“Convenient?” she asked. “How so?”
“For trysts,” Dominic said succinctly.
Meg looked up and met Dominic’s eyes without flinching.
“So that is it,” she said. “You think I’ve been out rolling in the meadow with some man.”
“Not some man,” Dominic said harshly, “but Duncan of Maxwell. Look at you—cheeks all flushed and eyes glowing, and your clothes hung with bits of forest litter.”
“My cheeks are flushed and my clothes are dirty because I’ve been all but standing on my head gathering my plants!”
“Maybe. And maybe you are a maid recently tumbled.”
“Nay!”
“Did Duncan think that once I’d had you, I wouldn’t know if he had you as well? Does he hope to foist off a bastard on me as your mother did on John?” Dominic continued relentlessly.
Meg’s head came up proudly. “I give you my vow, husband. I have been with no man.”
“So you say, wife.”
“Lie down with me,” she said rashly. “Here and now, Dominic le Sabre. You will find you are the first.”
The cold slash of her husband’s smile didn’t reassure Meg.
“Well played, Lady Margaret,” he said softly.
“I’m not playing!”
“Neither am I. If I lie with you and find you’re not a maid, and if you quicken, I wouldn’t know who was the father, would I?”
Meg was too taken aback to respond.
“No, my clever little wife, I’ll not lie with you until you have bled. Then I will keep you quite close. When you quicken, there will be no doubt as to whose son you bear.”
Understanding came to Meg like a blow.
“You truly don’t care if I’m maid or wanton,” she whispered, appalled. “You care only that you have a son of me.”
“Aye. But if you were a whore before this moment, your whoring days are at an end.”
“I could be a liar, a cheat, a robber, a felon…none of it matters to you. One womb serves as well as another, so long as it comes with Blackthorne Keep.”
Dominic’s eyes narrowed to icy splinters.
“Believe me, madam, whatever you were in the past, I will expect you to set an example of great rectitude as my wife. You will sore regret any dishonor you bring to my name.”
The stubborn tendril of hope that Meg had harbored in her soul slowly withered under the wintry reality of Dominic le Sabre. He was not the Norman devil Eadith had named him, nor was he the generous heart she had dreamed might live beneath his chain mail trappings. He wanted neither her laughter nor her tenderness. Nor was he curious about her hopes and her dreams and her hunger to build a better life for her people—and for herself, that she might not taste the same bitter dregs of marriage that her mother had.
Dominic le Sabre was simply a man, as John of Cumbriland had been a man. And when thwarted in his drive for dynasty, Dominic would sour as John had.
The bleak shadows she had sensed in Dominic’s soul were as real as a winter night and far more lasting. They would freeze her life as surely as they had frozen him.
A silent cry of protest for what might have been twisted through Meg, but no sound escaped her lips.
When Dominic spoke her name again, sharply, Glendruid eyes looked right through him. Silently Meg measured the spring that was slowly overtaking the land in a celebration of life that she wouldn’t share.
“Such an old face for such a young girl,” Dominic said angrily. “Is it that much a hardship to give up your immoral ways?”
Meg said nothing. She had no heart to speak, much less to be mocked for her feelings by a man who had none.
“I will make you a bargain,” he said in a frigid voice. “Give me two sons and I will send you to London. There you will certainly find entertainment that pleases your wanton tastes.”
Barely withheld tears made Meg’s eyes huge. “You know nothing of what pleases or displeases me.”
“I know that last night you refused your husband what is his by right,” Dominic retorted savagely.
“I have known all my life that it was my duty to marry whatever man was chosen for me,” Meg said as though Dominic hadn’t spoken. “I have known that I would be a loyal, dutiful wife. I have known that I would be capable of so much more if I was well matched in my husband. And now…”
Her voice faded into aching silence.
“And now?” Dominic said. “Speak.”
“I know that it will never be,” Meg whispered. “Spring has come, but there will be no spring for Glendruid or for me.”
“Forget your pining after Duncan,” Dominic said harshly.
“Duncan? What—”
“You are married to me,” Dominic continued relentlessly, talking over her. “I am the only husband you will ever have.”
“Aye. And I am your only wife. Until death do us part. Will you drive me to an untimely death in order that you might still be fertile when you wed again? Is that the danger that woke me cold and trembling?”
“What nonsense is this?” he demanded.
Abruptly Meg shuddered. The blood left her cheeks as chills coursed over her suddenly clammy skin.
“Do you hear that?” she whispered.
“What?”
“Laughter.”
Dominic listened intently. “I hear naught.”
“’Tis John.”
“What?”
“Laughing. He knows his curse will be more potent than ever he was.” Shadowed green eyes fixed on Dominic. “You will die without sons.”
Dominic’s hands whipped out, gripping Meg’s shoulders as though he thought she would flee him.
“I will have sons!”
“Nay,” Meg whispered, ignoring the cool silver glide of tears down her face. “For a Glendruid son, love is required. There is no love in you, Dominic le Sabre.”
13
BY THE TIME SIMON CAME BACK to the keep, Dominic had changed out of his battle clothes and was sitting at ease in the lord’s solar off the great hall. What once had been a sickbed had been transformed just that morning into a couch for Dominic when he wished to speak with someone in a privacy the great hall didn’t permit.
The topic at hand—what Simon had found along Meg’s back trail—definitely required such discretion. Meg’s pale, drawn face, haunted eyes, and unbroken silence as she rode pillion with him back to the keep had unsettled Dominic in ways he found difficult to describe, much less to understand.
In addition to the privacy Dominic sought, the lord’s solar offered warmth to ease a chill that was as much of the heart as of the body. The fire burned brightly in the room’s big hearth, driving back the cold that was a combination of spring rain and building stones that still harbored the icy breath of winter. Even though the narrow, high windows were shuttered against the afternoon rain, the solar somehow managed to be more airy and inviting than any other room in the keep.
“You look like a wet hound,” Dominic said quietly as Simon walked in, trailing rivulets of rain.
“I feel like one.”
“Warm yourself. We’ll talk in a moment.”
While Simon stripped off his gauntlets and wet mantle and went to the fire, Dominic turned to the servant who waited at the doorway for his lord’s pleasure.
“Ale for my brother,” Dominic said. “Bread and cheese, too. Something hot—a soup?”
“Aye,” Simon said.
“And while you’re about it, find out what is keeping Old Gwyn. I sent for her long ago.”
“Yes, lord.”
Sitting upright, Dominic waited, listening to the sound of retreating footsteps. As he waited for the servant to get beyond the point where he might overhear what was said, Dominic’s hand went to the nearby trestle table where a gleaming heap of golden jewelry lay. Absently he stirred the baubles.
A sweet, pure chiming filled the air, as though from captive songbirds with throats of purest gold.
The delicate music came from chains of tiny
golden bells that once had graced the wrists, ankles, hips, and waist of a sultan’s particularly favored concubine. After Dominic took the city, the woman had been returned unharmed to her sultan. Her golden jewelry had not.
“How is the peregrine?” Simon asked, reminded of the falcon by the sound of bells.
In any case, Simon had no desire to raise the subject of Meg.
“The falcon progresses at uncanny speed,” Dominic said absently. “I took off her hood after I came from the forest. The bird showed no fear or fluttering. She came to my arm and my whistle as though born to it. Tomorrow eve I’ll take her into the bailey for a time. Soon I’ll let her ride on my wrist throughout the keep. Then we will course the skies together.”
“Excellent,” Simon said, relieved that something was going well.
“Yes…”
Dominic closed his eyes as though to better hear the elegant golden bells.
“One would almost believe she had been previously trained,” he said after a moment.
“Has she?” Simon asked.
“Possibly. I’m told she was taken in a net rather than from the nest. But the falconer assures me such cleverness is common for Blackthorne’s birds…if the witch Meg handles them.”
Simon made a neutral sound.
“What did you find when you backtracked her?” Dominic asked with almost no change of tone.
Almost, but not quite. The difference was enough to remind Simon just how deeply his brother cared about the reluctant wife with whom he was determined to found a dynasty that would outlast both the casual cruelty of nature and the calculated cruelties of man.
“I found nothing,” Simon said bluntly. “Leaper lost the scent.”
The sound of bells stilled. Dominic looked intently at Simon.
“Lost the scent?” Dominic said. “How curious. Leaper has the keenest nose of any hound I’ve ever coursed.”
“Aye,” Simon said.
“Were there any other tracks around?”
“There is a grand stag living back up from the creek that comes down to the Blackthorne River. A fox had taken a hare. An eagle and five ravens were arguing a kill.”
Dominic grunted. “Any sign of horses?”
“Nary a one, even of the wild moorland breed.”
“Oxen? Carts? Boot prints?” Dominic persisted.
“No.”
“Where did you lose the scent?”
“Just where Lady Margaret said I would, at the standing stones surrounding a heathen burial place.”
“And there was no sign of anyone else?”
“Not one whiff,” Simon said succinctly. “If Duncan of Maxwell—or any other man—was there with your lady this morning, he came on an eagle’s wings and left the same way.”
Dominic grunted.
“Perhaps she was doing as she said, gathering plants,” Simon offered.
“Perhaps. But the seedlings could have been gathered closer to home.”
“What of the odd leaves?”
“The gardener had never seen their like,” Dominic admitted.
That was why Dominic was in the solar and Meg was in her rooms; he needed time to think. The first skirmishes in the battle to secure sons had gone badly. Dominic was too good a tactician to repeat his errors.
And if he weren’t, he would learn and learn quickly. Never had he joined a battle half so crucial to his future.
“I may have misjudged my wife,” Dominic conceded slowly. “I certainly have mishandled her.”
“How so? Any other husband would have beaten her soundly for setting off alone into the forest and telling no one where she went.”
“How do you know I haven’t done just that?” Dominic retorted without heat.
“After I dragged you out of that Turkish dungeon, you vowed you would never permit lash or cane to be used when you had your own domain. You are a man of your word.”
Dominic suddenly came to his feet. The horror of the dungeon was so great he remembered it only in dreams. And he forgot those dreams upon waking.
He preferred it that way.
“Have I thanked you for that, Simon?”
“We’ve saved each other’s lives too often to keep track,” his brother said dryly.
“It wasn’t my life you saved that time, it was my soul.”
Bells sang, disturbed by the clenching of Dominic’s fist amid the cool chains of gold.
“I have a new duty for you,” Dominic said after a moment. “That of guard.”
Simon turned swiftly from the fire. “Has Sven discovered more threats against you?”
“’Tis not myself you’ll be guarding, but my wife.”
“God’s teeth,” Simon said in disgust.
“Who else can I trust not to seduce or to be seduced?” Dominic asked simply.
“Now I know why sultans use eunuch guards.”
“I won’t ask that final sacrifice of you.”
“’Tis just as well,” Simon retorted, running a hand through his light hair. “I owe you much, brother, but not my manhood!”
Dominic’s laughter blended with the quiet murmuring of the bells as he caressed them.
“It will be your task to see that no one goes into Meg’s rooms except me,” Dominic said.
“What of her handmaiden?”
“What of her?” Dominic said indifferently. “I can dress—and undress—my wife as needed.”
Simon managed not to laugh out loud, but his amusement was plain on his handsome face.
“For a few days,” Dominic said, “Meg will be as a falcon newly come to my mews. What she eats will come from my hand. What she drinks will come from my lips. When she sleeps, it will be beside me. When she awakens, my breathing will be what she hears and my warmth will be how she herself is warmed.”
Simon’s eyebrows rose, but he said nothing.
“Meg said that I didn’t know her,” Dominic continued, thinking aloud as he often did with Simon. “She is correct. The error is mine. She seemed willing enough at first, but somehow she is better defended than any keep or city I’ve ever taken.”
Silently Simon wondered just what had happened after he had left his brother and Meg alone in the forest. But Simon said nothing. He knew Dominic better than to interfere once he began planning how to take a fortified position.
Or a woman.
“By the time her monthly flux passes,” Dominic said, “I will know her much better. But not as a husband knows his wife. It will be a different kind of knowledge.”
“Have you told her that she is to be a captive in her own keep?” Simon asked neutrally.
“Aye.”
“What did she say?”
Dominic’s eyes narrowed. “Nothing. She hasn’t spoken to me at all since she informed me I would die without sons.”
“God’s blood,” Simon said, appalled.
Before Dominic could speak again, the servant returned. Gwyn was right behind him. The servant set food and ale on the table and withdrew. When Simon walked over and began to eat hungrily, Dominic motioned the old Glendruid woman to come stand nearer the fire.
“Have you supped?” he asked politely.
“Aye, lord. Thank you.”
Dominic paused, wondering what was the best way to broach the subject of his Glendruid bride, of curses and hopes, of superstition and truth; and of the secret connections among them. Finally he shrugged and followed the example of the people of Blackthorne Keep. John and Meg had taken the issue head-on. The new lord would do no less.
“Tell me about Glendruid wives,” Dominic said simply.
“They are women.”
From behind Dominic came odd sounds as Simon smothered laughter or oaths or both at once.
“Indeed,” Dominic said with outward calm. “I’ve noted that very thing about Meg. ’Tis quite reassuring, as I am a man.”
Gwyn’s faded eyes showed a glimmer of humor. “Was there anything else, lord?”
“Quite a lot,” he shot back. “Tell me how G
lendruid wives differ from the normal run of women.”
“They have eyes of an unusual shade of green.”
Dominic grunted. “Go on.”
“They are quite talented with living things.”
He waited.
So did Gwyn.
“God’s blood,” Dominic said, glancing imploringly at the ceiling. “’Tis like pulling teeth. Speak!”
“It might be quicker if you were to tell me what you particularly wished to know,” Gwyn said serenely. “However, the solar is quite cozy and my old bones savor the warmth. I’ll be glad to begin with Lady Margaret’s birth and work forward carefully to this very day.”
Dominic put his fists on his hips and studied the old woman. She studied him in return, but less aggressively. Her arrogance, however, was quite equal to his.
“I’ve learned that Glendruid women are stubborn,” Dominic said after a time.
“Aye.”
“Fearless.”
Gwyn tilted her head to the side as though considering the matter.
“We aren’t cowards,” she said after a few moments. She paused and then added, “There is a difference, lord.”
“Aye,” Dominic said, surprised at the old woman’s shrewdness. “Among men it is called courage.”
He reached over and stirred the golden bells absently, considering his next line of attack. The small chiming sounds made Gwyn turn her head to the exotic jewelry.
“If flowers could sing,” she said in a pleased tone, “they would have voices like that.”
Dominic glanced at her. “Again you have surprised me, madam.”
“’Tis hardly an achievement to surprise a man who fixes his attention on one thing only and ignores the rest of life.”
“Are you perchance describing me?” Dominic asked dryly.
Gwyn nodded.
“What am I fixed upon?” he asked.
“A dynasty.”
“No more so than other men.”
“Nay,” she said quickly. “Other men want many things. Some manage to want one after the other. Most want all at once.”
“And so get none.”
It was Gwyn’s turn to be surprised.
“Aye,” she said. “’Tis so. But you are not as other men. You are obsessed with one thing and one thing alone. A son.”
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