LadyOfConquest:SaxonBride

by Tamara Leigh

  That he had so easily guessed the truth nearly undid her, but somehow she ordered her face to reflect disbelief rather than dismay. A good thing, for she was not ready to tell him—not when she must herself come to terms with the pregnancy, especially not with the looming battle between William and Edwin.

  “With child?” She laughed. “A woman must miss her time of month for that to be true.”

  “You have not missed yours?”

  How she hated the lie. “I have not.”

  “You are certain?”

  “I am. Though my flow was light this past month, it was present.” And he could not denounce it, for he had been absent from Etcheverry, having been called to Blackspur Castle to settle a dispute between the master mason and his workers.

  Though she tried to quell a nervous swallow, there being too much suspicion in his eyes, it sounded between them. “As we agreed,” she hastened to distract him, “’tis best we wait. Aye?”

  Not that she wanted him to agree—not now—but she needed to send the questions from his mind until she was ready to reveal their child.

  He did not agree, but neither did he disagree. “Go to your rest, then.” He released her, but before she turned away, he said, “Rhiannyn?”

  “Aye?”

  “Were you to become pregnant in spite of our efforts to wait, you would tell me?”

  “I would,” she said and silently added, Eventually.

  She could almost taste his lingering suspicion, but he inclined his head, pivoted, and returned to the high table.

  Once behind the screen, Rhiannyn let her shoulders slump. “Lord, what am I to do?” she whispered.

  The answer was spoken not to her ears, but to her heart. Tell the truth. And soon.

  So he might all the sooner send you away, said that other voice.

  She drew a deep breath. “On the morrow I will tell him. Aye, the morrow.”

  Maxen gripped the back of his neck and rubbed at muscles that had tightened during his exchange with his sister and Sir Guy. They had begun to ease when he had believed Rhiannyn might carry his child, but when she said she did not, they had tightened further.

  Still, though it would mean she lied, it was possible she was pregnant. He was certain he had glimpsed guilt in her eyes and nervousness in the bob of her throat. Of course, perhaps he had merely seen what he wished to see—evidence she was with child. It was something he should not want, not while he still could not claim her as his wife nor prove the Maxen Pendery of Etcheverry was much changed from the one of Hastings.

  “But I do want it,” he rasped. He wanted the miraculous place beneath the hand he laid to Rhiannyn’s belly at night to hold his child—and not just because the coming battle with Harwolfson breathed down his neck and he believed William would more readily accept his vassal’s marriage. He wanted it because, if he was truly capable of love as Christophe believed, it was surely what he felt for his Saxon bride.

  He closed his eyes. “I do want it,” he said again, this time making it a prayer, then added, “if You deem me worthy.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Once the castle had settled into the routine of summer—the ripening of crops and fruit that, God willing, would make Etcheverry self-sufficient the next winter—Rhiannyn found time to take up her loom.

  Sitting with Meghan and four other Saxon women she had enlisted to weave new cloth, she found good conversation with them. They talked, laughed, fell silent, and talked again—of crops to be had, the village being raised, and seasons past.

  Though the winter and spring had not been easy, there was much for which to be thankful, and it was confirmed to Rhiannyn while she sat with the women that the Saxons had invested all of themselves in their new lord. They were Maxen’s now, never again Edwin’s.

  And there was sorrow in that. With each of William’s victories over the rebels, the era which had been the Anglo-Saxons’ buried itself deeper in the past and, eventually, it would be no more. Unless Edwin succeeded where no others had…

  “I’ve counted more than a dozen,” one of the women said. “A busy winter ’twas.”

  The others chuckled with her.

  “A dozen?” Rhiannyn said, her thoughts having slipped away from their conversation.

  “Aye, and there will be more.”

  Rhiannyn met the woman’s gaze. “More of what?”

  “Why, women getting with child. Dreamin’, are ye?”

  Rhiannyn squelched the impulse to touch her abdomen that had yet to grow round, and once more took up her shuttle. The morrow that she had promised herself had not come, for she had still to tell Maxen the truth. Indeed, it was now a fortnight since he had asked if she was pregnant.

  Resolving to tell him this eve, she rejoined the women’s conversation.

  “Think you a crown of flowers would suffice?” Elan’s pert voice interrupted a short while later.

  None having heard her approach, two shuttles dropped to the floor.

  Rhiannyn retrieved hers. “Would it suffice for what, Lady Elan?” she asked.

  “My wedding, of course! What else might I speak of?”

  Aye, what else? Rhiannyn mused. Leaning near her loom, she traced down the warp thread she had last passed her shuttle over. “A crown of flowers would be lovely,” she said and returned to weaving.

  Elan stepped near, placing her very pregnant figure alongside the loom so Rhiannyn was forced to look at her. “You are not interested, are you?” she accused.

  Rhiannyn stifled a sigh and sat back on her stool. “Of course I am. Now out of which flowers would you like to fashion your crown?”

  She beamed. “Violets and columbines.”

  “Lovely.”

  “Or roses.”

  “I like roses.”

  Elan scowled. “Which do you prefer?”

  “For me, violets and columbines, but with your coloring, roses might better suit you. What does your betrothed think?”

  She shrugged. “I meant to ask him, but he is nowhere to be found.”

  “He and Maxen are walking out the village.”

  “What do you mean walking out?”

  Meghan snickered.

  Rhiannyn shot the woman a warning look and said, “They are laying its bounds.”

  Elan made a sound of disgust. “Dreary.”

  “But necessary.”

  “I do not see as it is.”

  At rare times, the young woman seemed aged beyond her years, but most often she was the child she presented this day. What made Sir Guy love her? Though Elan behaved better in his presence, did he not notice how she was with others?

  Such a strange thing love is, she reflected, forgetting Elan and Guy for the moment and thinking instead of Maxen and their child. Love was indeed strange—and painful.

  “I shall need new cloth for my wedding gown,” Elan announced and skimmed her fingers over the hand’s width of lavender cloth at the bottom of Rhiannyn’s loom.

  “What color are you thinking?” Rhiannyn asked.

  “This is lovely.”

  More snickering, though this time from one other than Meghan.

  Rhiannyn smiled at her sister-in-law. “Surely you know how to weave.”

  “I do, but I am not very accomplished.”

  Though Rhiannyn knew it would be easier if she offered what Elan was not so subtly asking, she also knew it would be better if the young woman did it herself. “I will teach you,” she said.

  Elan appeared dismayed, then affronted. “If you have not noticed, I am pregnant.”

  “As if one could not notice!” Meghan said.

  The other women laughed.

  “Why, you…you…” Elan sputtered. “…ungrateful Saxon.”

  Rhiannyn pushed to her feet, took Elan’s elbow, and pressed her down on the stool. “Here”—she placed the shuttle in Elan’s hand—“hold it like this.”

  Elan started to rise.

  Rhiannyn eased her back down. “Now draw nearer.”

  �
�I do not care to waste my time weaving,” Elan protested.

  “Do you not wish the most beautiful gown in which to wed your knight?” Rhiannyn asked, hoping to turn Elan’s vanity on her.

  She opened her mouth as if to speak against it, closed her mouth, and some moments later said, “I will have the most beautiful gown.”

  “Then there is no time to waste.” Rhiannyn began instructing her in the art of weaving.

  To her surprise, it was not futile. After a time, Elan began to apply herself. And later, when talk among the women resumed, she occasioned to join in, and even laughed with the others. It seemed a miracle, but it was cut short by Christophe’s arrival in the hall.

  Breathing hard, he gasped, “The king is come!”

  Rhiannyn straightened. “Come?” she said, hoping she misunderstood.

  Christophe nodded. “With an entourage so great ’tis all you can see from the wall to the wood. Soldiers, Lady Rhiannyn. A thousand or more.”

  With the passing of spring, Rhiannyn had harbored hope Maxen might not be summoned, but his time had come. Although her short pregnancy had been uneventful, she felt the faintness and nausea Elan had suffered in the early months. With only the loom to steady her, she curled her fingers around it and leaned as much of her weight on it as its frame could bear.

  “Nay,” she whispered, squeezing her eyes closed.

  “You should sit down.” Christophe gripped her arm, and she wondered how he had so quickly gained her side.

  Opening her eyes, she peered into his anxious face. “I am fine, just a bit…”

  “You are frightened.” It was Elan who spoke, who lifted her ungainly body from the stool and put a hand on Rhiannyn’s shoulder.

  The gesture brought tears to Rhiannyn’s eyes. “Aye, I fear for Maxen.”

  “He does not need your fear,” Christophe said, though his own fear was visible. “He needs your strength.”

  Did he? Of that she was not certain, but she released the loom, drew herself to her last hair of height, and looked into the expectant faces of the Saxon women. “There is much to do ere William the—”

  She shook her head. It was of no benefit to call the conqueror that other name which acknowledged he was ill-gotten upon a tanner’s daughter.

  “There is much to do ere our king enters the hall,” she corrected and drew a deep breath. “Clear the looms,” she ordered two women. “Send word to Mildreth and Lucilla we have visitors,” she commanded another. “Instruct the servants to position the tables. Fetch the linens and spread them on the tables.” And to a passing servant, she called, “Tell the butler to bring barrels of wine and ale into the hall, and begin filling pitchers.”

  “What would you have me do?” Elan asked.

  Rhiannyn nearly declined her offer, but from the look on the young woman’s face, it was the wrong course. “You may scatter herbs over the rushes,” she said, wishing she had replaced the floor covering days earlier.

  Inwardly, she sighed. If William did not turn up his nose at treading upon the broken and bloodied bodies of men, he could hardly take offense at rushes smelling of mildew and whatever other foul things were trapped in them.

  “Can you do that?” she asked Elan.

  “Certainly.”

  An odd creature, Rhiannyn thought, and almost liked her in that moment.

  “I would offer to help as well,” Christophe said, “but Maxen said I should return as soon as I delivered the message.”

  Rhiannyn nodded. “You can assure him we will be ready to receive the…king.”

  Christophe gave her an understanding smile and hastened from the hall.

  Rhiannyn turned to the lord’s chamber that, this eve, would be occupied by the conqueror if he deigned to pass the night at Etcheverry. The linens must be replaced, the basins emptied, the surfaces dusted, the tub wiped clean…

  CHAPTER FORTY

  So this was the one born of the tanner’s daughter, Rhiannyn thought.

  At the head of those entering the hall alongside Maxen strode the man who had claimed the crown of England, causing vast quantities of Anglo-Saxon blood to soak the ground—so much it was said the water carried up from wells near Hastings yet tasted of blood.

  Rhiannyn glanced at Elan, who stood beside her. Noting the young woman’s nervousness—twining hands, sharp breaths, flickering lids—she looked closer upon the one who seemed the cause of it.

  Odd, she mused, I did not imagine William would have so human a face.

  Deceptively human, she silently corrected.

  The king—she must not forget who he was—halted when he came even with her and appreciatively swept his gaze over her. “I see the reason you have shut yourself up at Etcheverry, Pendery.” He took a step nearer, peered so close upon Rhiannyn it was all she could do to keep her feet firm to the floor. “Quite the beauty.”

  “My liege, I present Lady Rhiannyn of Etcheverry,” Maxen attended to the formalities with a chill voice that frightened Rhiannyn more than the king’s gaze. Though certain her husband could best his lord, that did not mean he would prevail. A king was not one man but many—indeed, a horde, and all with blades eager for bloodletting.

  Blessedly, William seemed not to notice Maxen’s tone. “Lady, hmm?”

  “Aye,” Maxen said, “Lady Rhiannyn manages my household.”

  A flare of discomfort—that she was mistress of Etcheverry, and yet believed to be a leman—shot through Rhiannyn. But it was what she must be to William, and she was grateful that though his eyes danced with the belief it was all she was, he was not so coarse to voice it.

  “I am your king,” he said, continuing to regard her from a height equaled by two others in the hall—Maxen and an older man who stood alongside her husband. “Do you speak Norman French?”

  Rhiannyn inclined her head.

  The usurper’s slight smile slipped. “I am your king,” he repeated, “King William of England.”

  The prideful Saxon in Rhiannyn tempted her to argue, but she sealed her lips and stole a glance past the man dominating the space before her. She was comforted by the reassurance in Maxen’s eyes. There was something else there, but before she could interpret it, William barked, “Have you no knees, woman?”

  That was the other thing in Maxen’s eyes. She was to bow to this man who was responsible for the deaths of all in her family. She would much rather spit in his eye, smack the fury from his face, walk upon his grave, see him to the devil—

  A jab to her calf yanked her back to the moment, and she saw it was Elan who had struck her, she who had gone to her knees before her king.

  For Maxen, Rhiannyn told herself and lifted her skirts clear. For him alone she would bend before this ungodly man. She lowered herself and waited with bowed head for him to order her to stand.

  He caught her chin and lifted it. Towering above her, he seemed to have grown twice the size, but she tamped down fear and held his gaze.

  “A Saxon through and through,” he said.

  Holding her breath lest she offend by releasing it on his hand, she peeked at Maxen and regretted that he was so tense. Of her doing, she knew. He feared for her, and rightfully so.

  For Maxen, she told herself again and said, “Oui, I am Saxon, Your Majesty, and a loyal subject. One, I fear, who has much to learn of what is expected of her in this new England you have made.” Desecrated, was the better word—providing she did not care whether she lived or died.

  William’s face remained austere, his gaze hard. But then his countenance cracked into a smile. “At leasts she respects one Norman,” he said and looked to Maxen. “You must please her mightily.”

  The king laughed, and the others laughed with him—except Maxen, who managed a tolerant smile.

  Shamed to her toes, Rhiannyn struggled to keep from yanking her chin out of the man’s grip.

  At the end of his laughter, William, said, “You will come to respect me, Rhiannyn of Etcheverry. Perhaps even like me.”

  How was she to respon
d? Fortunately, she did not have to, for with his next breath he ordered both women to rise.

  Rhiannyn complied, and seeing Elan struggle to lift her bulk, reached to assist her. However, it was Maxen who pulled his sister to standing.

  Trying to regain her dignity in spite of a belly so far gone with pregnancy it seemed she might topple, Elan smoothed her skirts and stepped around her brother.

  “Father,” she addressed the older man who shared height with Maxen and the king.

  “Daughter,” the man acknowledged her.

  Rhiannyn almost laughed at how blind she was not to have noticed the resemblance between father and son. Both broad, both dark haired—though the sire’s hair was liberally awash with silver—and both of strong countenance. Remove twenty and more years from the father, and before her would stand a man who might be Maxen’s twin.

  But there was nothing humorous about finding not only the conqueror in her home, but Maxen’s father.

  “Bring on the food!” William ordered and turned toward the tables. Shortly, he was settled in the high seat upon the dais.

  Though Rhiannyn knew that wherever the king went in his realm, his place was the highest, her resentment flared that he took what was Maxen’s. Just as William had taken what had been King Harold’s.

  “I like this neck,” Maxen murmured and lightly trailed a finger to the hollow of her throat. “Pray, do not press the king so hard I will have to go to great lengths to save it.”

  She looked up at where he had drawn close and nearly yielded to the longing to go into his arms.

  Her black mood easing, she managed a smile.

  “Good,” he said low, “but can you hold onto your smile while I present you to my sire?”

  She glanced at the man and had but a moment to study him before he moved his gaze to her. There was no mistaking his dislike, nor the accusation in his eyes. Just as Elan had first regarded her as being responsible for Thomas’s death, so did the father who had put the belief in his daughter’s head. And he hated her for it.