Desire Lines (Welsh Blades, #3)

by Elizabeth Kingston

  “Robin has not come.”

  “Nay,” he answered. “Haps he will never come, and I will bide here forever, waiting.” The sight of the little lamp in her hand pierced his heart. It had burned beside them in their nights together, those nights he had dared to believe would never end. “Would you bide with me, Nan, through days and nights without number?”

  There were signs of sleeplessness around her eyes. “What will happen?” she whispered. “What will the king do to you?”

  “I cannot know.” It seemed not to matter at all right now. Nothing mattered but her. “Would you bide with me?” he asked again.

  She blinked, casting her eyes down to the floor. “You are a prince,” she said, as though that were an answer. “You say the word means naught. You think it’s naught to do with who you truly are.” She looked up at him again. “But I see it in you, all the things that make you a prince. It’s in your blood that you curse, and in your bones, and in everything that makes you. You were born to be Gruffydd ab Iorwerth, not a common Welshman. Just as I was born to be plain Nan and cannot be worthy of a lord, except as servant.”

  There was such sureness in her words that he almost missed the hint of uncertainty in her face. It was not to do with him. I know my place even do you not know your own, she had said to Robin.

  But she wore silk and embraced a great lady like she was her own mother.

  “You are more than what you were born to. Far more.”

  The shake of her head was faint but distinct, a rueful gesture that said she thought he did not understand. “You know little of me.”

  “Then tell me,” he urged. “If you will scorn words, I am forced to know little of you.”

  She looked at him with a gentle furrow to her brow, blinking. He watched her search for words, as though he had asked an impossible question that pained her. Almost did he repent of it, fearing the impulse that had spurred her to come to him and speak at last, would fade. But he bit his tongue and waited, because he did not want to spend this night in thinking of his own fate. He wanted whatever she would give him of herself.

  She took another step to reach the low table next to the bed, where his candle burned. She set her little lamp next to it. Her hand went to the eating knife at her belt and removed it.

  “I had a baby brother who died starving in my arms, because there was no food nor pity to be had.”

  The words were like hailstones falling on him. The tension at the corner of her lips, the stiffness of her posture said what she did not put into words – that no matter his misfortunes, such things did not happen to princes. And if ever they did, all agreed that it was a horror, something that should never happen. Not to a prince.

  But she blinked the bitterness away easily, it seemed, and looked down at the simple eating knife she held. She tilted it so that the handle caught the light and revealed a pattern of lines scratched deeply into it, and spoke into the hush.

  “My mother died having him, and we were all starving, so my father looked to sell me into service. I would have gone to a man who was like that tanner, wanting little girls in his bed, but for Aunt Mary.” Her finger traced over the lines and he saw suddenly that it was meant to be the letter M. “She shouted that she would not let it happen, and found me a better place. That were the first time I was saved from an ugly fate.”

  She put the knife on the table, kissed her fingertips and touched them to the M on the handle, a strange and sweet little ritual. She turned to face him but did not look up. Instead she reached down and quickly pulled her skirt to her knee, revealing her garter. The little silver knife was kept hidden there, and she pulled it out. It fit perfectly in her hand.

  “So I went to work for a weaver’s wife, cleaning and cooking until the weaver died.” She kept her eyes on the knife. “I was more grown then, and the widow married herself to a man who took a fancy to me. Most women would beat me and throw me in the street, and say I tried to seduce him away. But Ida, she looked out for me. She found me work in a kitchen in Chester, and told the cook I was a good girl and should be treated well.”

  The silver knife was set next to the other, and he saw the I scratched into it. He had seen it countless times, but never thought it was meant to be a letter. Ida.

  She bent again and brought the dagger out of her boot. It was tall and elegant, rarely used, and now he saw the letter I engraved in the quillon as she ran her fingers over it.

  “Isabella,” she said, almost with an air of shy apology. “She stood between me and that lord who killed Oliver. She were a lady and a stranger to me. Her disgust is what moved her, not any love for me. One night she came into the room and saw me there, and what he done to me. She put herself in front of me and would not budge until he left me in peace.” She lined the dagger up on the table next to the other blades. “And so I was saved again.”

  Finally she looked at him, a shot of clear blue meeting his eyes through the lamplight. She reached behind her to the dagger that hid in her belt, the one she had first put to him when he had touched her hair uninvited. He did not look down at it. He did not need to. He remembered the twisting symbol and now understood what it was.

  “Gwenllian,” she whispered, like it was a word full of magic. “My teacher. It’s how I know to speak Welsh, because a Welshwoman taught me this defense.” Her eyes dropped to the dagger, resting on the G that was on the grip. “I didn’t have no kind of strength or skill that could protect me until she gave it to me. She made it so I could save myself.”

  Her hands rested on the dagger a long time when she set it down. Finally she took off her belt and sheathed the blade before replacing it on the table. She seemed more content once the gleam of it was hidden, as though she could not be easy if it sat out in the open for all to see.

  Now all that was left were the blades on her forearms. Perfectly fitted to her, small and wicked, designed with lethal efficiency. She ran her fingers lightly over the row on her right arm, touching the blunt end where an E was stamped on each one.

  She laid a finger on the first blade in the row. “Lady Eluned tried to keep that lustful lord from me, and she did for a few days.” Again that look of reverence that now he recognized as the deepest gratitude he had ever seen. She continued talking, touching a blade with each deed, counting them off, and she spoke Lady Eluned’s name each time like it was a sacred word.

  “When he captured me and killed Oliver, Lady Eluned gained my freedom. When I was swallowed up in fear, Lady Eluned taught me to speak of it, so I did not spend my life in shrinking. One of the knights in her hall got hold of me, and Lady Eluned stopped him.” She moved to the row of blades on her left arm. “Lady Eluned sent me to Morency, so I might learn defense. She gave me Gwenllian, and Robin, and...everything.” Nan closed her eyes and whispered the words like a long-practiced prayer. “Again and again, I am saved by good women. I will not forget their names, and I ask God and his saints to remember them.”

  Her eyes opened. He watched as she released the buckles on the arm braces and set them down carefully beside the lamp. They looked together at the pile of weapons on the table.

  “Do you see now?” she asked softly. “I’ve spent my life in fighting against being made a whore, and worse. My fate was to be beaten and used, weak and wretched and lowly, and that’s what I would be if not for others who took pity on me. I’m not more than what I was born to, as you say. It’s only that I had them.”

  He looked at her, and then at the table laden with her many defenses. Everything in him rejected her words. He could not deny it was true that only chance had raised her above her birth. But there was more to her than chance, just as there was more beauty within her than there was without.

  “You speak of what you were born to,” he said at last. “And I cannot care. Were you born to more, or to less – still I would esteem you more highly than any lady I have known. Still I would want you. You and no other.” He saw the doubt in her eyes, and the question that had lurked in him for days escaped
. “Do you want me less, now that you know what I am born to?”

  He did not breathe at all while she stared wordlessly at him. The candle flickered, sending light and shadows dancing across her face. Then she blinked, and let out a trembling breath.

  “I should.” She whispered it. “God forgive me, I should. But I want you all the same.” She bit her lips together and moved her eyes over him like a caress. “More, even, when I think we will be parted.”

  She stepped forward, her dress hanging loosely, and sat beside him on the bed. He wanted to embrace her and say that they would not be parted, that he would never let anything take her from him. But he was at the king’s mercy, and could promise nothing. His hand found hers, so small and delicate for all her strength and skill, and she gripped it tightly. She lifted his hand and pressed her lips against his fingers.

  “What will happen?” she asked, and when he did not answer readily, she looked at him. She spoke in Welsh. “Say me the truth of it, for I know naught of the king and his commands.”

  He nodded. He could give her that, if nothing else.

  “I wait to discover if Edward thinks me a threat. I am loyal to him, but my family has fought for generations against the domination of the Normans.” How strange, that it was his father’s words that came from him, the old avoidance of saying such things as traitor and treason and rebellion. “The king wants no more Welsh nobles to trouble him, or to stand as challenge to his authority in Wales. Yet do I think he may show me more mercy than he has shown many other Welsh princes.”

  Her eyes never left his. “Why?”

  All the many things that signaled his fidelity to the king swirled through his mind, all the ways Edward would find him useful. But he chose the one thing he thought most important, that she would understand most easily. “Because I will forswear the title of prince.” He watched her eyes widen in shock. “No prince of Aderinyth since my grandfather has been consecrated by the Church. It is but a word, as I have said. One I will gladly sacrifice.”

  He could feel the rise and fall of her breath against his arm where she clutched it lightly to her chest. Her eyes searched his.

  “Will it be enough?”

  There was so much more to consider. So much more that he did not care to think about now.

  “I will do whatever the king demands. I want only my life.” He dared to touch the hair that curled at her temple, freed from net and kerchief alike, arranged in the shining braid that he had followed out of hell. “And you, if you would have a simple Welshman.”

  She shook her head faintly, and he watched reluctant hope and doubt chase across her face.

  “You cannot be that.”

  “I can. I will.”

  Her fingers squeezed his painfully. He could feel the reservation in her, how some part of her did not dare to believe it. He hardly dared believe it himself, knowing that it would be as Lady Eluned had warned: he was still a pawn, and the king had all the power. But he only wanted his life, and it seemed little enough to hope for.

  Nan looked at the table where the candle guttered, light flickering across the blades. These were the stories beneath the silence, the defenses that were more than weapons, all laid out for him to see. All but one.

  He moved his hand in hers, turning it to touch the hard lump that lay between her breasts. It was impractical, not easily reached beneath her linen, but still a defense. A last defense, when nothing else served. He had seen it against her naked skin, or else in her hand, so many times that the letter on it seemed engraved in his mind. He put a finger to it now, feeling the shape of the R through her linen.

  In the end he did not ask it. He only looked at her, and waited to see if she would give him this part of herself.

  She returned his look, a steady and clear gaze, then stood and, to his surprise, pulled the dress off. It left her linen to billow slightly around her, the silhouette of her nakedness barely visible beneath it. Her hand closed over the dagger and pulled it out, still sheathed, holding it close to her chest.

  “I thought to myself that I should hate men,” she said, still in Welsh. “All men, for how they have used me, and tried to use me, and how they have brought nearly all the sorrows of my life. But I do not, and it was a wonder to me until I considered why.” She looked down at the dagger, ran her thumb over the engraved letter, and smiled a little. “Lord Robert, and Lord Ranulf, and Robin. One dried my tears and treated me gentle in my worst distress. One put aside his own fears to help make me stronger, and faster, and better. And one has given me a brother’s love, and asks for naught in return but that I am his friend.”

  She did not put it on the table with the rest. She kept her fingers curled around it as she pulled the cord from which it hung over her head. When she came close to him, the scent of her surrounded him, intoxicating.

  “It may seem a strange defense, Welshman. But their tender care has protected me as well as any blade. Did I not know them, there would be naught left of my heart to give to you.”

  Her heart. His hands found the dip of her waist beneath the linen. He forgot, every time, how slight she was until he touched her. Solid, practical Nan, who was only a wisp of smoke, a sliver of flame against him. Her lips came to his, tentative and sweet until his arms went around her and she opened her mouth over his, bold in her hunger.

  It made him weak with relief, to know her excitement. He had missed her so much that it was the sweetest pain to feel her again, the sensation of her body and breath flooding him like rain on parched earth. He had thought he wanted her before, but it was as nothing to the keen and ravenous hunger in him now that he knew she offered her heart to his true self, nothing hidden between them. He did as he had not done before this, and took control of their embrace. He pulled her down to him, hands gripping her tightly, urging her on to the bed beneath him. When his palm smoothed over her thigh, she stretched and pressed herself up against him, demanding more. In the dim light, she seemed like a manifestation of his dreams, warm and welcoming, no part of her closed to him.

  Beneath the linen shift her scars were a ghostly white, her skin glowing. He took down her hair and spread it over her, ripples of gold silk over the slight curves, the tips of her small breasts barely peeking through. His mouth went to them, his tongue caressing until she gasped, but he did not relent. He wanted the sounds that came from her because each of them, everything that came from her lips, he cherished. They were his riches, his treasure, as precious as jewels.

  The sheathed dagger was still in her hand, and he could not resent it. Not when he knew what it meant that she had stripped herself of all other defense, and called him Welshman, and spoke of giving her heart to him. He pushed her arms above her head and sat back to look at her, all golden desire beneath his teasing hands, finding every place that made her gasp more.

  “Welshman,” she breathed, a command that set him afire. He kissed her, ravaging her eager mouth while his hands fumbled with his braies, and suddenly remembered the danger.

  The thought that she could have his child released a flood of lust in him. It shot through his spine, a rush of blood and an animal desire to thrust himself inside her. He pulled away from her mouth, pressing his face to her throat, gulping air, stunned at the pleasure it gave him to think of putting a child in her.

  He could not. Not tonight. One day, and he took a brief moment to say a blasphemous prayer it might be soon.

  She moved a hand restlessly in his hair, her body straining upward, her legs open beneath him. He opened his mouth over her throat, her heartbeat on his lips, and pushed himself inside her heat.

  She was bliss. She was heaven gasping beneath him, pulsing around him. He moved in her, his thumb on her to rouse her excitement to the utmost, following the sounds of her pleasure until she was writhing. Her release came hard and fast and lasted an infinity while he held himself still, committing it all to memory – the sight, the feel, the sound of her ecstasy. When he could hold himself at the brink no longer, he pulled himself out
of her warmth, groaning, and spilled his seed on her belly.

  One day. A child with her, one day. Plain Nan and a common Welshman. Soon, God willing. But not yet.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Nan did not sleep. No matter what he or her lady said, she could only envision the king’s men arriving in force to drag him away with evil intent. When she whispered as much, he said that if men did come for him, they would not do him violence but only escort him to the king.

  It eased her fear enough for now. She turned on her side to let his body cradle hers as she watched the lamp burn through the little oil it held. His breath was steady, his limbs heavy, and she hoped he slept. The dagger was still in her hand, her fingers loosely curled around the sheath. She watched the light play off it, and knew it should not be so difficult to let go.

  He would be a common man. Not a prince. It was what he wanted. It would save his life.

  She tried to imagine it. Likely he would never see, as she did, all the little things that marked him as better. She thought of how Aunt Mary had been in awe of the falcon, so beautiful and valuable, and how she had looked at the Welshman when he spoke his fine words. Then he had fetched water from the well, and repaired a crumbling wall, and slept on the floor, humble as any servant.

  Her fingers uncurled and left the dagger lying next to her, inches from her hand. He was not like other lords. When he had spoken of his home, not knowing she understood, it was his brothers he spoke of – and the hills, the sky, the people and the legends. No word of a prized castle or manor, nor riches and comforts he sorely missed.

  In the falconer’s house, he had said he regretted the dishonor he had done her. Because he would not dishonor her, a servant.

  She looked at the dagger beside her as the light changed, dawn beginning to filter in at the edges of the tapestry over the window as the oil lamp stuttered and dimmed. To lie next to him made her feel fragile, exposed. Vulnerable. Which was not the same as weak.