Outside the door to their bedchamber, Eluned paused and leaned against the stone wall. He was here. He was safe. That was what mattered, above all else. There should be no reason for her to fear facing him, for her to shrink away from it like a girl caught out. She was too old for such childish worries, but still she wanted to weep at the thought that perhaps he did not like her very much.
When she entered he was looking with a frown at the psalter that had belonged to her uncle, where it sat on a little table near the bed. His finger was on it, tracing the jewels set in the cover, but he turned away when he heard her. He busied himself by sitting on the only chair, taking off his boots, and knocking the clumps of mud off them.
“You were not hurt when they captured you?” she asked in a voice that seemed impossibly small.
“Nay.”
“They did treat you with honor?”
“Aye, it was a very civilized abduction.”
The dry irony was in his voice again. He reached for a square of cloth that hung beside the hearth and began to wipe the mud that clung to the boot in his hand. She wanted to laugh and be easy, to tell him to leave this work for a servant, to join her in the bed. Instead she sat on the edge of the bed, watched his hands working across the leather, and said, “I am sorry.” His hands stopped. “It was my sin, and almost did you pay the price of it.”
He looked at her, and she saw it was not this that troubled him. “Would you have killed them?”
She took a breath and returned his look. “They were never in the least danger. I knew Mortimer loved them too well to risk them. That is why I took them, because I was sure of it.”
“And if he had refused to let me go, kept me imprisoned? Or injured me? Or slain me?”
“That is why I wasted no time in getting to you.”
“You do not answer my question.”
Her lips pinched together, and his gaze went there to her mouth. He knew her too well, and knew when she bit back words. She knew him, too, and knew he was thinking of his friend’s son who had been Mortimer’s prisoner for more than a year and who had never been threatened with a weapon in all that time.
“What would I do if he had killed you? I know not, Robert. That is the truth of it.”
“You would have killed his children in revenge?”
“I cannot say what I would do, for I cannot contemplate a world without you.” The truth was unnerving, terrible to see. But she would not turn away from it, or pretend she was something she was not. “You are my heart, Robert. If they kill you, they make me heartless.”
She could hear men below their window in the yard, talking loudly and laughing. They seemed a thousand miles from this room where the only man she had ever loved sat across from her in an endless silence.
“Eighteen – no, nineteen years ago now,” she said finally, “I risked my soul to eternal hellfire to be with you. Did you not know even then the kind of woman I am? If you would love me, you cannot love only the woman who lies with you among the flowers and laughs and sings. You must love also the woman who will bring the whole world to wrack and ruin if she loses you again, and who will scorch the earth to save you.”
He did not look away. He only said, “You will not do evil in my name or for my sake. If it comes to that, remember this moment, and that I made you swear it.”
She nodded solemnly. “And so I do swear it.”
A strange and unexpected relief flowed through her, and something in his expression relaxed. He dropped the forgotten boot to the floor.
“Think you I do not know the fire in you, that I have loved the memory of some sweet and guileless girl? Such a one could never burn so bright and hot that I am kept warm by the memory for eighteen long years.”
He leaned forward to catch her hand, and pulled her toward him until she was close enough to kiss soundly. “I only ask you do not make such a tangle that you must threaten to scorch the earth again.”
She gave a choked laugh into the side of his neck, settling into his lap. Now, with his arms strong around her, she began to tremble a little. “I am sorry,” she said again. “He suspected you because of me. Whatever might have befallen you, it would have been my doing.”
“Well,” he said with his mouth against her temple, a smile in his voice, “You might have confessed it to Mortimer and spared him that scene yesterday.”
“I thought of it,” she told him, and felt him stiffen in surprise. “I would have, but I feared he would only accuse us both of acting as one.”
She kissed him again, to stop the shaking that had taken root deep inside, reaction to the threat of losing him. He was warm and alive and in her arms, and eventually his hands were pushing off her headdress, his mouth on her neck. She found the ties to his jerkin and pulled at them until it was loose, then answered the low rumble of desire in his throat by keeping her mouth on his as she stood and pulled him to the bed.
He was only a little taller, and their eyes were level when they stood like this. It struck her again, how good and gentle he was, how there was nothing menacing or intimidating in his person or manner, and never had been. “In faith, you meant it,” she asked, still a little disbelieving, “that you love even the ruthless part of me?”
He held her face in his hands. “I will tell you true, Eluned, that there has been only one thing in you that has ever given me pause. It is no failing of yours, but my own vanity.” He hesitated, and she saw resentment in the set of his mouth for the barest instant. “You stopped loving me, when we were parted. You put it away, like a deck of playing cards, when I could not. It is an easy thing to forgive, for we were so certain never to meet again, and now I can see that I should not have held on so tight to it for so long.”
“You think…” She blinked at him. “You think I stopped loving you in truth, for all those years?” She shook her head. “I will love you until I die, Robin. I said that once, and meant it. It was as true then as it is true now.”
But she could see he did not fully believe her, that he thought she spoke pretty words only to soothe him. Her hands covered his, where they rested at the sides of her face. She tried to conjure the words to make him understand, but knew there were none. “Cariad,” she whispered, and pulled away from him.
The ivory box was on the mantel shelf, and the key was on a long ribbon in the purse that hung from her belt. She took it out, pausing a moment to stroke a finger over the silver button that hung with the key. How small and how important, these sentimental tokens of young love. She reached into the ivory box, then turned back and walked the few steps to where he stood. He had dreamed of this, he said – of loving her as they grew old together. How could he think she would not dream as far and as long as he?
She kissed him as she had used to do in a secret clearing, in a time and a place that was theirs alone. And just as he had done every time they met, she slipped the little stone into his palm. He raised his hand between them, looking at it in amazement, its rosy sheen undiminished by the years.
“It hurt too much to want you, when I knew I could not have you.” She lifted his other hand and kissed his fingers. “But never did I stop loving you.”
“You kept it,” he breathed, still staring in wonder at the humble pink stone. “All those years, you kept it.”
She waited for him to raise his eyes to hers again. “I knew I could not call you to me. But I wanted to, my Robin. I always wanted to.”
They followed the ritual, begun when they were young and interrupted for too many years: their mouths joined, the stone passed between their hands, their clothes falling away as they reached for one another. He kissed her, made her all his own again, and she called up the best parts of herself to give to him in unreserved joy.
Epilogue
The Fair
There were many more expedient ways to get her out of bed than this, but he could not resist the rare chance to kiss her awake. She always rose up from the warmth of the bed like a flower out of the ground, unfolding herself to the su
n.
“Cariad, you must rise,” he said between kisses, with a laughable attempt at admonishment, because she seemed more interested in him than in waking. “Come, the day awaits and you will be loath to waste these morning hours.”
“Waste?” She laughed, her head tilted back, the teardrop mark on her throat tempting him. Her hands stayed at his waist, smoothing over his skin, pushing up his tunic until she could lean forward and touch her mouth to the plane of his stomach.
“You were my first kiss, Robin,” she murmured, “and the only man who has ever kissed me.” Now she rested her chin on his belly and turned her sleepy gray eyes up to him. “I am owed eighteen full years of kisses. I mean to collect on my debt.”
She returned to kissing his stomach, her fingers pulling at the ties of his braies. He could not quite find it in himself to push her away but before he lost all control of himself, he summoned up every ounce of gallantry he possessed to say, “Aye, and God help the man who withholds what is rightfully yours, but they are arriving today.”
She pulled back, startled. “Today?”
He nodded. “They sent a rider ahead, who says they will be here by mid-morning.”
She was already out of bed even before he had finished speaking, running to the door to call for her servant.
“I must dress, have you informed the kitchens? No, I should do it, I must tell them to put some of the goose fat aside, but has the wine arrived? Where is that girl Catrin, she knows she should await outside my door, and have you seen Nan this morning?”
He stopped the whirlwind of words and motion by putting his arms around her waist from behind while her hands were raised in the task of raking the tousled braid out of her hair. “Cariad,” he said soothingly into her ear, and felt her go still under her hands. “The chamberlain greeted the messenger and even now prepares everything. The wine was delivered this morning. I sent Catrin to fetch Nan and some bread, and now I will have your promise that you won’t forget to eat in all the excitement.”
It was always the first task she forgot on any day where there was much to do. That described most days since they had come to Dinwen, and he did not doubt their future days would be even busier, as the castle Darian had only begun to be built. Even when his own day was so full that he could barely remember to breathe, he never forgot to eat. Therefore he had made it his private little concern that she was properly nourished, just as she was forever reminding him to wear thicker hose and boots, so often did he misjudge the cold.
“I will eat.” Her hands covered his and gave them a gentle squeeze. She pulled away and turned to him, a smile bursting forth on her face. “They are coming,” she said, and her chin lifted high in that way she’d had in her youth and that had been lost for so long – as though the world were hanging before her, and she would take a bite of it.
He would have kissed her again, but she was in motion already. Instead he went to see that enough of the new wine was brought up to the buttery, and opened a bottle of the finer vintage to sample. It was better than last year’s attempt, and he was glad to have something so impressive to serve. He would be sure to send some bottles of this to Simon, with suggestions on how next year’s batch might be even more improved. His brother would go to France in the spring, and was eager for as much instruction as Robert could give.
When the party arrived, he stood in the yard with Eluned to greet them. But when Eluned rushed forward, he stayed where he was and observed from a few paces away. So did the others. Only when she pushed back her hood did he realize it was a woman on horseback. She was uncommonly tall and broad, and she leapt from the mount without any assistance at all – more like a man than a woman. She only stood, looking down at her mother until Eluned embraced her.
Robert waited, not wanting to interrupt their reunion. When Eluned had determined that they could not leave to visit Morency until next summer, Gwenllian had said she would not wait for another year to go by. She and her family were to stay here for the whole of the Christmas season, but he scanned the small number of riders with her and did not see Ranulf.
“You look well.” Gwenllian’s eyes were sweeping over Eluned’s face. They were exactly like her mother’s – wide and gray, framed by a thick fringe of long, black lashes. “You look so well.”
“As do you.” Though Robert could not see her face, he could hear that Eluned was near to tears. “But where are your children?”
“They come with their nurse, who is too slow for me, and my lord husband. Half an hour behind me, no more.” Gwenllian wrapped her arms around her mother. “You look so well.”
Robert turned to the chamberlain, who hovered at his elbow, and distracted himself with talk about the wine stores until he felt the two women approaching him and heard Eluned say, “My lord husband is curious to meet you.”
Gwenllian was responding with something about how she too was curious because everyone but herself had already met him, when she broke off, looking at him. Robert found himself as arrested as she was when he met her gaze. She looked nothing like her mother except for her eyes, and at first glance he saw that the look in them was different in essence from Eluned. There were no shifting secrets or hidden depths there, no banked fire. Instead there was a kind of serenity and clarity, a centeredness that was disconcerting when it should not be. It matched the way she held herself and moved, with a balance and grace that was wholly unexpected in someone her size. She was frowning in confusion and then, as he watched, she recognized him.
“I remember you!” she gasped. She stared at him in wonder, her mouth slowly dropping open as she looked to her mother and then back him. “You danced–” She stopped herself from saying more, suddenly conscious, and dropped into a very brief and awkward courtesy that allowed her to drop her eyes.
He looked to Eluned, whose lips were pinched shut, her cheeks turning pink. He gave her the crooked smile that never failed to soften her, and she covered a startled laugh with a small cough followed by a query about the roads. Gwenllian looked at her in shock, and then back to him in unabated amazement.
They talked of the journey here and a wide variety of mutual acquaintances as they waited for the rest of the party to arrive. They spoke of William’s plans to visit France next year, of a Welsh cousin named Davydd who lived at Morency and hoped to wed in the spring, and of Kit, with whom Ranulf had stayed on his journey from court last year and become great friends. Kit would come too, with his wife and other children, to pass the Christmas season.
At the mention of his friend, Robert looked around the yard in search of little Robin. He found the boy standing very near to Nan, whose virtual absolute silence Robin seemed to value greatly. The boy had grown shy during his time as a hostage, and had been so tongue-tied during Ranulf’s stay in his household that he’d never said a word to the man, even in greeting. But Robin had confided that he wanted more than anything to see Ranulf of Morency’s skill with a sword.
Robert said so to Gwenllian, who replied, “Nor do I doubt he will be glad to give the boys a show, and if it is done today when he is weary from travel, there is yet the chance that he might be bested.”
“He is never bested,” came the sudden response from Robin, who retreated a half-step behind Nan as though surprised by his own boldness.
“So do all men tell me,” she answered mildly, then turned to the sound of her husband arriving.
Gwenllian reached up and took a child from the nurse’s arms, while Ranulf lowered their older boy down from the saddle they shared. She brought them forward and said, “Henry, this is your grandmother.”
The boy looked between Eluned and Gwenllian for an anxious moment before taking a breath and giving an almost lengthy speech in Welsh. Robert recognized some of it – well-loved, and may God bless this household, and honor, memory – and knew that the boy was not parroting words in a language unknown to him.
Eluned covered her mouth briefly, to stop the trembling of her lips, before she stooped down to the boy and put a han
d on his shoulder. She spoke in Welsh, and Robert understood enough to know she said, “Wales lives on in you, beloved.”
Then she rose onto her toes to press a kiss to Gwenllian’s cheek, and took the baby from her. Little Madog was beginning to cry, but Eluned soothed him easily and continued to speak to Henry in Welsh, telling him to follow her as she led him on a meandering path around the yard. In the meantime, Ranulf had seen Robin and began to draw him out. The boy had a look of hero-worship on his face, and Robert thought he might actually have begun to drool when Ranulf pulled his sword from his scabbard to show it.
Gwenllian stood next to Robert, watching her mother with her sons. Her expression was unreadable, but he thought she saw what he did when he looked at Eluned now – that she was quicker to smile, less impatient, and that she moved differently, as if all her muscles and joints had been loosened a little.
“She is teaching Henry all the words to do with horses which are different in the dialect she grew up speaking. How could she know how well he will love that?” Gwenllian wondered. She turned those disconcerting eyes to Robert for a long moment of assessment before returning her gaze to her mother. “My husband has said you love my mother very well.”
Robert nodded. “In faith, he was surprised to know it. He was inclined to amazement that any man could love her.” He watched her eyes flick to Ranulf, and sensed her tension. He grinned. “His amazement died when I asked him if he thought you could come from a woman any less remarkable than you are.”
She had a serious air about her, so he knew the slight twitch at the corner of her lip was a rare and wonderful thing. “Haps that is why he has taken to saying that our sons will grow to be as fierce as lions, and we must guard against their pride. Their inheritance will be my ferocity and his arrogance.”
He laughed and said low, “I have heard his arrogance was bested by your ferocity, despite what all men say.”
Fair, Bright, and Terrible Page 24