by Natasha Wild
Llywelyn flushed at the reminder of all he had lost, but said nothing. Gruffydd ap Gwenwynwyn beamed. The look on Dafydd’s face could only be termed mute shock. He shot Richard an accusing look, full of loathing.
“Name the ten highborn hostages you will give into my keeping to ensure your loyalty,” Edward commanded.
Llywelyn sheathed his sword, then swallowed and stood silent for a long moment. His voice was cold and emotionless as he began to recite the names.
“My daughter, Princess Gwenllian. Goronwy ap Tudur, son of the chieftain of...”
2
Gwen shivered and pulled her cloak tighter, rubbing her face against the fur-lining of her hood. What was taking so long? And why were they still astride their horses in this freezing rain?
The smell of cooking food drifted to her nose with a slight shift of the wind. She realized she was hungry when her stomach responded with a low rumble. Had it really been that long ago since she had risen to break fast and then clambered into the saddle to make the journey from Aberconwy Abbey to Rhuddlan?
She could take it no longer. She dismounted, her aching limbs protesting every movement. The others huddled atop their horses, their woolen cloaks wrapped around them. No one stirred as she led her palfrey toward the stables.
She pressed her reins into the hand of a boy coming from inside the structure. When he opened his mouth to protest, she froze him with a haughty glare. He licked his lips hastily, then snapped his mouth shut and began to tend her mare without another look in her direction.
Gwen walked into the stable, the smell of fresh hay and the unmistakably musty smell of horse mingling in her nostrils. Chargers lined the walls, packed into narrow stalls like discarded weapons, safely tucked away until needed. She strolled along, patting noses and whispering soft words, and the big horses marked her passing with low whickers.
At the end of the row, away from the rest of the animals, stood a big black brute of a stallion, neck arched, eyes rolling back in his head. One massive hoof beat the ground, cleaving the dirt like an ax.
“You are a beauty,” Gwen said softly, holding out her hand. He sniffed it, then blew out like a great bellows, warming her with his breath.
She moved closer. He nickered and lowered his head. Gwen scratched behind his ears, laughing as he leaned toward her. “You are not as fierce as you pretend, you big bully.”
The stallion nodded his head, trying to direct her scratching to the places he wanted it.
A deep male voice startled her. She spun around, her heart hammering. A knight strode toward her, speaking in English, but she didn’t understand him.
She realized he must think her a stablehand, dressed as she was and standing beside this horse. The English nobility spoke French and Latin, while English was reserved for servants and commoners, though many lords spoke it as well. They had to if they wanted to direct their households.
Her father had made her learn court French and Latin. She drew herself up, prepared to put this knight in his place. “Pardon?”
He looked surprised at first, then switched into French. “I said get away from that horse.” He walked very deliberately toward her. He was mail-clad, tall, moving with a feline stealth that belied his size.
Gwen steeled her spine. She’d had enough of these English bastards this day. Their cool arrogance sorely tried her patience.
But she did acknowledge that mayhap this one had a right to worry about a stranger standing beside his horse. Certes, ’twas no ordinary charger.
Cold fear washed over her when she realized the sheer size of the man. She cursed herself for straying into the stable alone. Englishmen always took whatever they wanted.
“I beg your pardon, Sir Knight,” she said, her gaze darting to the opening at the other end of the stable. She gave the horse a final pat and stepped away, keeping her eyes downcast.
He stopped in front of her. Gwen focused on his black boots. Against her will, her gaze strayed up. And up. And up.
Her pulse skittered. He was a giant!
She peered at him from beneath her hood, unable to control her curiosity. His hair was black as a witch’s soul, cropped short to fit under his helm.
Gwen frowned at the short beard and mustache. That was unusual, certainly. Only Welshmen wore beards these days. She couldn’t stop herself from looking at him. He must surely be the most handsome man she had ever seen. His shoulders were so broad...
She nibbled her lip. Eyes of purest silver speared her in place, draining her will to escape, though at the same time she desired escape more than ever. The angry smell of steel and potent male sweat surrounded her senses. Danger emanated from this dark man’s forbidding presence.
“You are Welsh,” he said. He made it sound like the worst of afflictions.
“Aye,” she gritted from between clenched teeth. Damn, why hadn’t she learned to speak French with less of an accent?
“Take off that hood,” he commanded.
Gwen thought her heart might leap from her chest. She backed away. Nay, she couldn’t let him see her! He was so handsome, and she must look frightful after such a long ride. Why couldn’t she have encountered this man at a feast, when she was richly garbed and more confident? “I-I must go now.”
She tried to dart past him but he caught her and flipped the hood off all in one motion. Gwen jerked away and tilted her chin up. She was a princess for God’s sake! She would not let a lowly knight intimidate her.
Gwen recognized the strange gleam that flared to life in his eye. She’d seen it before, in her father’s hall, when a warrior fondled a slack-jawed wench. Soon after, the two of them would disappear into the dark recesses of the castle.
Fear danced along her nerve endings as he took a step closer. She forced herself to stand her ground. He was but a hair’s breadth away and more than anything she desired to run.
Except he would catch her again.
“You should not get so close,” he said, his finger wisping down her cheek in a silky caress. “These horses are trained for battle. You could get hurt.”
Gwen trembled. This man was very dangerous, much more dangerous than warhorses. And she sensed he was speaking about much more than chargers. “B-but I was n-not,” she stammered.
“Not this time,” his rich voice intoned, “but will you be so lucky again?”
She jerked away and lowered her lashes. Damn the bastard! Typically arrogant, like all Englishmen. Still, she was relieved at the implication he wouldn’t hurt her, although her instincts told her not to believe it for a second.
“How old are you?”
“I will be sixteen in two months,” she replied with all the haughtiness of a princess.
He threw back his head and laughed, startling her with the deep timbre of his voice. “Too young for a leman, though I am sorely tempted. What is your name?”
“Pr—Gwen,” she said, coloring. Leman! The thought was disturbing, not for the outrageousness of it, but because she actually tried to imagine being this man’s lover, though she was uncertain just what it was lovers did. Whatever it was, it would likely be thrilling with him for a teacher. “And your name, Sir Knight?” she asked, her courage returning.
“Richard,” he replied, amusement edging his voice.
Richard. She itched to say it out loud, to taste it on her tongue, but she kept her mouth shut and stared at her feet.
Finally, after what seemed an interminable length of time, he spoke. “So, you were admiring my Sirocco?”
“Sirocco? What sort of a name is that?”
“’Tis Arabic. I brought him back from the Crusade.”
A knight of honor, she thought. “What does it mean?”
He paused for some moments, his gaze sweeping over her so slowly she felt as if she were naked. She looked away, trying to slow her thundering senses. She was nothing but a clumsy little girl next to this magnificent male animal.
“’Tis the name of a hot desert wind that blows over the Sahara, carrying d
ust storms across the Mediterranean to Italy and Spain.”
She chanced a glance at him. “The Sa-ha-ra?”
He studied her for a moment, and she found she couldn’t tear her gaze from his face. No man should be so beautiful.
“Aye, ’tis a place of flames and sand the color of gold. In the evening, when the setting sun turns blood-red and casts its shadow over the dunes—” He picked up her braid. “—’tis the exact same color as your hair.”
Gwen blushed, damning herself for reacting so visibly. He would surely think her a little girl now, though why she even cared she couldn’t say. He raised her hair to his nose, inhaling its scent. His eyes were like sparkling jewels and she found herself drawn to them, unable to move or speak.
“Roses,” he murmured.
“Aye,” Gwen whispered. She did not doubt he was a predator, possessed as he was of feline grace and a mesmerizing stare. She knew what the hunted bird must experience in the moment before the hawk struck it dead.
Mustering all her fading willpower, she turned toward the horse. “He is beautiful,” she said, scratching the stallion’s jaw.
“As are you.” His voice was suddenly husky as he caught her outstretched hand and raised it to his lips. She stifled a gasp at the contact of flesh on flesh, the jarring whisper of his tongue across her knuckles.
“Are you a servant to one of the hostages?”
“Hostages?” she repeated blankly. His warm breath stirred over her hand, sending shivers down her spine.
“Aye, the hostages Prince Llywelyn has given to the king.”
Gwen’s legs buckled. The knight caught her. She clutched him, felt the mail under his surcoat, and knew beneath all that his body was every bit as hard as the steel encasing it.
Hostage. It all made sense now: her father’s insistence she accompany him when she never had before. The trunk. Alys.
Her fists twisted in his surcoat. Without thinking, she pressed her face to the travel-stained fabric. “Oh God,” she moaned against his broad chest. “Oh God, no. Please, no.”
“You did not know there would be hostages?”
She didn’t answer. Richard’s hand came up to stroke her red-gold hair of its own volition. She was so small, so vulnerable. He held her close, a sudden urge to protect her overwhelming his baser thoughts.
“Do not worry, they will not be harmed,” he said softly. Not unless Llywelyn broke the treaty. But Richard was not about to tell her that.
He couldn’t believe the effect she had on him. She smelled of things Welsh—wind and water and mountain heather. And, over everything, roses. Sweet, wild roses. He was certain if he never saw her again, she would haunt him for the rest of his life.
She pushed away from him, swaying slightly. He reached for her, but she remained upright. Women had swooned just to get into his arms before, but she seemed too young to play such a trick. Besides, she was alluring enough without need of feminine wiles. If she were older—which she was not, he reminded himself—he would gladly spread her silken thighs and impale her without any seduction necessary on her part.
Richard swore silently. He desired skilled courtesans for his bed, not blushing girls barely old enough for marriage. Bloody hell, what was wrong with him?
But she was beautiful. Beautiful as the morning mist on a spring day, fresh as the wind against his face when he and Sirocco raced the River Dee past Claiborne castle, delicate as the wild roses that grew in his valley.
He was drawn to her against all reason. God, what would she be like in a couple of years when she bloomed into womanhood? His throat went dry at the thought. He had an urge to keep her just to find out.
“Highness! Highness!” a female voice shouted in Welsh.
Richard turned. He was born and raised in the March. Welsh was second nature to him, though he rarely liked to admit it.
A stout woman hurried toward them, her rosy face mirroring the anxiety in her voice. “Highness!”
Who—? He turned to Gwen.
Gwen. Something tickled the back of his mind.
Princess Gwenllian!
He stared at her in horror. Sirocco stuck his head in the center of Richard’s back and pushed. Richard stumbled to the side to keep from coming in contact with her.
“You must come, Highness,” the woman said, reaching for Gwen’s hand as soon as she stopped. She puffed with the stress of her exertion and tears trickled down her cheeks. She gave Richard a tremulous smile.
“Alys. I am to be a hostage, Alys,” Gwen said, her voice flat, emotionless.
Strangely, it tore at Richard’s heart to hear her sound so dejected. He wanted to pull her in his arms and soothe her. Goddamn Llywelyn to lowest hell for this!
“Come, Highness,” Alys urged, gently tugging her mistress’s hand. The girl followed woodenly.
Richard was immobile for a long time afterward. He stared in the direction she had gone, stifling the urge to follow. Something pushed him. He turned to glare at his stallion. He would have sworn the horse was laughing at him.
“Dammit, Sirocco!”
The horse yawned. Richard scrubbed his hands across his tingling scalp. Jesú, the flame-haired girl who drew him like stale darkness to pure sunlight was Llywelyn’s daughter!
3
Worcester, England
October, 1278
The autumn wind whistled through the wooden shutters, sending a bitter chill deep into the heart of the Bishop of Worcester’s castle. Gwen turned on her back and yanked the coverlets up to her chin.
King Edward’s household had been lodged in the drafty old keep for a fortnight, awaiting the wedding of Prince Llywelyn to the King’s cousin, Lady Elinor de Montfort.
Gwen had not seen her father since that day at Rhuddlan. It was Einion—sweet old Einion as usual—who had explained why she was to be a hostage.
She’d been frightened to death at first, wildly recalling the tales of her grandfather’s confinement as a hostage of King John. Though King Edward was well reputed to have fits of the Plantagenet temper, it was not to the extent of mad King John, and she realized that her father would never put her in danger. She would be brave, and she would make the greatest man in all the world proud to claim her as his daughter.
She had preferred to stay in her rooms, away from the court as often as possible. Windsor overflowed with the English. It mattered not at all that she was a princess. In their eyes, she was a savage, a whore, simply because she came from a land they did not understand.
She thought of the knight called Richard. He represented all she despised, but she could not forget him. Night after night, he haunted her dreams, as real to her as he had been almost a year ago in the stable of Rhuddlan castle.
It was annoying really. He was an arrogant English knight, not at all fit for a princess.
But she had felt so awkward beside him, like she was the servant he’d mistook her for and he was a prince. He was so handsome, and when he’d held her close, she’d thought her heart would come out of her chest.
She’d hoped to see him again in the party of knights who escorted her and the other prisoners to England. Then she’d looked for him at court. But he was gone, as though the stolen moments in the stable had been a figment of her imagination.
Her dreams were strange. Always, a fierce hawk perched upon his arm, its plumage unusual, so dark as to be almost black. Crimson jesses bound its feet and two leashes were attached to it. One dangled free while the other was gripped in the powerful jaws of a golden lion.
Gwen sighed. Why did she let herself think of him?
She was going to marry Rhys ap Gawain. They had pledged long ago to marry each other when they grew up. Gwen toyed with the edge of the coverlet. They were grown up now! She was sixteen and Rhys was nineteen.
Would he want to get married as soon as she returned?
The thought was a little unsettling. They’d been friends for as long as Gwen could remember. When she was four and he was seven, he’d carried her around on
his back, pretending to be her steed.
They’d spent long hours together; climbing trees, exploring the forest, searching caves for King Arthur’s treasure. They’d swam in crystal streams and raced their ponies along the valley floor, they’d fought mock battles with longbows and swords, and planted frogs in the serving women’s beds. During all the laughter and childish pranks, they had pledged to be friends forever. It was only natural they marry one day so they could stay together.
But, when she turned fifteen and he was seventeen, they’d realized you didn’t marry to be friends.
Rhys had taken her hunting that day. They didn’t catch anything because neither of them seemed to have their attention focused on anything but each other. Finally, Rhys had thrown down his longbow and kissed her.
Gwen touched her lips. It had been brief, just a feather-light touch, but everything between them changed. No longer were they just two friends doing the things they’d always done. They were aware of each other on a new level of being, one that was disturbing and exciting all at once.
Gwen never had a chance to find out where that new feeling would have taken them. The war had come and Rhys had gone to fight. Then she was given as a hostage.
And now her dreams were crowded with the image of a tall dark man with eyes of purest silver, a man whose touch had ignited more in its simplicity than ever Rhys’s kiss did.
The door to her chamber opened to admit a petite woman with long blonde hair and sparkling eyes. “Gwen! How is it that you are still abed at this hour?” Elinor asked, skipping to the bed. She threw off the cloak she wore over her chemise and darted beneath the covers. “Ooh, ’tis cold in this old castle!”
“’Tis too nasty to get up just yet,” Gwen replied, snuggling next to her friend.
“Aye, but I am too excited to sleep any longer! I dared not hope that Edward would ever allow me to marry your father.” Elinor sighed and put an arm around Gwen. “Tell me I am not dreaming.”