Rexanne Becnel

by Where Magic Dwells

Druce grinned. “Actually I’ve set aside the next hour or so purely for gloating.”

  “Gloating?” she asked in initial confusion. Then her lips thinned, for she knew. “Don’t waste your time. Or mine.”

  “Ah, England. Who would think this land could be so fair? Who would expect it to offer such rewards to a group of Cymry such as we?”

  “England has nothing for us,” Wynne snapped. “Nothing whatsoever.”

  “Not true, Wynne. You know you do but avoid the truth. For one—or two—of our boys, England promises great wealth. For you, well, you have found your one true love.”

  “I have not!”

  “And for me,” he continued as if she had not spoken, “for me it offers adventure. Perhaps riches as well. Marriage to a beautiful heiress. Or something,” he finished with a carefree shrug.

  “This English air does obviously make you daft,” she spat.

  He studied her with the same nearly black eyes she’d known since they were children together, and without warning Wynne felt a barrier fall. Her quick anger became just as quickly a weary resignation. Druce was one of her oldest and dearest friends, and she desperately needed a friend right now.

  He must have seen the change in her expression, for his brows drew together in concern. “Wynne? What is it?”

  She gave a huge sigh, stared at him another long second, then turned to squint at the eastern horizon. “I don’t know what to do,” she admitted in a small voice.

  He sat up straighter and peered at her. “About what in particular?”

  She shrugged. “About anything. About this Lord Somerville.” She paused, then turned her head to meet his encouraging gaze. “About Cleve.”

  Druce nodded, and a tiny grin lifted one side of his mouth. “I’d say you’re doing very well with our Sir Cleve, just by following your basic instincts.”

  Wynne let out a rude noise and turned away from him. “Men are idiots,” she muttered.

  “No, just wait a minute, Wynne. Think about it. You’ve got him completely befuddled. He wants you in the worst way. What more could you want?”

  “But I don’t want him to want me!”

  He laughed outright at that. “You do but lie, Wynne ab Gruffydd. To me and to yourself.”

  They sat in silence a little while. Wynne’s full sleeves belled slightly in the freshening evening breeze. The sounds of the camp settling in surrounded them, as did the cry of a lost woodcock and the green rustling of the leaves above them.

  She was lying to herself, she admitted, rubbing her neck wearily. She did want Cleve to want her, because she wanted him so badly. But that was her body’s reaction, and it had nothing to do with common sense or logic.

  Druce shifted slightly and cleared his throat. “Last night …” he began, but trailed off.

  A quick rush of blood suffused Wynne’s cheeks with hot color. She licked her lips nervously and chanced a quick glance at him. “What about last night?” she asked in little more than a whisper.

  To her partial relief he seemed almost as uncomfortable with the subject as she. “Well, was he … you know. Did it … Did he—” He took a quick breath. “Did he hurt you?” he finally blurted out.

  Wynne focused on the horizon with renewed determination. “No. No, he didn’t hurt me. He was … he was very gentle.”

  “Gentle?”

  Wynne rounded on him in defensive irritation. “What is it you wish to know, Druce? Would you like a detailed description? Shall I regale you with every … every …” She trailed off as embarrassment and confusion battled for control. None of this was Druce’s fault, she realized. It was pointless to be angry with him.

  There was another long pause. Then Druce rose to his feet. “I shall sleep outside your tent for the rest of the journey.”

  Wynne tilted her head up to meet his determined expression. “That shall solve nothing at all.”

  But he only grinned, that familiar boyish grin that had charmed almost every maiden he’d ever turned it on. “You are wise in some ways, Wynne. But in the workings of men’s minds I’ve considerably more experience than do you. I shall guard you night and day, from now on.”

  “But I don’t need to be guarded.”

  Her words, however, fell on deaf ears. Druce ignored all her protests, and indeed, infuriated her with his superior smile. Wynne finally was forced to ignore him in return, pointedly turning her back on him as she sliced turnips, carrots, and garlic with reckless vigor.

  A pox on all men, she fumed, dividing one large turnip with a healthy whack. Would that she never had to deal with men ever again, she wished as a trio of carrots succumbed to her blade. Yet as the evening shadows grew, slowly enveloping them in the lavender, then purple of the long summer twilight, her anger could not hold. Was ever there so tangled a web as this one she found herself ensnared in?

  Cleve sat on one side of the low campfire, staring at her relentlessly. She sat on the other side, surrounded by children, and with Druce and Barris on either side of her, avoiding Cleve’s bold gaze as best she could. But she felt his eyes upon her—while she served the rabbit stew into small tin bowls; while she sat on a rug, eating her meal, though without much appetite; while she shepherded the children to the nearby stream for their evening ablutions.

  Druce and Barris, however, kept a constant and prominent position between her and Cleve, and she wasn’t certain whether to be relieved or upset. When there were no plausible reasons left for remaining up, she crawled into the tent with the children, only this time she didn’t sit in the opening, staring at the Englishmen who still kept company beside the dying fire. She would have had to peer past her two countrymen to see where Cleve sat, and she refused to do that.

  She wasn’t that desperate for the man. Was she?

  Druce wondered the very same thing as he stretched out on a coarse fustian blanket just before Wynne’s tent. If the jerkiness of her movements and the stiffness of her bearing were any indication, however, she was well on her way to being completely besotted with the man.

  Druce grinned up at the dark velvet of the night sky. Cleve, too, was a study in repressed desire, for his eyes had not once left Wynne the entire evening. Just that one taste of each other they’d had. And look how hungry they were now.

  Barris had thought his plot a little mad at first. Keep Wynne and Cleve apart in an effort to drive them together? But Barris had shrugged in good humor and agreed to go along with his older brother’s plan.

  “Given up on her yourself, then?” Barris had quipped when Wynne had been temporarily out of earshot.

  Druce had just laughed. “She’s a comely wench, Barris. But she and I are better suited as friends. This Englishman, however, would make her a good husband.”

  “She hates the English. She’s always hated them.”

  Druce had conceded as much, but he suspected that his primary obstacle would not be Wynne’s avowed hatred of the English so much as Cleve’s expected reward from this Lord William. Druce had only a few days to raise Cleve’s need for Wynne to the breaking point.

  If he’d read the tension that had crackled across the campsite tonight correctly, however, that should be more than enough time.

  18

  THEY RODE INTO KIRKSTON Castle just ahead of a fierce summer storm. Clouds, heavy and gray, had welled up from the southwest during the afternoon, threatening the weary band of riders with blustery winds, erratic sheets of lightning, and the ominous rumbling of thunder.

  It was a bad omen, Wynne feared as she stared at the stark stone walls that rose so abruptly from a protective circle of black water. She’d heard of moated castles, but never seen one before. The sight only depressed her more. Kirkston Castle seemed an impregnable fortress. A river rushed behind it, and the diverted water of the moat ran around the rest of its perimeter.

  Though the bridge extended welcome across the dark waters that surged so restlessly in the storm-driven winds, once that bridge was pulled up, there would be no way to get in or out.
r />   Getting out. That was what concerned her the most.

  Rain splattered down in hard, fat drops. The smell of the dust, wet now by the hastening raindrops, rose up to surround her. It was a familiar smell, however, one she knew and reveled in at home, for it presaged the storms of Wales as well.

  Perhaps this very storm had shed its tears upon Radnor Manor, she thought wistfully. Perhaps.

  Somehow that thought heartened her, and as the horses sensed the end of their journey and picked up their pace, she forced herself to sit more erect and ready herself for what was to come. At least they would have good accommodations and better fare. This Lord William was said to be a wealthy man. His castle certainly looked a prosperous place, for the fields they’d passed had been neat and orderly, and the crops well tended.

  She pulled her hood up as the rain began in earnest. She turned to glance at Druce, who’d ridden at her side these past six days, but he was gone. Barris as well had let his laboring mount fall back a small distance.

  Even as she looked around, another rider approached her side. To her surprise Cleve fell in beside her, matching his taller destrier to her mare’s pace.

  “I see your hounds do not guard you so closely as usual,” he said, a contemptuous expression on his face.

  Wynne lifted her chin and turned to stare somewhere beyond her horse’s ears, but she kept her silence. She was torn between admitting that Druce and Barris did this of their own volition and the fear that by placing the blame solely on them she would sound too plaintive and thereby look precisely as she was: a pitiful lovelorn fool. Oh, but there was no justice whatever to be had in this world. Not for women.

  “I suppose they feel you are safe once we are under Lord William’s roof,” he continued in a rough tone. “Well, they are mistaken.”

  She turned in alarm to stare at him. But was it truly alarm that caused her heart to quicken so? Was it alarm, or perhaps more accurately anticipation?

  He smiled then, a dangerous, wicked smile, and she felt its effect clear to her boot-clad toes. “What do you mean?” she blurted out.

  “What do I mean?” He arched one brow in grim humor. But she sensed somehow that his humor was directed more at himself. “I mean that I want you, Wynne ab Gruffydd. One night was not enough for me. Nor for you.”

  His steed was so near to hers that their knees jostled together. Then he leaned over to take her hand in his, and his voice came low and husky, private words meant only for her. “Evade your guard dogs. Come to me, so we may …” He trailed off, fastening his gaze to her mouth when she nervously licked her lower lip. “So we may continue.”

  Wynne felt as if her heart might burst free of her chest, so mightily did it pound under his potent scrutiny. She swallowed and met his burning gaze with no thought for deception or coyness.

  “Come to me tonight,” he commanded softly. “Find a way.”

  “What of … what of Edeline?” She whispered the English maiden’s name almost fearfully, though she knew she should have been turning him away coldly.

  When he frowned and did not answer, however, she tore her gaze from his and stared at the castle they approached. A capricious wind tugged at her hood, forcing it to fall about her shoulders. Though her hair immediately blew in blinding waves around her face, she was glad. It at least blocked the truth of his loyalties from her view. This castle and its lord. This prized English bride of his.

  She heard before she saw the armed contingent of knights that poured through the narrow castle gate. By the time she had her hair twisted in a thick coil and shoved down into her mantle, and her hood back in place, they were surrounded by a jovial crowd of Englishmen.

  “What ho? Success, Sir Cleve?”

  “It appears five-times success,” another voice jested.

  “Aye, we met with success,” she heard Cleve admit.

  “Which little bastard is Lord William’s? Or are they all?” one burly fellow asked, leaning to pluck Rhys from where he rode before Derrick.

  “Let me go!” Rhys cried as he was held aloft, his arms and legs flailing in quick fear.

  “Get your filthy hands off him!” Wynne shouted as all her old hatreds of the English came back in a rush.

  At the same time, Madoc screamed, “Leave my brother alone! Let him be, you great oaf!”

  Into this sudden pandemonium Cleve forced his destrier, and with an abrupt movement snatched young Rhys from the grinning knight’s hands. “You manhandle him who may well hold your fate and that of your family in his hands someday.” Cleve glared a warning at the man. “Keep your hands to yourself. That goes for all of you. These children are weary and very likely frightened to be in strange lands.”

  “And what of the wench?”

  Wynne looked up in outrage to see a young, barefaced knight just beyond her mare’s head leering at her. Druce angled his horse between her and the knight, and she saw his hand move to his sword.

  “Rein in! Both your mounts and your tongues!” Cleve thundered, drawing everyone’s attention. “Let us enter and greet Lord William. Your questions will be answered then. Meanwhile you do but confirm the belief of these Welsh people that all in England are cruel and thoughtless. I had hoped to prove them wrong.”

  He could never prove her wrong, Wynne fumed as they finally moved forward again. The English knights fell behind the wary party, but as they crossed the heavy plank bridge, she knew that her ordeal had just begun. Like the ominous tolling of a bell, the many hooves of the horses seemed to signal the low, dull warning. These were sad times indeed.

  Inside the forecourt a crowd of castlefolk awaited them. Sweet Mother, how vast were the retainers of this Lord William, she realized. His castle was large enough. His fields spread as far as the’ eye could see. But the numbers of his people!

  Cleve led the way through the murmuring throng, toward a raised step before a tall pair of wooden doors. A heavy man stood there. Lord William, she judged, if the quality of his robes was any indication. Four women clustered around him and three men. Of them all, only Lord William smiled. The others eyed the bedraggled party with various degrees of curiosity, doubt, and even suspicion.

  And why not? Wynne thought grimly. One of her children could become Lord William’s heir, thereby relegating his daughters—and their husbands—to a lesser role in the man’s estates. Her gaze narrowed, and she scrutinized the group with a new intensity. How safe would it be for a little child among such a jealous family as they must be? How safe could this Lord William keep her child?

  Lord William stepped forward at that moment, and it was then Wynne saw that he walked with a cane. One of his legs had an odd bend at the knee. A broken bone healed badly, she suspected. He was old and in ill health.

  How could he safeguard a child if other, younger men should wish the boy dead?

  She kicked her mount forward, compelled by her new fear to enlist aid, and it was to Cleve she unthinkingly went. She reached out to grasp his sleeve.

  “Cleve! Cleve!” she cried, tugging at him until he turned in her direction. “I’m afraid. For the children.”

  He frowned. “Don’t worry, Wynne. The men’s rough curiosity was ill considered, I’ll admit. But they meant no real harm.”

  “No, not them.”

  But it was too late. They had halted before Lord William, and now that one addressed Cleve after granting her only a cursory glance.

  “Welcome, Sir Cleve. Welcome all,” he greeted them. “Your messenger announced your arrival. But he did not say that you brought an entire nursery with you.” Lord William could not hide his bewilderment.

  Cleve grinned at his overlord. “There is much to tell you, milord. But I would rather greet you in private, if that is your wish.”

  The man nodded, but his brow creased in thought. “I count five children.”

  Cleve also nodded. He sent Wynne a sidelong glance. “I will explain everything to you.”

  Lord William let out a noisy breath. “So be it. Anne, Bertilde. See to
our guests’ rooms. Catherine, Edeline, they will wish some sustenance while Sir Cleve and I speak, but not in the hall. Clear the hall. The meal proper shall wait on us.”

  The four women jumped to his command. For a moment Wynne forgot her fears as she tried to determine which one might be Edeline. But then she reminded herself sternly that she did not care. Who Cleve was to wed mattered not a whit to her.

  “Come with me,” Cleve said, taking hold of her horse’s bridle.

  “I must see to the children first,” she replied. “You and your arrogant Lord William will just have to wait.”

  But he ignored her completely, and that cut her to the quick. “Druce. Barris. You can supervise the children while Wynne and I speak with Lord William.” Then he addressed the wide-eyed children. “Arthur, there is nothing to fear here. I want you to be brave and set a good example for the rest. Rhys and Madoc, you were both very brave outside. Can you be just as brave inside?”

  The twins shared a look, then slowly their two heads bobbed assent.

  “And you girls, Isolde and Bronwen. You shall both be treated as fine ladies at Kirkston. If you wish a bath, or a pastry, you have but to ask. Druce and Barris will be near. And Wynne and I shall return very soon. Will you be all right?”

  Not to be outdone by her brothers, Isolde nodded gamely. Bronwen clung to Barris, but she, too, finally murmured her agreement.

  Had it not been for her reluctance to upset the shaky calm Cleve had wrought, Wynne would have objected, and loudly, to his presumption. But the children were too round-eyed and their peace of mind too precarious for Wynne to risk unsettling them once more.

  She waited, fuming, as he dismounted, then came to help her down. His touch was sure and easy as he lifted her from her mare, and she had to try very hard to ignore the shiver of recognition she felt to have his hands upon her so. But once on her feet, she shook off his grasp and gave voice to her fury.

  “Do not think to treat me like a piece of baggage,” she muttered in the shelter of the horses.

  He gave her a considering look. “ ’Tis time to trust me, Wynne. I told you the time would come, and so it has. Leave this to me.”