“Will you do as I ask, or not?”
Without another word, he left her.
AFTER HE WAS GONE, Roslynn sank down onto the cold stone floor and covered her face with her hands. She knew what she must do—what she had sworn to do.
Never again would she live always wondering if today a man would take out his anger on her. If today he would lose his temper and strike her, claiming she had goaded him into it. She would not live always anxious, always fearful.
So she must leave, as she had not done before.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“BY SAINT DAFYDD and Bridget and all the rest in Wales, what the devil’s happened between you and your wife?” Lloyd demanded the next morning as he dragged his nephew from a straw pallet covered in rough blanchet in the hall. “She’s leaving Llanpowell!”
Madoc kicked his foot to make his uncle let go of his ankle. “We had an argument,” he muttered as he staggered to his feet. His mouth was dry as a cask six months empty, his head ached and his stomach—
Best not consider his stomach, or the amount of ale he’d consumed trying not to think about Roslynn, and Gwendolyn, or Trefor or Owain.
“She’s leaving you, Madoc,” Lloyd all but shouted, making the other men still sleeping around them snort and stir. “Going home with her parents, or so she’s told Bron, who came to me in tears because she was too afraid to tell you herself, poor girl.”
That couldn’t be right. Roslynn wouldn’t leave him. He loved her. He’d told her so, and if she didn’t love him yet, she certainly liked him. Besides, she was bearing his child…“She can’t be going.”
“Well, she says she is—today, you hot-tempered nit! She’s packing her things!”
The look on Roslynn’s face when she told him to go last night, and the tone of her voice, came back to him with the force of a blow.
His own aches and pains forgotten, desperately hoping Lloyd was wrong, he left his uncle and went at once to the bedchamber, taking the stairs two at a time just as he had on his second wedding night.
He opened the door and saw, to his dismay, that Uncle Lloyd was right. Roslynn was packing. “You’re going away?”
“Yes. I’m going back to Briston with my parents,” she replied, folding her hands before her, as calm as a nun as she regarded him with a resolve he despaired to see.
“Even if I apologize?”
“You’ve apologized before, Madoc. But how many more times will you lose your temper? How many more times will I be afraid that this time, you’ll be angry enough to hit me?”
“I would never—”
“So you say, and so you no doubt believe. I’d like to believe it, too. But I’ve seen you attack your own brother as if you’d kill him with your bare hands, so how can I be certain? I can’t, and I won’t live with that uncertainty. Not ever again.”
What fresh punishment was this? Madoc inwardly cried. Had he not suffered enough for his sins? Had he not given his word to her that she would be safe with him, shown her how much he cared for her?
Yet it still wasn’t enough. “You’ll never trust me, no matter what I do?”
She turned away and went back to her packing. “No.”
She faced him once more, and the sorrow in her eyes, so much harder to bear than anger, smote him to the core. “This isn’t easy for me, Madoc. I care for you very much, more than I ever would have thought possible. I wish with all my heart that things could be different. That I had met you before Wimarc. But I didn’t.
“Perhaps if you were a docile man, it would be possible for us to have a happy life together, but then you wouldn’t be Madoc ap Gruffydd. Nor am I foolish enough to believe that you could be otherwise, even if you tried. For good or ill, you are as you are, Madoc, and I am as I am.”
He had his pride and he would not beg—but he wouldn’t let her go easily, not Roslynn. He approached her slowly, cautiously, as he had the first time he had kissed her. “You claim you care for me, yet you’ll leave me.”
“I do care for you, but I must leave you.”
He reached out to caress her smooth cheek, the feel of her skin warming him, as it always did. “If you truly care for me, how can you go?”
“Don’t touch me, Madoc,” she said, stepping back. “Not ever again. If you do, I might weaken. We might even make love and I might decide to stay. But soon, the dread and doubt would return and I would hate myself for weakening. I would always be watching and waiting, fearing that you’re going to lose your temper and hurt me.”
She held up her hand for silence before he could protest. “Yes, I know you’ve vowed not to and you meant it.”
She went to him and, taking his hands, clasped them in hers as she looked up into his stricken face. “I’ve lived in fear before, and I will never live that way again, not even with you.”
Just as he would never be able to stand in a bog, letting himself sink in the mire. “Then there is nothing I can say or do to make you stay?”
She shook her head. “No.”
It would have been easier if she’d stabbed him. But even so, he would not give up. Not yet. “You carry my child, Roslynn.”
She went to the bed, picked up her red gown and began to fold it. “You will be welcome to visit my parents’ estate. My father will tell you how to get there.”
How often would he be able to do that? Once a year? Twice? “According to the law, it will be my child, Roslynn, not yours.”
She slowly turned toward him, the gown limp in her hands. “You would take my child from me?”
“If you think me a monster, what would stop me?” he asked, bitterness and sorrow and anguish welling up inside him.
“Nothing,” she whispered. “But I thought…”
“What?”
“That you wouldn’t care where your child was, as long as it lived and was well cared for.”
“Why—” He fell silent as the answer struck him like a kick of a warhorse’s hoof.
Owain.
She thought he wouldn’t mind being away from his child because he had sent Owain from Llanpowell.
Because she didn’t know the truth.
Because he couldn’t bear to speak of it, to reveal the terrible thing he’d done, the promise he’d broken. Not even now.
God help him. God give him strength to endure. And not to beg, for as she had her resolve, he had his pride. “Go then,” he muttered, reaching for the latch. “Send word when the babe is born.”
“Madoc.”
He hesitated, but didn’t turn back.
“Have you any names for our child?”
He wanted to groan and cry to the heavens and tear out his hair. “Name the babe as you see fit, Roslynn,” he said as he opened the door and walked out.
And live, he silently prayed as he walked slowly down the stairs.
FOR ROSLYNN, it seemed only a heartbeat—a painful heartbeat—from the time Madoc left her until she was in the yard watching her baggage being loaded onto a cart. This time, though, it wasn’t Lord Alfred and his men who waited to escort her. It was her father and her mother, who was already in the large, heavy, brightly painted wagon that would take them back to Briston.
It wasn’t raining anymore, but the sky was a dull gray and there were several large puddles to avoid, so she had to keep her eyes on the ground. That made it easier to avoid the people watching. She could hear some of them, though Hywel was in the doorway of the kitchen, with Lowri, Rhonwen and other kitchen servants, their distressed murmuring like the sound of far off waves. Lloyd stood at the entrance to the hall muttering to Bron, and several of the soldiers and other servants of Llanpowell were watching from the wall walk, the barracks, the stable and the various outbuildings, all whispering among themselves.
Just as she reached the wagon, she caught sight of Ivor by the armory out of the corner of her eye, with a satisfied smirk upon his face.
If Madoc had been there, she would have turned aside and, regardless of what had passed between them, told him
at once of her suspicions and that Ivor was not to be trusted. That Madoc should take nothing his steward said at face value. That he should check the accounts carefully and confirm all recent deliveries with the merchants.
But Madoc was not there, and she had no idea where he was.
She thought of telling Lloyd and dismissed that idea. He would likely doubt her and she didn’t want to try to justify her suspicions in the yard, nor did she have the time.
Nevertheless, she wouldn’t let Ivor rob Madoc. She would write to Madoc after she arrived at Briston. She could make certain the letter was delivered into Madoc’s hands alone. She owed him that much.
And if he chose not to believe her, at least she’d have tried.
Her father, who hadn’t yet mounted his horse, opened the door of the wagon and helped her inside. It wasn’t a particularly restful mode of travel, but her mother had made it as comfortable as possible, with plenty of cushions, after first insisting she not ride. Roslynn didn’t care enough about how she was leaving to differ.
Nor had she given her parents an explanation for her request to go with them. They hadn’t asked for any, either. Maybe, having seen Madoc’s altered behavior at the feast, or because of his fierce confrontation with Trefor, they’d come to their own conclusions, or at least enough to make immediate questions unnecessary. Perhaps they sensed that she was too upset for questions and so would wait for an explanation.
Her father closed the door tight and gave her an encouraging smile. “Only a few days, and then you’ll be safe at home,” he said, before he went to his horse.
Home. Their home, once hers.
She surveyed the now-familiar walls and buildings of Llanpowell. In less than a month, this had come to be her home, because Madoc was there.
She turned away from the wagon’s window as her father called the order to depart and the heavy, lumbering vehicle drawn by four huge draft horses began to move. Her mother put her arm around her, comforting without a word.
“Farewell, my lady!” Bron cried out, running closer, her arm waving frantically. “God bless you!”
“Oh, Mother,” Roslynn whispered as she laid her head on Lady Eloise’s shoulder.
ROSLYNN AWOKE with a start as the wagon jerked to a halt. She must have fallen asleep, although it was still day. “Mother, what—”
“Quiet!” Lady Eloise commanded, fear in her eyes, as well as her voice, her body tense, as she leaned forward and pulled back the leather flap over the window to peer cautiously outside. Roslynn immediately did the same on the other side.
Despite the constricted view, she could see a group of mounted men in the middle of the road, blocking their way.
Led by Trefor ap Gruffydd.
She swiftly drew back, lest he see her. Trefor had never seen her parents. Maybe he simply thought to rob some rich Normans. Nevertheless, whether it was robbery or some other motive, they could be in danger.
“Have you any weapon other than your eating knife?” she quietly asked her mother.
“No. Have you?”
Roslynn shook her head.
“Surely we’ll be safe,” her mother replied, her mouth a thin line of determination. “Your father and his men will protect us.”
The moment she finished speaking, a gauntleted hand shoved back the leather flap over the wagon’s window on Roslynn’s side, and Trefor’s face, so like Madoc’s except for his piercing blue eyes, appeared in the opening. “Greetings, ladies.”
His brows rose with recognition. “Especially you, Lady Roslynn,” he said, his horse prancing nervously, although that didn’t seem to bother Trefor of Pontyrmwr. “Since you’ve enjoyed my brother’s hospitality, you must come and enjoy mine.”
Her mother replied first, assuming her most dignified manner. “Thank you for the invitation. However, we would prefer to continue our journey.”
Trefor’s smile seemed a cruel version of Madoc’s. “I’m sorry to disappoint you then, because you’re staying with me regardless.”
Roslynn and her mother answered at the same time and with the same words, although they referred to different people. “My husband—”
Trefor interrupted with a harsh caw of a laugh, nothing like Madoc’s low rumble, “Husbands, is it? One’s squatting on his estate like a toad in a hole and the other knows better than to try to fight when he and his men are outnumbered three to one.”
His eyes widened with bogus surprise. “You look shocked, Lady Roslynn. Did you think I had only those few I brought to the feast? As if I would bring all my men to Llanpowell.” His expression became grimly serious. “And since many more are with me now, you’re coming to Pontyrmwr.”
“Where you no doubt intend to ransom us, rogue that you are,” Roslynn charged.
Trefor’s brows rose again. “There’s an idea. I hadn’t thought of that.”
Roslynn tried not to panic. “What were you going to do?” she demanded, even as one answer came to mind. She wouldn’t be the first woman used to exact revenge against a husband.
“Why, have a little visit with my brother’s bride,” Trefor answered with a smile that was as cold as the North Sea. “And her charming parents, too. Now, we’d best be on our way. The roads can be treacherous in the dark.”
He raised his hand, called something in Welsh and the wagon lurched into motion.
Roslynn reached for her mother’s hand.
“Be brave, daughter,” her mother said, although her face was pale and drawn.
Roslynn managed to give her mother an encouraging smile. “I will be. After all, I’m the daughter of Lady Eloise and Lord James de Briston, aren’t I?”
ROSLYNN HAD ASSUMED Pontyrmwr would be like Llanpowell, only on a smaller scale and perhaps not so well maintained.
She was quite wrong. The castle, if it could even be called such, was not even half the size of Llanpowell. It had only one wall not nearly as tall, and while there was a wooden walk around the inner perimeter, no towers at all, not even by the narrow gate. Once inside the walls, it was easy to see that the only building made of stone was the round keep, and it appeared ancient.
Also in contrast to Llanpowell, the yard was unpaved and full of muddy holes. The few wooden buildings, including the stable, looked as if they might fall down at any moment.
Unfortunately, there were plenty of men both on the wall and in the yard, telling her that Trefor must spend most of whatever income his estate produced on soldiers. Judging by their looks and clothes, they were all mercenaries.
The door to the wagon opened and Trefor leaned inside. “This way, if you please,” he said, holding his hand toward Roslynn, obviously expecting her to take it.
She’d rather touch a leech.
Ignoring him, she grasped the frame of the door to climb down. Her mother did likewise.
If their actions disturbed Trefor, he didn’t show it as he led the way up the stone steps curving around the outside of the keep. Her father followed them while, under the watchful eye of Rhodri and the other men, their soldiers were escorted to another tumbledown building.
They would be safe, Roslynn told herself. Even if Trefor were willing to compel his brother to battle, surely he wouldn’t want to risk the enmity of the Normans by killing a Norman nobleman and his family, as well as their escort.
The second level of the keep reached by the outer stair served for a hall. Cobwebs hung from the scarred, smoke-blackened beams that held up another floor above. The greasy rushes stank of spoiled food, the stench mingling with the scent of wet wool and damp dog. A rickety set of steps curved to the third and topmost level above.
More men were inside, lounging about as if they were Trefor’s equals, regarding her with lustful eyes, until he glared at them and ordered them to go. Slowly, with scowls and shuffling feet, they obeyed, and Roslynn breathed a little easier—but only a little.
Trefor gestured for his prisoners to sit on a pair of benches beside a battered, nicked table at the far end of the room, then ordered a slove
nly female of indeterminate age who stood gaping by the door to bring them some wine.
“Not as luxurious as Llanpowell, is it?” he said with a scowl. “Still, better than a hut in the woods—or a grave.”
A chill ran down Roslynn’s spine at his last words.
“You realize it would be an act of war if you killed us,” her father declared. “King John would certainly take it as such.”
Trefor laughed, the sound even more harsh in the cold stone building. “You think I’m afraid of John? A Welshman could never be afraid of a Norman and especially one like him. If he takes Pontyrmwr from me, I’ll easily find sanctuary elsewhere.” He nodded at the walls around him. “This isn’t so much to lose when your birthright’s been stolen.”
The slovenly servant, her skirts ragged, her bodice stained, her brown scraggly hair loose, appeared with a tray bearing a plain copper carafe and some mugs. She sidled closer, her mouth hanging open as she regarded the three Normans.
Trefor grabbed the tray from her hands and spoke brusquely in Welsh. The woman bobbed a bow and scurried away.
“You have to forgive Myfanwy,” he said as he set the tray on the end of the bench and poured wine into four mugs. “She’s a bit simple in the head and she’s never seen a Norman lord and lady up close before.”
He handed out the wine, which Roslynn and her parents set on the bench without taking so much as a sip.
Trefor gave them a smirk of a smile. “Not good enough for you, eh? Well, well, maybe not—but it’s the best I’ve got.” He downed his in a gulp, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “My lord and my lady, up you go to my chamber above. I want to speak to Madoc’s wife alone.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
ROSLYNN’S FATHER rose to protest, but Trefor cut him short.
“My castle, my orders,” he said bluntly. “Or if you don’t want to go to my bedchamber—” his lips curved up in a smile that was very like Madoc’s, except that it had nothing of her husband’s honest good humor in it “—your daughter and I will. I was thinking you’d be worried if I took her where there was a bed, although there’s no need. I’m a more honorable man than Madoc.”
The Warlord’s Bride Page 17