Rexanne Becnel

by Where Magic Dwells

“One of the cats has kittens. But they won’t come to us—”

  “We chased them into the barn—”

  “—and past the pigs.”

  They both stared up at him. “Can we each have a kitten of our own?”

  Lord William began to laugh, his earlier mood completely forgotten in the joy of being a part of his sons’ lives. “If you bathe now—if when you answer the dinner bell, you are clean and neat and do not stink—then yes, you may each claim a kitten all your own.”

  As if they sensed his generous mood, the boys shared a look. “Can we each have—”

  “—a puppy too?”

  Lord William’s laughter boomed across the hall, causing several of his retainers to startle. But when they spied the identical boys, the servants only smiled and returned to their tasks. Life was always better when the lord was happy.

  “Aye, you may each have a pup. Anything at all, my lads. Anything at all.”

  “Anything at all?” Madoc asked. Once again the boys’ gazes met.

  Rhys piped up. “May Edeline have anything she wants as well?”

  Lord William’s brow raised. “Edeline? Why, Edeline already has everything she wishes. And more.” But even as he said it, he knew that, in one area at least, that was not true. But surely these two children did not mean that.

  “I think she would like something else,” Rhys said, his face gone grave.

  Lord William pursed his lips and stared at his sons. “Do you, now? And shall I be forced to guess, or shall you tell me?”

  “She wants to marry Druce—”

  “—not Cleve,” the pair answered without a moment’s hesitation.

  Lord William’s brow furrowed. “Druce? You mean the Welsh archer?”

  Before either of the twins could respond, a commotion at the entrance of the hall drew all their attention. Even the lad raking the ashes from the hearth looked up when Cleve strode in, for it was clear by his tense posture and purposeful stride that some weighty matter drove him.

  So he’d come at last. Though Lord William was put out at so obviously being the last to know what was going on around him, he nonetheless was hard put to suppress a satisfied smile. He bent down to his boys and gave them each a fond pat. “Go on and do your bathing quickly. If you’re not completely clean by dinner, however, our agreement is off.”

  “But Father—”

  “We’ll speak of Druce and Edeline later,” he interrupted them. He fixed them with a stern look. “If you want those kittens, you’d best hurry.”

  Desire for the kittens warred with their need to fully impart the message they’d clearly been prompted to deliver. By whom? Lord William wondered for a moment. But it didn’t really matter. He grinned as they scampered off, shouting a bright hello to Cleve as they ran by him.

  Cleve’s nose curled up as their awful stench assailed him, and that served to increase Lord William’s good humor even more. He leaned back in his sturdy chair and stretched his lame leg. Ah, but his life was good.

  “Well, Sir Cleve. We missed you last night and again today. Is anything amiss?”

  Cleve leaned across the table toward the other man, bracing himself on his knuckles. “Yes, milord,” he answered tautly. “Something is definitely amiss.”

  That was the right answer, Lord William thought as Cleve began to talk. That was definitely the right answer.

  27

  ISOLDE LOOKED UP FROM the intricate pattern she traced in the dust with a willow wand. She sniffed, then peered around her as if someone did play a trick on her. “Arthur? Are you teasing me?” she called, but there was no answer. Arthur lingered still in the meadow, she realized when she squinted into the late-afternoon sunshine. He lay on his thinking rock, staring up at a solitary red kite wheeling and circling on high.

  Bronwen helped Gwynedd with her spinning; Isolde could hear the quiet murmur of their voices inside the manor. As for Wynne, she had not been in the mood for teasing since they’d left England.

  When the odd tingle came again, Isolde straightened up and peered suspiciously around her. Somebody was trying to play a trick on her, and she didn’t like it. The back of her neck tickled, and now so did the pit of her stomach.

  Someone was coming. The thought popped into her head from nowhere. Someone was coming; she’d better tell Wynne.

  But Wynne already knew. When Isolde dashed breathlessly toward the damp glade that her aunt retreated to so often, she found Wynne standing very still. Very alert.

  “Someone … someone’s coming,” the child panted.

  Wynne looked over at the child, and her brows lifted in surprise. “You saw them? Or you just knew?”

  Isolde drew back at that. “I … I just knew.” Her small face broke into a wondering smile. “I just knew!”

  Wynne smoothed the child’s dark hair back from her cheek fondly, then pulled her close for a tight hug. She seemed ever to be clutching her three remaining children to her these days. Touching them. Kissing them. They’d always been precious to her, but now … now that she lived in the shadow of loss, she valued them all the more.

  “So you shall follow in your mother’s path,” Wynne murmured. “I am so glad. Shall we go tell Aunt Gwynedd?”

  Isolde nodded. Hand in hand they started off, but then Isolde paused. “What about whoever it is that’s coming?”

  Wynne tried to swallow the butterflies that rose in her stomach, but without much success. “He will get here soon enough. We’ll deal with him then.”

  “Do you know who it is?”

  Wynne knew. She’d known it with a certainty that had at first taken her breath away. Like a fist to her stomach it had caught her unaware. But she was recovering from the initial shock now, and she refused to speculate or wonder why he’d come.

  “We shall know who it is soon enough,” she replied, deliberately evading Isolde’s question. “We’d better hurry. Why don’t you go and collect Arthur?” While I try to confront Cleve FitzWarin before he reaches the manor, she decided in that moment.

  Wynne watched as Isolde dashed off ahead of her, the skirts of her kirtle and tunic flaring about her plump little legs. The children would be so happy to see Cleve. Especially Arthur. But what of when he left? They’d hardly had time to heal from the loss of Rhys and Madoc. Did Cleve now mean to start things with her all over again?

  Between the anxious pounding of her heart and the furious knot in her stomach, Wynne was in fine fettle when she reached the Ancient Road. He was coming this way. She could tell. But he would not get past her. Not this time. He could just take himself and his band of ruffians back to England.

  But when Cleve finally appeared around a bend in the narrow track, he was alone. No one rode with him, save three sumpter animals packed high with goods, an additional destrier, and a delicate mare, which followed on lead reins.

  She stepped from the deep shade of a heavily branched oak, to stand alone in the middle of the worn trail. Though she’d been so certain of her ability to send him away, the sight of him shook her confidence sorely. Added to that, his peculiar traveling circumstances left her confused. Why did he travel alone?

  When he spied her, he neither slowed his pace nor increased it. He just bore down on her steadily until he halted his destrier but an arm’s span from her.

  “Wynne.” He said only her name, no words of greeting or explanation. Yet she knew he was glad to see her. His eyes told her that, for they drank in her form as if he could quench his thirst only in that fashion. She also devoured the sight of him, hungry as she’d never suspected for just a glimpse of his perfect masculine beauty. What was it about him that touched her heart so completely? Her eyes moved over him, noting every detail: his dusty clothes; his damp hair; the weary lines in his face. How she wished to smooth those lines away with her fingers and her lips.

  In self-defense she closed her eyes, shutting out the sight of him in the vain hope that it might help. When it didn’t, she focused instead on the animals he led, watching as they lowered
their heads and nosed around alongside the road for something to eat.

  The silence seemed endless. To still her distraught nerves, she cleared her throat. “Are you traveling a distance?” she asked, then winced inwardly to initiate such noncommittal conversation. Where had her anger fled? Where was her backbone?

  “No.” His saddle creaked as he dismounted, and Wynne’s gaze flew back to his face at once.

  “Stay on your horse,” she warned as panic rose suddenly in her chest. “Just turn yourself right around and go back to England. You have no reason to be in Wales, least of all in my forests.”

  He released the destrier’s reins and took a step nearer to her. “I have a very good reason for being here,” he replied in a low and hesitant voice.

  Wynne pressed her lips together and shook her head. He had a very good reason, and yet he was hesitant? That made no sense whatsoever. Then her heart stopped. “Is it the twins? Are they—”

  “They’re fine. They’re fine, Wynne. I promise you.”

  In those brief seconds when she was so vulnerable, he moved up to her, and now he reached forward to grasp her upper arms. But when he would have pulled her to him, Wynne jerked away. His touch was too strong. Like magic it invaded all her senses, weakening her every time. She backed away from him, afraid of what she might do if his touch lingered too long upon her.

  “Go away, Cleve FitzWarin. Go away from here, and never may your shadow fall across mine again. Go back to England and—”

  “Cleve!”

  Wynne whirled about at Arthur’s glad cry.

  “Cleve! You came!” the boy cried as he began to run down the narrow road toward them, his feet churning furiously and his arms pumping. His face was alight with joy, but the very sight of it caused Wynne’s heart to plummet anew.

  She faced Cleve again, anguish painting her features. “Why are you here? Haven’t you done enough damage to me and my family! What more do you want of us?”

  He did not answer, and in truth she had not expected him to. By then Arthur had reached them and flung himself into Cleve’s arms.

  “Why, hello, lad. Hello, Isolde and Bronwen,” he added when those two ran up as well.

  “I knew you would come. I knew it!” Arthur boasted from his lofty position in Cleve’s arms.

  “I knew it before you!” Isolde countered. She leaned against Cleve as he put his arm around her. “I knew. I felt it before you even got here.”

  Wynne observed the scene before her with a sinking heart. The children loved him. She loved him too. Was she doing them all a disservice by refusing Cleve’s offer, even if it kept them second in his life? Perhaps even second place was better than no place at all.

  A small hand insinuated itself into hers, and she looked down into Bronwen’s quiet, smiling face. “I knew he would come too.” She beamed. “I knew it.”

  In a state of complete bewilderment Wynne allowed herself to be pulled along as the children tugged Cleve toward the manor. With a grin Cleve tossed Arthur astride the patient destrier. Isolde, too, he lifted, as she shrieked with delight, and deposited her behind the ecstatic Arthur.

  “I have a horseman’s hands,” Arthur boasted as he wove the leather reins between his little fingers.

  “That you do, my boy. Now, show Ceta who’s in charge.” Cleve turned to reach for Bronwen, but when she drew back from riding the towering steed, he smiled. “You shall ride upon my shoulders then. Would you prefer that?”

  Bronwen shook her head. “Let’s just walk, all right?” Then she took his hand in her free one so that she held on to both adults. A happy sigh escaped her lips, and her shy smile flitted from Cleve to Wynne and back again. “Let’s just walk, all three of us.”

  What was she to do? Wynne wondered miserably as the little party started up the road. Once more she questioned her motives in refusing Cleve’s offer to make her a part of his life. Was pride more important than the happiness she saw in her children’s eyes? Would she truly be happier here than she would be in England sharing at least a portion of her time with him?

  She knew the answer, and that knowledge both thrilled and terrified her. But there was more to consider than merely herself and her family. What of Gwynedd? What of Wynne’s position as Seeress—and Isolde’s newly unfolding talents as well? Was she to abandon it all for this man?

  The children’s chatter rose around her. Cleve’s words of caution to the two adventurous riders registered in her ears, only adding to her confusion. He would be such a good father to them. But how could she leave here?

  And then, she was not really certain he’d come here to ask her to return to England at all.

  That thought brought her up short. She couldn’t keep from casting a sidelong glance at him, wondering what in fact, had prompted his journey here. He was smiling down at Bronwen, and Wynne’s eyes traced his profile with loving attention to detail. The straight, proud nose; the lean cheeks and strong jaw. The curve of his lips. Then he turned slightly and met her gaze full on.

  Wynne looked away at once, but not quickly enough to miss the searching, possessive light in his eyes. Her heart pounded, a pattern caused as much by fear as by anticipation, for with that solitary look at least one of her questions was answered: he’d come for her. There was no doubt of that. But would she go?

  Gwynedd stood on the stone stoop before the manor’s front door. “So you have come,” she said, her sightless eyes following Cleve’s approach.

  “I have come,” Cleve answered. He took Gwynedd’s outstretched hand in his. “Will you grant a weary traveler your hospitality?”

  Gwynedd chuckled. “As long as you are in need of it, my son.”

  At once the entire yard came alive with activity. Cleve lifted Arthur and Isolde down from the destrier. Cook and the other servants spilled out of the kitchens, and like ants upon a bit of sweet pastry they swarmed about his packhorses, unloading his considerable belongings and ferrying them into the manor. Even the children helped until all of his goods were stored. But amidst it all Wynne remained a bystander, observing but not participating. Wondering, but afraid to ask.

  “Children, children.” Gwynedd clapped her hands, and the three slowed their excited chattering for a moment. “I need three sets of strong hands to assist me with putting away my spinning. Come along. You shall have ample time to spend with Cleve later.”

  “Oh, do we have to?” Isolde complained.

  “I wanted to help feed Ceta,” Arthur protested.

  But Bronwen cut them off. “You heard Aunt Gwynedd,” she said. “She needs our help. Besides, Wynne can help Sir Cleve feed his horses.”

  Arthur and Isolde shared a look of such sudden and complete understanding that Wynne was reminded of Rhys and Madoc. Then the two started nodding and backing away.

  “You’re right, Bronwen.”

  “Come on, let’s go help Aunt Gwynedd.”

  They were so obviously anxious to leave her alone with Cleve that Wynne could have laughed. But instead she only swallowed the uncomfortable lump that had lodged in her throat. How could a person both long for and dread the same moment with such equal intensity? She wrapped her arms around herself, waiting for everyone to leave. Waiting for Cleve to speak. Waiting to see what she would do.

  He stood waiting, too, and once more Wynne was conscious of his hesitant manner. It seemed so out of place, especially considering how far he’d come to speak to her. She supposed he worried that she would again turn him down, and once more she had the ridiculous urge to laugh. He feared she’d turn him down. She feared she would accept.

  “Will you help me with the horses?”

  Slowly she nodded. She took the lead reins for the three jennets that he handed her, but she was careful to avoid touching his fingers. His touch had proven time and time again to be too compelling for her. Too beguiling.

  They led all six animals across the yard to the fenced area beside the stable. Only when the horses were set free in the yard and the gate closed and latched did h
e turn directly to face her.

  “I … I came to see you, Wynne, because …” He paused and wet his lips nervously. Then he grimaced at his stumbling beginning. “My God, woman, but you do unman me.”

  She met his eyes, gone dark now with emotion. She unmanned him? Oh, but there was no logic in the world at all when it came to their dealings together.

  “I have left England, Wynne. I’ve come to Wales to stay. If you will have me.”

  At such a startling revelation Wynne’s mouth fell open in surprise. For a moment her mind refused to function, and she even doubted her ears. But Cleve continued, though he kept his distance from her.

  “Lord William has released me from my betrothal to the Lady Edeline. Not that she minded much,” he added with a wry expression on his face. “I’ve messages for Druce from both her and her father—”

  “You are not wed to her?” Wynne blurted out, focusing on that single fact above all others.

  “No. And I never will be wed to her, Wynne.” He started forward, but then stopped as if he fought a terrible battle of restraint with himself. “There is only one woman I wish to wed. There is only one woman I want as mother to my children.”

  Like a tide, emotions rose up inside her, filling her with an unearthly joy, bringing tears to her eyes and the most unspeakable happiness to her heart. “Me?” she asked in a voice gone low and shaky.

  He nodded his head while his eyes devoured her with the force of their possessiveness. “If you will have a poor Englishman who brings you only a few horses, a few coins, and a heart that truly loves you.”

  In an instant she was in his arms, crying, laughing, holding him as if she would never let him go. Knowing now that she would never have to. Tears streamed down her cheeks, but complete love filled her heart.

  “Will you marry me, cariad?” he murmured urgently against her lips. They kissed deeply, all their pent-up emotions free at last. “Will you marry me? Say the words, my love. I need to hear them.”

  “I will marry you, Cleve FitzWarin. I will marry you and be your wife forever. Forever. I love you so.” This last she said staring deeply into his eyes, eyes that radiated so much love that her heart fairly ached with fullness. He lowered his head to kiss her again, and this time she held back nothing. All her love she placed into his keeping, knowing now that there could never have been any other ending for the two of them. Their love had been ordained by a force mightier than they.