Border Bride

by Hale Deborah

  “I’m not a babe.” Bryn’s out-thrust lower lip belied his brave words. “I would be no bother, I swear. I can look after myself.”

  “The way you looked after yourself by running straight into enemy arms?” Con demanded. “I can do well without such bother.”

  Bryn hung his head, but not before Enid spied tears in the eyes so like his father’s. Though her mother’s heart rejoiced that she would not lose her son—at least not today—she felt puzzled and hurt on Bryn’s behalf that Con had refused him in so harsh a manner.

  “Stay in Wales where you belong, boy.” Was it her fancy, or did Con’s voice falter? “Mind Lord Macsen and your mother.”

  While they’d been talking, a trio of Welsh riders had entered through the abbey gate. Enid recognized two of Lord Macsen’s men and Math, the blacksmith from Glyneira.

  Con marched past them without a word, mounted a waiting horse and rode off. Not once did he look back at Enid or his son.

  The Norman commander joined his men, after which the party soon quit St. Mynver’s.

  Enid turned to her son. “I’m sorry, Bryn—”

  A high, tight sob belched out of the boy as he turned from her and bolted in the direction of the chapel. His mother watched him go, wishing she, too, could run off and vent her feelings with a burst of tears.

  Lord Macsen’s deep voice rumbled behind her. “Leave him be for now. I’ll go find him and talk to him before we leave.”

  “Thank you.” She turned to find a pair of strong arms held open to her.

  Though they were not the arms she longed for just then, Enid stepped into their too-tight embrace just the same.

  Chapter Twenty

  A few miles from St. Mynver’s abbey, the three Normans and their Welsh captive halted to let their horses drink.

  Con approached Martial FitzLaurent. “Sire, I owe you a debt of gratitude for not betraying our…arrangement to my friends.”

  The Marcher lord scowled, as though he had been insulted, rather than thanked. “Do I want that Macsen fellow mounting raid after tiresome raid against Falconbridge in a vain effort to free you? He will be bother enough, now that he has seen the defenses of my keep, without knowing I hold you prisoner.”

  Con hoped Bryn and Enid had not seen through his own performance as easily as he saw through FitzLaurent’s.

  “It is no sin to show mercy, sire.”

  The Norman trained his steel-gray gaze on Con. “Perhaps not, but it is often folly. If you think this means I will dance to your piping while you are my prisoner, Welshman, you mistake.”

  “What do you plan to do with me?” Con willed any hint of a tremor from his voice. He had seen the tiny, airless cells in the lower levels of Falconbridge and his courage failed at the thought of being locked inside one of them.

  FitzLaurent considered his answer for a long moment before he replied. “I mean to discover what manner of price you will fetch, Welshman, and from whom.”

  Would anyone part with a brass farthing to ransom him? Con wondered. While desperately bargaining for the life of his son, he had painted himself a great prize—former Crusader, friends with the likes of Lord DeCourtenay, emissary from the Empress. Privately, Con acknowledged himself all but worthless to anyone on the English side of Offa’s Dyke.

  By the time FitzLaurent figured that out and released him in disgust, the Empress would scarcely recall his name, let alone the extravagant reward she’d once promised him. He’d thrown away his freedom, his future, and his one chance at lasting love. And all for what?

  Enid’s parting words after their tryst in the washhouse came back to haunt Con as he rode east with the Normans. If you thought half as highly of yourself as I think of you, you’d have nothing to prove to anyone.

  Unlike the people he’d spent the latter part of his life trying to please, Con knew Enid would give or do whatever it took to ransom him. And if twenty years passed before he won his release, she would still remember and care for him. At least, she would have, if he hadn’t pushed her and young Bryn away so harshly.

  On a bit of high ground ahead, Falconbridge Keep loomed, its stout stone walls waiting to imprison him.

  If he had it to do over again, Con asked himself, would he?

  Yes, he decided. Not without thought, without fear or without regret. But he would do it.

  Glancing back over his shoulder as a golden spring sun set beyond the Welsh hills, Con ap Ifan realized that he had just proven something very important to the one person who truly mattered.

  Himself.

  Conwy ap Ifan. Enid heard men speaking and singing his name out in the great hall of Hen Coed. She had better get used to it, for Con would likely remain a subject of heroic ballads in these parts for some while to come.

  Still, every repetition of his name bit into her heart like a switch.

  Kneeling beside her bed in a small guest room off the hall, Enid prayed to the Blessed Virgin and to all the female Welsh saints for guidance. So far, she’d received no response.

  What would those holy maidens make of a man like Con ap Ifan? Enid wondered. Could they bring themselves to intercede for all the mistakes she’d made and all the sins she’d committed in the name of love?

  A soft, almost timid, knock sounded on the door behind her.

  “Come in.”

  The door eased open far enough for Lord Macsen to poke his head through the crack. “Forgive my interruption. I see you’re at prayer. I’ll come back later.”

  “Wait, my lord!” Making a hasty sign of the cross, Enid scrambled up from the floor before he could pull the door shut again. “My prayers are finished.”

  Could any petition ascend to Heaven, when weighed down by such a load of grief and regret?

  Lord Macsen cast a wary glance around the little room. “You’re certain?”

  Enid nodded as she beckoned him inside. Though she could not bear to join the celebrating throng in the great hall, she had found no peace in solitude, either.

  “I would be glad of some company.”

  “I hope you find this lodging tolerable.” The big border lord looked ill at ease in such close quarters.

  “It is snug and safe. I could ask no better.” Since the room had no chairs, Enid settled herself on the edge of the bed and gestured toward a low trunk that might serve Lord Macsen as a bench.

  Gingerly he lowered himself onto it. “I had a talk with young Bryn, about the folly of what he did, running away from Glyneira. I saw no useful purpose in punishing him further.”

  “Thank you, my lord.” Between the indignity of being captured by the Normans and the sting of being rejected by his father, her son had been punished enough.

  Lord Macsen inhaled a deep breath, then spoke in a rapid burst. “The boy tells me Con ap Ifan is his…natural father. Is that true?”

  “It is, my lord.” Enid stared at her lap as a stinging blush crept into her cheeks. “I was no maid when Howell brought me to Glyneira. I had lain with Con in hopes it would keep him from going away, and force my father to let me wed him.”

  “Indeed?” Lord Macsen sounded as though he doubted her capable of such willfulness. “Con told me there had been something between you once upon a time, but I did not imagine…” The secret she had guarded so jealously for so many years would soon be common knowledge. Whispered behind raised hands, with eyebrows lifted and sly looks exchanged. Though the shame of it stung Enid’s pride, a curious sense of relief buoyed her.

  After an awkward pause, Lord Macsen cleared his throat and continued. “Con also told me you refused my marriage offer at his behest.”

  Enid hesitated. Had the answer she’d given Lord Macsen been solely in payment of her wager with Con?

  The border lord did not wait for a reply. “I offered Con any reward of his choosing for all he’d done to help me recover Hen Coed. He asked me to wed you…if you would.”

  Damn that man and his meddling! Had Con looked back on all the missteps she’d made over the years and assume
d she could not govern her own life?

  Faced with her silence, Lord Macsen quickly added, “I am not doing this only because Con bid me. You know I have long wanted you, Enid. What you’ve just told me of your past does not change that. If you agree to marry me, I will send at once for the younger children to join us here.”

  He hunched forward and reached out to envelop her hands in his. “Will you?”

  There it was, the offer she’d set her heart on before Con had barged back into her life and turned it over its head and ears. The chance to reunite her family and to keep them safe under the wing of a fierce protector.

  Fighting an almost overwhelming urge to nod her acceptance, instead Enid shook her head. She needed to cultivate the strength to protect her children, and nurture in them the strength to protect themselves.

  “I cannot, my lord.” She owed him a better answer than that, but since she could not give it, she must offer an explanation in its place. “I had no choice but to wed Howell ap Rhodri. While I kept faith with him and always strove to be a dutiful spouse, I did not love him in the way a wife ought to love her husband. He knew it and I believe it plagued his heart until the day he died.”

  For the first time, Enid ventured a glance at Lord Macsen. Something deep in the wells of his dark eyes told her he knew she spoke the truth.

  “Howell deserved better than that, my lord, and so do you. You deserve a wife who will give you her whole heart, even when reason tells her it is folly.”

  With a gentle squeeze of parting, Lord Macsen released her hands. In a hoarse voice, he asked, “The way you gave your heart to Con ap Ifan?”

  “Aye,” she whispered. “Twice.”

  “For all his cleverness, the man was a fool to turn his back on you.”

  “Perhaps.” Enid sighed. “Then again, perhaps he only wanted to spare me what I want to spare you. What I wish I could have spared poor Howell.”

  And one day, perhaps, if Con grew tired of novelty and adventure, he might come seeking the quiet, constant joys of hearth, home and heritage. If that day should arrive, and Con should find himself drawn to Glyneira once again, he would find her waiting.

  The secret to keeping sane in captivity, Con discovered as the border spring gave way to summer, and summer to harvest, was not to wait.

  If he had waited for his freedom, counted each passing day, paid heed to the messengers despatched from Falcon-bridge and lamented the ones who returned empty-handed, then he might have scaled the battlements of the keep and hurled himself to his death in despair.

  Instead, Con had grudgingly resigned himself to captivity, and in doing so he’d learned a few things about himself. To begin with, he’d discovered a deeper attachment to his homeland than he had ever suspected. He’d also come to realize that he thrived, not so much on adventure and danger, but on any challenge to his abilities, however modest.

  Perhaps most importantly, he’d grown to understand it was not the affection others bore him that filled the old gnawing void in his heart, but the love he nurtured for them.

  On this fine autumn day, not long after Michaelmas, Con passed a piece of harness he’d mended to the fellow in charge of the Falconbridge stables.

  The stable master eyed the work, then jerked it tight between his powerful hands to make certain the repair would hold. “You’ve made a good job of it, Welshman. Is there aught you can’t turn your hand to?”

  Con pulled a droll face. “Marriage?”

  Missing the barb of truth in Con’s jest, the stable master slapped his muscular thigh and brayed a laugh. “Don’t let Lady Albina hear you say so. From the soft eyes she casts at you, a body would think you were an honored guest of the house rather than her brother’s prisoner.”

  Con had read the signs well enough. A few months ago, he might have found some way to take advantage of the lady’s partiality. These days he behaved himself—giving a respectful answer when addressed, telling her stories of the world beyond her brother’s keep when asked. He sensed a restiveness in her such as had once bedeviled him.

  Which of them was more a prisoner of Falconbridge? he often asked himself.

  Not wanting to make the young lady a subject of gossip, Con ignored the stable master’s quip. “Have you any more jobs for me today?”

  By being helpful and agreeable, he’d won himself decent treatment as well as a certain measure of liberty within the castle walls. His recent offer to coax the Falconbridge oxen in fall plowing had been refused less from fear that he might escape, than because the Normans could not imagine a means of working oxen other than driving them with a goad.

  “We’re well enough, for the moment,” replied the stableman. “Perhaps the blacksmith can use you for a spell on the bellows. Will you play your harp for us tonight, again, Welshman? I mind I’m beginning to pick up a word or two of your tangled tongue.”

  A warm sense of satisfaction heartened Con. The Normans would never retreat from the Welsh borderlands. If his country was to survive, the marriage bed might prove a more favorable battleground. Every Welsh lass who learned a few words of French and every Norman soldier who mastered the odd Welsh endearment furthered that subtle campaign.

  Just then, the watchman at the keep gate called down a challenge to someone outside.

  Con and the stable master exchanged a look. Could this be another raid from Revelstone? Ever since Con had gained access to Falconbridge wearing Revelstone armor, the two Marcher lords had been at one another’s throats.

  The confident but mannerly reply to the watchman’s challenge assured them this wasn’t a raid after all. Though Con could not make out the visitor’s words, something about the timbre of the voice struck a chord inside him.

  He warned himself not to raise his hopes on the strength of a voice he fancied familiar, but he could not help himself. Shading his eyes against the autumn sun, he glanced at the broad-shouldered horseman who rode into the courtyard.

  “Rowan!” Con bolted across the bailey and launched himself at his friend, who vaulted out of his saddle.

  DeCourtenay caught him in a bone-punishing embrace. “Con ap Ifan, what’s this? I expected to find you shackled and starving, not well fed and wandering FitzLaurent’s bailey at will.”

  “When have you known me not to land on my feet?” Con dug an elbow into his old friend’s ribs only to bruise it against Rowan’s mail shirt. “Tell me you haven’t come all the way from Berkshire on my account?”

  Though the unexpected advent of his friend lightened Con’s spirit and touched his heart, he could not bear to picture Rowan impoverished or compromised in order to ransom his sorry hide.

  Rowan thumped Con on the back as he began speaking in broken, badly accented Welsh. “As it happens, I’m here at the behest of a certain royal lady who is interested in your return to her service. This fighting between Stephen’s supporters pleases her even better than if they were busy battling the Welsh. But let’s not mention that to your host.”

  Empress Maud had ordered Rowan away from his strategic castle in Berkshire just to secure Con’s release? The notion flooded him with surprise and satisfaction…and regret. If he’d valued himself enough to believe this might happen, would he have been so quick to commit Enid and the children to Lord Macsen’s care?

  “Cecily is well, I hope,” Con asked in French, not wanting to arouse his captors’ suspicion with too much Welsh talk. “And the young one.”

  A look of fondness and touching pride softened DeCourtenay’s rugged features. “A hardy little rascal, our Master Giles, which is well since he’s inherited his mother’s insatiable appetite for trouble.”

  Con chuckled. “I look forward to meeting him someday. Perhaps I can give him archery lessons when he’s big enough to hold a bow.”

  Thoughts of all he had missed with his Bryn, and all he would miss, sobered him. “I have a son, too, you know.”

  While they had been talking, FitzLaurent’s men must have alerted their master to DeCourtenay’s arrival. Now, the
Marcher lord strode into the bailey toward Con and Rowan.

  Rowan only had time to glance at his friend with raised brows. “You always did work fast, but this is a stretch, even for you!”

  Con held his tongue while DeCourtenay and FitzLaurent greeted each other with wary courtesy. There would be plenty of time to tell Rowan all about Bryn and Enid on their long ride south…if Rowan succeeded in winning his release.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “Mam,” called Myfanwy as she ran into the great hall of Glyneira where Enid had set up her loom, “Idwal sent me to tell you Lord Macsen has come with some of his men. Shall I go bid Auntie Gaynor to ready the water?”

  Enid looked up from her weaving. What could have brought Lord Macsen to Glyneira? A shiver ran through her as she recalled him bringing home her mortally wounded husband a year ago at this time.

  “Water?” Enid anchored her shuttle in the warp threads as she rose from her loom. “Yes, my pet, that’s a good idea.”

  “May I help wash our guests’ feet?”

  Enid cast a fond gaze over her daughter, who’d sprouted up far too tall since the spring. A mother couldn’t keep her babes small forever. She could only enjoy those sweet fleeting years while they lasted.

  “I suppose it’s about time you learned the duties of a good hostess. Auntie Gaynor will show you where to find the basins and drying cloths.”

  Myfanwy rewarded her mother with a bright, eager smile. Hiking up her skirts, she dashed away to fetch the water.

  Enid crossed the hall, plucking her cloak from a peg by the door on her way out to the courtyard to greet her guests.

  Her breath frosted in the crisp air as she called to them, “Come into the hall and warm yourselves. I hope you had a safe journey.”

  “We did.” Lord Macsen wiped the frost from his dark beard as he and the two younger men followed her indoors. “Even managed to bag some fresh game along the way for your larder.”

  “That was kind of you.” When they reached the hall, Enid pulled a bench nearer the hearth for them to sit on. “I hope you didn’t come all this way just to make sure we wouldn’t suffer a hungry winter.”