Desire Lines (Welsh Blades, #3)

by Elizabeth Kingston

  Her lady waited for her there, alone. Lord Robert would not come. It was not to be that kind of meeting.

  Nan made her courtesy, troubled by her stained kerchief, the coarseness of her dress, and most of all that Lady Eluned stood at the window and did not look out at the sky, but at Nan. When the refreshment was set out and the others left them alone, she felt her lady’s eyes on her. She could not seem to meet them.

  “Sit, Nan, and eat.”

  Lady Eluned filled two cups with honeyed water and added a touch of the wine. It was the good kind, the best their French vineyards had to offer. Nan knew it by the color and the scent.

  It should not be so difficult. She had done this before. But it always took every ounce of boldness she had, to sit down with a great lady and take a cup that had been poured by her hand. Now she clutched the cup and stared at the food until Lady Eluned tipped the jug of wine again, adding a bit more to Nan’s cup.

  “Drink, Nan.” And because even her most gentle voice was bred to command, Nan obeyed.

  When Lady Eluned had first given her a coin all those years ago, neither of them could have thought it would turn out like this. It started as a simple request, a moment’s transaction that tangled the life of a serving girl with that of a great lady, whose rival was a monstrous and lustful lord. It ended with Oliver dead, and Nan scarred but saved – and with this undying gratitude, these deep bonds. There was no such thing as silence between them, not truly. Still, she braced herself for the words that must be spoken.

  “Your sister,” said Lady Eluned. Not a question or a command. Just an offering, an opening. Just a word, with a wealth of understanding behind it.

  “She is a whore and a bawd, outside the walls of Lincoln.” Nan watched shadows drift across the floor before the window, clouds moving across the sky. “You warned me, my lady. You said there are things worse than death that might befall her.”

  She had also warned of hurts from which Nan could not protect herself, because there was no defense against them. Sometimes she thought Lady Eluned saw everything, even before it happened.

  “Is it worse than death, to be a whore and a bawd?” Lady Eluned asked, her voice mild. “If she lives that way unwilling, I know well you would bring her out of it, no matter the cost.”

  Nan fixed her eyes on the rich golden yellow of Lady Eluned’s gown, a heavy silk velvet. Just one sleeve of it was worth more than the purse of coins given to Bargate Bettie, and that had been two years of Nan’s own wages.

  “She’s not forced to be what she is, my lady. She likes it very well. And it’s not that she’s a bawd, but that she was intent on whoring a child.”

  She watched Lady Eluned’s face harden, the familiar pinch that formed in her lips. It made tears press behind Nan’s eyes. It was such welcome solace to see the instant disapproval, the outrage even to think of a girl treated so foully. The words poured forth then, and she told of how she had taken the girls from the brothel and found places for them, how she had crippled the tanner, how her sister had seen no wrong in what she did.

  It was like it always was, when she put the worst into words and said them to Lady Eluned. It made her feel stronger, like telling it staunched the flow of blood from a mortal wound. When she said that Bargate Bettie had lied to the constable about the tanner’s wound, Lady Eluned made a sound of disdain, but there was sadness written across her face.

  “A checkmate wrapped in a sister’s affection,” she observed, an elegant way to state what Nan already knew. “You cannot speak out against her lest she recant her tale to the constable.”

  Nan nodded. “I can’t know if she did it for that reason, or for love of me. It don’t matter which, though. It all hurts the same.”

  Lady Eluned looked down at her hands folded before her on the table. The lines in her face were more defined now than when Nan had first met her years ago. The sprinkling of gray in her hair had become streaks of silver.

  “It is often the way of family, that love and discord must live side by side, and so rend our hearts. But I did wish... I prayed for you, Nan, that you would find a sister worthy of you, and of all your earnest hopes.”

  “Nay, not sister. There is no more Bea, that’s how I see it. There’s only Bargate Bettie, and I’ll never call her sister again. And what sorrow I feel for it is gone when I remember I have me such a one as Gwenllian.” Nan had never said it, but if she could say nothing else of what was in her heart, she must say this. “It’s you I have to thank for that, my lady. As if it weren’t enough to give me my life and my strength, you gave me your daughter. I know I cannot call her family in truth, but in my heart she is my sister, and I want no other.”

  Lady Eluned nodded to acknowledge it, and her lips pressed together. No one else would know it from looking at her, but Nan knew she was biting back a rush of tears. As it receded there was something else, something that reminded her too much of how her own mother had looked at her at the end, and it made her turn her eyes away from Lady Eluned. It was worry, or fear – something that told her now they would speak of things she would not like.

  “My daughter has taught you many things.” Her voice was soft as a morning mist. “I must ask you, Nan, what she has taught you of herbs, those as might stop a child from growing in a woman.”

  Nan stared at the table before her. She wondered how it could be so quiet and still in this household full of people. She wondered where the Welshman was. The prince.

  “I learned it,” she said, and felt the warmth flood her face. “I put the knowledge to use as best I could.”

  Nothing was sure, they both knew that. Every woman knew that. She watched Lady Eluned’s hands begin to move restlessly until they remembered the cup. Her fingers curled tight around it, a hard grip.

  “Prince Gruffydd has put your life at risk, for if you bear his child there are some who will not abide it. They would see you dead first.”

  Nan almost said she knew no Prince Gruffydd. She only knew her Welshman, who would never put her in danger.

  “And I would see them dead before their breath fell on me,” she answered simply.

  Lady Eluned inclined her head. “I do not doubt it.”

  She drank, then set a piece of bread before Nan and took one up for herself. Neither of them ate. The sun had dimmed, and the sound of a soft rain reached them as Nan looked at the bread and remembered his face when she had first set a loaf in his hands.

  “I should have known he were a prince,” she said.

  He had been nothing but bones and beard. What meat the thieves had let him have, he had given to the hunting birds so that they would stay in perfect health. Nan knew starvation, how it drove pity from a man’s heart and sense from his head. Most anyone starving would eat whatever they could, no matter the consequence. But he had seen past his own suffering and kept the birds alive. Not only because he knew if they died, he would die too, but because his duty to protect them was more important. That was what the truly great lords did, at least in all the tales she had heard: in times of crisis, they could see what sacrifices must be made, and took the cost on themselves.

  “No matter who he is, if you have sworn vows to each other – even if they were spoken in secret with no witness – I will see that he holds to them, if you wish it.” Lady Eluned’s voice was gentle, her face stony. “And if you would deny those same vows, I will hold him to that as well. It is for you to say what the truth of it is, or what it will be.”

  Nan blinked at this offer to shape reality to her preference. But the truth was sufficient.

  “We said no vows. He made me no promises.”

  A wellspring of misery and remembered joy sprang up in her. The way his face had filled with happiness when she said they would go to Aderinyth together – it would be in her mind forever. Now he would go alone. Or the king would kill him, or chain him up. She did not know what would happen to him, because these were the matters of great people who built castles and led armies, and what did she know but how to s
tir a soup and throw a knife?

  “Why did you make me this, lady?” A sob wrenched from her, one she had not known was waiting at the back of her throat. She pressed her fist to her mouth to stop it. “Not a kitchen girl, but no more am I a lady.”

  Lady Eluned’s face had gone pale. “It would be naught but vanity and pride, for me to take credit for any part of you,” she said softly. “I but made it possible for you to choose better for yourself.”

  “Better? I go to my aunt and she thinks me above her.” She could not stop the resentment that poured into the words. “I lay with a man who – I thought him a falconer to a great house and that were bad enough, because I dare not want someone so far above me.” She leaned forward into her hands, her fingernails digging at her scalp. “I am trapped between, too good for one place and not good enough for the other. I know not where I belong, lady. Will you not tell me where I belong?”

  “It is yours to choose,” came the answer, calm and quiet.

  A sudden fury lashed out from some hidden place within her. “Tell me!” Her hands came down, slapped hard on the table. “I cannot go back to the kitchens and I have no sister to save and I cannot have him.”

  It was impossible that she was shouting at her lady. Unthinkable. And she only sat there looking old and ashen-faced, bearing it. It was infuriating.

  Nan stood suddenly, the heavy chair scraping backward. She leaned forward to strike the table again just under her lady’s chin, making her flinch. Satisfaction and horror shot through Nan at the sight, because Lady Eluned did not flinch. Ever. “Tell me what I can have, lady!” she shouted. “Tell me what I should be.”

  She sat still, her eyes downcast and her voice steady. “I will not.”

  “You have cursed me, then.” She spat the words, shaking her head in disgust when Lady Eluned finally looked up at her. “You should have left me to die all them years ago. Better you let me die than to make me this.”

  Such a look came into Lady Eluned’s face as she rose that Nan forgot, for a moment, how to breathe. There was disdain and benevolence in her, both at the same time. She was an icy fire. She was the great lady who had saved her.

  “Watch your tongue, child, and the things you think to demand of me. I do not apologize for the lives I save, nor those I risk – not to kitchen girls or gentle ladies or vile brutes who would have you worse than dead. You dare call yourself cursed!” She scoffed. “What you are, you have made yourself. Do you forget the only command I have ever given you, from the day I took you from that place, the only one?”

  Nan stood still, caught between anger and fear, her tongue frozen in her mouth. She forced it free and said between gritted teeth, “I remember.”

  “Say it,” she demanded. “Come, speak it if you remember so well.”

  “You commanded me never to swear fealty to you.” Nan said it through stiff lips. “Not even in my secret heart.”

  “Aye, and you agreed to it. And I did say then as I say now, that I lay no claim to your life. Yet you beg me tell you what to be?” Her scorn at this was palpable, just short of sneering at such weakness, appalled at the very idea. “Very well, I tell you what I have ever told you: Be selfish. Swear fealty only to yourself.”

  Nan wanted to shake her head to deny it, but it was all truth. Her lady’s stern face became a blur. She was only a smudge of yellow velvet amid the gloom of the day. It had been her guiding principle these many years in every moment of uncertainty. Be selfish. Serve no ends but her own, satisfy only her own heart’s desires.

  But she could not, this time. She could not change what her Welshman was, or how the world was made.

  She blinked, and could not care about the tears that splashed down her cheeks or the sob she must push the words through. “God forgive me what I want, lady. I have no right to it.”

  Lady Eluned was there, crossing to her swiftly and standing before her. It was suddenly like it had been long ago, when Nan would weep as she tried to tell her story in those early days. But this time she sank to her knees, and her lady knelt with her and put her arms around her. I am old and strong and weathered as an oak, she had once said when Nan had worried she should not burden her with her own troubles. And the arms that held her as she sobbed felt just that strong and solid.

  After an embarrassingly long while, she calmed herself and ended her weeping. She meant to pull away, and lament that Lady Eluned knelt on the floor and let her gown be dirtied and soaked with tears.

  But instead, she kept her head on her lady’s shoulder and whispered, “Will the king kill him? Like the...” Her voice trembled and cracked, but she must ask it. The vision had been with her all night. “Like them heads that are stuck up on the great tower in London?”

  “Nay,” she soothed, and she sounded so sure of it that Nan felt faint with relief. “Such ignominy is reserved for traitors, and Prince Gruffydd has only ever served the crown of England.”

  “He only wanted to go home.” Nan wiped her tears and sat back on her heels. “What will happen?”

  “In truth, I cannot say.” Lady Eluned sighed. “I keep myself far from court. Robin has been sent there with a message for my son. William will know best, what the king is like to do. We can only await word.”

  Nan nodded, and tried to imagine Lord William fully grown. She had last seen him when she was a serving girl and he was an awkward youth making his oath to the king. She opened her mouth to ask where the king held court now, but she was interrupted by a lady at the door who made a deep courtesy despite the burden in her arms.

  “Your pardon, my lady. I have brought the gown as you asked.” She held a stack of folded clothes, snowy white linen and blue silk, with a crespinette set atop it all.

  Lady Eluned did not rise, nor look at all as if she meant to be anywhere other than on the floor. “Leave it here.” She waved her hand at the chair, and the woman readily complied. “Have water brought so she might bathe. I will help her to dress and call you to see to her hair.”

  Thus dismissed, the woman nodded and left. Nan stared in growing dread at the rich fabric, finer than anything she had ever worn – as fine as anything a real lady might wear.

  “Nay, my lady,” she said, looking up as Lady Eluned rose from the floor. “You cannot mean for me to wear it. I may be more than a serving girl, but not so worthy as to be wearing silks and pearls.”

  “I think me a better judge of your worth than you are.” Lady Eluned took her hands and pulled her to her feet. She laid a hand on Nan’s shoulder. “No more can you cover yourself in the roughest wool and hide in the kitchen, Nan.”

  Nan took a breath, trying to summon the words to protest. But Lady Eluned smiled softly and smoothed a hand over Nan’s hair.

  “You have been lover to a prince, and may yet bear his child. Silk and pearls are the least of what is owed to you.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  He knew it was Nan who had entered the hall by the change in the sounds around him, the sudden quiet followed swiftly by the excited murmurings, all attention drawn to where she moved toward the dais. She paid it no mind, though she must feel it – she must feel him, the fixed intensity of him taking in the sight of her like a drowning man takes in air.

  She walked silently, never speaking to the ladies beside her, never looking up until she reached the table below the dais where he stood. Then her eyes went straight to his, a shock of blue that was almost unearthly. It was the gown she wore, the color of sapphires, that accentuated the blue of her eyes. Or it was the simple gold circlet set on her hair, a gleam across her brow. Her coiled braids glowed beneath a crespinette modestly studded with pearls. He could think of nothing but freeing her hair from its confines, watching it swirl around her face as those blue eyes moved across his bared body with fascination.

  She looked at him for barely an instant, just a pause in her glance before she turned away and sat. It left him to stare helplessly in her wake, and he was hardly alone. It should not be possible for her to be yet more beau
tiful, and with only a fresh gown. But the rich color and stark simplicity of it made her beauty stand out, and those few women in the hall who dressed more opulently were hardly noticeable next to her.

  “I would wager there is none more fair at Edward’s court.”

  Lady Eluned had appeared beside him at the dais, watching him closely. This transformation was her doing, and her look told him it was calculated – not only to establish Nan’s status as more than servant, but to emphasize her beauty to the utmost. He tried to imagine why, but he could not seem to think past the look of Nan, the luscious curve of her mouth and the gentle arc of her cheek, the way she had said not a thing to him with her look.

  “You think you are worthy of her?” Lady Eluned asked it in an undertone, almost but not quite goading, making it clear that she doubted it.

  Of course he was not, but there was no reason to admit it to her. He tore his eyes from Nan, knowing she would not look up at him again, and turned to meet Lady Eluned’s shrewd gaze. “Are you?”

  She was not flustered in the least by his challenging tone. Her chin lifted, a smile softened her lips as if his question pleased her, and she said, “I am least worthy of all, my lord. Shall we dine?”

  So saying, she took her place at the high board next to Lord Robert. Gryff sat too, uncomfortably aware of the attention on him. His true name had not been given out, but it was a public declaration of his high status to seat him on the dais. He stopped himself from looking at Nan again, but noticed that Lady Eluned’s eyes kept straying to where she sat.

  “How come you to take such an interest in her?” he asked, careful to speak in Welsh.

  Lady Eluned’s eyes were on him instantly, a swift assessment. “Ah. She has told you her story.” He was left to wonder what in his face could possibly have told her that, while she turned back to her plate and continued brusquely. “It was because of her service to me that she lost a husband and suffered great misfortune. I thought to pay that debt to her, though I know well it can never be paid in full. And then...” Her eyes found Nan again. “I discovered there is so much more to her than just serving girl.”