“I am not to blame for the rain,” the Welshman answered petulantly.
“No, of course not,” Rhiannon replied soothingly, treating him as she would a peevish child.
Cynvelin smiled and all trace of irritability apparently vanished. “I have many estates, and this one is so small, it is easy to forget about. Of course, it shall now be dearer to me, because of your presence.”
She rose and walked away from him toward the empty hearth. “It would seem to require a more dedicated overseer,” she remarked.
“That is why I have put Frechette in command, although—” Lord Cynvelin seemed to hesitate worriedly “—I may have made a mistake with him.”
He came so close to her she had to resist the urge to nudge him away with her elbow.
“My lady, I fear I have been deceived.”
“How so?” Rhiannon demanded, eyeing him warily as she stepped away from him.
Mercifully, he didn’t follow. “Have you noticed anything odd about Ula?”
“She is very quiet and rather...unfriendly,” she said hesitantly. She didn’t want to get the girl in trouble.
“Do you have any idea why?”
“Not really.”
“Bryce Frechette,” Cynvelin said with a significant look.
“Bryce Frechette? What has he to do with Ula?”
Cynvelin cleared his throat delicately. “He, um ... and Ula... well, she was not terribly willing, you see.”
Rhiannon immediately understood what he was implying—that Bryce Frechette had taken advantage of the girl, that he had raped her.
She didn’t believe it. Not for an instant.
Why not? Why should she be so unwilling to believe that a man like Bryce Frechette was capable of hurting a woman?
Because after what she had seen of him, she simply knew he would not.
“What evidence do you have to support this charge? Did Ula accuse him?”
“Ula never says much at all, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.” He gave Rhiannon a puzzled look, and when he spoke, there was an unfamiliar edge to his tone. “Are you saying you doubt what I am telling you?”
“No, my lord, not precisely. But I find it hard to believe that he would do such a thing.”
“You seem anxious to rush to his defense.”
“I would have evidence before I condemn him, that’s all,” she replied truthfully.
“Then you are different from your father,” Cynvelin said with as much of a frown as she had ever seen him make.
“What do you mean?” she asked, startled by his reference to her father.
The Welshman shook his head. “Nothing. Pay no heed to my ramblings. I have slept poorly these last few nights, and my head aches.”
“Perhaps you should rest, then,” she suggested.
“Perhaps.” He gave her a meaningful look. “If I could have some company.”
She stiffened, but before she could speak, he burried on. “God save me, my head hurts! Yet if I lie down, it hurts even more. Perhaps if you would keep me company, talk or sing to me, it will ease the ache.”
Rhiannon relaxed a little. He did look ill. “It could be the change in the weather, if there is another storm coming.”
“I hope it comes no closer,” Cynvelin said. “However, I fear there is another cause.” His face was a picture of melancholy. “Indeed, it is all your fault, my lady.”
“My fault?”
“Yes. I could not sleep last night for thinking of you. Have I told you that you are the most beautiful creature in the world?”
Rhiannon smiled wearily. She, too, had not slept well, so she was in no mood for flattery. “Thank you.”
“Would you sing to me, my lady?” he asked, giving her a pleading look. “A song is not much when I am nearly dying of love for you, and I’m sure your beautiful voice would ease my head.”
Turning away, she made a skeptical face that he couldn’t see. His continual avowals of his devotion were growing more tiresome with every passing moment. “Or I might make it ache more.”
He smiled. “Nothing you could do would hurt me, unless you broke my heart.”
“What sort of song would you like?” she asked, conceding to his request, because if she sang, he wouldn’t talk.
“Anything you choose, as long as you sit beside me and hold my hand.”
“I would rather not,” she said, very unwilling to touch him, or to have him touch her. “I do not think it proper.”
He shrugged his shoulders with a mournful sigh. “Very well,” he said, “it is enough that you are near me. But you will sing for me, won’t you?”
He made it sound as if she would be the hardest-hearted woman in Christendom if she begrudged him a song. She followed him to the chairs. When she sat, he slumped into the other and closed his eyes.
Then she started to sing a quiet, gentle song that some mothers sang as a lullaby.
As Rhiannon crooned her lay softly, Cynvelin watched her through half-closed lids. The room was warm, her voice was soft, and in a few moments she was pleased to see that he was asleep.
Rhiannon looked around the hall. The women had finished and left; no one was there.
She sighed and regarded the sleeping man, trying to consider her feelings rationally.
Suppose, she asked herself, suppose Lord Cynvelin was liked by her father. Would she want him then?
She thought not. He was charming, occasionally amusing and he could sing...yet he did not excite her. He bored her with his shallow banter and empty Battery. It was as if he were all surface and no depth. A puddle of emotion, compared to the ocean of feelings that lurked in Bryce Frechette.
She had had tantalizing glimpses of those depths when she was alone with Bryce or watching him in the hall when he did not know it Now she wondered what it meant that he had revealed to her something of the troubled feelings within him when they had been alone.
He didn’t do so to impress her, of that she was certain. It was more as if he couldn’t help himself.
But then he had accused her of acting dishonorably, when he was the one who had kissed her first! For the past week he had ignored her as if she had some kind of disease. Not that she wanted his attention.
She could not want it. He was a dishonorable scoundrel who had deserted his family and helped to take her from her father and brothers. Surely she couldn’t feel any affection for such a man. Any love...
Her own head was starting to ache. The thought that she might have to remain inside today, too, if another storm came, prompted her to rise, moving as quietly as she could so she wouldn’t disturb Cynvelin.
Hurrying to the door, she looked out. The clouds were gathering in dark gray menace over the hills, but it was not raining yet.
A brisk breeze blew the damp scent of the surrounding hills through the confines of the courtyard. Rhiannon sighed, breathing in the clear coolness of it. Her head felt better almost at once.
She would go outside while she could, and she would enjoy being alone.
She heard a hearty burst of male laughter outside the gates, as if several men were gathered there and sharing a joke. They sounded happy and carefree, so she gave up the idea of passing her time in solitary—and no doubt pointless—meditation to join them. After all, she could use some amusement.
As she went toward the gate, she glanced up at the darkening sky. Another storm was moving in. A low rumble of thunder sounded in the distance, and the breeze quickened.
Whoever was laughing, they had better get inside soon.
She reached the gatehouse. Just beyond, soldiers of the garrison lay upon the grass, regardless of the fact that it must be wet. Their chests heaved and several gasped for breath, red in the face. A few men stood, bending over, their hands on their knees, rocking with laughter. Another had his back to her, and two swords with blades snapped off at the hilt dangled uselessly from his hands. His shoulders shook because, she realized, he was laughing, too.
She had seen that back before, but
then he had not been half-naked, leaning his weight on one muscular leg.
She almost turned back to return to the hall, but the thought of any more time in that place with only a slumbering Cynvelin or his unruly men for company was enough to make her decide to find out what could amuse both the Welsh soldiers and their Norman master.
Madoc, the brawny Welshman whose insult she had not forgotten, stood at the gate, leaning on his spear. Ignoring him, she went to go past him when he suddenly laid the spear across her stomach.
“Sorry, my lady,” he said in Welsh, “but there is to be no going out the gate for you.”
Rhiannon DeLanyea was not the daughter of a powerful baron for nothing, as the look she gave him attested. She raised her chin in an imperious manner and haughtily said, “By whose order?”
“Frechette’s,” the man replied.
Rhiannon raised one dark eyebrow. “Really? He must be mistaken.” She crossed her arms over her chest and tapped her foot impatiently. “Frechette!” she called out, his name a summons.
The Norman swiveled slowly on his heel and looked at her.
Chapter Nine
Rhiannon didn’t quite know where to look. Certainly not at Bryce Frechette’s dark, questioning eyes, or frowning, sensual lips, or sweat-slicked chest, or anything lower. Except his muddy boots.
“Yes, my lady?” he inquired, his tone nearly as impertinent as the guard’s had been.
“Is it your order that I cannot leave Annedd Bach?”
Frechette muttered something that sounded suspiciously like a curse, tossed the sword hilts onto the ground beside his leather tunic, then strolled toward her. She raised her eyes and tried to regard him steadily, even if he was half-naked.
“It was Lord Cynvelin’s order, my lady. I gather he fears for your safety outside the walls, or so he told the garrison. Isn’t that right, Madoc?”
The Welshman didn’t respond.
“He doesn’t understand you,” Rhiannon reminded him, pushing aside the Welshman’s spear and walking toward Bryce.
“Oh, I remember, my lady,” he replied. He dropped his voice to a loud whisper. “But I have discovered that he only pretends not to understand me.”
Madoc scowled, and Rhiannon nearly smiled at the man’s discomfort. It was small enough recompense for his insult.
“I will answer for my lady’s safety,” he told the Welshman.
Madoc’s only response was a non-committal grunt.
Leaving the shelter of the gatehouse, Rhiannon and Bryce began to walk toward the other men, who were watching with obvious curiosity. Bryce nodded at them. “They, however and unfortunately, do not know a word of French.”
“Nevertheless, you seem to be able to amuse them,” she noted.
“When two men are staging a mock fight to demonstrate defensive stances and both blades snap clean off at the same time, soldiers tend to find that amusing.”
His tone was grim but she thought she heard laughter lurking in his voice.
She would never have imagined that such a warrior would find a potentially embarrassing situation funny. She had not suspected Bryce Frechette had the capacity to take himself less than completely seriously.
Then she remembered that she should be more careful of her reactions around this most disconcerting man. “I see no reason I shouldn’t leave the castle if they are outside.”
Seeing the mirth disappear from his eyes, replaced by that cold detachment she was more familiar with, filled Rhiannon with a regret she attempted to dismiss.
“As long as you stay where I can see you, my lady,” he said flatly, “I suppose his lordship would not take it amiss.” He frowned. “But where is he, my lady? He should be the one whose permission you seek.”
“I don’t need his permission.”
“His company, then.”
“I do not...” She hesitated. This man didn’t have to know anything about her feelings. “I am not a prisoner here,” she observed.
“Oh, no, my lady. Most certainly not. You are a very favored guest.”
She didn’t like his mockingly deferential tone. “Then I should be treated with some respect.” She ran her gaze over his sweat-slicked chest.
She was pleased to see his face color, but he made no move to fetch his tunic. “I have been training the men. It is warm work and some things are better done unencumbered by clothing, as you know.”
She flushed hotly. “No, I do not!” she said emphatically before walking past him along the muddy path toward the men. The ones who had been lying down scrambled to their feet, and all bowed when she approached.
Bryce caught up to her. “It’s going to rain soon, my lady. Shouldn’t you return to the hall? Perhaps you should go back to Lord Cynvelin.”
“He is asleep.”
“Ah!” he said with another meaningful look.
She glared at him. Depths of emotion, indeed! She must have been mad to find him fascinating. “What are you suggesting?”
He widened his eyes with mock innocence. “I, my lady? Nothing. Nothing at all.”
“You are the most impertinent, discourteous Norman I have ever met!”
To her chagrin, he smiled and bowed.
She flounced toward a stump and perched upon the edge. “I believe I shall stay to see this miracle, how you train men who do not understand you.”
He didn’t even have the courtesy to answer. He simply shrugged his shoulders and turned back to the men.
One of them, the thin, dark-haired steward named Ermin, came to stand next to him. He seemed nervous, although whether it was because of his proximity to the Norman, or the coming storm, she couldn’t tell, for he glanced at both the man beside him and gathering clouds with equal anxiety. It took another moment for Rhiannon to realize the dark-haired man was acting as translator.
Or at least he tried. He paused often when Bryce was talking, clearly searching for the proper word.
The men listened, albeit with desultory interest. Bryce’s voice got progressively more impatient, even though his expression remained outwardly calm.
After a little while, Rhiannon rose from her perch and approached Bryce. “They are not stupid,” she announced, interrupting as he repeated his caution about keeping their grips loose enough to avoid jarring their wrists.
Both men turned to face her, Ermin obviously surprised, Bryce annoyed. “They aren’t attending to a word I say,” the Norman grumbled.
“If they are like the men on my father’s estate, and I see no reason to suppose they are not, they are not being attentive because they do not usually fight with swords. They think such an oration does not apply to them,” she explained.
“Oration?”
“Lesson. Harangue, call it what you will. How many men here even possess a sword?”
“Five brought them,” Bryce muttered. “I assumed the others forgot.”
She made a disgusted face. “Forgot? Like they were simple? Did you not wonder when you saw the state of the weapons that they did bring? The rusted and broken blades should have told you something.”
Bryce’s eyes narrowed. Although her words would be an explanation for the deplorable lack of swords and the decrepit state of the five he had seen, he wished she would stop talking, stop looking at him with those vivacious green eyes, and stop standing within a hundred yards of him. He was finding it extremely difficult to concentrate as it was. Her simplest remark, even spoken with sarcastic frustration, seemed to strike at the chords of his heart rather than anger him, and with one look from her beautiful, sympathetic eyes she was able to pierce the armor he had built around himself. When they had been alone, he had said things to her he would never have revealed to another soul.
She was dangerous, with those eyes and that tempting smile.
He had to avoid her, this woman who belonged to another, lest he say or do something that would cause him to forfeit his chance for advancement. And he would hope the weather would stay clear, so they could leave him in peace.
/> If he could ever truly be at peace again, knowing that Lady Rhiannon could never be his.
It was only with the firmest resolve that he was able to attend to the business at hand, and that made him sound far angrier than he was. “They let them rust on purpose?” he demanded.
Ermin gasped with dismay and shook his head. “No, no, sir, we don’t! Not on purpose!”
“I should have been more explicit. They don’t neglect their weapons on purpose, any more than they didn’t forget to bring a sword. Welshmen prefer bows.”
“Bows?”
She nodded. “They will use swords in close quarters and spears, too, if they must. Have you ever seen a Welsh bow?”
“I once saw an archer shoot an arrow through a plank four inches thick. They said he was a Welshman.
“And the bow itself? What was it made of?”
“Elm, they told me,” he recalled. “It was the ugliest weapon I ever saw. Too rigid and so long, it seemed unwieldy.”
“Yet it sent an arrow through a four-inch plank,” she noted, the glimmer of a smile on her lips and in her eyes as she looked at him.
Ermin muttered something to the men, and they all seemed to wake up.
“Is this true?” he asked Ermin. “Do they prefer bows?”
“Aye, sir,” Ermin replied.
“Very well, then. Tomorrow, they will bring their bows and arrows, and I shall see if they are as good a weapon as the lady thinks.”
Ermin nodded, but again he glanced upward, as if what Bryce were saying was far less important than the sky.
“What is it?” Bryce demanded. “What’s wrong? Is it the storm?”
“No, sir,” Ermin replied. “It’s...it’s...”
“Tell me!”
Ermin gave Lady Rhiannon a beseeching look, then a barrage of rapid Welsh poured from his lips.
Bryce turned to her questioningly. She smiled kindly at Ermin, then looked at Bryce, her lingering smile seemingly for him alone. “It’s his wife. A woman brought word she’s in labor and he wants to leave here to be with her.” The lady’s steadfast gaze grew sympathetic. “He says she lost their last child and almost died herself. He humbly asks to go home. He will return as soon as the babe is born.”
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