Border Bride

by Hale Deborah

  It compelled him to speak dangerous words. “When I’m with you, there is no emptiness, cariad.”

  Con trespassed that final brief space between them. Instead of her lips, he found her nose, so he kissed that, then he kissed her brow, her eyelids, her cheek, her chin. Likewise she kissed his face, whatever part his wandering brought within reach of her lips.

  This was different than the primal urge that had sent him chasing after her in the forest, avid to quench the burning he sensed in her. And to quench his own fire in turn.

  Now, even though he was roused as any proper man would be with a desirable woman so near, something else held sway over him. Something that warned him a mere physical joining with Enid would not fill him in the way he needed.

  Perhaps her kiss held an answer to the mystery.

  As Con paused, gathering his anticipation, the door behind them burst open and a small, furry, whimpering form barrelled down the wide, shallow steps.

  Spouting a mild curse, Con jerked back from Enid, allowing the little creature to squirm between them.

  “It’s only Pwyll,” called a small voice. “He needed to wee. Is that you, Mam? How’s your head feeling? Myfanwy made me dance. Now my head’s going round and round, too.”

  “Come sit with us then, Davy-boy, until it settles down.” Enid budged away from Con, to make a space between them just wide enough for the child.

  His small shadow dark against the flickering light that spilled through the half-open door, Davy descended the steps toward them.

  “Auntie Helydd said I wasn’t to disturb the pair of you.” The boy squeezed into the gap between Con and his mother. “Pwyll and me didn’t do that, did we?”

  “Of course not,” Enid ran a hand over her son’s hair. “We’re glad of your company, aren’t we, Con?”

  “True.” Though he intended the word as a well-meant falsehood, the moment Con said it, he knew it was nothing of the kind.

  Much as he had enjoyed his time alone with Enid and should have resented any intrusion, the child’s presence brought him a tender, improbable sense of completeness.

  The little dog did his business somewhere out in the courtyard, then scrambled back to his master. When Davy hoisted the wriggling pup onto his lap, Con reached over to pet it in an effort to calm the creature down. His hand brushed against the boy’s…and Enid’s as the three of them stroked Pwyll’s furry coat.

  Davy rested his head against Con’s arm, almost as his mother had done. “You make everything merry, Con. I’m glad you came to Glyneira. Are you, Mam?”

  Despite what had just taken place between them, Con braced himself for Enid’s answer. While he didn’t expect her to gainsay her son, he prepared for an awkward pause or a hint of something in her tone that would contradict her polite words.

  “Yes, Davy.” Her answer had the ring of a perfectly tuned harp string, one with a pure, dulcet tone. “I am glad Con came to visit with us. He’s as welcome as the springtime.”

  He hadn’t been at first, Con knew, but he was now. That was all that mattered.

  Over the puppy’s back, Enid’s knuckles rubbed against Con’s hand. He felt as though he’d received that interrupted kiss after all.

  Davy breathed a contented sigh. “I want to be just like you when I grow up, Con—a bard and a soldier travelling all over the world, having all sorts of grand adventures.”

  Enid’s hand froze, then jerked away.

  “Get that foolishness out of your head this instant, Davyd ap Howell!” Her tone changed to a harsh, discordant jangle. “You have no notion of the danger that’s out there. It’s not all the grand frolic Con paints it to be with his tales.”

  “I didn’t—” Con tried to object. He hadn’t glorified the kind of life he’d led, had he? Hadn’t made light of the risks involved or the frequent hardships?

  And what if he had? Con bristled at Enid’s unfair accusation. He had led an exciting, colorful life. If homesickness had chewed a hole in his belly by times, wasn’t that a fair trade to escape the dull routine and petty matters of some Welsh backwater?

  “I’ll not have you filling my boy’s head with this nonsense,” Enid snapped. To Davy she said, “It’s well past your bedtime, my lad. Little wonder you’re spinning dreams while you’re still awake. Go to, now. Take Pwyll and tuck him into his box for the night then away to bed with you.”

  Apparently the boy knew better than to argue when his mother used that tone of voice. With a dutiful, “Yes, Mam,” he scrambled up the stairs.

  Enid rose to follow.

  Con wished he’d learned half the child’s prudence, but he hadn’t. Some petty demon in him would not back down from this woman’s rebuke.

  “Don’t be too hard on Davy,” he called after her. “It’s just a bit of boyish talk is all.”

  She rounded on him. “That’s the very way you used to go on when we were young, Con. See what came of it?”

  “What if he does decide to go off and become a soldier by and by? You can’t wrap the boy in fleece all his life, and keep him tied to your skirts, Enid.”

  “Can I not?” she demanded in a harsh whisper, like a switch cleaving the air. “You just watch me, Con ap Ifan! You don’t know what it’s like to care about someone better than your own life. So that you’d rather take any harm yourself than see it fall upon them. Precious little wonder you’re empty.”

  She turned from him and stalked off into the house.

  If Enid had marched down the stairs and boxed his ears until they rang, Con would not have been more dazed.

  Or worse grieved.

  Chapter Seven

  Enid woke the next morning with a heavy slab of grief pressing down on her chest until she could scarcely breathe.

  Throwing a kirtle on over her smock, she resisted the urge to rouse the children from their beds. If Con had gone away, she didn’t want to face their insistent questions or Davy’s accusing looks.

  What made her so wrought up at the notion of his going, anyhow? she chided herself. It was what she wanted. What she had been working to hasten.

  Not working hard enough, though. When her chance had come last night, begging to be taken, she’d sat there in a daze, robbed of all reason by the sheer power of her reawakened feelings for Con.

  It had been balm to an old, corrupt wound, hearing how much he had longed for her. When he’d spoken of the void in his heart her absence had created, she’d understood all too well. For she had her own empty place which she’d striven to fill with her children, her duties as lady of the maenol, and the homely comfort of traditions.

  Then Con had suddenly reappeared in her life. For all the havoc his coming had played with her plans and with her heart, it felt as though unseen hands had poured water into a jar packed with stones and sand. Though the jar might appear full, the soothing, cool water could still seep into every cranny.

  What if she dumped all the sand and pebbles out of her life and simply filled it to the brim with…

  No, that would be madness!

  Con had unsettled her reason. He’d whisked her back to a time when she’d been free of responsibilities. That had a seductive appeal, but she was not a child anymore. And she could not go back to being one.

  Nor did she want to.

  The shackles that bound her to Glyneira were all ones she had forged herself and put on willingly. If they chafed her spirit by times or weighed her down when she was tired, that did not mean she wanted to cast them off forever.

  With a fond glance at her younger children dozing in their truckle beds, Enid tiptoed out of the chamber, then descended to the scullery. There she found Gaynor carving up joints of game while Helydd salted and spiced them.

  “I didn’t mean to be such a slugabed this morning.” Enid scarcely got the words out before a deep yawn overtook her.

  Gaynor didn’t look up from her work. “All that lively dancing can tire a body out.”

  Though her tone sounded mild, Enid knew Gaynor well enough to recogniz
e when her sister-in-law meant more than she was saying.

  Helydd hummed a little tune as she prepared the meat. “I suppose we’ll have plenty of dancing in the evenings when Lord Macsen gets here.”

  “I expect so.” Enid tried to ignore the flutter in her stomach.

  It had been there even before Con’s arrival, whenever she contemplated the notion of her remarriage. Lately it had grown more intense, no matter how often she repeated the familiar litany that wedding Macsen was what she wanted most in the world.

  Gaynor glanced up. “Helydd, will you go fetch Idwal, like a good lass? He and Enid and I need to decide how many of the young swine we want him to butcher and when.”

  “Could you not go for him, Enid?” asked Helydd. “I’m right in the middle of this and my hands are all over salt and spices.”

  As Enid nodded and turned to leave the scullery, Gaynor said, “Just give your hands a wash, Helydd. It roughens the skin something dreadful if you handle the salt for too long. I’m sure Enid wouldn’t mind taking a turn at it.”

  “Very well.” Helydd shrugged, used to being bidden by her elder sister.

  Enid took over Helydd’s task without a word until the young woman had rinsed her hands and left the kitchen in search of Idwal.

  “Out with it, Gaynor,” Enid said at last. “What have you got a beetle in your head about this morning?”

  Gaynor slammed the meat ax onto the chopping board with a force that made Enid jump back. “Never you fear, I won’t hold my tongue. I want to know what you’ve been getting up to with this Con-fellow? Idwal and Helydd both have some daft notion he’s courting you.”

  “Daft is right!” Enid kept her head bent over her work for fear Gaynor would spy the guilty color staining her cheeks. “Con’s an old friend, nothing more. And between us two, I doubt he’ll ever find a woman he’d be willing to wed. Or one who’d take him with his wandering ways.”

  “That’s as may be,” Gaynor grumbled. “You’ve gone off alone with him more often than is seemly for a woman who means to wed someone else. Have you thought what Lord Macsen might say if he gets wind of it?”

  Luckily for Gaynor she was the one wielding the meat ax rather than Enid. “If it had been up to me, Con ap Ifan would have been gone the morning after he first came! I wasn’t the one who urged him to stay and entertain at the wedding, was I?”

  “God save us!” gasped Gaynor. “I didn’t think of that. Me and my runaway tongue! I beg your pardon, Enid. I didn’t mean to quarrel with you. If I have my heart set on you wedding Lord Macsen, it’s only for your own good and for your wee lambs. I don’t want to see it all thrown amiss by some careless flirting.”

  “Nor me neither. You’ve no need to fret, though. I had sharp words with Con last night.” The pungent odor of spices made Enid’s eyes sting. “I expect he’s miles on his way by now, never to return.”

  Gaynor shook her head. “If he’s bestirred himself farther than the courtyard, I’ll be amazed. He told Idwal there were some repairs he wanted to make about the place. The last I heard the pair of them had plans to go hunting again tomorrow.”

  Concentrating on her work as though her life depended on it, Enid did not trust herself to reply. If she spoke, Gaynor might hear the breathless relief in her voice and become doubly suspicious. Enid knew she shouldn’t feel relieved—didn’t want to feel relieved. But her stubborn heart would not be bidden.

  He’d seen more defensible sheep biers!

  Con shook his head grimly as he and Idwal inspected the timber wall surrounding the maenol. He knew it was madness to feel responsible for the safety of Glyneira, but he could not help himself.

  “What happened there?” He pointed to yet another weak spot in the defenses.

  “Mind the ice…this winter?” Idwal replied. “Big tree branches crashed down.”

  “That’s one of the reasons the trees should be cut back from handy the walls.” Con raked a hand through his sweat-damp hair. “Not much good having a wall, is it, if all your enemy has to do is climb an overhanging tree to let himself in?”

  Idwal swiped a broad knuckle across his chin. “Well now…I see the…sense in that. We’ve been…lucky here. Never been attacked for years. Being so…small and out of the way. And with Hen Coed…between us and the Normans.”

  That might be about to change. Con swallowed the words before he could speak them, and almost gagged on their bitter taste.

  If he was successful in his commission from the Empress, nudging Macsen ap Gryffith to make some raids across the border, the Norman Marcher lords might well retaliate in kind. In fact, if Con himself had the ordering of it, he’d be inclined to circle around the bastion of Hen Coed to strike at small, out-of-the-way, poorly defended Welsh estates.

  Like this one.

  Guilt smote him with the force of a rotting animal carcass hurled by a siege engine. Was all his ambition worth putting a vulnerable estate like Glyneira at risk?

  “It never hurts to prepare for the worst,” he muttered to Idwal. “What do you say we fell a few of those trees that stand too near, then use the timber to fix the weak spots in your walls?”

  Idwal nodded. “Thanks to you…we’re ahead in the plowing. We can spare the time. I’ll have Math…hone the ax blades good and sharp.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Con spotted Davy and Myfanwy dodging out through the gate. The girl carried a rush-woven basket on her arm.

  Pulling his lips wide with two fingers, Con blew a piercing whistle. The children stopped and glanced back.

  “Where are the pair of you going?” The sharpness of his tone took him by surprise.

  “Off to gather acorns for the pigs,” Myfanwy replied.

  “Want to come?” Davy held out his hand.

  “Idwal and I have some work to do. You won’t be venturing too far abroad, will you?”

  Davy flashed an impudent grin. “How far is far?”

  The young whelp! Con felt his temper rising, goaded by an emotion akin to fear.

  As Idwal lumbered toward Math’s small forge, Con called after him. “I’m going off for a bit, but I’ll be back by the time those axes are well whetted.”

  Idwal glanced at Con and the children, casting them a doting look touchingly at odds with his rough-hewn features. “Go on with the cubs. This job will keep.”

  Would it? Con wondered. For how long?

  And what would it matter how secure a home he left behind for Enid and her children if they didn’t stay safe behind its walls?

  “Maybe we can do two jobs at once,” he suggested when he caught up with Myfanwy and Davy. “I need to see which trees grow too close to the wall. Some will be oaks, that’s certain.”

  Davy pulled a face. “But I wanted to go to the ridge, yonder.”

  “Is that so?” Con’s stomach roiled. He and Enid had wandered much farther afield from her father’s house, but that had been the peaceful Vale of Conwy in the heart of Wales. This was embattled Powys. “If I promise to take you there tomorrow, will you promise me never to stray that far unless you have a grown-up with you?”

  Myfanwy skipped along at his side. “Why must we do that, Con? Davy and I know this country well—we’d never get lost.”

  It wasn’t lost he was worried about.

  “Have you heard tell of the Normans?” he asked.

  “I have! I have!” Davy jumped up and down. “They’re nine feet tall and they have teeth as sharp as a fox’s. If they catch Welsh children, they roast them and put them in a pie for their supper!”

  The boy related these grisly charges with such wide-eyed relish, it was clear he recognized them for the tall tales they were.

  “Who told you that pack of nonsense?” As if Con couldn’t guess.

  “Auntie Gaynor!” cried the children.

  It was one thing to promote a healthy caution of their enemies. Wild stories even a lad of Davy’s tender years wouldn’t swallow were apt to make them more daring, not less.

  They found a lar
ge oak that had probably been a sapling when Glyneira was first fortified. Over the years it had grown tall and its branches had spread. An archer who climbed it might find a solid perch from which to fire down into the maenol courtyard.

  As the children rooted about the ground beneath it for acorns, Con tried his best to undo Gaynor’s well-meant blunder.

  “I’ve lived more than a dozen years among the Normans, and never yet seen one roasting children—Welsh or any other kind. As a race, they do stand taller than most Welshmen, but still far short of nine feet. As for teeth, they don’t take pains to clean them like we do, so some of them have hardly any teeth at all, let alone fine sharp ones.”

  The children looked a little disappointed by the unexciting truth.

  “The Normans killed our tad,” said Myfanwy in a small voice. Perhaps it burnished his memory, pretending to believe it had taken evil giants to slay her father, rather than ordinary men with bad teeth.

  “I didn’t say they weren’t dangerous.” Con plucked an acorn from the ground and tossed it into Myfanwy’s basket. “The Normans are crafty folk and they’re land hungry. They might not pop you into a pie, but if they caught you away from home, they might take you back to their country and shut you up in a cell until your mam paid them a ransom.”

  A shudder went through him as he spoke of being imprisoned. That, rather than the possibility of death, had always been his greatest dread going into battle. It had given him the appearance of reckless courage by times.

  Myfanwy and Davy looked at each other with what might have been the first flicker of true fear in their eyes. Much as he hated to have put it there, Con could not help believing fear of the Normans might be the beginning of prudence for these two.

  Perhaps such talk reawakened his warrior’s instincts. For when a twig snapped behind him, he spun about into a crouched defensive stance between the children and whomever had made the noise. Hardly aware of his own movements, he pulled his eating knife from the small scabbard belted around his waist.