by Nicole Locke
The two men could not be more different in colouring or temperament. Now, Anwen could see another difference. Ffion’s story had eased something within Teague, but for Rhain, grief was setting in.
She squeezed Teague’s arm until he looked down at her. For her, her fear and grief were changing, but into no less of a worry. So much pain was in this room.
Teague’s eyes softened, and he squeezed her hand. Turning to Rhain he said, ‘We’ll leave you, but only for now. Understand this, you are, and will always be, my brother.’
Rhain’s eyes shone with a fractured light.
Teague nodded once, then he swept her up in his arms as if he knew she was suddenly exhausted, her legs too tired to hold her up.
* * *
The room was dimly lit by a fire when Anwen awoke, but she knew she was not alone. It wasn’t only the smell of sandalwood and leather, or the heat from his obsidian eyes, it was her hand cradled in Teague’s.
‘I fell asleep?’ she asked.
‘I brought you back and sat you on my bed. I left your side to open the door and order wine. When I turned around, you were already lying down with your eyes closed. I couldn’t disturb you.’
She sat up. ‘But I slept for hours. I wanted to—’
‘You slept a day,’ he interrupted. ‘This is the next night.’ He stood from the chair by her bed and poured wine and tore some bread. She accepted both, then stared at the bounty suddenly in her lap.
‘Ffion?’ she asked.
‘She’s gone.’
Anwen knew Ffion would be, still she must have hoped because her heart stabbed again. With every horror rushing to her memory, she handed the wine and bread back to him. ‘I need to—’ She nodded her head in the direction of the garderobe.
‘Of course.’ He stepped back.
When she returned, Teague was crouched before the hearth, the flickering light casting him in light and darkness. He looked so grave, so...alone.
‘Will you forgive me?’ He stabbed at the fresh logs to increase the flames. ‘Upstairs, when I hurt you. I didn’t think—’
‘You didn’t hurt me.’ She didn’t need to see this proud, brave man apologise. Did he think he failed her? How could he, when she was now realising it was her who failed him. ‘Not once. Just feeling your arms around me was a shield from that room.’
That room. Ffion. Everything was like a nightmare she couldn’t wake from. Walking to the bed, she grabbed some wine and bread, if only to hold something, and sat down.
‘I had to tell the household,’ he said, his voice hoarse. ‘There were questions almost too difficult to answer. You probably have questions, too.’
Many, but those weren’t what she wanted to talk of now. She hadn’t started this nightmare, but how she handled the end was her fault. She should have waited for Greta’s help. ‘I’m sorry.’
He nodded his head at her words. ‘I tried to talk to Rhain. To make him realise he is family. With your understanding—’
‘No, Teague, that’s not what I meant. Will you forgive me?’
She’d been trapped in that room, but how Ffion ended her life was entirely her fault. If she hadn’t just taken control perhaps she could have seen the warning signs.
He considered her then, reading correctly what she tried to portray in her eyes. ‘Don’t. I must believe Ffion was lost long before you arrived. If you have even an inkling of guilt, how could I not? I, who had spent years with her?’
So she made it worse by saying something at all.
‘I have not told you of the day my mother died. The facts, as I believed them all my life, have changed since Ffion’s confession.’ Teague stood and poked the fire as if felling enemies before he set the iron rod against the fireplace. ‘I still cannot comprehend everything she said. My entire life was rewritten yesterday. But everything that happened since my mother’s death had shaped me. Shaped how I have been with you. You know most of the facts, but there is more I want you to understand now.’
Anwen wanted to apologise again, but something in Teague’s words stopped her. It wasn’t the change of subject, it was the way he didn’t face her. The way he stared into the fire so she couldn’t see the desolation in his eyes, but she heard it in his voice.
* * *
‘I was but five when my father left. What no one knows was I’d overheard my mother and Ffion argue. I believed, as did my pregnant mother, that he had left for another woman.’
Teague spread his hands closer to the fire, but he didn’t feel the increase of the warmth, he only remembered that day. ‘The shock of my father leaving caused my mother to give birth early. She knelt before me bleeding and she needed help. Except the Hall was unnaturally empty and the nearest I could find anyone was in the kitchens.’
He remembered the hard thumping of his heart as his legs struck the packed dirt. ‘In the kitchens, there was freshly baked bread with jam that I had been eating just moments before.
‘The bread, with the sweet berry jam, appeared out of place...wrong somehow. Things had no right to be the same. I started throwing whatever I could grab: potatoes, bread and pots just out of the fire. It was Greta who stopped me. I remember staring at her stained apron as she stood in front of me, as though she was willing me to understand and I did eventually. She had found help.
‘When I returned to my mother, the blood had soaked into her skirts, streaking up into the fabric. I clutched her hand, but she was in so much pain she didn’t know I was there.’
He lowered his hands, flexed his fingers and wished he had rocks to throw. Anything to keep his body moving, so he could distance himself from the memories.
‘The guards and Ffion came to take her to her room. I followed, trying to recapture her dangling hand, but I never could. She needed me, but they closed the door on me. I was Gwalchdu’s lord then, but I was not allowed into the birthing chamber.
‘With guards at my side, I sat on the outside of that thick wooden door, and stared at my burned and blistering hands. I listened as the muffled sounds became shrieks and then screams. Screams that eventually stopped. Died, just as she did.’
He turned around. Anwen sat on his bed, clutching a goblet of wine in her lap. ‘Until I discovered the truth yesterday, I knew only betrayal. My father left my mother. My aunt ignored me after her sister died. Urien tricked me with his schemes.’
Teague walked to the table and poured some wine to drink deeply.
‘I have been alone a long time. I wanted nothing but this piece of rock that could not betray. So when the time came, I sent my brother away. Not wanting any reminder, I even replaced those blood-soaked stones.’
Too many emotions shone in her wide blue eyes, but she held still, listened, and he felt his hope grow. ‘Until I found you in the forest, I didn’t think myself capable of trust. But it is what happened. Piece by piece. I didn’t want you, but couldn’t stay away, and every moment I was with you, I was learning how to trust.’
Her mouth curved. ‘You hardly trusted me even when I was bandaged in your bed.’
It was true. He clasped his goblet between both hands and tilted it back and forth. ‘But there was something...necessary about you. Something that compelled me to help despite my past and the threats plaguing me now. It was your loyalty. To Alinore, to Melun, to Wales. Stubborn, determined, you climbed a tree, risked your life because of your devotion to the old falconer.’ Teague looked deep into the goblet. ‘Then...you came back for me.’
‘The fire? You would have died otherwise.’
He raised a brow and set his cup aside. ‘Wouldn’t that have been to your advantage?’
He’d known Anwen was fearless, loyal, but though he fought his hope, he never truly believed she’d offer any such loyalty to him. Especially not when he didn’t deserve it. He had never treated her fairly and yet she had no
t betrayed him.
‘If I hadn’t rescued you, where would I live?’
He heard the teasing in her voice; he also heard something else, some awareness of the importance of her actions. His hope clung to that awareness. ‘You didn’t have to; I didn’t expect you to.’
* * *
No, he hadn’t.
Anwen’s hands shook and she spilled some wine. She watched the stain expand across her leg like blood and she took a shuddery breath. Her heart was breaking for Teague. How alone he must have been until Rhain returned. She realised now why Rhain remained flippant despite all the threats. He was trying to give Teague laughter, but it wasn’t enough. Teague needed love.
After his mother’s death, and then Urien’s betrayal, Teague shut himself away and depended solely on himself. When he’d gone to Brynmor to search for an enemy, he acted as he had his entire life. As a man who fought the world on his own.
But he wasn’t on his own any more.
‘I could never have left you there,’ she said. ‘Not after that day I jumped towards you in the forest.’
‘That was a very long time ago.’
A lifetime ago. ‘But I trusted you even then.’ She had to get the words out; she had to tell him. She didn’t, wouldn’t, waste another moment. ‘But trusting that quickly scared me. Since I knew who you were, I fought it. My entire life I blamed you for what happened at Brynmor. My feelings didn’t make sense.’
Setting the cup aside, she clenched her trembling hands together. ‘I hadn’t considered the sacrifices you made. I may have believed you when you told me your past, said that you are not a traitor, but I couldn’t stop comparing you to Urien. But his cruelty had nothing to do with his power. It was just...him.
‘I know now you had no power over your past. I know that even if you did, you wouldn’t have wielded that power like my father did. I didn’t think of you as a person, as a man, but I can think of you as nothing else now.’
Her eyes welled with tears and she brushed them away. ‘All this wealth, power, even this rock, could crumble as long as you held me. I was right to trust you so quickly. I was wrong not to believe in it. But Ffion showed me what happens when there is no trust—’
‘That you ever beheld such horror,’ Teague interrupted, ‘that I can’t take it away. The debt that I now owe you, I don’t think I could ever repay.’
She shook her head. ‘No more debts; no more feeling like we owe each other. You paid it with your past and maybe, I hope, I have done the same.’
She waved her hand between them. ‘You and I are not so different. We have both put our respective worlds on our shoulders. I turned my hatred to you for making Brynmor vulnerable. But some of our misunderstanding is my responsibility. I may not like power or control, but I wielded it, as well. I was bastard-born and didn’t have a rightful place. So I ensured I was needed and took control. I didn’t help Melun find new tasks to fulfil him; I just took his away. With Alinore, I didn’t help her find her courage the way Robert did.’
She wiped again at her tears. ‘So stubborn, so desperate to be needed, I never relinquished any control.’
She shifted, tucking her feet under her and grabbing a pillow to clench in her lap. ‘I walked into the private chapel thinking to help, to control Ffion, but suddenly her hands tightened on my wrists like iron maces. I knew then I couldn’t control what was to happen to me.
‘Then you came for me.’ Anwen gave a ghost of a smile.
Teague took a step towards her, his eyes never leaving hers. ‘Say it,’ he commanded.
Always too stubborn, too proud, she had never surrendered herself to anyone, until Teague. She’d surrendered. Fallen. Right into his arms.
‘I love you, Teague of Gwalchdu.’
He took the remaining steps towards her and crouched at her feet. ‘I never knew how much I wanted to hear those words until you. I never knew how much I wanted to say them until now.’
‘Teague?’
‘Yes, my love. I love you. Even before Ffion’s confession, I knew I loved you.’ It was his turn to smile, taking her hands and kissing them. ‘You’re necessary, remember? I was a fool not to tell you before.’
He rubbed his thumbs along her hands and she felt every roughened callus, every tender emotion in each caress. ‘It wasn’t only your loyalty that captured me. You took my heart when you came back for me in the fire. I didn’t know what you had done. It was why I couldn’t refuse you that night. I felt how alone you were. Already I cared too deeply.’
She thought of the night of the fire, how she sought comfort from him, how he gave it. ‘I’m sorry, about Alinore, about my words,’ she said.
He squeezed her hands. ‘No, I deserved them. Deserved your reservation, as well. I hadn’t fully trusted my feelings. I ignored the knowledge that what I felt was stronger than loyalty.
‘But I couldn’t deny it was love when I swung the axe to release you from the storm. You were barred from me, just as my mother had been. Everything I had been holding back splintered through me just like that door.’
Teague bowed his head and looked at their hands, so she squeezed his and saw the gentle curve to his lips before he looked back up.
‘Can you imagine the demons I fought when you were outside in the storm?’ he said. ‘I was terrified of what I’d find on the other side of the door. When you jumped into my arms and wrapped around me I felt I didn’t have any skin to protect my soul. I was raw, left open. At that point, it wasn’t my body you clutched, but my heart.’
Her heart hurt with joy, and she squeezed his hands even tighter. His lips curved even more.
‘There was a part of me that still believed...’ he said, brushing his thumbs along her fingers. ‘I thought love weakened my mother and she died. There was still an enemy to fight so I denied any love. How could I be weak, when I needed to protect my home, protect you? It’s why I ordered you away. It’s why I tried to stay away from you. When I saw you trapped in the chapel, I realised love was strengthening me. I could not have faced Ffion’s confession without you by my side.’
Untangling a hand, she pressed it to her stomach. ‘We will always be by your side.’
‘It’s true? Another hope of mine I hadn’t dared believe true.’ He placed his hand over hers. ‘So you’ll stay and marry me now.’
It was a statement, a command, and one she understood. ‘Yes.’ She laughed. ‘And you call me stubborn.’
Teague rested his head against the pillow in her lap. She ran her fingers through his dark locks, feeling fiercely protective of this man who gave her so much.
‘It’s not over,’ he said. ‘I explained Ffion’s death so that she will be buried in consecrated ground. She was mad, but I’ll not put her soul in hell.’
Anwen brushed his hair. ‘Your mother and Rhain would like that.’
He turned his head. ‘My brother...’
His anguished voice twisted her heart.
‘In a sense he has lost his mother twice and now he thinks his brother, too.’
‘He hasn’t lost me,’ he said fiercely.
‘But he hasn’t fully comprehended that. I suspect he’ll seek his own answers now.’
‘You talk of how your world changed when I told you of Urien’s past deeds; now I feel my world is upside down.’ Teague half-laughed, but there was grief behind the sound.
‘There was only one other time of my life that I was helpless,’ he said. ‘I vowed then I’d never feel that way again. But I broke that vow so many times since I first saw you in that tree. I swear I haven’t felt anything but helpless since.’
‘You are not helpless, nor alone in this.’
‘At what cost will Rhain pay for his answers?’
Here was a lesson she had learned: to let others find their own strength. ‘That is not for you to d
ecide. The responsibility is his own, not yours. It is time for you to let go.’
Teague sat up to face her. Gently, he cradled her temple in his large hand, his thumb tracing the scar. ‘There have been so many times I could have lost you. I may keep you locked in this room for our lifetimes.’
‘Only if I let you.’ Anwen pressed her hand to his lips. ‘I want no more thoughts that we can control everything and everyone around us. I want no more debts we feel we have to pay. I want only love and trust.’
Teague slowly kissed her hand before clasping it in both of his. ‘And hope, like you’ve given me since that day in the forest.’
‘Hope?’
‘Hope and trust and love. When you fell from that tree, I didn’t catch you for nothing. I want it all.’
She gave him a mock frown. ‘You’re showing that interminable English greed again.’
‘Yes, I’m showing greed and you the stubborn Welsh heart.’
He pulled her in for a kiss that she willingly gave. Oh, she wanted this, wanted this man, wanted their life together. When he shuddered, she felt her own body shiver in response. When Teague pulled away, she gave a sound of protest.
‘Soon,’ he whispered against her lips. ‘Every time we are together there is some danger. I want it to be only us.’
There was only them. Everything wasn’t resolved, but they were here, together, their love encompassing them, and it was so very good. They had paid their debts and now she wanted the rewards.
‘Now.’ She twined her hands behind his nape and pulled his lips back to hers.
Drawing her closer until his heart pressed to hers, he answered, ‘How could I refuse?’
* * * * *
If you enjoyed this story, you won’t want to miss these other great reads in Nicole Locke’s LOVERS AND LEGENDS mini-series:
THE KNIGHT’S BROKEN PROMISE
HER ENEMY HIGHLANDER
THE HIGHLAND LAIRD’S BRIDE
Keep reading for an excerpt from CHRISTMAS KISS FROM THE SHERIFF by Kathryn Albright.
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