Rexanne Becnel

by Where Magic Dwells

  But would they hate them? The idea that they might not, that they might actually be curious about them, was too painful for her to accept. Already it seemed Arthur had heard something of his parentage, if his conversation yesterday with the Englishman was any indication.

  Upset as she hadn’t been in years, Wynne was not conscious of her direction as she fled the manor grounds. She only knew she had to get away, to be alone and collect her thoughts and lick her wounds. What her aunt was suggesting went against everything she felt. The past seven years had been hard ones. Orphaned and surrounded by the devastation the English had wrought, she’d managed as best she could. Parents gone; sister swollen with the seed of the very enemy who had caused their misery. And then Maradedd had been found at the foot of that cliff, her body broken and lifeless, while her baby had lain, strong and alive and demanding, in Wynne’s arms.

  How Wynne had hated that child. If she’d never been born, at least Maradedd would still have been alive. Thank God, Gwynedd had stepped in, naming the child Isolde, forcing the thirteen-year-old Wynne to care for her. Forcing her, Wynne knew, to love her. And she did love Isolde. She loved them all. How could Gwynedd now expect her to be able to give any of them up?

  She came to a breathless halt at a small stream. Clear and cold, it gurgled past a tangle of gnarled oak roots, then dropped past a shelf of stones to run through a quiet moss-lined glade of ash and wych elm. Wynne stared about her as if she’d never truly seen the place before. She knew where every rabbit hole, goosander nest, and fox den was, and yet the place seemed somehow wholly new to her.

  Were there places like this in England? Wild places where it was quiet and safe? She’d never thought it possible, yet her rational self knew there must be. The land was still the land. It was different everywhere you went, yet even in that it was the same. It was people who shaped it, who made it a wonderful place. Or else a terrible one.

  The English people were who made their land so awful, she told herself. And they would make life awful for an orphan of Cymru, thrust so young and defenseless among them.

  She took a deep breath of the familiar damp air. Even to conceive of one of her children in England was madness. They would be frightened and alone, away from the only family they’d ever known. Besides, their fathers had forfeited all rights to them when they had fled Wales in the wake of their defeat. If the children should ever wonder about their fathers, then she would simply face that problem when it arose. She would tell them the truth, and then, well, then they would just see.

  Feeling suddenly exhausted, Wynne pulled her coif from her head and shook her hair free. Then she made her weary way to the low-hanging branch of an ancient oak. For as long as she could remember, this had been her special spot. She would sit on this branch, pushing with her heels, making it dip and sway in a slow, ponderous rhythm. It was soothing and it was always there, unchanged, with moss beneath her feet and trails of mistletoe above her head. She’d cried a thousand tears in this place. She’d cursed the English to hell and back, venting her anger and her pain and her overwhelming sorrow.

  Perhaps that was why the mistletoe thrived so well, she thought. All her darkest emotions flying around in the air, making the mistletoe’s power even stronger.

  She reached up to run one finger lightly around a waxy green leaf, outlining its shape against the dark gray-brown of the oak bark. “How shall I best dispose of these devils?” she mused out loud.

  Then the hair on the back of her neck prickled, and with a sinking feeling she jerked around. There on the edge of the clearing—her clearing!—stood the very demon who sought to ruin her life.

  “Leave this place,” she hissed, her voice filled with deadly menace.

  “We have to talk.”

  She gave him a murderous glare. “I have nothing to say to you,” she began, “save that you are truly a witless fool to think I’d give up any one of these children to a pair of heartless lleidr such as you and this … this …”

  “Lord Somerville,” he supplied.

  “Yes, this Lord Somerville. What fools you both are. Do Englishwomen give up their children so easily? Are they so cruel and unloving? Would your mother have given you up had your father wanted you?” She pressed on, hoping to hurt him again as he was hurting her. “But no, I forgot. Your father never did want you, did he?”

  She smiled smugly, sure she’d wounded him. But his expression was shuttered. He only gave her a steady look, then moved forward.

  “You’re quite correct, my father did not want me anywhere near, and as a boy that knowledge tortured me. ’Tis not easy growing up knowing your father cares more for the beasts in his stable than he does for you.”

  She stiffened and steeled herself against the opening she’d given him. Just because he’d wished to know his father better meant nothing. He was only one person, and everyone was different. And anyway she loved her children enough to make up for the absence of their natural parents.

  But he seemed to read her thoughts. “My mother loved me dearly. And when she did marry, her husband was more than good to me. But after my mother’s death, when my father, in a weak moment, had me sent to be a page in a good household, I was only too eager to oblige him. So you see”—he spread his hands in appeal—“you cannot prevent these children wanting to know their parents. You can put it off, but you can’t prevent it happening eventually.”

  A hard hammering began in Wynne’s heart. Fear and desperation combined to rob her of the power to deny what he said. She gripped a rough branch and clung to it for strength. “There must be a hundred other bastard children from that war. You can’t be sure any of mine is the one you seek.”

  “It was Radnor Forest. And I’ve searched all the villages within the forest—Radnor, Penybont, Llandrindod Wells. None of the other women I found fits his description of the woman.” He stared at her. “But you have five orphans. It’s one of your children. They’re the only ones left.”

  The certainty in his voice turned her blood to ice. “Leave here,” she muttered between clenched teeth. “Leave here!”

  “No. Not until you listen to me.”

  “No!” she spat back, conscious that her voice held a wild, almost hysterical note. “I refuse to listen to anything you have to say!”

  “By damn, but you will listen,” he swore. In an instant he was before her, trapping her legs between his as he pressed his thighs against the thick tree branch. She leaned away, nearly falling backward, but he caught her arms and held her steady.

  “Lord William’s son deserves to receive his inheritance.

  Do not deprive him of it. He may hate you forever if you do.”

  “My sons—mine!—love Wales.”

  “They are not your sons,” he bit out. “Once they know they’re half English, they’re bound to be curious about their fathers and their fathers’ heritage.”

  “They will never want anything that is English!”

  “God’s teeth, woman. Just think. What has Wales to offer Lord William’s child? No lands of his own. No castles or even manors. Shall he be happy with a cottage built of mud and straw when in England he could be lord of all he can survey? Can you think to compete with that?”

  “That won’t matter to them. They have this manor house to live in. They have this forest to make their homes in, and it provides all they’ll ever need,” Wynne insisted, though she trembled now with the fear that his words might prove true. “We Welsh despise everything English.”

  “By damn,” he swore once more. Then his grip tightened, and his brown eyes bored into hers with a new determination. “You no doubt believe what you say. But even you, Welsh Witch that you purport to be, are not immune to all things English.”

  With a quick movement he pulled her upright, sliding her to stand between him and the slowly swaying branch. As the heavy limb swung forward, it thrust her intimately against him, and he pressed back when the branch moved the other way. “There are some attractions bound by neither political bound
aries nor even our own wishes. This for instance.”

  Before she could think to escape, his face lowered to hers, and he caught her lips in a bold, searching kiss.

  If he meant to silence her, he succeeded. If he meant to prove his point about the perverse attractiveness of at least some things English, he did that as well, for from the very first touch of his lips to hers, she was undone. Like some dark magic, his power overwhelmed her, robbing her of her ability to think, flooding her senses with feelings she could not begin to control. Heat, cold; a soaring lightness and a sinking, drowning sensation—all these and more did he invoke with that warm, intimate connection.

  She felt his tongue searching the seam of her mouth, sliding seductively, demanding entrance. Though she had no experience in such things—indeed, some rational part of her warned her to turn her head, to pull away, to run as fast and as far as she could from him—she could not do it. Her lips parted, longing to discover how deep and dark his magic went, and with a sweet surge he took complete possession of her mouth.

  The damp bonding they made as his tongue met hers shook her to the very deepest part of her. Body and soul, she was rocked. A fire caught in her belly, and a trembling began in every part of her.

  He was not fighting fair, the last remnant of her rational self deplored. Yet the part of her that believed in what could not always be seen or explained knew it did not matter. Magic was magic, a power to be used just as a keen eye or a fleet foot was used. And for once she’d met someone whose magic was as strong as hers.

  When his hands moved from her arms to circle her, then slid down her back to cup her derriere, she amended that thought. His magic was stronger than hers, she admitted as she dissolved beneath his touch. It was an ancient and primeval magic, and she was helpless against it.

  She was not conscious that she had lifted her arms to circle his neck. She was too overwhelmed by the torrid feel of his tongue sliding in and out of her mouth. He nibbled and sucked at her lower lip, then lured her tongue out to meet his. When he drew it into his mouth, Wynne pressed forward eagerly, unable to help herself. Had he not broken the kiss, allowing them both to gasp for breath, she was not sure where it would have ended. As it was, when their eyes met, she became abruptly and acutely aware of their intimate embrace and the firm press of his arousal against her belly.

  “You are indeed a witch,” he murmured in a tone that sounded both taunting and wondering. “For you have surely cast a spell on me.”

  She had cast a spell on him? Wynne could not credit that at all, not when she was feeling so overwhelmed and without the ability to speak or move—or even think, it seemed. She stared up into his deep brown eyes, captivated by the tiny gold flecks that lent them their warmth, and still inflamed by the way he made her feel. In her wildest, darkest imaginings she’d never—ever—imagined that a man could affect her in this way. And an Englishman, no less!

  She’d made enough love potions for enough lovesick maidens to be well acquainted with the effects of physical attraction. The girls sighed and giggled and spoke in hushed voices about the way their various love interests made them feel. Warm, tingly, like they would die if he didn’t pay attention to them. She’d even made love amulets for girls to entice Druce—dear, reliable Druce. If he only knew how many girls sighed over him—or perhaps he already did.

  But never had she herself experienced those feelings. Not for any man. Even now she was not certain it was truly that simple. He must possess some power. He must! It was the only explanation. Otherwise when he lowered his face a second time, she would have torn herself from their embrace. She would have been able to stop the kiss before it began.

  Only she couldn’t. When his lips met hers once again, she was as drawn in by their warm seduction as she had been the first time. But this time she knew what was to come, and the anticipation had her skin on fire and her insides all hot and jumpy.

  To her dismay, however, he ended this kiss almost before it could properly begin. His lips parted hers, and his tongue probed almost violently before he pulled away.

  “A witch,” he muttered, shaking his head as if to clear it. “If it’s your plan to sway me from my purpose, I warn you, Wynne, it will not work.”

  “What? Sway you?” For a moment her thoughts were too scattered for her to grasp his meaning. Then she shoved him away from her. Once removed from the power his touch held, she found her wits, and she searched her mind frantically. He feared she was swaying him with that kiss? Did that mean he was as affected as she? She peered at him warily, noting his quickened breathing and the bright gleam in his eyes. She could not mistake the telltale bulge in his braies either, but though she rejoiced in the proof it gave her, she could not ignore the very odd, very disturbing quiver that snaked through her at the sight. Yes, she had affected him, but he had easily done as much to her. Was the power of two witches together more than the sum of the two individuals alone?

  She didn’t know. Indeed she didn’t want to know. Above all, she reminded herself, he was her very worst enemy, and she must always deal with him as such.

  She forced herself to raise her chin and hoped she appeared more confident than she felt. “You will gain nothing by lingering here. Indeed, you have much to lose, for I will never—never—give up any of my children. And I will fight you even unto death, if that’s what it takes.”

  Instead of responding to her mounting anger with anger of his own, the Englishman sighed and raked his dark hair back with both of his hands.

  “I only want what is best for this child. Once you recover from your initial shock, you will see that. A veritable kingdom awaits this child—if he is a boy. He will not forgive you when he learns what you have cost him.”

  Wynne ignored his last words, for they were too uncomfortably close to Gwynedd’s warning. Instead she latched on to another point. “If he is a boy. If! If this man has sired only a girl, then he doesn’t even want her. What kind of a parent is that?”

  FitzWarin had the good grace to look at least a little discomfited. “He already has four daughters. But I’m certain he would take this child if it proved to be a girl. He would care for her—”

  “He doesn’t even want her,” Wynne broke in. “If she’s a girl, he doesn’t even want her. You know that’s true.”

  There was a brief, charged silence as they stared at each other. “Which child is his?” he finally asked. “Don’t lie to me, either, for I’ll find out. Which child is his?”

  Wynne glared at him. Then she let out a harsh and bitter laugh. “The truth is, I don’t know. I doubt if even their mothers knew. The English were rather indiscriminate in where they spread their wretched seed. Any woman would do. An old crone. A budding girl. Even pregnant women!” she spat.

  He absorbed that with a closed, stony face. “There must be a way to determine their parentage. Were any of their mothers called Angel? Where are their mothers?”

  Their mothers. The very thought of her children’s mothers caused Wynne’s blood to run cold, stifling the lingering vestiges of their brief, fiery interaction. “They’re dead. At least three of them are. And none of them was called Angel.”

  “Angel wasn’t her real name. It was what he called her, though.”

  “Are you saying he didn’t even know her real name?” Her eyes narrowed in contempt. “All right. I’ll tell you about these women you English raped and abandoned. Let’s see. I’ll begin with Arthur. His mother had other children, and she bore her pregnancy fairly well, or so we thought. But then she tried to end it—using a sharp stick. She nearly died, but God saw fit to keep her alive, at least until the child was born. She bled to death at the birthing. Naturally her husband did not want the English bastard that had cost him his wife and made orphans of his children. And so Arthur was given to me.

  “Then there’s Bronwen,” she continued, though every word felt like a fresh wound. “Her mother had only just reached that first moment of womanhood. She was so small, she nearly died bringing her child to
life. Had the baby not been so tiny—” She broke off, swallowing the hard lump of bitter feelings that gathered in her throat. “Her parents told her the babe was stillborn. They gave Bronwen to me.

  “Rhys and Madoc came later. Their mother bore them and kept them. Her betrothed husband married her despite the stain upon her honor. The stain upon her honor!” she repeated furiously.

  She took a steadying breath and forced an ironic smile. “She died a year later, trying to give her husband a child of his own. He did not want the twins after that. So they, too, came to me.”

  She stared at him, daring him to speak a word about the rights of an English lord to his abandoned bastard child.

  “Why did they all come to you?” he finally asked. “And what of Isolde?”

  Wynne suppressed a shudder, and for a moment her eyes closed as she remembered the terrible moment of Isolde’s conception. Her sister’s hysterical screams. The men’s coarse laughter. After what seemed like the longest time, Maradedd’s cries had subsided to helpless whimpers. The men’s laughter had been reduced to crude grunts.

  Wynne had heard it all from beneath the pig trough. She’d stifled her own cries by biting down on her hand. But she’d never been able to forget the sounds of the awful day.

  Taking a shaky breath, she forced herself to face him. “Isolde is my niece, daughter to my only sister. But she could just as easily have been mine. You see, my sister hid me. She sacrificed herself to the … to the English swine who meant to have me—” Her voice broke, and she turned awkwardly away from his scrutiny. She hadn’t meant to cry before him. It was the last thing she wanted to do. But even her boundless fury could not overshadow the piercing pain of these memories.

  “Wynne,” he began in the gentlest of tones. It stiffened her resolve at once.