by Hale Deborah
Stripping out of her clothes, she swept a glance down her naked body, wondering if her new husband would find it worth all she stood to gain from their union.
Apart from a few faint red lines that childbearing had imprinted on the skin around the base of her belly, her flesh was unmarked. Motherhood had wrought some improvements in her form, too—wider hips and riper breasts. Enid tried to imagine Lord Macsen’s firm mouth closed over one of her rosy paps, his massive hands fondling her backside.
Her breath quickened and a faint heat simmered in her loins. But when she pictured the border lord’s vast, dark frame poised above her own slight body, a weight of panic threatened to smother her.
The sound of a masculine voice from the entrance to her chamber made her gasp. She plucked a discarded smock from off her bed to cover herself.
“If you’d had such a fine pair of breasts back when we used to swim naked as youngsters, you wouldn’t have needed to wait until I was blind drunk to ravish me, cariad.”
A blistering rebuke rose in Enid’s throat, only to strangle there when her gaze met Con’s. Seeing those once-beloved blue eyes shining with shameless admiration for her bare body throttled her beyond hope of speech, or even breath. At the same time it provoked a raging fever within her, many fold hotter than the tepid flush she’d stirred with her fancies of being bedded by Lord Macsen.
At last, by dint of will, she managed to choke the words out. “H-how dare you slink in here and spy on me without announcing yourself?”
Her sputtering mixture of outrage and embarrassment did little to quench Con’s teasing charm. What had happened to the ridges of brooding worry that had furrowed his brow such a short time ago. Enid had wanted to dispel them—but not like this!
“Whoever left the room last didn’t latch the door as well as they might have.” A grin of brazen devilment threatened to break wide across his face as Con pointedly tugged the solid oaken portal shut tight, with himself on the wrong side of it. “Besides, it isn’t as though I crept in here while you were asleep and invited myself into your bed.”
The full meaning of his words thrashed her with the disturbing awareness of what she’d done to him on that sultry summer night, years ago.
“You can’t stay here, Con.”
“Oh, I won’t be long.” His gaze fairly crackled with desire. “Much as I’d relish the chance to linger.”
Demon! He would stay just long enough to turn her life upside down again, then flee at top speed the moment she needed him. Macsen ap Gryffith might not rouse such a fiery tempest inside her, but at least he would be there—tomorrow, next week and next year. His land, his people, his duties and her would be enough to fill his life. The need to climb higher or venture farther into the wide world would not tempt him away from her.
“If you won’t leave, at least have the manners to turn your back so I can cover myself decently.”
Heaving an exaggerated sigh, Con did as she bid him. “It seems an insult to the Almighty, covering up such beauty that he created.”
“Save your flattery.” Enid pulled her fine linen smock over flesh warmer from Con’s admiring gaze than it might be from another man’s ardent touch. “You must have come here to do more than catch me undressing.”
Even though his face was averted from her, Enid sensed a change in Con’s jesting manner. When he began to speak after a telling hesitation, his tone of voice confirmed the shift.
“Worthy as that reason might be, I’ll own I did have another. May I turn ’round again? You’ve had time enough to don a full suit of armor.”
If it promised to protect her heart from his blandishments, she would put on a coat of mail. “Turn, then, and speak your piece. What do you want from me now, Con?”
“One night.”
The uncertain significance of those two brief words sent an anxious shiver through Enid from heel to crown. “Don’t talk in riddles! What do you mean by one night?”
“One night to prove you love Macsen ap Gryffith enough to make a good home for my son.”
“I told you, it’s impossible to prove—”
Con cut her off. “If you can spend one night alone in my company without giving yourself to me, I’ll take that as all the proof I need.”
The thought of it set her heart tumbling down a steep slope. “You must be clean mad! Where could we be alone in a maenol crowded with guests? My children share this chamber with me and I can’t very well turn them out. Is this some trick of yours to turn Lord Macsen against me by making it look as though I’d play him false?”
“You know me better than that, Enid.” The hurt that shadowed Con’s clear candid eyes reproached her. “Just because I can’t refashion myself to be the kind of man you want, doesn’t mean I’m a faithless blackguard. I only seek what’s best for you and for our boy.”
“You have a fine way of showing it.”
“Do you think I’d run such a risk if I could see any other way?” When that beseeching note wove a plaintive harmony in Con’s fine mellow voice, stones might sprout violets for him. “I swear I will find us a private place where none will disturb us, nor be a whit the wiser.”
“I could perform this ordeal.” Were her bold words meant to convince Con, Enid wondered…or herself? “But why should I, just to give you peace of mind?”
Con felt his Adam’s apple bob wildly in his throat. What had he expected? Enid was too canny a woman to accept his challenge without a powerful inducement. Would what he was about to offer prove potent enough? And if it did, was he so bold as to wager his flimsy charm against Enid’s formidable stubbornness?
Inhaling a deep breath, Con reminded himself that he hadn’t risen this far in life by doubting his abilities. “Of course I mean to make it worth your while. If you can prove your feelings for Lord Macsen, I will give your marriage my blessing…and promise never to tell Bryn I’m his father.”
At any other time, Enid’s dumbstruck look would have sent Con into peals of mirth. But never in his carefree life had he felt less inclined to laughter.
“You mean…” Enid leaned against her bed for support, as if she might otherwise wilt to the floor “…if I can pass the night in your company without—”
“It will be your choice,” Con assured her. “You know I would never do aught to force you, but be warned, I will do everything in my power to entice you.”
Enid gave a wooden nod. “But if I can resist, you will never tell Bryn you are his father.” She sounded reluctant to believe it.
“I will swear on my mother’s soul, or anything else you name. But if you give in to me, you must admit you do not love Lord Macsen enough to wed him.”
Enid’s face blanched to the sickly gray-white of chalk. “Then—?”
“You’ll be bound to refuse his marriage offer,” said Con. “And I’ll be free to deal with young Bryn as I see fit.”
She stood there for a long time neither moving nor speaking, staring at Con with cold revulsion in her eyes that made him fear for the success of his challenge.
At last, when he’d begun to doubt she would answer, Enid spoke. “It must be tonight.”
Tonight? Surely he’d misheard her. He would need more time than that to prepare.
“Tomorrow,” he countered.
Enid pulled herself erect. “No, Con. I told his lordship he would have my answer by tomorrow. I will not forestall him any longer than that. Besides, we’ll be serving mead with the evening meal in honor of our guests. I trust everyone will be sleeping too soundly to mark where you and I go.”
For once, Con could not argue with her reasoning, no matter at how great a disadvantage it placed him.
As if speaking to herself alone, Enid murmured, “I want this settled. For good or ill, once I know my way I have the courage to tread it. But I hate to have it hanging over me like a headsman’s ax.”
For good or ill. Enid’s words tore into Con like a hail of arrows. By ill she meant seeking delight in his arms—something they had once b
oth burned to experience.
Yet nipping at the heels of that bitter regret and setting it to flight came a heady urge to prove himself. Laying gentle siege to Enid’s fortress of resentment and stubborn resolve, he would need to ply every sensual weapon in his pleasure-giving arsenal.
Not only that. He would also need to put himself firmly in Enid’s place, Con realized, to see the world and himself through her eyes. Only then might he find the key to unlock a secret door and gain access to her most private sanctum.
“Very well, then. Tonight it shall be.”
With those words, he slipped out of Enid’s chamber as stealthily as he had slipped in, making certain her door shut tight behind him. He did not want anyone else to blunder in and catch her disrobed.
“Tonight, by heaven,” he chided himself in a whisper. “What have you let yourself in for this time, Con ap Ifan?”
Enid’s words of protest returned to haunt him. Where could we be alone in a maenol crowded with guests? Where indeed?
It must be someplace special, well nigh magical, for him to succeed in besieging Enid’s formidable will. Where would he find such a spot in all of Wales, let alone on this modest estate? His countrymen were not given to the kind of luxury Con had experienced and enjoyed in the Frankish courts or Byzantium.
If only he had an enchanted flying carpet, Con mused as he wandered out of doors, like the ones he’d heard about in tales from the East. Then he could transport Enid away to some opulent setting worthy of her. The chamber of a certain Constantine noblewoman glittered in his imagination, complete with its lavish tiled bath.
The din, the smell and the bustle of workaday activity in the maenol courtyard sent the magic carpet of Con’s fancy plummeting back down to earth.
Damn his arrogance! He was going to lose the chance to acknowledge his son all because…might as well own to the full extent of his folly. All because he couldn’t bear the thought of Enid as another man’s wife. Not even a fellow as worthy as Macsen ap Gryffith.
“Is something wrong, Master Con?” asked a melodious young voice.
As his bemused gaze lit on Enid’s daughter, Con wondered that Myfanwy had a jot of sympathy to spare him. Ever since his abrupt departure from Glyneira and his equally abrupt return, she’d paid him as much mind as if he was invisible, and smelled foul besides. Not that he blamed her. From his own childhood he recalled the sharp disappointment of adult promises broken.
For her own reasons, it appeared Myfanwy had decided to give him another chance…regardless of whether he deserved one. If only her mother still possessed such a supple young heart, Con might stand a chance tonight.
For a moment he basked in the child’s blue-green gaze, that put him in mind of the Mediterranean on a tranquil day. Then he winked and flashed her a rueful grin. “I am the matter, lass. Hard as I try, I can’t seem to put a foot right.”
“Don’t worry.” Myfanwy reached for his hand and gave it a heartening squeeze. “Everybody makes mistakes sometimes.”
Not on his scale, they didn’t.
“My mam told me so,” added the child, “when I first took up the harp. She said it’s all part of learning.”
“A wise woman, your mam.”
Myfanwy gave a ready nod. “Mam said she got into all sorts of muddles when she first began to work with the wool. She said as long as you learned how you went wrong and didn’t make the same mistake over again, you’d run out of missteps by and by.”
“That’s sound advice. I’ll have to heed it.”
Had he kept repeating old mistakes where Enid was concerned? Con asked himself. And if he failed tonight, would he ever have the chance to correct them?
“I know what’ll take your mind off your troubles.” Myfanwy tugged him toward the forge. “Help me find Bryn and Davy. We’re playing a hiding game.”
Con opened his mouth to decline her invitation. He’d done enough searching around Glyneira for Davy’s wandering puppy. Besides, just now he needed solitude to reflect on the impossible task he had set for himself tonight. Quiet to plan his approach.
But he’d disappointed Myfanwy once. That was not a mistake Con wanted to repeat. “Let’s have a look, then. Have you checked the pigsty yet?”
They dashed off to the pen where they found the old mother sow suckling her piglets, undisturbed by the puppy Pwyll or his young master.
Myfanwy towed Con back toward the smithy. “Let’s ask Math if he’s seen them.”
The blacksmith had indeed seen both boys a while before, heading toward the washhouse.
“They’re likely hiding in the big tub where mam soaks the wool,” cried Myfanwy as she bolted across the courtyard.
Con wandered after her at a slower pace, still mulling over the problem of Enid and how he might win her tonight with so little in his favor. The more thought he gave the matter, the less it seemed to admit of a solution. As much as he longed to win their wager, Con acknowledged, he longed even more for one sweet tryst with Enid. A night to remember, since he could recall so little about the first time she’d given herself to him.
He reached the entrance to the washhouse just in time to hear Myfanwy mutter a mild oath for which her Auntie Gaynor would surely have scolded her.
“They aren’t here, either.” The child set her winsome young mouth in a determined line. Though Myfanwy might take after her late father in looks, she clearly favored her mother in character. “They’d better not have broken the rules by venturing beyond the walls, or so help me I’ll flay them both.”
“Have you given this place a thorough search?” Con struggled not to grin as he peered into the dim outbuilding.
The faint tang of dye plants and the mellow aroma of tallow reminded him of the morning after he’d arrived at Glyneira, and the brief feverish kiss that had overtaken him and Enid.
“Look for yourself.” Myfanwy budged out of the narrow doorway to let Con enter. “I was that sure they’d be in the cauldron. Mam sometimes lets us bathe there in the winter.”
Squatting over a fire pit dug into the earthen floor, the shallow tub was large enough to hold two boys, Con judged as he peered into it. True to Myfanwy’s word, it was empty even of the water in which Enid had cleansed and dyed Glyneira’s wool clip.
A far cry, this, from the luxurious bathhouses Con had known in the Holy Land.
“I think I see them!” Myfanwy squealed. “Come on!”
“I’ll be along,” murmured Con, as his gaze swept the rude little building and his thoughts began to swirl.
Before he composed himself enough to follow the child, Myfanwy returned with her brothers.
“I found you,” Myfanwy insisted.
Bryn shook his head. “Davy and me got tired of hiding is all, so we came out.”
“You never would have found us, Myfanwy,” agreed Davy. “Say, Master Con, why don’t you hide and we’ll see if Pwyll can track you after we let him get a good sniff?”
Con scooped up the puppy, who was already giving his feet a careful smell. “I have a better idea for a game.”
Three young faces turned their expectant gazes toward him.
“What kind of game?” asked Bryn.
An unlooked-for spark of hope kindled in the black ashes of Con’s fancy. Each new idea that blew through his thoughts, coaxed it to burn hotter and brighter.
“We’ll pit two teams against one another to see who can fetch water the fastest.” He hoped his enthusiasm would communicate itself to the children. “Bryn and Myfanwy against Davy and me. What do you say?”
Davy’s small nose wrinkled. “It sounds a queer sort of game to me.”
“It might be good fun all the same.” Bryn shot Con a probing glance, as though he guessed this was more than a game, but could not fathom what.
“Go!” Myfanwy snatched a wooden bucket from the floor and sprinted off to the well.
The boys ran after her, and Pwyll scampered behind them barking like mad.
“Hurry, Con!” Davy called back over
his shoulder.
“Coming.” Con swept one more glance around the washhouse as he hefted a bucket.
Perhaps he stood a chance with Enid tonight after all…however slender.
Chapter Fifteen
If Con ap Ifan thought he stood a chance with her tonight, the man was fooling himself! That grim conviction ran through Enid’s mind as she poured mead for Lord Macsen and his men prior to the evening meal.
True, Con still made her burn for him the way she had as a girl. But she was many years past girlhood, with many scars on her heart to prove it. Both the oldest and the most recent of those wounds had been inflicted by the same arrogant fellow who believed himself capable of seducing her before the sun rose tomorrow morning.
Let him try!
Lord Macsen took a deep draft of the amber liquid in his cup, then nodded in approval. After another drink, he glanced around the crowded hall.
“Will our bard honor us with his presence tonight?” One full, black brow rose and the dark eyes beneath seemed to pierce Enid’s placid surface, to the turbulent depths beneath. “Good mead and good music go together…like a well-matched bride and groom. Who knows but the drink may even put my feet in a humor for dancing?”
“No doubt he’ll turn up when the fancy takes him, my lord.” Enid struggled to maintain a tone of cheerful indifference to Con’s comings and goings. “I’ve never known him to miss a meal if he could help it. We won’t wait the feast on him, that’s certain.”
Where had Con got to and what was he up to? A welcome sense of annoyance nagged at Enid. She added it to the stout bastion of suspicion, fear and old festering grievances already ranged around her heart. She knew Con and herself well enough to realize she’d need every possible defense tonight against the battering ram of his charm.
Fortunately she’d have time as her ally, for it always favored the patient…or the stubborn.
As she threaded her way through the crowded hall, dispensing the mead with a liberal hand, Enid gradually noticed an absence that bothered her far more than Con’s.
