking quite pointedly at the gap in his front teeth.
But her alternative was watching Rhys ride off again. Humiliation, or letting her love out of her sights. Saints, but it was a difficult choice.
She turned toward the door, her decision made. “We’ll start off tomorrow that the journey might end that much sooner,” she said grimly. “I’ll bear it.”
He laughed softly from behind her. “I’ll need a day or two to rest and prepare the men, Gwen.”
“A day or two?” The thought of putting off the torture even that long was tremendously unappealing.
“We’re heading toward possible war.”
“With Fenwyck?” she asked darkly.
He tugged on her hair gently, then reached over her and pulled the door to the stairwell open. “Of course not. A mere glare from you will subdue Geoffrey. I am thinking on Wyckham.”
“Then perhaps we should talk a bit and enjoy some quiet, what with both of us heading into battle.”
“My thought exactly,” he said dryly.
“Besides,” she said, starting down the steps, “’twill give me time to sharpen my sword.”
She only managed to reach the bottom of the stairs before Rhys pulled her into his arms again. She shook her head.
“No more.”
“Aye, more,” he said,
smiling.
“You think to distract me—”
“Actually, I was just thinking about kissing you, but if distraction happens as well . . .”
Let him try, Gwen thought to herself as his mouth came down on hers. And then as he kissed her, she suspected that he might very well succeed, at least for that night. There was no harm in that, she supposed. The morrow would bring a return to her concentration, and then she would prepare for their journey north. A new wimple would perhaps distract Geoffrey from his observation of her e—
“Gwen,” Rhys said in exasperation.
She blinked at him. “What?”
He took her by the shoulders and turned her away from him. “Do all your thinking now, lady, for I vow I will not share you once we are wed!”
He sounded as if he expected it to come about. Gwen nodded and let him direct her down the passageway.
If he believed it so fully, how could she do anything else?
29
Rhys walked along the dusty path into the village, praying he wasn’t being foolhardy in taking Gwen from the keep with only Montgomery, the twins, and John as guardsmen. It wasn’t as if he was expecting any mischief, but then again he had no idea of Rollan’s whereabouts. Joanna seemed to think Alain’s brother to be harmless, but Rhys knew better. That he should voice his schemes aloud, even if he thought it was in private, indicated to Rhys how certain Rollan was that he would find success. It was enough to make a man look behind him before he considered descending any steps.
“—Don’t you agree, Sir Rhys?”
Rhys looked down at the small boy who walked next to him. “Forgive me, lad, I didn’t hear you.”
“An arrow through the eye,” Robin said patiently. “That would fell a dragon, wouldn’t it?”
“Well,” Rhys said slowly, “I suppose an arrow through the eye would be as effective as anything, but it doesn’t seem very sporting, does it?”
“But the fire,” argued Robin. “The beastie’d burn my fingers should I try to get closer than that!”