Welshman's Bride

by Bancroft, Blair

  Rhys, wearing his granite face, was seated behind his desk, a piece of furniture large enough for a giant. And equally as intimidating. My father was whispering in my ear to attack before Rhys did, but my independent soul seemed to have shriveled the moment I saw him, draining my determination to nothing more than wan hope.

  No no, this was not how it was to be. I would prevail. I must.

  Rhys continued to stare, as if he, like me, was sorting and rejecting a variety of words, hot and cold. At last, after crossing his arms over his chest, he said, “You have had another clash with my mother.”

  “I have not even seen your mother today.” Which was completely true.

  He nodded, accepting my sophistry. “Let us say, instead, that you and my mother have issued contradictory orders to the household staff, resulting in chaos below stairs.”

  There were times my dear Mama could be as stiff-necked and determined as my Papa. How else had she sailed through all those years as his wife? I now called on every bit of shrewd and sturdy familial courage as I faced my husband’s displeasure head-on. “I took baskets to the poor, as you said I might. You are master here. If your mother contradicted my wishes in this matter, then she is at fault, not I.”

  When Rhys did not immediately respond, I added, “This morning’s incident is a perfect example of why this intolerable situation must cease. Gwendolyn is determined to hold sway over the household, even in instances affecting the village. Even when you have given your approval. Yet she is not adhering to her agreement to instruct me in my duties. For both reasons, the time has come for her to step down. As your wife, I should be giving the orders here. The staff is confused, I am miserable. Gwendolyn’s reign needs to cease. Now.”

  “Good God, you really mean it.” Stunned, Rhys examined me as if he could not believe his English wife had become a warrior.

  “You chose me,” I reminded him. “You told me you admired my intelligence. Well, allow me to demonstrate it. It is time for the middle Mrs. Maddox to step down.”

  Silence. Profound, uncomfortable. But Rhys had not roared a resounding no. He did, however, drop his gaze to his desktop and hunch his shoulders, the epitome of a man caught on the horns of a dilemma. “Jocelyn,” he said at last, “you agreed to this arrangement.”

  “I agreed only because I was a new bride who wished to keep the peace. But it is your mother who is being unreasonable in her demands. Clearly, the situation is intolerable. Unless,” I offered, “you would prefer that I return to Hawley Hall.”

  Rhys’s hand slammed onto the desk so hard I jumped, nearly falling out of my chair. “You are my wife. You will stay!”

  “Not unless I give the orders.” Julius Caesar might applaud that ultimatum. No one else would, including my parents. And look what happened to Caesar in the end, my inner voice whispered. ’Ware, Jocelyn. ’Ware.

  Rhys leaned back in his chair. “Would you give me orders, my dear?” he purred.

  “Merely a simple truth. This house may be large, but it is no longer big enough for both Gwendolyn and myself.”

  He stood so abruptly his well-upholstered desk chair came close to toppling over. I sank into myself, attempting to contract into the smallest target possible. Idiot! I had not supposed that insanity ran in the Hawley family, but this might have been the moment I revealed I was lost to all reason.

  Rhys towered over me, fists clenched. I’d brought this on myself; there was no one else to blame.

  After a timeless frozen moment when my lungs refused to breathe, Rhys sat down on the desktop, shaking his head. I gasped for breath, clenched my jaw, and met his gaze firmly as he said with that note of resignation I had come to hate, “Jocelyn, you have not yet reached your majority, yet you would take over all this.” He waved a hand to encompass the extent of Glyn Eirian. “You would oust the woman who has ordered this household for nearly twenty years.”

  “Even if it falls to wrack and ruin,” I declared from between clenched teeth. “It is my right.”

  A bark of rueful laughter escaped him. Rhys shook his head. “My mother’s tirade was so impassioned, I am astonished anyone could throw cold water on it, yet you have done so. Right is on your side, Jocelyn. By standing with my mother, I have wronged you. As much as I dislike breaking an agreement, I fear I must. Though what I am to say to Mama—let alone what I am going to do with her—I cannot even imagine.”

  I could not help but feel sorry for him. His was a world of men. Rhys was ill-suited to the quarrels of women. “In my anger I spoke hastily,” I admitted. “If Gwendolyn gives up the reins of the household, she is welcome to stay, just as Lady Aurelia is welcome here.”

  Rhys groaned. “Easier said than done. I readily admit I quail before the scene to come.”

  In what is surely the bravest thing I had ever done, I offered, “Do you wish me to accompany you?”

  “Hell, no! I beg your pardon,” Rhys added quickly, running a hand through his hair, “but you cannot have considered the consequences of this day’s action. Too many inexplicable things have already happened. I fear this next step could prove disastrous.”

  Out of the frying pan into the fire? Is that what he meant? Perhaps I had been hasty . . .

  “It is not that I am a coward,” Rhys pronounced slowly, “but if I speak to mother tonight, we may come down to a breakfast room with no food in the morning. I will, therefore, speak with her tomorrow, and with Gruffydd and Mrs. Blevins directly after so there will be no confusion.”

  “They are both very loyal to Gwendolyn,” I pointed out, doubts flickering through my mind as thick as a glade filled with fire-flies.

  “They will have to adjust, as will everyone else.” Rhys’s words were so cold and uncompromising. I shivered. Once he made up his mind . . .

  Whatever was about to happen, it was my fault. I had precipitated this transition of power. I must live with it.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Bong. Bong. Bong. Bong. The distant sound of the longcase clock echoed up the stairs from the first floor landing, as it had each hour since Rhys deserted my bed for his own, leaving each moment of our final conversation reverberating through my mind.

  He had said not a word as he came to bed, slipping beneath the bedcovers and turning on his side, the breadth of his broad back shutting me out. I waited . . . for something. Anything. “Rhys,” I ventured at last, “am I wrong? Please, I must know what you think.”

  His body remained immobile but his words cut like a knife. “It is enough to know you are right. It does not matter what I think.”

  “It does! Truly it does.”

  “No, Jocelyn, it does not. You have made that quite clear.”

  I winced. “Rhys,” I coaxed, “the household was falling apart.”

  “Which it would not have done if you had abided by the original agreement.”

  “But Rhys . . .” I swallowed my words, painfully aware that, ever my father’s daughter, I had pushed matters. I had not been able to swallow the bile of being denied my rights. I had charged ahead, employing Tegan on the sly to instruct me in what I needed to know. I deliberately courted the villagers, from shopkeepers to shepherds, miners to foundry workers. I had even wielded religion as a weapon.

  Despicable, that’s what I was.

  But back down now? Let all my efforts go to waste? Impossible. The new broom was not going to suddenly park itself in a corner and gather dust for the next two months. This was the moment, and I must seize it. Oddly enough, my inner voice remained silent, evidently finding no fault in my reasoning. Or had I fallen so low I had no conscience left?

  My only consolation was the knowledge that Lady Aurelia, and most likely my Papa and Mama, would applaud my actions. Yet knowing that Rhys found me precipitate stabbed me to the heart. “I am so sorry,” I said, my words tumbling out in genuine regret, “but truly, Rhys, this must be done.”

  His only response was to throw back the bedcovers and stalk back to his own bedchamber, leaving me anguished and sleeple
ss.

  Exhaustion finally overcame me, to the extent that I slept late, opening my eyes to the warmth of a renewed fire beyond my bed’s blue velvet hangings and streaks of light peeping in from a sun well up. I jerked upright, gasping. I could not have slept through Rhys’s confrontation with Gwendolyn! Hearing the click of the latch, I swept the curtain aside to find Alice gliding softly across the room with my morning cup of tea. “Why did you let me sleep so late?” I demanded. “I–I needed to be up and about,” I added rather obscurely.

  “Mr. Rhys’s orders, ma’am. Said you needed your rest.” The knowing smile flitting over my maid’s face revealed that Alice had sadly misinterpreted my husband’s remarks. I fisted my hand over my mouth to stopper a howl of anguish. My fate was being decided, and I had slept through it! Or perhaps not . . .

  “What time is it, Alice?”

  “Gone eleven, Mrs. Jocelyn.”

  I huffed a breath, my shoulders slumping. Crafting my words very carefully, I asked, “Do you happen to know if my husband met privately with Mrs. Gwendolyn this morning?”

  Alice’s eyes lit with an entirely different gleam. “Indeed he did, ma’am. Fair rattled the rafters, they did.”

  I had slept through it.

  “Have any new instructions been given to the household staff?”

  Alice paused in the act of dropping my gown over my head. “Ma’am?”

  At that moment I discovered what was meant when someone said, “My heart sank.” Mine, in fact, plunged all the way to my toes. Gwendolyn had won?

  Perhaps a fate I richly deserved.

  “Mr. Rhys might have given orders to Gruffydd and Mrs. Blevins,” Alice offered as I thrust my hands through the sleeves of my gown, “for he met with them straight after. And they come out looking like death warmed over.”

  Heart pounding, I sank onto my dressing table chair, fisted my hands under my chin, and babbled an impromptu prayer of thanks, even remembering to ask forgiveness for turning the household on end. Nor did I forget to add a request for peace, for an end to the turmoil of clashing personalities and clashing cultures.

  A peremptory knock on the door was immediately followed by Rhys stepping into the room, his abrupt nod sending Alice scurrying out with all the alacrity of a frightened rabbit. “It’s done,” he pronounced, looking anything but pleased as he dangled the household’s giant ring of keys from his right hand. “You now have the complete ordering of the house, and both Gruffydd and Blevins know what will happen if they do not comply. So be up and about, crack the whip. Glyn Eirian is yours.”

  Not exactly the encouragement I had hoped for. But he had done it.

  “And your mother?” I asked, not really wishing to know the answer. “What she very angry?”

  “Yes.” Rhys exited my bedchamber as abruptly as he had arrived, leaving me shaking.

  Fifteen minutes later, after Alice put the finishing touches to my hair, I stood and checked my full image in the cheval glass. Pale but neat, I would have to do. I picked up the chatelaine ring, the symbol of my office as head of household, and marched determinedly down the stairs to my fate, entertaining no false notions that this was going to be easy.

  Gwendolyn managed Glyn Eirian from a cozy room at the rear of the house. Until matters settled into a new routine, I thought it best to summon my deputies to the drawing room. Fortunately, at the moment it was unoccupied. Having no false hope that this would be a comfortable meeting, I asked a footman to summon Gruffydd and Mrs. Blevins.

  If tension were an actual blade, it’s likely all three of us would have been cut to pieces. Gruffydd and Olwenna Blevins stood before me, boasting nearly identical expressions—that of prisoners poised on the gallows, defiant to the end, waiting for the hangman to thrust their heads through the noose. I made an effort to be as gracious as I knew how.

  “As you know,” I told them, “it is customary for the wife of the owner of a property to direct the management of his home. In my case, this did not happen, as Mrs. Gwendolyn Maddox was reluctant to relinquish her power. An agreement was reached whereby I would assume my rightful position at the beginning of the new year, and that meanwhile she would teach me the many things I needed to know about Glyn Eirian.”

  I looked from one stubbornly hostile face to the other. “This did not happen. I have learned most of what I know about the household from helpful servants. And when the situation reached the point where Mrs. Gwendolyn openly defied orders sanctioned by her son, it became apparent that change could not wait. I am heartily sorry if you find the switch of power upsetting, but it is over. Done. And I hope you will work in harmony with me, as you have for so long with Mrs. Gwendolyn.”

  I watched their faces, waiting . . .

  Mrs. Blevins, obviously uncertain, glanced at Gruffydd then fixed her gaze on the carpet.

  “’Tis a wrench, Mrs. Jocelyn,” Gruffydd offered at last. “But no one can deny it’s right and proper. Mr. Rhys’s wife must give the orders.”

  A soft sigh, close to a moan, escaped Mrs. Blevins’s lips. “I must apologize, Mrs. Jocelyn, for my part in any unpleasantness.” Without a doubt, every word came close to choking her, but I gave her credit for saying them. Even though I was certain Olwenna Blevins was not sincere about anything more than saving her position in the household.

  The next few days passed in a blur. Gwendolyn kept to her rooms. Rhys was not seen from early morning ‘til late night, at which time he entered his bedchamber without passing through our sitting room or coming next or nigh my bedchamber. Making it all too clear that my victory had come at more of a cost than I wished to pay. But it was too late now. Fortunately, most of the younger staff served me with a ready will, and even the more reluctant kept civil tongues in their heads. And God bless Matty, Alice, and Tegan, my steadfast allies throughout those awkward and disturbing first days.

  A full week passed before Gwendolyn deigned to join us for dinner, taking the place at her son’s right instead of at the foot of the table, which I now occupied. Although she coolly returned Lady Aurelia’s greeting, she did not speak with anyone except Dilys, and then only minimally. Nonetheless, it was a step forward. Hope surged. Perhaps tonight Rhys might come to me, if only to discuss his mother’s remove from self-imposed isolation . . .

  He did not. Tears dampened my pillow. A Pyrrhic victory—wasn’t that the name for a victory won at too high a cost?

  No! The change had been a necessity, the brouhaha surrounding it already dying down. In time wounds would heal, all would be well. Now that I had matters more firmly in hand, perhaps a diversion was called for—something I had longed to do for some time but could not manage until I had the ordering of the household. “Tegan,” I said to our ever trusty Welsh maid, “there is supposed to be an escape tunnel somewhere in the castle. Do you know where it is?”

  “Oh yes, Mrs. Jocelyn. Though not everyone does. Just those descended from the Maddox line. My mother’s father was seneschal here in Lady Aurelia’s time, and when I came to work at Glyn Eirian, he showed me the way. ‘To ensure the escape route’s not forgotten,’ he told me. ‘Who knows when it might be needed?’”

  “Excellent. Let us plan an excursion tomorrow morning. Miss Matilda and I, you as guide, and Alice because she too has been a support in difficult times.”

  “I’m not so certain you’ll think it’s a high treat when you see it, ma’am.”

  “Understood.” I grinned at her. “Nonetheless, I am eager for the adventure.”

  A heavy mist still lingered when Matty, Tegan, Alice, and I—feeling like conspirators in spite of my newly altered status—glided through the tapestry room and into the ancient castle. After several labyrinth-like twists and turns, Tegan led us down a winding stone staircase into the dungeon area, a portion of the castle I had heretofore avoided like the plague. Moving past three cells fronted by rusty iron bars that looked ready to crumble at a touch, she searched my key ring until with a soft, “Ah-hah” she found the key she wanted. In a trice she had unloc
ked what appeared to be an armament room. Old flintlocks stood at attention along one wall, longbows hung on another. A third wall shone dark silver with a variety of mounted swords and fencing blades.

  My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a click, and we all stared at the door Tegan had just opened at the far end of the room, revealing a black void beyond. The smell of stale air and damp earth leaped out at us, as if warning me to rethink our morning’s adventure.

  “Did anyone bring a torch?” Matty, ever the practical one, inquired.

  Tegan reached inside the tunnel opening and retrieved a torch a good two feet tall. We watched, suitably impressed, as she dipped the end of the cloth-wrapped torch into a jar of oil sitting on a low shelf and produced a flint from a pocket in her gown.

  “Remarkable,” I murmured. How fortunate I had been able to recognize this treasure among Glyn Eirian’s many servants. A smile tugged at my lips as I followed Tegan into the tunnel built by some wary Maddox of Glyn Eirian’s more violent past.

  The escape route was indeed damp, and not as high as I would have liked. The walls seemed to close in on me, but I forged ahead, allowing no one see my uneasiness. In places we had to step over smallish stones fallen from the ceiling, but all in all the tunnel was in good shape for something built so long ago. I suspected keeping it in good repair was part of the Maddox heritage, although I had learned of its existence from Tegan instead of my husband. Yet another ancient Maddox secret to be guarded from the English? I made a face at Tegan’s back, and kept on going.

  The most astonishing thing was where the tunnel ended. Tegan lifted the thick wooden bar across the door at the end of the tunnel, swept aside a tangle of vines, and led us into the open. When our eyes adjusted to what seemed like a blaze of sunlight—for the fog had dissipated as if it had never been—I looked up. And up and up. To a narrow opening far above us. Merciful heavens, we were at the bottom of the narrow gorge I had crossed on my first excursion with Liliwen, though at this point it was not more than six feet wide. “But we are trapped,” I said. “How does this save anyone?”