Border Bride

by Hale Deborah

  “Con!” Enid dashed toward him. “Thank God you are safe, at least.”

  She threw her arms around his neck, pressing her lips to his with a shameless fervor that had little business inside cloister walls.

  Could she let him go again, even if he refused to abandon his ambition to return to the Holy Land?

  Remembering her urgent errand, Enid forced herself to break from their kiss, though she kept her arms clasped about Con’s neck.

  “Bryn ran away,” she gasped. “I think he overheard me admit to Gaynor that you are his father. I should not have delayed in telling him the truth. I should have listened to you.”

  “Hush, now, cariad. Don’t fret.” Con wrapped her in his embrace.

  This was her true home, Enid realized. Anywhere could be her home as long as it housed her circle of loved ones.

  “Bryn’s safe,” Con crooned as he stroked her hair. “He’ll be back with you as soon as Falconbridge and Hen Coed are exchanged.”

  “Saints be praised!” Sweet tears of relief flooded her eyes as she kissed him again.

  But something was badly amiss. Enid sensed it beyond doubt, though she could not determine what it might be. Con had never held her or kissed her in quite this way before, as though something compelled him to push her away when he most longed to hold her close.

  She pulled back, just far enough to gaze into those lively, clever blue eyes. “What’s the matter, cariad? You and Bryn are safe. You’ve got Hen Coed back, or soon will. You ought to be turning tumbles for joy in the cloisters.”

  All traces of boyishness had left Con’s lean, mobile features. Though he had never looked more attractive to her, Enid missed that air of youthful confidence and good cheer. His eyes held a steely resolve, tempered by a faint shimmer of wistfulness.

  “There’s a little bench by the door of the chapel, cariad.” He drew her toward it. “We can talk there.”

  “Were any of the men from Glyneira killed?” Enid clung to Con’s hand. “Brother Porter said Lord Macsen is here at the abbey. Is he wounded?”

  “Lord Macsen is well.” Con’s mouth curved upward at the corners, but the result fell far short of a smile. “Not a drop of Glyneira blood was spilled.”

  Before she could once again demand to know what was wrong, Con launched into an account of how the Powys men had captured the Norman castle.

  “FitzLaurent and Macsen ap Gryffith are hostage here until the exchange of men between Falconbridge and Hen Coed has been made. Then both will be free to return home.”

  “My son…our son? Where is he? When can I see him?” Could his fears for Bryn be making Con behave so strangely?

  “The Normans have him at the moment.” Con hastened to add, “You’ll see him soon, though. Bryn must not have heard that we planned to attack Falconbridge, for he rode straight to Hen Coed and into the hands of the Normans.”

  There, with the reckless bravado he’d inherited from his newly discovered father, Bryn had boldly informed his captors that he was the son of Conwy ap Ifan and the fosterling of Lord Macsen. Con did not share this distressing information with the boy’s mother.

  Enid crossed herself. “Thank heaven you were able to ransom him.” Head bowed, she glanced up at Con through her lashes. “Bryn will need a father’s firm guidance if he ever hopes to curb this heedless streak of his. Will you return with us to Glyneira when this is over?”

  “No, cariad. I must go away.”

  “B-but you said—”

  “I know what I said well enough.” Con surged up from the bench, putting a small but unbridgeable distance between them. “But I’ve had a change of heart since then. The past few days have shown me what’s most important in my life.”

  Had she truly believed a man with his abilities and opportunities could be content in some little Welsh backwater?

  Pride told Enid to hold her tongue, but for once in her life she paid it no heed. “They’ve shown me what’s important, too, cariad. If you must return to the Holy Land…then, perhaps I could—”

  “Listen to yourself, Enid!” Con turned away from her and for a long moment he did not speak.

  When he found his voice again, its harsh tone rasped in her ears…and on her heart. “You’d be miserable where I’m going. There’s no sense trying to pretend any different.”

  “How can you be sure, if we don’t try?” Even as she spoke the words, Enid heard the doubt in her voice.

  “I am sure, cariad.” His voice fell to such a soft hush, she wondered if Con had really spoken, or if she had just imagined it. “And we can’t take the chance of trying, for there’s more than you and me to consider.”

  Thirteen years ago Con had walked out of her life and it had never been the same. Back then, neither of them had spoken words of love. Neither of them had guessed she would bear his child. This time, Con knew what he was leaving behind, but leave he would just the same.

  “One other lesson this past few days has taught me.” Con turned toward Enid again, with an awkward, forced gait, and knelt before her. “It was selfish of me to stand in the way of your wedding Lord Macsen. He’s a fine man. I see that now. He’ll be the kind of husband you need and a good father to your children. I release you from your promise to refuse him.”

  “But, Con—”

  Before she could protest or plead, he kissed her. The soft, tender play of his lips against hers told of love and longing and lament.

  Enid’s whole world tilted. Her arms closed around Con’s neck, clutching him tighter and tighter until she realized what she was doing. Then, contrary to every urge that raged in her heart, she let him go.

  Contrary to a stubborn flicker of hope within her, he rose and marched away, without a word or even a glance back over his shoulder.

  The urge to turn back and tell Enid the truth tore at Con like a pack of hunting hounds at a wounded stag, but he refused to surrender to that impulse.

  If Enid knew where he was bound and why, she might do something foolish that would mean hardship for her and the children. Better far if she believed ambition and wanderlust had lured him away from her. Then she might turn to a man who possessed the kind of steadfast heart and quiet honor she needed.

  Part of him wished Enid had never come here in search of their son, for it made what he shrank from doing still harder to undertake. And yet, the chance to hold her one last time had felt like a visitation of grace.

  Conscious that the Powys men and Normans might arrive at any moment to complete the exchange of hostages, Con crossed the cloister garth with purposeful stride. When he reached the abbot’s parlor, he informed the lay brother standing outside the door of his identity and something of his errand. The lay brother knocked, then entered. He returned almost at once with an invitation for Con to join Father Abbot and Lord Macsen.

  As the door swung open again to admit Con, a gleeful cry rang out followed by a volley of hearty laughter.

  “So this is your crafty war leader, Macsen?” The abbot pressed the tips of his wizened fingers together as he looked Con up and down. “I might have mistaken such a fresh face for one of our novices.”

  Con made a deep reverence to the tiny man whose rusty red tonsure was frosted with white. “I doubt I would be much of an asset to St. Mynver’s, Father Abbot.”

  The walls of the abbot’s snug parlor felt as though they were closing in on him. Con tried not to gasp for air. A bottomless pit of fear opened up in his belly as he contemplated what might be in store for him at Falconbridge. At the hands of a man he had not only defeated, but humiliated into the bargain.

  “That may be.” The abbot’s deep-set eyes twinkled with unholy mirth. “For all that, a man who can successfully defend his country without spilling a drop of blood is heaven-sent, whatever way you look at it. Here in the cloister we’re meant to be above such worldliness, but I have enough Welsh blood in me to rejoice in your roundabout victory over our Norman brethren.”

  “Our victory, Father Abbot,” Con corrected him. “
I only sowed the seeds. Macsen ap Gryffith and the men of Powys brought the enterprise to bear fruit. Now, if I might beg a boon of you, Father, my time here draws short and I have a few words I wish to speak privately with Lord Macsen.”

  “Of course, my son, of course.” Abbot Peter rose from his chair and headed toward the door. “It is time I summoned the brothers for Chapter. Make yourselves at home here for as long as need be. If I do not see you again before you depart, may God go with you, my son.”

  “Thank you, Father.” For no reason he could explain, Con felt his apprehension ease.

  Once Abbot Peter had shuffled away to Chapter, Lord Macsen poured Con a cup of wine from the flagon that stood on the low table between his chair and the one in which the abbot had sat.

  “What is this private talk you would have with me, Con?” He held out the cup with one hand, while gesturing toward the chair with the other. “Your face is as white as chalk, man. Has something gone amiss with the exchange?”

  “Nothing like that.” Con dropped into the chair the abbot had vacated and quaffed a long heartening drink of Malmsey. “Enid has come in search of Bryn.”

  “Fool boy to have fretted his mother so.” The unmistakable glow of fondness for both mother and son belied Lord Macsen’s hard words. “I’d warm the young whelp’s breeches if I didn’t think he’d already learned his lesson at the hands of the Normans.”

  “The boy needs your firm guidance, my lord, but he also needs the softness of his mother’s care.”

  “Don’t expect me to gainsay that.” Lord Macsen took a deep drink of wine, then held his cup as if weighing the wisdom of revealing a confidence. “I had hoped Enid would consent to wed me, if only to be under the same roof as her son again.”

  Con gazed into the pool of rich red wine in his cup, too ashamed of how he’d behaved to meet Lord Macsen’s discerning gaze. “She meant to accept you. I convinced her not to.”

  “Why?” The news clearly came as a surprise to the border chief.

  “There…was something between us when we were young.” Con measured his words. He did not want to taint what he was about to do with outright lies. But neither could he afford to blurt out the whole shabby truth.

  “When I saw her again after all those years, it hit me afresh, and I wanted her for myself.” Soon enough Macsen would learn that Con had fathered Enid’s eldest son. Con could not bring himself to confess it now.

  “Indeed?” Lord Macsen glanced up. For an instant his dark gaze met Con’s before they both averted their eyes. “I can hardly blame you for being drawn to her again.”

  A deep sigh heaved out of him. “I promised you a reward for helping me regain Hen Coed. She is not mine to grant, but if Enid will have you, expect no trouble from me over it. I may not have the heart to dance at your wedding, but I will wish you find happiness together.”

  Con had judged this man right. But the knowledge came as hard comfort to him. “You mistake me, my lord. I have come to see that Enid and I have no future together. We have always wanted very different things from life. I fear we could never reconcile those differences.”

  Con tossed back another drink to fortify himself. “I care for her all the same, and I want a better life for her than she’s had since first we parted. The reward I would ask of you is to make Enid your wife, and to help her raise her children as if they were your own.”

  For several long moments, the border lord did not reply. Con clenched his lips to keep from recanting his petition.

  When Lord Macsen spoke at last, his tone sounded strangely wary. “I will do it gladly, if Enid consents.”

  “She will.”

  “And if you are certain this is what you want?”

  “I…am.” Con rose and headed for the door. “Now I must make ready to complete the exchange of hostages.”

  What he did not tell Lord Macsen was that he would be one of those hostages. In a secret exchange for the freedom of his son, Con had forfeited something more precious than his life.

  His own liberty.

  She had set Con at liberty when she had most longed to hold him tight. Yet he had still flown from her.

  Though her heart reeled, a flicker of hard-won wisdom assured Enid she had done right. Part of her wanted to wrap herself in the protective armor of bitterness she’d worn for so many years, blaming Con for any unhappiness in her life. That would not be fair, though.

  To her children, to Con, or most of all to herself.

  If Con had cared for her less, he would have dragged her family across the world to be with him, no matter what it cost them. And if his craving for freedom and adventure ran as deep as her hunger for the safe and familiar, she loved Con too much to hold him captive.

  A flurry of activity at the abbey gate pulled Enid from her daze of shock and hurt. Three horsemen rode in—Normans. She could tell by their helms, mail shirts and clean-shaven faces. Pillion behind one of the riders sat a boy.

  “Bryn!” She raced across the cloister garth, her regrets swamped by joy and relief at seeing her son safe.

  “Mam!” Bryn slid to the ground before the horse had fairly come to a stop. He dashed into his mother’s open arms.

  “Praise heaven you’re alive.” In spite of Con’s advice she clutched her son as tight as she dared. “Those Norman dogs didn’t mistreat you, did they?”

  “They didn’t hurt me, Mam.” His face crumpled until he looked no older than Davy. “I’m sorry I ran away, Mam, and caused so much trouble for everyone. Is it true what Auntie Gaynor said about Con being my father?”

  Enid nodded.

  “But how can that be?”

  “I’ll explain about it later.” Enid smoothed back his hair and tried to reassure him with a shaky smile that all would be well. “For now, though, we have to get you home.”

  A blunt-fingered hand landed on Bryn’s shoulder and would have jerked him out of her arms if Enid had not been holding onto him so firmly. The Norman behind whom Bryn had been riding barked some words in a sharp, ugly language that had none of the sweet musical cadence of Welsh.

  Enid wrenched Bryn away and thrust him behind her. “Keep your hands off my son, you vicious Norman viper!”

  Though her legs trembled beneath her skirts and her heart thundered like a war party at full gallop, Enid made herself return the Norman’s belligerent stare. “Must you terrorize Welsh women and children because the men of Powys can fight and think circles around you?”

  The Norman made to push her out of the way and seize the boy. An order bellowed in French made him freeze.

  The next thing Enid knew, Con had thrown himself between her and the Norman. He rattled off a string of words she did not understand, but which sounded too menacing to question.

  The other riders strode to the aid of their comrade until an order shouted from the cloisters stopped them. Enid spun around to lock Bryn in her protective embrace. All eyes turned toward a tall, grim-looking man who stalked into the garth.

  The three Normans began protesting to him, speaking rapidly in their own tongue and pointing at Con. The man raised his hand for silence, then rapped out a question to which Con replied at length.

  What where they talking about?

  When Con finished, the Norman commander gave a curt order to his men, who withdrew to the gate. Con exchanged a few more words with the tall man, perhaps expressing gratitude, before the Norman commander spun on his heel and retreated to the cloisters again.

  Meanwhile, the three riders trained wary gazes upon Con, Enid and Bryn.

  “What was all that about?” Enid asked. “I told them I’d vouch for the boy, that he would not run off before the exchange was completed.” Con shifted his weight from foot to foot, clearly awkward in the close company of the woman and son he would soon abandon for the second time.

  “Why don’t you and Bryn go sit outside the chapel until all this business is over. I imagine Lord Macsen will want you to spend the night at Hen Coed before he sends you home with an escort
of Glyneira men.”

  “Will you come back to Hen Coed with us?”

  Con shook his head. “Once the exchange is made, my work here will be done. The Empress will be anxious for a report from me.”

  “I understand,” said Enid. At least her mind did. Her heart remained baffled.

  “Well, I don’t understand why you cannot stay,” cried Bryn, pushing free of his mother’s embrace. He spoke in a voice reedy with fright, yet still defiant. “Do you know I’m your son?”

  Con winced. “Aye. From the first hour I met you.”

  “Then why did you not tell me?”

  At the risk of estranging her son, Enid spoke. “Because I asked him to keep silent.”

  “Why, Mam?”

  A fair question, but how could Enid hope to explain it to her son, when she was no longer certain she understood her reasons. Over Bryn’s head, his mother and father exchanged a look.

  “We’ll talk over all this when we get home.”

  “I don’t want to go home.” Bryn thrust out his chin. Clearly his brush with disaster had not chastened him as much as Enid had hoped. “I want to go to the Holy Land, with my father.”

  Enid’s heart seemed to freeze in her bosom. From the moment she had spied Con in her hall playing the harp with Myfanwy, she had dreaded the prospect of this moment. She’d done everything in her power to prevent it coming to pass, including a number of things of which she was now heartily ashamed.

  Her lips parted. The words that came out shocked her at least as much as they surprised Con and her son. “That is for your father to decide.”

  She’d had Bryn for his young years when a boy most needed a mother. Now perhaps it was time Bryn learned the lessons only a father could teach. Doubtless the time was long past due for Con to enjoy the company of his son.

  Even if the boy’s going broke her heart.

  For an instant Con’s comely features twisted, betraying pain. Then his lip curled in a sneer, making Enid wonder if she had only imagined the other.

  “Do I look like a wet nurse?” Con backed away. “I will have my hands full enough where I am going without a child to tend besides.”