by Hale Deborah
Enid jumped back and let out a strangled shriek. One hand went to her heart, as if she feared it would pound its way out of her chest.
Had she come to send him packing? Con wondered as he stammered an apology and sheathed his small blade. It mightn’t have been her original intent, but after he’d drawn a weapon on her she’d be well justified to evict him.
A weight heavier than a millstone settled in Con’s belly at the thought of such an exile.
Even after the first shock wore off, Enid’s heart would not settle down to a steady beat.
Had she heard Con aright—cautioning her children to stick close to home? Impressing upon them the danger posed by the Normans in a way all her own warnings and even Gaynor’s exaggerated monster tales had failed to do?
She wanted to throw her arms around his neck and kiss him soundly. And not just as a means to scare him away from Glyneira, either.
“Curse me for a fool! I hope I didn’t frighten you half to death.” Con fumbled so trying to sheath his knife, Enid feared he might lop off a finger. “All this talk about defenses and such has got me thinking like a warrior again.”
“Or not thinking.” Enid gulped in a deep breath, hoping it would calm her runaway heart. “I mind it might be like what you said about the coracles—your body acting without leave from your head.” She managed a shaky smile.
He cast her a look of relief so endearing it set her knees weak. “Perhaps that’s all it was.”
He tossed her a wink with a grin for good measure, as though he hadn’t a memory in the world of the terrible things she’d said to him last night. “We’ll have to warn the Glyneira folk not to come up behind me sudden-like.”
“Look, Mam, acorns for the pigs!” Davy came running with a handful to show her.
Enid did her best to look impressed. “It was kind of the squirrels to leave us a few.”
“Come put yours in the basket, Davy,” Myfanwy called. “Mam, can we go on to another tree? We’ve gathered all there are under this one.”
“Go ahead.” Enid slid a sidelong glance at Con. “Just don’t get out of sight or earshot. Who knows but we might live closer to the English border someday. You’d do well to learn a little caution in the meantime.”
The speed and the noise with which the children bolted off made Enid wonder how they’d manage at Hen Coed.
She and Con dawdled behind. At least with Myfanwy and Davy along, Gaynor mightn’t be as apt to scold their mother about spending so much time in Con’s company. And there’d be less fodder for gossip to reach Lord Macsen’s ears.
Side by side Con and Enid walked, not touching, but close enough that she could feel his presence though she didn’t glance his way. As the silence between them grew, she longed to break it. Her voice refused at first, but she kept trying until something came out.
“Thank you.”
At the sound of her words, Con startled. “Thanks? For pulling a knife on you?”
Enid laughed, shattering the invisible wall that had stretched between them. “For finally putting a little fear of the Normans into those two.”
“Oh, that. Been listening awhile, had you?” Con shrugged. “It may only last for a few days, but it’s a start.”
They walked a few more steps, then he spoke again. “I did a bit of thinking last night after you put Davy to bed. I’ll be sorry if my tales make him more careless or apt to roam. Most soldiers as foolhardy as I am haven’t been blessed with my luck, so I’m no fit example.”
Remembering every sharply honed word she’d thrust at him the previous night, Enid winced. “I never should have said such awful things. You’re a guest in my home and a bard. What else do Welsh harpers sing about besides glorious battle and tragic love? It would be as unfair as to blame you if Myfanwy took it into her head never to wed.”
“I would be sorry for that, indeed. I’d regret keeping some young Welshman from such a fine wife.” Con stopped walking. They could see both children up ahead, gathering acorns and acting the fool a bit. “I don’t fault you wanting to keep Davy and Myfanwy safe. I’m sure I’d feel the same if I had young ones of my own.”
Given her choice, Enid would have preferred Con’s knife in her belly than to hear those words from his lips, frayed to a ragged edge by a longing he might not even recognize.
Tell him! her conscience demanded. He has a right to know.
Keep silent! her mother’s heart pleaded, or you will lose Bryn to him.
Was there no possible compromise?
“Enid?” Con grasped her hand. “What’s wrong, cariad? You’re as a pale as whey.”
The depth of concern that resonated in both his touch and his tone sent the color blazing back into her face and started a fragile bud of hope thrusting its stubborn roots into the parched terrain of her heart.
“I-it’s nothing,” she started to insist. Then seeing Con meant to let go of her, she added, “Our talk just made me think of Howell and what happened to him, poor fellow.”
Forgive me, Howell! She sent a prayer winging heavenward to her dead husband. For this falsehood and for so much else.
Con not only continued to hold her hand, he grasped the other one in his, as well. “I’m sorry. You loved him a great deal, didn’t you?”
After that last lie, the time had come to tell the truth. Not blurted out all at once, but advanced a piece at a time, the way she might cross a patch of thin ice on the river. Testing with one foot, letting more and more weight on it, all the while listening with bated breath for a warning crack that would send her scrambling back to the safety of the bank.
The paradise that might await her on the other side of that perilous divide would be worth all the terror of crossing it.
Enid swallowed a vast lump that clogged her throat and forced herself to look into Con’s eyes. “Not at first, and never in the way you mean.”
There! She saw it.
What exactly it was, Enid could not have explained. A silvery flicker in those lucid blue depths, perhaps? A subtle twitch in the corner of his mouth or a hardly noticeable catch in his breath?
Though the physical sign might be tenuous, its meaning was as clear to Enid as if Con had trumpeted it at the top of his lungs. And perhaps more easily believed since he took some pains to hide what he felt.
This mattered to him. She mattered to him. Not just to seduce as another passing conquest, or to hold as a distant ideal from the past, but here and now, for something more than her body.
And her children? Why should he try to teach them the kind of caution he’d always spurned? Why should he work so hard to shore up Glyneira’s defenses and ensure a healthy harvest, unless they were beginning to matter to him as well? How much tighter might it bind Con to them when he discovered that he and Enid had a child together?
She’d let her old hurt blind her to what should have been plain—Con ap Ifan was not the same heedless, carefree lad who’d gone whistling away from Gwynedd without a backward glance. Again and again during the past days he’d tried to tell her that he had looked back, often and with deep longing.
The life of a hired soldier was no fit one for a man past his first flush of hardy youth. It must grow increasingly dangerous as strength began to wane and reflexes to slow. No wonder even the most restless peregrines finally succumbed to the long-denied urge to roost…and mate…and nest.
With his alert, searching senses, did Con plumb the depths of her thoughts as they stood there on the low green verge between the woods and the walls with hands clasped?
“What made you marry him, then, over the young princeling you were meant to wed?”
You, Conwy ap Ifan. My love for you sent me into this exile.
No, it was too soon to tell him. This time she must find the right moment, for all their sakes.
“It was not my doing, but my father’s. The only choice I had in the matter was whether to pine away, or whether to make the best of what had befallen me.”
The flesh on either side of Con�
�s eyes and mouth tightened and his brows drew together. Somehow Enid knew her own face must look that way when one of her children ailed. “Did your husband treat you well?”
“He was faithful.”
Enid saw Con flinch, and she was sorry. Still she must give poor Howell his due. She owed him that much.
“He was brave, though not foolhardy. He was a generous host and he took good care of his family. He loved this land and he died defending it.”
“He sounds a fine man,” Con agreed. Slowly he raised one hand to push a stray lock of hair off her brow. “But did he treasure you as he ought?”
The truth stuck in Enid’s throat like a sharp little fish bone.
Con’s hand drifted down the side of her face. “When I was far from home, it eased me to think of you living safe, prosperous and cherished on Ynys Mon. If I’d known the rights of it…”
Over his shoulder, a flash of movement caught Enid’s eye—a lone rider approaching the gate of Glyneira. She recognized the long-limbed dark mount he rode, for this same messenger had come to summon the muster for Lord Macsen back in the fall. Later he’d brought tidings that Howell had been wounded. He could only be coming today to herald his master’s arrival.
Macsen ap Gryffith would soon be here, and her son with him. Enid had run out of time.
Chapter Eight
“What is it, cariad?” A qualm of fear went through Con, more intense than any he’d ever felt on his own account. Enid had been acting strangely today…even for her. He’d seen high-strung horses less jumpy.
Speaking of horses, did he hear the soft thud of hooves behind him?
Before he could glance over his shoulder to check, Enid threw her arms around his neck and pulled his face toward her. Her lips made contact with his, slanted and parted, silently urging him to do the same.
Not that Con needed any urging to kiss the woman he’d adored so long and so hopelessly.
His arms locked around her and all the world seemed to dwindle away as Enid melted against him. His body roused, but he ignored that, too, as much as he was able. After all, he might never get another such chance, and he wanted to show her how he wished she’d been cherished during the years they’d been apart.
She fit into his arms as no other woman ever had. It felt as if she had first carved out the space and those coming after her had been forced to squeeze themselves into it…with scant success.
Long, deep and sweet, the kiss they shared was an intoxicating draft of rediscovery, mingled with well-aged tenderness, all spiced with a heady dash of hope. To Con ap Ifan, it seemed he had thirsted for such an elixir all his life.
“Mam! Come see!” The children’s cries shattered the fragile bubble of intimacy that had encased Con and Enid.
She started back from him as though surprised by where she had found herself and wondering how she’d come to be there.
She spun about to answer the children. “What is it?”
“The apple trees have started to blossom,” called Davy.
“The cherries, too,” Myfanwy added.
Edging away from Con, Enid moved toward them. “I hope we’ll have a fine harvest for cider making.”
Con followed, though without any conscious intention of doing so. If he willed himself to hang back, he doubted his body would obey.
Beyond the south wall of the maenol, sheltered from the wind, squatted the fruit trees. Their rough, wrinkled bark and twisted branches gave them a look of little old women, but their unfolding blossoms, creamy white with a rosy blush, transformed them into beautiful maidens swaying in the spring breeze.
Enid hiked up her skirts as she hurried toward them. “Let me smell.”
After inhaling deeply, she spun around as though the aroma had set her tipsy.
“Ah, there’s no perfume in the world sweeter than apple and cherry blossoms.” She mused aloud. “There’s a wholesomeness about it, and a kind of innocence.”
“Mind the bees,” Con warned her. “You don’t want to get stung.”
This was a queer reversal for them, Con found himself thinking. That Enid should plunge headlong after some rare pleasure, while he should see the lurking threat and counsel caution.
“Look at them all,” breathed Myfanwy as she stared at the swarm. “There must be hundreds.”
When the child fell silent, the hum of all those tiny beating wings swelled into a mellow, melodious drone. Just then Con could imagine nothing more pleasant than to rest on the soft grass beneath these trees and sate himself on the beauty of their sight, sound and scent.
Unless it might be to lie there with Enid in his arms, savoring the equally wonderful touch and taste of her.
Ever since he’d left Gwynedd, it felt as though he’d been in a tearing hurry. Whether in a fevered quest to experience every adventure and novelty the world had to offer, or running to escape old hurts and hopeless yearnings, Con wasn’t sure.
Now, for the first time in years, possibly in his life, something urged him to stand still awhile. Perhaps in stillness, the good things he sought might come to him. In stillness he might savor experiences to their most flavorful depths, rather than just sipping the bland froth on top.
After a few moments watching the bees at their work, Enid turned to the children. “Let’s fetch those acorns in, shall we? Auntie Helydd wants you to try on an old kirtle of hers, Myfanwy, to see if it will fit. And Davy, you must do something about that puppy. He wriggled into the pigsty again. It’s a wonder the old sow didn’t flatten him before Idwal plucked him out.”
“Yes, Mam.” Myfanwy twirled about, perhaps imagining how she might look in her new garment.
Davy raced away as fast as his young legs would carry him.
When Con inhaled one last whiff of fruit blossoms and started after them, Enid motioned for him to stay. “I expect you’ll want to inspect Glyneira’s defenses without any young distractions.”
He opened his mouth to tell her about Idwal and the axes, but before he could get the words out, Enid approached, speaking in a confidential murmur meant for his ears alone.
“Bide here until I come back. We need to talk, you and I. Alone.”
Her usual earnest look had taken on a shadow of desperation. What could be wrong?
“Very well. I’ll stay.” Con shot her a glance that invited some explanation, but none came.
When Enid turned to follow the children without another word, he called after her. “Don’t be too long. I have plenty of jobs waiting for me.”
“They’ll keep.” Enid glanced back over her shoulder.
Struck anew by her delicate grace and dark loveliness, Con didn’t bother to correct her. The jobs wouldn’t keep, unless someone else offered to do them. As for himself, he’d soon be gone.
That notion tugged at him with a contrary mixture of regret and anticipation. The past week at Glyneira had been a welcome respite from his ceaseless wandering, but Con knew himself too well to believe he’d be content to remain here for weeks and months on end.
He spread himself out on the grass beneath the trees, his hands tucked behind his head. As he’d suspected, it didn’t take him long to grow tired of just lying there, no matter how beautiful and restful the place. After a few moments he sat up again, watching for Enid’s return.
Though he saw no sign of her, Con did get an idea how to occupy himself while he waited. Chuckling over an old sweet memory, he plucked a spray of apple blossoms and set to work.
Enid shooed the children into the maenol before her. She felt as though Fate had a sharp dagger pressed to her breast, forcing her to act.
Once she’d dispatched Myfanwy and Davy, she stopped by the stable where she found Idwal helping Lord Macsen’s messenger tend to his mount.
“Lady Enid,” the young man greeted her, “I come with tidings of my uncle’s approach and a message that he repents his delay in coming.”
“Glyneira is honored by his lordship’s coming whenever he can spare us his company,” Enid replied. �
��We know well he has many matters demanding his attention—matters that may serve our safety and prosperity. Besides, the wait has given us more time to prepare a fitting reception.”
What would the border chief say if he arrived to find her promised to a wandering mercenary turned bard? Much as this week had proven to Enid about her lingering feelings for Con, she found herself suddenly besieged by an army of misgivings.
The last time she’d risked her future in a desperate bid to keep a departing Con with her, there’d been no one to bear the consequences but herself. Now she had so many people depending on her. They needed Lord Macsen’s protection and his good will at least as much as she needed Con.
Out of the corner of her eye, she spied Helydd crossing the courtyard. Beckoning her sister-in-law toward the stable, Enid offered Lord Macsen’s herald the most welcoming smile she could manage with so many doubts nagging at her.
“Though you did not arrive on foot, I hope you will accept an offer of water.”
Catching sight of Helydd, the young man eagerly accepted Glyneira’s hospitality.
“Good,” replied Enid. “You may remember Helydd versch Rhodri from your past visits. She will see to your comfort.”
“Aye.” The young man gave a ready nod. “I remember well.”
Guest and hostess exchanged a bashful but admiring glance.
“Come this way.” Helydd beckoned their guest. “Did you have a good journey?”
“Very. This is a pleasant time of the year to be travelling.”
As Helydd and the messenger turned to leave, Enid called out, “My son Bryn, does he ride with Lord Macsen’s company?”
“He does.” The young man smiled to himself, as if over some remembrance of the boy. “And mighty anxious to return home for a visit. He’s talked of little else for a fortnight. I believe Lord Macsen may have finally taken to the road just to quiet the lad.”
“I know how Bryn feels. I long to see him in equal measure.” Joy and dread warred inside Enid as she watched Helydd lead their guest away to the house.
Anxious as she was for Bryn’s coming, she had to admit it would ease her present predicament if he’d stayed behind at Hen Coed. Then she could have postponed her talk with Con. A talk whose outcome she could not foresee, nor was she quite certain how she wanted it to end.