by Natasha Wild
“Well, we did not succeed, and ’twas almost ten years ago it all began. I’ve had time to regret that youthful mistake.”
Gwen glowered. She was too upset about her own life to worry about Dafydd’s. It made her bolder than she would have dared ever dream. “Tell me about my mother. Why did she leave? Or did he send her away, as you claim?”
“He did send her away, Gwen. Not directly, but he did it all the same.”
“Why?”
Dafydd hesitated. “Because he believed her unfaithful. Eurwen could not bear it, and she left.”
Gwen’s breath shortened. “Unfaithful?”
He nodded. “Llywelyn has never had much luck at siring children. When you came along, well…”
Gwen leaned heavily against the bench, stunned into silence. Dear God, all these years. That was why she could never gain her father’s affection, why he’d bargained her future so easily. He did not believe her his child. It made so much sense now.
“He never denounced me,” she whispered.
Dafydd shrugged. “He had no proof.”
Gwen stared into the darkness. Her father could have denied her if he wanted, proof or not. He was the Prince of Wales for God’s sake. Whether she was truly his or not, he’d raised her as his own, given her a title. If nothing else, she owed him for that much.
Gwen was too lost to hear the approaching footsteps, or to realize Dafydd had risen and was staring at the intruder in silent challenge.
“’Tis a pleasure as always, Prince Dafydd. Or would that be Lord Dafydd? I can never remember which side it is you are on.”
Gwen’s gaze snapped to Richard. Her heart turned over at the sight of him. She wanted to lose herself in his arms even while she wanted to slap his beloved face for not telling her about the crusade.
Dafydd smiled lazily. “One day, Dunsmore, I’m going to delight in seeing you beaten.”
“I hope you intend on living a long time,” Richard said, baring his teeth in a poor imitation of a smile.
“Oh I do,” Dafydd replied, sauntering off toward the palace.
Gwen felt a chill wash over her. It did not surprise her they were enemies, but something in Dafydd’s tone set her on edge. Too confident, too certain of himself.
But she couldn’t think of that right now. All she could think of was the man towering over her. He pulled her up and drew her against him.
“Jesú, you are freezing. Why did you come out here?” he demanded.
Gwen clung to him, let his warmth flow over her. She closed her eyes. Emotion rolled through her in waves as she fisted his surcoat in both hands, pressed against him, breathed in his unique scent.
She told herself she should not behave so. She told herself she should be railing at him. Screaming, slapping, kicking, clawing. She held him tighter.
“Come,” he said, pulling her toward the door.
When they were inside, he strode down the passage, then swept her into a shadowed alcove. Her teeth began to chatter.
Richard swore, then started rubbing her arms vigorously. He caught a servant hustling past and ordered him to take them to a private room with a fire.
The man bowed jerkily. “M-milord, I would have to find the chamberlain, and—”
“Take us to a room now, my friend, or you will find yourself without a very precious part of your anatomy,” Richard threatened in a quiet voice. “I care not who you have to insult to do it. Blame the earl of Dunsmore when any ask you.”
“Aye, milord. This way, milord,” he replied.
He led them to a richly appointed room with a roaring fire, then bowed profusely when Richard gave him gold coin for his trouble. Richard barred the door while Gwen went to stand beside the fire.
She stared at the odd-looking rug spread before the hearth. ’Twas a beast with hideous fangs, long dark hair around the head, and a smooth tawny hide.
“’Tis a lion,” Richard said behind her.
“A lion,” she repeated. She’d had no idea ’twas what a lion truly looked like. All she’d ever seen was the lion device on the King’s coat of arms. Certes, that did not look like this.
“Why did you leave the hall without telling me?”
Gwen faced him, studied his features as they hardened with anger.
“Christ, I’ve been searching for you half the damn night! And what the hell were you doing with Dafydd ap Gruffydd?”
Gwen started to laugh. She couldn’t stop, even when his face seemed carved from stone. He grabbed her arms and shook her softly. Gwen hiccoughed the last of her giggles, then fell into silence, staring up at him, knowing all the hurt she felt inside was written on her face.
“When were you going to tell me?”
His expression crumbled. He turned away and raked his hands through his hair, then sat heavily in a chair, his legs sprawled out in front of him. His gaze lifted to hers. “Soon,” he said.
“When do you leave?”
“I do not know yet. Six months, a year.” He shrugged, his finger tracing the edge of the table. “There will be a meeting in the spring to determine.”
Six months! God, if he left then, she would bear his son without him. For some reason it frightened her, and she knew what Elizabeth must have felt. Her pulse quickened.
“Can you not stay?”
His jaw hardened. “Nay.”
The silence stretched between them until he shot out of the chair and pulled her to her knees on the lion rug. He cupped her face between his hands, feathered kisses along her forehead, her jawbone, the slim column of her throat. “As God is my witness, I do not want to leave you, but I must.”
“I am pregnant,” Gwen blurted.
He leaned back on his heels. Gwen bit her trembling lip. This was not the way it was supposed to happen. She’d said it in a desperate hope he wouldn’t leave her if he knew, even while she realized it was futile.
“You are certain?” he asked, his eyes wide.
Gwen nodded. “I’ve not had my courses since we were married.”
He was kissing her suddenly, crushing her to him. He lifted her against his heart, then laid her back on the rug, leaning over her, endlessly kissing her. “I love you,” he murmured in Welsh, over and over, as his lips trailed down her neck. She could feel the beat of his heart, fast and strong, mingling with hers.
Just for now, just this once, she wanted to forget the inevitable and join with him as they were meant to do in this glorious moment they shared. She would think of the Crusade, of her father, later.
There was no need for foreplay. They both knew that only when they were joined deeply would they be able to forget, at least for a while. Gwen arched her hips up to receive him, glorying in the powerful feel of him moving within her.
Their mating wasn’t uncontrolled for once. Long minutes passed while Richard lay completely still, concentrating all his lovemaking on her mouth. In those moments, she could feel him deep within her, their hearts beating as one.
Gwen didn’t even care when she felt the hot trickle of tears running across her temples. Richard brushed them aside, whispering love words that only made them fall faster.
“Oh Richard, ’tis not close enough,” she said. “It can never be close enough.”
“I know, my love, I know.”
Gwen had no doubt he understood. No matter how closely they were joined, it was never close enough.
When it was over and he cradled her against him, Gwen clutched him tight, never wanting to let go.
Tonight, she’d lost a father. Soon, she would lose a husband.
33
Time was moving too fast. Richard leaned against the wall and stared at the valley below. He’d taken up Gwen’s habit of coming to the castle walls whenever he was troubled. It was soothing in a way to stand so high and fool yourself into believing you were alone in the world.
They’d been home for a fortnight now, and Gwen was lovelier each day, her middle gently swelling with his child.
Richard loved to look at h
er, at the miracle of her body. When she was clothed, it was barely noticeable because she was still so small. But when she lay in their bed, naked before his eyes, the proof was there. Sometimes when she slept, he would pull back the covers and just look at her, stamping every moment on his memory. God only knew how long it would have to last him.
Another month and he would have to leave for the king’s council in Wessex. He rubbed his forehead absently. It was all happening much too soon.
Already, he’d noticed she was withdrawing from him. It was nothing specific, nothing he could definitely place his finger on, but he sensed it all the same. It was as though she held a part of herself back, as though she refused to share her innermost self.
Richard sucked in a breath. God, he’d never thought, never dreamed he could feel so deeply for a woman. He was indeed his father’s son. And she was the daughter of his father’s murderer.
He shoved that thought away, again picturing her, and a shattering pain tore through him. What if she didn’t survive childbirth? God forgive him, but he’d already killed one woman with his child. He could not bear to lose this one.
He refused to even think of leaving her while she was still pregnant, though the possibility existed.
His hand strayed to his sword hilt, a physical defense against a phantom threat. Going on crusade was something he had to do, something he could endure knowing he would see her again. But if she died, would he be like his father? Delusional, drunken, shattered?
“Richard?”
He spun around at the sound of her voice. God, she was beautiful! Her russet tresses were barely contained by the golden circlet she wore. Her skin, always the color of purest ivory, was rosy with the cold. And her scent…
Roses. It stole to him, borne on the chill wind. He breathed deeply. A rose in winter. She was the color of them, too, dressed in a crimson sendal surcoat and undertunic. Even her cloak was crimson.
Richard felt his loins responding, tightening, filling. She turned him into a slavering beast when she was near.
“Yes, my love?”
She smiled tentatively, and moved closer. Her delicate hands, gloved in soft velvet, splayed across his chest. Her lovely face turned up to his, and he found himself drowning in eyes the color of springtime.
Absently, he traced her lower lip with his thumb. What had he ever done to deserve the love of this woman?
“I have been thinking,” she began, “since you will not stay behind when the king goes, why don’t you take me with you?”
Richard closed his eyes. “Gwen…” They’d had this conversation too many times to count, though this was a new twist. Always before, she’d begged him to stay. “I cannot take you, cariad.”
“Why not? Queen Eleanor is going.”
He opened his eyes to look at her. “If I took you, you would hate me before ’twas over. The Holy Land is nothing but dust and heat so scorching it chokes the breath from you. The journey is long and miserable, cooped up on boats, sailing without seeing land for weeks at a time.”
“But if I were with you—”
Richard shook his head vehemently. “’Tis too dangerous. If, God forbid, we were defeated, do you know what those heathens would do to you? One look at you my precious wife and they’d hustle you off to a harem to service some fat, balding sheik for the rest of your days.”
She stared up at him, her lip trembling. Then her face clouded with anger. The change was so swift that Richard was not prepared when she flung away from him.
She whirled around in a blaze of brilliant color, spitting like a wildcat. “Fine! Go without me! You do not care what happens to me. You are willing to leave me, just like you did Eliz—”
“Silence!” he said, his voice cracking like a whip in the wintry air. She stopped, her teeth firmly seizing her lower lip. Richard clenched his fists at his side, fighting to contain his sudden rage. “I suggest if you do not wish to move us beyond what is forgivable, you will say no more.”
She stood there, staring at him, her pretty breasts rising and falling. Richard thought himself a madman. Angry though he was, the thought of loosing her nipples from her gown and suckling them into arousal made him harder than the stone ramparts he was standing on.
He almost hated himself for the weakness.
He took a step toward her, not quite sure what he was going to do at this moment. She held up her hand to stop him. “I wish I’d never met you,” she said, her voice edged with anguish. “The pain is too much. I hate you, even while I love you.”
She backed away until she was certain he wasn’t going to move, then turned and fled. Richard slumped against the unyielding stone, suddenly weary. Jesú, she was right. No wound received in battle had ever hurt this much.
* * *
Alys tsked as Gwen stabbed her needle through the embroidery.
“I didn’t want to sew anyway,” Gwen said, tossing the needlework aside and leaping to her feet. She paced, twisting her hands together unconsciously. Alys watched her for a minute, then shook her head and bent over her work.
Gwen felt she would burst at any moment. She was trying—God how she was trying!—to live each day with Richard as though it was their last. But the strain was wearing on her because she knew one day it would be their last.
She pushed him away, she pulled him to her. She loved him, she hated him.
He would not stay. He would not take her. He was determined she would have no say in the matter. Wasn’t her life and her happiness at stake too? But he was a man. And bloody men always thought they knew what was best!
She stopped at the window and looked toward Snowdon. She’d not told him what Dafydd had said about her father. She’d not told anyone, not even Alys who might have known something more. Gwen couldn’t bear to speak it aloud for fear it would make it true.
Her father had never denounced her and she would never denounce him. But one day she would ask him if he really believed she was not his, if that was the reason he’d never loved her like she wanted. He owed her an answer and she would accept nothing less than the truth, no matter how it hurt.
She didn’t see Richard for the rest of the afternoon. When the dinner bell rang, she descended to the hall and joined him on the dais. They ate in silence while laughter floated around them, teasing and tormenting.
When the meal was over, Gwen excused herself and returned to the master chamber. She sat for a while, working on the embroidery she’d tossed aside earlier, then gave up and prepared for bed.
Lying on her side, she stroked the sheets where Richard would lay. What was happening to her? She didn’t like the person she was becoming around him. Even though she knew it was wrong, she couldn’t stop herself from arguing with him, from pushing him, from trying to make him as miserable as she was.
If she kept it up, he would be pleased to leave her.
She drew her hand across the sheet and settled it on her belly. Caressing the soft curve, she talked to her baby. Ridiculous it might be, but she did it nonetheless, only stopping when she heard the door open and shut.
She closed her eyes and pretended sleep when Richard came to bed. She waited, hoping he would draw her in his arms, knowing he would not.
His breathing didn’t deepen, and she knew he lay awake as she did. She wanted to touch him, to breach the widening chasm between them, but it was too difficult.
“Richard?”
He sighed. “Aye?”
“You will not be faithful, will you?” she asked in a small voice.
He was silent for a long moment. Gwen cursed herself for saying it when in truth she didn’t want to hear the answer. But it had been at the back of her mind for so long that she needed to get it out.
Quietly, he said, “When the need overtakes me, ’twill be your face I see, your voice I hear, your body I touch.”
Gwen choked back bitter laughter. “Oh, ’tis so comforting.” Why had she asked? Why? Men could not be faithful, even where there was love. She’d already known that, but
she’d insisted on making him say it. Stupid, stupid, stupid!
Her voice quavered with anger and regret. “And what about me? What about my needs? Will you mind terribly if I take a lover in your absence?”
She knew she was goading him and she hated herself for doing it, but she was on a path of no return. She wanted him to feel what she was feeling.
Lightning fast he was on top of her, his hard body pressing into her soft curves, her face imprisoned between his hands. In the shadows cast by the flickering fire, she could see the outline of his features, hard, angry, breathtaking. Oddly, a rush of exhilaration roared through her veins.
“Christ almighty, Gwen! You want my fidelity? Will that ease your mind? Will you finally cease this madness?”
Gwen opened her mouth, but he rushed on before she could speak.
“By God, you have it then! On my honor, I swear to you I will bed no other. Should I be gone for one year or ten, it matters not. I will have none but you, ever.”
His mouth claimed hers in a savage kiss. He was not gentle, nor did she want him to be. She needed to feel his passion for her, wanted to know he needed her desperately, so she could keep on living for another day.
“You are mine. Mine!” he said against her lips. “Do you need me to prove it to you? Do you need to know I hunger only for you?”
“Yes,” she breathed, “yes.”
With a groan, he slid his hands down her sides, over her quivering thighs, and hooked them behind her knees.
Gwen whimpered softly when he brought her knees up to her chest. And then she felt him.
His voice was husky with need. “Then you had better hang on, my love. I am about to prove it to you in terms you will never forget.”
A scream of delicious excitement built in her throat. He entered her in one hard thrust, drinking her cries into his mouth as his body began the pounding rhythm that would bring them both to shattering bliss before it was over.
* * *
It was late evening when Dafydd rode into the bailey of his castle on the Welsh coast, near Chester. He’d just spent a very lovely sennight at Ashford Hall, fucking the mistress of the manor.
