Welshman's Bride

by Bancroft, Blair

  I sighed. Only time would tell.

  And then there was Rhys. Surely he would not desert me.

  Would he?

  Gwendolyn Maddox was his mother, a bond not easy for a bride to break. Ordinarily I would not wish to, of course, but—

  Stop, stop, stop! There was absolutely nothing I could do at this moment except be pleasant, accept the inevitable. Wait until I could look the problem in the eye before deciding what to do. Manufacturing disaster was the stuff of idiots. And that I most certainly was not.

  Perhaps if I arrived in Wales, longbow in hand . . . I smiled. Jocelyn Maddox, warrior.

  But for which side? In my mind my longbow transformed into a lance, the weapon of an English knight.

  Cloud dreams. I was a pampered merchant princess who had no idea how to fight any battle more serious than the color of a new gown or the style of my hair . . .

  I would learn.

  Chapter Five

  The Saxons, Romans, Normans, and English might have spent a thousand years attempting to tame the Welsh—something at which they had only been partially successful, I suspected—but tame the Welsh countryside? Never.

  Not that I had doubted Rhys’s description of his land, but it has to be seen to be believed. Even before we crossed the River Dee, the softly rolling hills, quiet streams, neat fields and hedgerows of England gave way to masses of greenery at the base of slopes too precipitous to farm. The horses labored as we climbed before plunging down to the River Dee, the coachwheels rattling as we crossed an impressively long bridge into Wales. Was this how Caesar felt when he crossed the Rubicon?

  Immediately—though perhaps only in my imagination—I felt the difference. Everything was darker, greener, growing in more profusion. Streams that meandered peacefully through the countryside were now mini-torrents tumbling down hillsides as if on a mad, inexplicable rush to the river, and on to the sea. Rocks expanded into boulders, into granite cliffs towering above the road. In the near distance mountains jutted up out of the greenery, their bare tops lost in a blue haze, though an occasional flock of sheep could be seen dotting the slopes—forming a pattern rather similar to a muslin gown I once owned, I thought with a whimsical curl to my lips.

  Suddenly recalling my mother’s admonitions that a lady displaying too much curiosity and enthusiasm was nearly as unacceptable as displaying too much education, I shot a quick glance at my husband and was surprised to see he was taking as much interest in the landscape as I, almost as if he too was seeing it for the first time. Perhaps he was, for how he could help but attempt to see his country through my eyes. And undoubtedly wondering at my reaction to this decidedly untamed world.

  Or was he concentrating on the landscape to shut out all thought of what was waiting for us at Glyn Eirian?

  “It is rather a lot to take in,” I offered, “but I like it. There is a wildness to it that . . .” I gulped back half-formed thoughts. One week a bride, and I was having thoughts that shocked me to the core. Thoughts of intimacies as untamed as the rugged countryside. Passion I had not yet known.

  Though I struggled to repress my mortification, heat rose to stain my cheeks, followed by an undoubtedly darker wave of color as Rhys’s chuckles reverberated around me. How dare he laugh? How dare he have the temerity, the acuity, to even remotely guess what I was thinking?

  I turned my back on him, shifting closer to the window until my nose was nearly pressed against the glass. There. That would show him I was not to be laughed at.

  As if he cared.

  Except for necessary verbal exchanges when we paused for food and fresh horses, we passed the remainder of the journey in silence. And so I allowed my embarrassment to fester into a grievance with my husband, even as I quaked in my boots at the thought of my coming encounter with his family.

  Fool, fool, fool! I needed him, yet I was doing it again. Repeating the mistakes of my wedding day. Refusing to give in, refusing to acknowledge he had cause to be amused by my thoughts.

  By what he thought I thought.

  Which I was.

  Oh drat! I was blushing again.

  The coach made its way through yet another pass, as what I had thought were mountains became dwarfed by increasingly towering peaks around us. The landscape became rockier, more inimical to growth. And then we were climbing again, the horses straining to the point that Rhys and I got out and walked, joined by the armed guard who had been riding on the box. The temperature plunged, and I realized why Rhys had insisted I wear my cloak.

  I had always loved the rolling hills of England, but this . . . this was almost hostile, more of a challenge than I had bargained—

  Weakling! Overly indulged brat! I would walk shoulder to shoulder with my husband, and like it. Were we English not taught to spare our horses? To consider their welfare before our own? I could scarcely claim that a climb up a mountain road was solely a challenge to be found in Wales.

  Just because I’d never actually had to get out and walk, no matter how steep the hill . . .

  I glowered, as I attempted to ignore the stray pebbles stabbing the soles of my half-boots, the dust swirling up to dirty the hem of the sky blue linen traveling gown of which I’d been so proud. Not to mention coating the rest of me in fine particles that caused me to sneeze.

  “Only a few more steps,” Rhys coaxed. “We are nearly at the top.”

  I shot him a disgusted look but allowed him to take my hand and haul me along behind him, as he had the day we had our “talk” on the idyllic hillside at Litchfield Manor. I huffed and puffed but somehow kept moving upward. And then the coach slowed to a stop, waiting while we caught up.

  O-oh! At first I saw only the distance, a green valley far below, the river winding through it no wider than a child’s hair-ribbon. Near the edge of what appeared to be a large cluster of doll-sized cottages, a strange tower rose high, a sight I had never seen before.

  “That is the village,” Rhys said. “The tower marks the colliery.” He swept a hand toward the left. “And behind that copse is the foundry. If you look closely, you can see the chimneys.”

  Utterly fascinated, I stared at the valley. It was not, after all, so very different from Papa’s mills in Birmingham. Just smaller, the scenery more untamed, the coating of coal dust likely no worse than any city in the Midlands or London itself. But never before had I been asked to live amongst it!

  Nor was I now. As the sun lowered, flirting with the peaks all around us, and passing clouds sent shadows flitting across a broad expanse of valley below, Rhys took me by the shoulders and turned my attention to something I had missed. Part way down the steep, winding road leading to the village below, there was a break in the cliffs, a patch of green almost entirely obscured by a . . . a castle? A walled and crenellated castle that did not appear to be ruin.

  “Protector of the valley,” Rhys said. “Believe me, no enemies made it past the fortress of Glyn Eirian. Which means Beautiful Valley,” he added.

  “How odd to name a castle Beautiful Valley,” I remarked without thinking, a fault for which Mama had chided me all too often.

  “The valley remains beautiful because the pass is narrow, the castle strong.”

  How could I argue with that? But I’d not been expecting a castle. A fairytale castle might have been acceptable, but a dark hunk of stone set into a cleft in the mountains and built for the sole purpose of keeping the English out—or had this one been built for keeping the Welsh in?

  “Come.” Rhys helped me into the coach and we were off. I considered making an effort to look pleased by the first sight of my new home and promptly abandoned the thought. Whoever called this place Glyn Eirian had to be mad!

  As we drew closer, I had to admit the castle was not quite as forbidding as it had appeared from above. Its curtain wall long gone, it sat in a nicely scythed bed of green, looking almost somnolent in the fading light. The crenellated inner wall-walk, however, appeared remarkably intact, though I could see no sign of it on the far side of castle.<
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  “The outer wall was used to expand the village some centuries ago,” Rhys offered, “but we keep the hall and solar in good repair to remind us of times gone by. My great-grandfather built a more modern structure on the west side, where we live in much greater comfort than the castle can offer.”

  I scarcely heard him. My husband owned a castle. His ancestors had indeed been Welsh princes. So why had he settled for the daughter of a Midlands merchant when he could have had his pick of London’s noble entrants on the marriage mart? If his grandfather had married an earl’s daughter, surely Rhys’s polished manners, his wealth—tainted though it was by coal—and coupled with a home of this magnitude could have given him access to any noble family not blinded by overly aristocratic notions.

  Time to eat humble pie, as Papa would have said. Fortunately, my family had imbued me with a sense of honor, though sometimes it had trouble fighting its way through my stubbornness, but . . .

  A rider came to greet us, requesting that we use the castle entrance to my new home. “It would seem,” Rhys told me, “that my mother wishes to greet you in proper Medieval style. Indulge her whim, if you please. The castle is still very much part of our lives, though only the guard lives there now.”

  The guard? I thrust my surprise aside, telling myself, as I had a dozen times before, that I must not expect the customs of a Welsh household to follow English tradition. I must be prepared for anything, no matter how bizarre. Just as the coachwheels rumbled to a stop, I made the effort, reaching out to touch Rhys’s hand. “I’m sorry,” I murmured. “My temper has not been at its best. Everything is so different . . . and I admit to worry about your mother. Please forgive me. I will do better, I promise.”

  Tears shot to my eyes as he bent his head and kissed me. For a full week he had shown me no affection outside the bedchamber. Now this. Thank you, Lord!

  Rhys pulled back, his blue eyes, concerned. I swiped away a tear, offered a tremulous smile. He nodded and helped me from the carriage.

  I stepped down, firmed my chin with an ease I had not anticipated just moments earlier. I was Mrs. Rhys Maddox, and I would meet my new Welsh relations with courage and fortitude.

  But when the massive ornately carved front door was opened by a man straight out of Medieval times, I almost allowed my jaw to drop in astonishment. He was wearing a forest brown tunic of fine wool that fell to his knees, ornamented solely by what appeared to be a large gold medallion which hung from a broad satin ribbon round his neck. Below the tunic, his legs were cross-gartered, his feet encased in boots of supple leather. His was tall, his manner imperious, his lean face topped by a badge-fronted soft cap that seemed to echo the heraldry on the medallion. He was, perhaps, fifteen or twenty years Rhys’s senior.

  “My cousin, Gruffydd Maddox,” Rhys announced. “He acts as seneschal at Glyn Eirian. As I have mentioned, my mother prefers to ignore English influences as much as possible, maintaining her household as it was when we were still an independent nation.”

  What? A thousand years ago? Before the Saxons, Vikings, Romans, Irish, Norman-French, and English? With a mental slap at my all-too-ready sarcasm, I focused on the first of the many Maddoxes I was to meet. (Only later would I learn the proper spelling for the name I heard as was “Griffith.”) The seneschal of Glyn Eirian was an impressive personage. I could only hope he would not find me wanting.

  The irony of such a thought about a man who was some odd combination of butler and steward did not escape me, but such a mean notion was soon swamped by my ire at the rest of Rhys’s statement. Gwendolyn Maddox’s own mother-in-law was English, for heaven’s sake, her late husband half-English. And besides, I added grimly, if only to myself, it was no longer her household. It was mine.

  I swallowed these derisive thoughts, as I must for the sake of good manners and peace in the household, and paid close attention to Rhys’s introduction of the housekeeper, Olwenna Blevins. She at least appeared normal, her gown of black bombazine lightened by white lace collar and cuffs and hair nearly as white as the lace. Her face was round, her wrinkles the comfortable kind that came mostly from smiles—except it was clear she had none for me. My spirits sank still further. Even the housekeeper found me wanting.

  Rhys and I followed the seneschal’s stately tread through a passage into a great hall, its dark wooden walls polished with age, as were four equally dark trestle tables taking up a good deal of the floor space. Far overhead, great wooden beams criss-crossed the ceiling—

  Oh good Lord! I blinked as I took in what was hanging on the walls. Great wooden knobs, perhaps as wide as eight to ten inches, ran along two sides of the room at a height well above a man’s head. From each hung a bow so long its bottom tip was a scant few inches from the floor. Longbows. The ancient and oh-so-deadly weapon of Welsh warriors.

  Oof! Rhys’s hands clamped tight on my shoulders, keeping me from falling as I came to a dead stop in the middle of the hall, causing him to plow into me with some force. “So now you know what a longbow is,” he said, a flash of amusement in his eyes. “And, yes, we still use them. There are contests twice a year. And on occasion we take them out to hunt.”

  I could not help but stare. Except for a few workers’ riots, quickly put down, there had been no battles on British soil for so long that the sight of a weapon, other than a lance attached to a suit of ancient armor decorating the entrance halls of many English country houses, was truly strange. It was almost as if . . . as if these lethal weapons were displayed with intent. Sending a message that the Maddox family remained untamed. Nominally subject to Britain, but in their hearts . . .

  Rhys hurried me toward a doorway where Gruffydd Maddox was waiting, looking more satisfied than long-suffering at my delay. Did he perhaps approve of my interest in the longbows? And then we were climbing up a circular stone staircase. Really? Dank and cold even in August, what would it be like in winter? Goosebumps prickled my arms. But perhaps that was simply fear of the coming encounter with what was likely an entire array of Maddoxes and their supporters.

  And, sure enough, at the top of the stairs was an actual withdrawing room, patterned after the solars of twelfth century castles. The room where the lord and his family could withdraw and have a bit of privacy while everyone else had to live, eat, and sleep in the great hall. While, if I remembered my lessons correctly, soldiers such as the longbowmen slept in a sort of barracks out in the bailey.

  I couldn’t put it off any longer. I had taken in the large room at a glance, its surprising warmth, its fine furnishings, and now I must pay attention to its occupants.

  Its many occupants. Though none, thank God, I had not expected.

  Gwendolyn Maddox might be shorter than I, but she was as imperious as a queen. She also appeared to be the source of Rhys’s coal black hair. Unfortunately, even if it had been mid-winter on top of Wale’s highest mountain, her greeting could not have been more cold. Her words were polite, but the icicles dripping from each syllable nearly froze my blood. I sensed there was a wall between us that could never be breached. I was English. We were, therefore, destined to be enemies for life.

  “My dear child, what a delightful surprise!” My eyes misted as Lady Aurelia Maddox stepped forward, taking my hands in hers, clearly doing her best to mitigate her daughter-in-law’s hostility. She was tall, graceful, unbent by age, every inch the aristocrat though she must have ceased to live in an earl’s household more than half a century ago.

  “I fear I do not have your noble ancestry, my lady,” I said as I rose from my best curtsy, “but I shall do my best to perform my duties here.”

  “Duties?” Gwendolyn Maddox intoned, as if the thought she might be replaced had never occurred to her.

  “My wife will have a great many duties, Mother,” Rhys returned. “Which, with your vast experience, I am sure you will teach her over the next few months.” Since the chatelaine of Glyn Eirian was now caught with her eyes as rounded as her gaping mouth, Rhys hastily continued the introductions. “And this
is my sister Liliwen, whose name means ‘white flower.’”

  Oh my. Liliwen was a good deal younger than Rhys, perhaps no more than seventeen. She had the same straight black hair as her mother and brother, but she wore it long and flowing, more like a child. Her amber eyes, flecked with green, were her mother’s. As was her thin face. On her mother the shape appeared to exaggerate her dissatisfaction with life. On Liliwen, who was extraordinarily lovely, the thin shape was piquant. More enticing than off-putting. She was an enigma, however, her eyes fathomless, giving nothing away.

  Ignoring his mother’s sullens, Rhys gestured toward the two ladies who had been hovering just behind the Maddox family. “May I present Mrs. Dilys Trewent, a cousin who has made her home with us for many years? And Miss Emily Farnsworth who has been my grandmother’s faithful companion for as long as I can remember.”

  Both ladies curtsied and welcomed me to Glyn Eirian. Somehow I was surprised to discover Mrs. Trewent was as much as a decade younger than Gwendolyn Maddox, though her hair was a shade or two lighter. She was well-dressed, a fine-looking woman, a widow, I presumed. Miss Farnsworth, however, was a classic spinster. Though thin to the point of emaciation, she was a woman of exceptional height—perhaps as much as six feet. Evidently, she had never come to terms with the way God made her, for her posture seemed to be a constant stoop aimed at diminishing her height. What had once been brown hair was now well-streaked with gray. Poor creature, for she too had been exiled to Wales for half a century.

  Or was my sympathy wasted, too much the product of my own inner fears?

  “Mrs. Blevins, please see our guest to her room,” Gwendolyn Maddox instructed, evidently recovered from her shock. “Rhys, you will remain. I wish to speak with you.”

  A moment of absolute silence enveloped us before Rhys returned with remarkable equability, “I will see you in my study in half an hour, Mother. At the moment I wish to introduce my wife to her new home.”