by Hale Deborah
Taking Enid’s slender hand, he tucked it into the crook of his elbow. “Walk with me and let us grasp this chance to speak of the reason for my visit.”
Enid forced a wan smile. “As you will, my lord.”
Behind the meek mask, she raged at herself. Love this man, damn you! Love him as you swore to Con you did. Macsen is everything you require in a husband, everything your children require in a father. He will keep your family together and keep you all safe.
As they ambled toward the maenol gate, the border lord swept a glance around the busy courtyard. “You’ve managed well at Glyneira since you lost Howell.”
“Aye, my lord.” Life was so much easier when the men were here to work, instead of constantly mustering to fight. “It was a quiet winter.”
Lord Macsen nodded. “The snow falls, then the spring rains come. Time passes.”
Emerging from the maenol, they strolled away from the sound of Idwal chopping trees.
The border lord inhaled a deep breath. “Pardon my awkwardness of speech. I am a fighter, not a bard. For some years now, I have admired you more than any man should admire the wife of a comrade in arms.”
Her eyes fixed on the ground as though she feared a fall, Enid concentrated on hearing Lord Macsen’s words over the thunderous pounding of her heart. Could that be why she found it so difficult to rouse any warm feelings for this man—because she’d been aware of his unsettling attraction to her while Howell was still alive?
Lord Macsen fell mute for a moment, perhaps waiting for a reply. When none came, he pressed on. “I would never have spoken while your husband lived, but now…”
Part of her wanted to ease this ordeal for him, but how could she and still keep her promise to Con?
They walked a little farther in anxious silence, then Lord Macsen came to an abrupt halt, beside a blackthorn bush swathed in soft white blossoms. He turned to face Enid, enveloping her slender fingers in his vast grasp.
Swallowing a lump of panic that threatened to choke her, she made herself look up at him.
“I held the wife of my youth very dear. Though I knew it was my duty to sire sons to secure my line, I delayed wedding again. Now, I am ready and you are free. I want you for my wife, Enid. Will you have me for a husband?”
A look of relief eased his tense features, as though he had finally tackled a much-dreaded chore and was glad to have it done.
Macsen ap Gryffith wanted her in a way Con never would, Enid realized as she moistened her lips to reply. What matter if she did not return his feelings? At least she was acquainted with the man and thought well of him. She had wed Howell ap Rhodri with far less than that. Over the years they had built a solid, workable partnership that might have floundered if she’d given her husband the power to hurt her.
“You do me great honor, my lord.” Enid tried to look more receptive to his offer than she felt.
In spite of the dangerous doubts Con had spawned in her, she could not afford to turn from the course she had chosen. She must forestall Lord Macsen without discouraging him.
“I pray you will not take it ill if I beg a little time to think on your offer, and on what is best for the future of my family.”
Enid doubted the border chief could have looked better pleased if she’d given him her swift, ardent consent. He must know how she was bound to answer for her children’s sake. Clearly Macsen ap Gryffith did not possess Con’s disturbing ability to divine the true feelings she might hide from the rest of the world.
Enid added that in his favor as a future husband.
“I wish I could grant you all the time you need,” Lord Macsen said, “but I dare not tarry away from Hen Coed more than a few days.”
“One is all I need,” Enid assured him.
“Perhaps this will sway your decision in my favor.” As he leaned toward her, Enid willed herself not to flinch from his kiss.
Behind her Con’s cheery voice rang out. “Lord Macsen, I have found you at last! I fear we’ve been chasing each other in circles today.”
At the last instant, the border lord checked his advance. Though his lips barely glanced Enid’s, the sensation still made her gorge rise. Spinning around to face Con, she insisted to herself that she resented his ill-timed intrusion.
Yet some traitorous part of her felt as though he’d rescued her in the nick of time.
Fool! Con ap Ifan cursed himself. He could read the glowering set of Lord Macsen’s features as easily as he might glance at a darkening sky and tell a storm was brewing. The present climate of the border lord’s humor did not bode well for their talks.
“For a bard, you could stand to improve your timing, Con ap Ifan.” Lord Macsen’s deep voice rumbled with the soft menace of distant thunder.
“So I could, your lordship.” Con forced a chuckle, pretending to take the remark at its surface meaning. “And in battle, too, no doubt. The timing of an attack is vital.”
This was his latest blunder in a campaign he could not afford to lose, Con chided himself. When he’d spied Enid and Lord Macsen in confidential talk, reason had warned him to turn on his heel and march back into the maenol to await the border lord. Enid had agreed to delay in accepting any offer of marriage from Macsen, and Con trusted her to keep her word.
But when it became clear that the towering border chief meant to claim a kiss from his Enid, a great wave of protective, possessive madness had swamped the spinning coracle of Con’s self-control. Try as he might, he had not been able to hold his tongue.
He steeled himself for a black look from Enid, but none came. She appeared flustered, though, blushing red as an October apple and avoiding his gaze. Whether she was troubled more by his sudden interruption or by Lord Macsen’s aborted kiss, Con could not tell.
That very uncertainty fertilized the seed of a plan their earlier talk had sown in his mind. If it worked, his strategy promised to make Enid face her true feelings for Macsen ap Gryffith, and keep her from accepting his marriage offer. But how could Con persuade her to accept his challenge? Unless…
Picturing all he stood to gain if only he could coax Lord Macsen to take action that would benefit the Empress, Con wrenched his thoughts away from this personal matter and forced his feet backward. “Forgive my interruption. I’ll go back to the hall and await your lordship’s pleasure.”
“No!” The urgency of Enid’s cry seemed to surprise her as much as it did the two men. “I mean, no…need to run off, Con. Lord Macsen and I were about to head back of our own accord. I must go see how Gaynor is getting on in the kitchen.”
She sniffed the air. “I think I smell meat burning!”
Before either of the men could say anything to detain her, she brushed past Con and fled toward the maenol.
When Macsen ap Gryffith glared at him, Con replied with a shrug and a rueful grin. “She always was overly mindful of her duties as a hostess—even when we were young.”
“You’ve known her a long while.” The border lord’s threatening scowl eased. “Was she always so…?”
Con’s imagination rushed ahead. So beautiful? So radiant? So loyal and kindhearted?
Lord Macsen seemed to grasp for a word that eluded him, finally settling for “…so singular?”
If that was the best this man could do to describe Enid, he must not properly appreciate all she offered. “My lord?”
“Singular.” The border lord defended his choice. “Not like all the others. I’ve never met a woman quite like her—have you?”
The notion ambushed Con. “I—I suppose not, now that you remark upon it.”
He’d always supposed that Enid held a unique place in his heart because of the past they’d shared, and because she had been his first love. Macsen ap Gryffith had no such connection with her, yet he recognized her as a unique, special woman. Somehow that threatened Con worse than a drawn weapon.
Caught in a current of powerful unwelcome feelings, Con almost missed Lord Macsen’s next question.
“Whatever made her throw herself away
on this poor maenol?” The border chief seemed to muse aloud. “And a man like Howell ap Rhodri?”
Me. With difficulty, Con managed to bite back the word, but he could not purge the conviction from his heart. Enid had ended up here, far from the safe home she’d so cherished, wed to a stranger, almost driven to despair because she’d loved him unwisely. That he hadn’t meant to get her with child hardly mattered.
What if he’d drunk a little less on that long ago summer night, enough that he’d had a few of his wits about him when she stole into his loft bed? Would he have denied her what she wanted, and what he’d long burned for? Not by half!
And when morning had come, would he have had the courage to face her enraged father, or the character to turn his back on his life’s ambition to satisfy honor? Much as Con wished he could say yes, he knew better.
“Not that there was anything wrong with Howell, you understand,” Lord Macsen said. “The man was brave in battle and loyal always. For all that he didn’t seem worthy of such a wife.”
His voice fell to a whisper, but Con’s sharp ears picked up something that sounded like, “Perhaps I’m not, either.”
There! A righteous certainty swelled in Con’s chest. If the border lord himself entertained doubts about his suitability as a husband for Enid, Con would be doing them both a favor by preventing the match.
“Enough of this.” A heavy scowl pulled down Lord Macsen’s firm mouth and thick dark brows. With a motion of his head that invited Con to follow, he turned and marched farther away from the maenol. “Tell me more of the urgent matter you sought me out to advance.”
Here was his chance. Con’s ambition, his ruling master for so many years, bid him put aside trivial matters and make a compelling case for the men of Powys to war against King Stephen’s allies, the Marcher lords of Falconbridge and Revelstone.
He rushed to catch up with Lord Macsen. “How much do you know, my lord, of the quarrel that divides the Normans?”
“Only that it is good for Powys.” The border chief checked his stride so Con could fall in step with him. “Since the old king died, we have been able to claw back some of the territory these Marcher lords wrested from us. If it was in my power, I would toss another stick on the fire to keep their feud merrily boiling for years to come.”
Con nodded. “Wise words, my lord. But I am well enough acquainted with the Normans to assure you this struggle for the throne will spend itself, and sooner than any of us may guess. Stephen of Blois is no longer a young man, and the time he spent as a captive of his cousin the Empress did his health no good.
“Even among Stephen’s supporters there is talk of Maud’s boy, Henry, succeeding the king. Sooner or later the Angevines will have the English throne, and once they clean up the mess in their own kingdom, they will go for the throat of Wales again.”
“They will have to get past me first.” Macsen ap Gryffith muttered the words in a tone of grim resolve.
In spite of himself, Con felt a stirring of admiration for the embattled Welsh warrior. The Normans would have their work cut out to defeat him.
“When that day comes, my lord, even an Angevine might think twice before attacking one who’d done his family service when their fortunes were low.”
The border lord’s black brows rose. “Indeed? And what service could a humble Welsh chief perform to win the favor of this Empress and her Angevine spawn?”
Poised for a receptive hearing, Con wet his lips and marshaled his arguments. Instinct told him it would not be difficult to enlist Macsen ap Gryffith and the men of Hen Coed to harry Stephen’s loyal Marcher lords in Salop.
With all his heart, Con believed such a campaign would hold the best hope for the future of Powys. Lord Macsen stood to regain lost territory, since Falconbridge and Revelstone could not appeal to King Stephen for assistance. In turn, the pressure of Welsh raids would keep the Marcher lords from bleeding their own garrisons of troops to fight for the king.
Best of all, it would put Con ap Ifan in an agreeable odor with Empress Maud and yield him all the juicy plums that lady had promised. But what might such a heightening of border hostilities mean for Enid and her children? The question gnawed at Con’s conscience.
What might the consequences be for his son?
Chapter Fourteen
What mischief was Con ap Ifan up to now? Enid wondered as she spied him returning to the maenol with Lord Macsen after their talk. Both men looked grave and pensive—an accustomed disposition for the border chief, but very much out of character for Con. About time he experienced a little worry weighing on his carefree, irresponsible mind!
Hard as Enid tried to take vindictive satisfaction from it, her hand trembled with the stifled impulse to smooth away the furrows from his brow, and her arms ached to enfold him. She had always brooded enough for both of them, relying on Con to lighten her spirits, which he seldom failed to do. Somehow it seemed an offense against the natural order of life that Con should be troubled or cast down. Enid couldn’t help feeling it must portend some calamity.
As if his presence in her house wasn’t calamity enough! Between fretting over what he might be advising Lord Macsen, fending off his demands that she refuse the border chief’s marriage offer and fearing that he would lay claim to her son, little wonder she scarcely had a thought to spare for anyone or anything but Con ap Ifan.
At least, those were the reasons Enid gave herself for being unable to shake him from her thoughts.
If she caught herself smiling more often than a sensible woman ought with so many worries to vex her, it must be because she had her dear son under her roof once again. And if she took greater care with her appearance than she had in years, it must be for Lord Macsen’s benefit.
But why her dreams writhed with sweet, searing visions of she and Con cavorting naked in a lazy-flowing stream or exploring each other’s bare bodies on a bed of newmown hay, Enid did not dare try to explain. It made no sense for her to yearn for a man who had brought her so much heartache in the past and from whom she had so much to fear in the future. Then again, when had reason ever swayed her feelings for Con?
Lord Macsen called his men together in the courtyard where Con directed them to a variety of tasks aimed at strengthening Glyneira’s defenses.
Did this mean Con’s parley with Macsen ap Gryffith would put her modest, isolated estate in danger? If so, it would be more important than ever for her to secure the border chief’s protection.
She didn’t dare flout her bargain with Con by accepting his lordship’s marriage offer before the day had passed. But she could signal her forthcoming consent by the fine feast set before Lord Macsen and his party this evening. And by the well-groomed appearance of her family. At least those preparations were both under her control, unlike so much of what had been happening around Glyneira of late.
Not least her own wayward emotions.
When Enid entered the kitchen, Gaynor immediately bustled over.
“Well?” Below a moist-looking brow, Gaynor’s hazel eyes glittered with curiosity. “Has he asked you yet?”
“Has who asked what?” Enid inhaled the savory steam rising from a cauldron suspended over the fire. “I thought I smelled something burning.”
“Not from my kitchen!” The suggestion distracted Gaynor for a moment, then, like a hunting dog on the scent of game, she returned to her question. “Besides, you know very well who asked what, so don’t torment me. Did Lord Macsen ask you to wed him?”
The harder she tried to divert her sister-in-law, the worse she would pique Gaynor’s curiosity. Enid knew from past experience. “He asked.”
Before she could utter another word, Gaynor seized Enid around the waist with stout arms and twirled her in a dizzying circle. “This calls for a fine celebration! Why don’t we broach those flasks of mead Howell took on trade from the wool merchant last summer?”
“I haven’t given his lordship my answer yet.” Enid wrenched herself out of Gaynor’s hearty grip before the spinn
ing made her ill.
Seeing the look of horror on her sister-in-law’s broad face, she hastened to add, “I mean to accept him, of course. The mead sounds a fine idea. I’ll go fetch the flasks from my stores.”
“Have you gone daft?” A quick step put Gaynor in Enid’s path of escape. “If you mean to have Lord Macsen, why did you not tell him so straightaway?”
If Gaynor knew the truth of it, she’d probably flay Con alive! “This is an important decision. I have my children to consider as well as Glyneira. Why, I’d be daft to give my consent without a little thought on the matter.”
It was just the sort of reasonable-sounding argument Con ap Ifan might have advanced. Enid couldn’t decide whether to feel proud of herself…or disgusted.
Gaynor made no secret of siding with the latter. “A little thought? You must have lost your wits, woman! It’s not as though his lordship surprised you with this out of a blue sky. Every soul within these walls has known what was coming for months. That was the time to make up your mind.”
“And so I did, however…”
Fie but Gaynor was harder to budge than a badger sow from her den. The woman reminded Enid of…herself. How would Con dance his way out of this?
“…Lord Macsen had no way of knowing his marriage offer came to me as anything but a surprising honor.” Fumbling with her keys, Enid brushed past her sister-in-law, heading for the stores. “I didn’t wish to appear over-eager. No man wants what he can gain too easily, least of all a man like Macsen ap Gryffith.”
“I suppose…” Gaynor sounded more than a little dubious.
As she headed away, a sense of relief bubbled up in Enid, as though she’d dodged a swift-flying arrow. Over her shoulder she called, “Tonight, Lord Macsen can drown his impatience for my answer in a flagon of well-aged mead.”
As for her own lurking worries, it would take an ocean of mead to make an end of them.
After securing that special libation for the meal, Enid made sure her children were well scrubbed and combed. Then she set about grooming herself for the evening. Surely if she donned her best garments and dressed her hair in a becoming style, it would signal Lord Macsen how she meant to answer his offer of marriage.
