The Welshman's Bride

by Margaret Moore

  “A charming sentiment, Mair,” Dylan said as he made another grimace, although whether from the pain of his leg or at her speech, Genevieve didn’t know.

  Then he grinned. “You know you have my thanks.”

  “You found him?” Genevieve asked.

  “Aye, I did, and it’s a good thing I did.” Mair’s expression altered slightly. “Must have had quite a reason for doing such a stupid thing, I’m thinking.”

  “I did. Love.”

  “Let me through.”

  Lady Roanna hurried toward them and everyone parted to let her near. With deft fingers she began to undo the bandage. As she did so, Dylan’s hands squeezed Genevieve’s, and he cursed softly.

  “It’s broken,” her ladyship observed briskly.

  “I thought as much,” Dylan muttered sardonically.

  “I am going to have to set it right away. Everyone should leave except Emryss and Griffydd. Genevieve, please go to the kitchen and fetch some hot water, and tell Bronwyn I will need lots of bandages. And someone should prepare the chamber in the west tower.”

  “I’m not leaving,” Genevieve said firmly as the servants and workmen began to depart. “Mair can go to the kitchen.”

  “This is not going to pleasant,” Dylan said grimly. “I don’t think you should be here—”

  “I do.” She regarded him steadily. “It is my duty.”

  His brow furrowed in a way that had nothing to do with the pain in his leg.

  “And my wish,” she added tenderly, and her reward was his smile.

  Lady Roanna glanced at her husband and son, then nodded. “Very well. Emryss, you hold down one shoulder, Griffydd the other.”

  Her gaze softened with sympathy as she regarded Genevieve. “Don’t look, dear.”

  Genevieve did look, and later, when she considered how Dylan had managed to keep mostly silent as Lady Roanna set his leg, she admired him all the more.

  Now, she sat on a stool beside the bed upon which he lay, his face pale as he slept. Lady Roanna had insisted rest was the best thing, and prepared a draft to lessen the pain and enable him to sleep. While Genevieve wanted nothing more than to talk to him, she had deferred to the older woman’s medical opinion.

  Besides, she rationalized as she held his hand, she could just sit and look at him for hours anyway.

  “My lady?”

  She turned to see Mair in the doorway, a cup in her hand. “I’ve brought you something to drink, since you won’t leave him.”

  Genevieve smiled. “No, I won’t leave him ever again, unless he asks me.”

  Mair came into the room and regarded the slumbering Dylan with a sympathetic, even maternal expression. “He looks like an angel when he’s asleep, though he’s a devil when he’s awake.”

  “I think he’s an angel all the time.”

  “O’r anwyl, my lady, you must be deep in love if you think Dylan DeLanyea isn’t Satan’s own temptation in the flesh when he’s awake and walking around.”

  Genevieve didn’t answer as Mair handed her the cup filled with fresh, cold water.

  “Lady Roanna thinks he might have a limp, he was so long wounded before I found him.”

  “As long as it does not get infected,” Genevieve said anxiously.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t worry yourself about that,” Mair replied. “Lady Roanna learned from old Mamaeth herself, that died this past winter. There wasn’t nothing that woman didn’t know about healing.”

  “Do you really think so?”

  Mair smiled kindly. “Aye, my lady, I really do.” Then she got a mischievous twinkle in her eye. “Your holding his hand all night will probably help, too.”

  Genevieve looked away as an idea bloomed in her mind.

  “What is it?”

  “Oh, nothing important.”

  “Yes, it is,” Mair declared, coming around the bed to stare at Genevieve in the most disconcerting way.

  “I was just wondering if Lady Roanna might know if there is something I could do...some medicine I could take to get with child.”

  Mair frowned. “Ask her, if you like. But I would say a man who risks his life is deep in love, too, whether there will be children or not.”

  Genevieve started as Dylan’s hand suddenly squeezed hers. She looked at him, but he still slept peacefully. Perhaps it was no more than a dream.

  “I...I have been wanting to ask you this for a long time, Mair, because I think you are a sensible woman. Do you believe what Angharad says about the future?”

  “I try not to listen to her at any time.”

  Genevieve continued to regard Mair steadily. “But do you believe her?”

  “She has an uncanny knack of being right, I’m sorry to say.”

  “Oh,” Genevieve said with a sigh. “Even about you and Trystan?”

  Surprisingly, Mair suddenly looked angry and suspicious. “What about me and Trystan?”

  “Don’t you know?”

  “No! And I don’t want to know! Me and that prim, arrogant little squint? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve heard in my life! I’d rather go without a man the rest of my life than be with that one!”

  “Then let us all pray Angharad is wrong,” Dy-lan said softly, opening his eyes to look from one to the other.

  “You’re supposed to be asleep!” Genevieve cried.

  “How can a man sleep with all this chatter?” he demanded.

  Genevieve flushed guiltily while Mair sniffed disdainfully. “How long have you been listening?”

  “Long enough. Now if you will please excuse us, Mair, I have to have my rest. It felt like Lady Roanna was trying to twist off my leg when she set it.”

  “All right, then,” Mair said sourly. She went to the door. “Glad I am you’re not dead,” she muttered as she went out and closed the door behind her.

  “She doesn’t sound very glad,” Dylan observed wryly as he stifled a yawn. “Anwyl, what was in that potion?” He shifted and grimaced, although he tried to make it look like a grin.

  “I misspoke, but I thought she would already know what Angharad said about her and Trystan.”

  “Nobody dared tell her. She’s hated Trystan for years, and he doesn’t like her, either. Now come here and sit by me. I will have you close as I can get you.”

  “If I sit on the bed, I might hurt your leg.”

  “Damn my leg.” He grinned drowsily. “It’s my arms you should be worried about, because I’m going to put them around you and never let you go.”

  “How can I refuse?”

  Moving carefully, she gingerly sat on the edge of the bed. “Lady Roanna thinks you will have to stay in bed for a while.”

  “I will have to find a way to endure,” he said with a mockery of resignation he took no pains to make sincere. “But I am anxious to get home, although you may not be when you see how things have fared without you.”

  “As long as you obey Lady Roanna’s orders. I will not have you worse.”

  “Mair spoke the truth about Lady Roanna. She is very skilled in healing.”

  “I am glad to hear it.”

  Dylan moved slightly, turning his head to regard her tenderly. “You can ask her about the other, too. But believe me, Genevieve, it is you I love and need.”

  “I want to have your children so much, Dylan!”

  “And maybe you will. Or maybe you won’t Either way, I shall love you just the same.”

  “Truly?”

  “Indeed, I love you enough to go out into another storm as soon as one offers to prove it, broken leg or no.”

  “Promise me you won’t do that!”

  “You might change your mind, if I neglect to tell you how pleasant you made Beaufort. I’m sorry I never said so before. Can you forgive me for that, too?”

  “Yes, if you can forgive me for being so fussy and particular, and cross all the time.”

  He caressed her satiny cheek. “You were worried and upset, and I should have done more to comfort you, and to make you see that your love is m
ore than enough to content me.

  “Genevieve,” he continued gravely, “in a way, I shall be glad if you do not bear children. When I think of how Griffydd almost lost Seona—”

  A woman’s delicate cough made them turn toward the door, where Lady Roanna stood holding fresh bandages and the bottle of sleeping potion. “Mair told me you were awake, Dylan, and I came to change your bandage.”

  “I will do it,” Genevieve offered, “if you will show me.”

  Smiling her calm, beatific smile, Lady Roanna came toward the bed. “Of course. I would be happy to.”

  The lesson proceeded apace, with only a few growls from the patient as they unwrapped and rebandaged his leg.

  “The color is good, and he has no fever. You are a strong and healthy man, Dylan, and for that you should be thankful.”

  “I do have much to be thankful for,” the pale, weary nobleman replied.

  “So do we all,” Lady Roanna agreed.

  “You are very skilled,” Genevieve observed.

  “I had an excellent teacher.” Lady Roanna glanced at her, and Genevieve was a little taken aback by the gleam of mischief in her eyes. “Although she was often cross and rarely patient.”

  Her regard returned to Dylan. “Drink this, and sleep.”

  “I don’t want to sleep. I want to be with Genevieve,” he said with a boyish sulk.

  “Not even a broken leg will deter you, is that it?” Lady Roanna chided.

  Genevieve colored, and Dylan grinned. “I didn’t mean that—for once.”

  “Drink this,” the lady ordered, and in a tone that clearly said the joking was over.

  Dylan grudgingly obeyed, then lay back upon the pillow. “Anwyl. that tastes terrible. If I didn’t know you better, my lady, I’d swear you were trying to poison me.”

  His eyelids started to droop. “Genevieve, as you love me and if I must drink it again, try and persuade her to make it taste better.”

  “I will, my love.”

  “Good. I know I can count on you....” His voice trailed off into a low sigh, and his eyes closed. In another moment, his chest rose and fell with the soft, even breathing of a slumbering man.

  Lady Roanna looked at Genevieve. “He will sleep soundly for some time. Why don’t you come to the hall and sup with us?”

  “If you please, my lady,” Genevieve said, “I would like to stay with him.”

  Lady Roanna smiled. “Since I have given him a sleeping draft strong enough for a horse, I suppose he—and you—will not get into any mischief, although,” she mused as she looked at her foster son, “who can say what Dylan is capable of when he is so much in love?”

  Genevieve blushed, and then resolved to ask her question. “Lady Roanna, Mair thought I should ask you.... I am not yet with child, and she thought...that is, I hope...”

  Lady Roanna’s expression grew tenderly sympathetic. “All I know is superstition, not medicine, for such things. When all is said and done, my dear, I think it is best to pray.”

  Genevieve smiled peacefully.

  “I will pray and hope, my lady,” the young woman replied softly. Then she looked at her sleeping husband. “But if I am not blessed with a child, I will take comfort in knowing I am still more to be envied than pitied, because Dylan DeLanyea loves me.”

  Lady Roanna hugged her tenderly. “You are indeed a lucky woman, Genevieve, and he is a lucky man. I am fortunate to know you both.”

  She drew back and smiled warmly. “I leave him to your care, then. Good night, Genevieve.”

  “Good night, my lady.”

  When Lady Roanna was gone, Genevieve carefully crept onto the bed to lie beside her sleeping husband. She put her arm over him lovingly, took his hand in hers and laid her cheek on his broad shoulder, happy and content.

  His hand clutched hers tightly, for even though he slept, Dylan sensed that he was no longer alone. Genevieve was beside him, loving him as he loved her.

  And he smiled.

  ISBN : 978-1-4592-5074-1

  THE WELSHMAN’S BRIDE

  Copyright © 1999 by Margaret Wilkins

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