Harlequin Historical July 2021--Box Set 2 of 2

by Madeline Martin

  He struck out again and again aimlessly, not caring whom the combat was against, only for the damn pounding in his head to stop. Only for these perpetual doubts to subside.

  And then it happened. With his reflexes awry, he made a terrible blunder. Just when Ralph thought he might be able to repair his folly and stand his ground, his sword was met with such force that it flew out of his hand and he was pushed on to the ground, staring up at the tips of three blades pointing at him.

  Hell and damnation!

  Ralph lay in frustration and annoyance at his damn inadequacy.

  Hell’s teeth, but he had failed...miserably. And with Gwenllian ferch Hywel watching him. God, for the ground to open up and swallow him whole.

  Ralph took the metal helmet off, his mouth full of spittle, and looked up as Will Geraint knelt beside him, holding out his hand.

  ‘I apologise for resorting to that crass provocation, but it was a necessity, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Was it?’ He shut his eyes as he hissed an oath under his breath.

  ‘Yes. Whether in a tournament or in battle, men will always seek to use anything they sense to be your weakness,’ Hugh muttered, shaking his head. ‘Don’t allow them to, Ralph.’

  It was true that this visceral need to protect Gwen from harm as well as his attraction to her allowed him to be far too distracted. Indeed, Ralph had to resist these feelings for Gwen that could threaten to overwhelm his mission here at this tournament.

  ‘You must not allow anyone or anything to be used against you.’ Will’s lips pressed into a thin line. ‘And you must use your emotions to harness and heighten your prowess, not the other way around.’

  ‘There I was believing I was ready, but sadly I have been found lacking.’

  ‘On the contrary, my friend, that was an excellent display of your ability. The fact that we had to employ those unsavoury means should act as confirmation of that.’ Will smiled, pulling him to his feet. ‘Just control that temper, Ralph.’

  ‘How exactly?’

  ‘Every man has his fears and weaknesses. The trick is not to allow anyone to know what they are and, if they somehow find out, make them believe that you are impervious to them.’

  Hugh clasped his shoulder. ‘You must seek a way through this and conquer your demons.’

  ‘I know, I know.’

  ‘I have faith that you shall. Whatever you may believe, Ralph, you are a highly skilled knight. You just need to trust that.’

  ‘And do not forget that sometimes it takes another’s perspective and understanding to discover your own path, my friend.’

  Was it his imagination or had Will just referred to Gwenllian? Could her insight and the truth she kept hidden be the key to unlocking the past for them both? Ralph gave his weary head a shake and bowed. ‘My lord.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  The eventide came with a cluster of stars scattered across the clear, moonlit sky. It had been a long day that had stretched and yawned, draining every last drop of his resolve, with the onset of fatigue seeping in. Yet Ralph was about to climb the enormous tree outside the arched window of Gwen’s chamber. He exhaled on a sigh before leaping up and grabbing hold of the branch, swinging his legs around so that he could gain purchase. Ralph looked up and realised that there was still quite a distance to climb, but gradually he moved from one sturdy branch to another until he had dextrously made his way up. He broke a thin, long branch and reached out and tapped it against the wooden shutter. Instantly it was pulled open as Gwen peered out, looking in every direction.

  ‘Good evening, my lady.’ Ralph could see, from where he stood languidly leaning back against the thick branch, that he had surprised Gwen.

  ‘Oh.’ She lifted her head. ‘I did not expect you to have come all the way up.’

  ‘You beckoned and I’m here. He grinned from beneath the canopy of leaves and branches. ‘Besides, I thought it a safer and more discreet way for us to have this discussion.’

  ‘I suppose so.’ She chuckled.

  ‘Now, how can I be of service to you?’

  She peered out of the window. ‘I wanted to find out whether you were well, after the practice.’

  ‘Ah...’ He rubbed his jaw, his fingers grazing the rough mangled side of his face. ‘And you did not want to make your enquiry earlier, I take it?’

  ‘I should have, but this was the only way to snatch a moment alone with you, Ralph.’ His brow rose at that, but he didn’t interrupt her as she continued to explain in a quiet, measured tone, ‘There were just too many curious eyes turned in our direction and I wanted to speak to you with ease, alone.’

  ‘And now you are.’

  ‘Yes.’ She sighed shakily. ‘And now I am.’

  They descended into silence for a moment as they felt the breeze rustle through the leaves.

  ‘How do you fare after the practice, Ralph? You did well, you know, taking all of them on.’

  ‘Did I? I’m not so sure, but either way it was a lesson well learnt.’

  ‘Yes, but hardly fair.’

  He shrugged. ‘And neither is the reality of a mêlée or even a battlefield, Gwen.’

  ‘So, you would consider what you had to go through a necessity?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’ Ralph pushed away from the bark and moved tentatively closer to the window. ‘It would be remiss of me not to explore every possibility.’

  ‘I cannot comprehend your meaning.’

  ‘To anticipate the cause and the effect of any given situation could determine the difference between success and failure.’

  ‘The cause and effect. Yes well, you and I have both had to live with the consequences of that.’

  No, he could not discount the truth in that. They had both had their share of misfortune and grief in all its different guises. And seemingly survived their given situation in their own inimitable way.

  ‘You will be careful tomorrow, won’t you?’ she muttered quickly. ‘I would hate it if anything were to happen to you.’

  ‘Anything can happen, that is rather the point, with the uncertainty of the mêlée à pied.’ Ralph realised his mistake, noting that, even in this light, Gwen looked a little ashen. ‘But of course I’ll do my best to stay safe. I give you my word.’

  It soothed his weary bones to think that Gwen still seemed to care for his welfare, his progress...for him. She might now harbour a different future for herself, but that did not mean that she didn’t want him to succeed or that she didn’t care for him.

  ‘Let’s talk of something else. Tell me more about yourself, Gwen.’

  ‘What do you mean to know?’

  ‘Anything, everything.’ He crawled a little closer and sat on the branch, his long legs dangling over the edge. ‘Your hopes, your dreams...your greatest wish.’

  Ralph wasn’t really sure what had propelled him to utter such absurdities. Yet, here, now...under the moonlight and those damned stars, the words seemed to spill out of him.

  ‘My hopes, my dreams,’ she murmured as she leant out of the window and sighed. ‘Oh, they are of no consequence.’

  ‘Of course they are.’ He reached out and touched her elbow. ‘Gwen?’

  ‘I must go, Ralph. She reached out and caught his fingers and gave them a squeeze. ‘Goodnight. I shall pray for your safety.’

  ‘Wait, don’t go.’ Ralph grasped her hand, pulling her back. ‘Tell me something else instead, anything that you like. Tell me something I do not know about you.’

  ‘Surely you know all there is about me.’

  ‘Six years have passed and we are now very different people from who we once were.’

  ‘Do you think so?’ Her brows met together in contemplation. ‘In some ways, yes, I have changed, I suppose. It would be strange if I had not. But in essentials, I believe I am much as I was back then.’

  ‘When y
ou put it across like that, most people do not really change in essentials.’

  ‘Even you?’

  ‘With possibly my exception.’ He turned her hand over and placed his palm against hers, his fingers bending over the top of hers. ‘I have worked so hard to remove every last vestiges of the man I used to be, that I do not know any more, in all honesty.’

  ‘You were barely a man back then,’ she said softly.

  ‘In every way that it mattered I was, however,’ he said bitterly. ‘Even though I appeared to be much younger than my years. Why do you suppose we never married at the time?’

  ‘I knew even at the time why that had not occurred. Not that anything was ever explained to me. But know this—your father made many wrong assumptions about you.’

  Ralph’s lips pressed into a thin line. Yes, his sire had made many mistakes about whom he trusted and with the way he had administrated Kinnerton, but where Ralph disagreed with Gwen was in what his father had believed about him. Ralph knew now what he did not back then—how incredibly lacking he had been in what was required to be a Marcher Lord. And this more than anything had been what had driven him to change as much as he had. He’d needed to, in order to be the man he had to become.

  ‘But we were not talking about me.’ He raised his brow. ‘Well, now. Are you going to tell me something about you, about the woman you are and have since become?’

  Ralph wasn’t sure whether Gwen would agree to his request as she seemed reluctant to divulge anything more about herself. That was one very notable difference about Gwen now—the fact that she was so much more guarded than before.

  He watched her as the light danced across her face and then she blinked, a slow smile spreading on her lips. ‘Very well. Come inside the chamber, then, and I’ll show you.’

  Gwen helped him climb through the small arched window. He stood up and scanned the small, serviceable chamber. The room had a large pallet with a cream coverlet with Gwen’s signature floral embroidered over it, a wooden coffer against the wall and was lit by both the fire in the hearth and the light on the metal wall sconce.

  ‘Where is Mistress Brida, this evening?’

  ‘There’s something she needed to attend to, but she’ll return shortly.’ Gwen beckoned. ‘Come, I want to show you something.’

  Gwen led Ralph to her makeshift workspace, lit by one of her only extravagances, a small beeswax candle. The others were seemingly scattered on top of the plain wooden coffer.

  ‘So, Ralph de Kinnerton, pray tell me what do you make of all of this?’

  She noticed as his eyes widened in surprise as he tilted his head towards her.

  ‘What do we have here?’

  There, on the coffer, were reams of parchment with sweeping letters, decoratively formed and illustrated, that Gwen had created using inks and powdered and crushed pigment dyes.

  ‘These are what I had practised, before I transferred my work on to the parchment or even vellum.’

  ‘You?’ Ralph smiled. ‘You created this...this exquisite work.’

  ‘I did.’ She shrugged. ‘But this isn’t really as impressive as you’d imagine. The true masters, training in monasteries up and down the country, produce the most breathtaking, stupendous artwork that you have ever seen.’

  ‘And how have you come to be so skilled in such stupendous artwork?’

  ‘Well, I do not know about that.’ She chuckled, softly. ‘But it was by sheer luck that I had the opportunity to learn.’

  She watched his long fingers brush along the surface of the parchment, making Gwen swallow uncomfortably. The memory of how they touched her fingers in the moonlight still lingered. The warmth, so very palpable. She absently rubbed her fingers together before clenching her fist.

  ‘I was lucky to have been part of the Marshal household, as I mentioned, after I managed to escape Kinnerton. One summer I accompanied my lady, the Countess of Pembroke, who travelled with her husband on pilgrimage. En route we stayed in St Albans Abbey.’ She turned and gave him a small shy smile. ‘The scriptorium at the abbey—oh, Ralph, it was the most splendid place that I have ever beheld.’

  He grinned. ‘I can see that it must have been, just by the way your eyes have lit up.’

  ‘It was and it was here that we met Matthew Paris, a young talented Benedictine monk, who was very attentive.’

  Ralph folded his arms across his chest and raised his brows. ‘Was he now?’

  She nodded. ‘He showed us each different process to create the manuscript codices. From how the feather quills were prepared, creating oak gall ink and all the various coloured pigment to scribe and paint, and how the parchment and vellum were cleaned, stretched and prepared.’ She inhaled before continuing. ‘But my favourite part was gilding and binding each page to create the manuscripts.’

  ‘It must have been fascinating.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she said on a sigh. ‘It really was.’ Gwen ran her fingers across the decorative jewel-coloured letter at the side of the parchment with bold gilded edges. ‘The process for applying the colour and the thin gold leaf has over six intricate stages. Outlining the design using minium—here, can you see these faint orangey lines?’

  He nodded, his attention on the artwork.

  ‘Then adding the gesso, which raises the surface on the skin and is used wherever there is gold on the design. After which colour is added, using pigments made from lapis lazuli, woad and even dragon’s blood.’

  ‘Dragon’s blood, eh?’

  ‘Indeed—and used for the base, tints and shades, to highlight, and finally the black-edged outline is applied in stages.’

  ‘Fascinating. And you learnt all of this from one visit to the scriptorium at the Abbey?’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘The Earl invited a few monks to Caversham Manor to employ them in recording his family’s history. I became an apt student and soon was allowed to finish some of the pages.’

  ‘Quite the apprentice, my lady.’ His fingers touched along the long thin stem of the quill. ‘I’m impressed.’

  ‘Here, let me show you how you can make a mark on this parchment.’

  Ralph held up his left hand. ‘I can only use this one though, remember.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ She wrapped her fingers over his much larger left hand over the quill and gently guided it in the inkwell, dipping it in the brownish liquid before making long sweeping brushstrokes on the parchment.

  ‘It must have been difficult having to do everything with your left hand.’

  He was standing so close that his masculine warmth enveloped her, sending a frisson of awareness down her spine.

  ‘In a manner of speaking.’ Ralph shifted and shrugged at her question before exhaling irritably. ‘I cannot even clench my right hand properly any longer, however hard I try.’

  He tried to close his other hand, but his movement was limited and jerky.

  Gwen reached out and brushed her hand over the rough mangled skin. ‘Rest easy, Ralph. I can see how difficult it is.’

  ‘It’s more frustrating than anything although I do try to use it wherever I can. But, yes, I had to learn everything anew with my left hand. From wielding a sword to now holding this quill.’

  ‘And doing remarkably well. Don’t ever forget that, Ralph,’ she added softly.

  Their joined hands continued to make long, fluid shapes.

  ‘I can see why you enjoy this. There’s something quite soothing about making these marks.’

  There was also something quite wonderful being this close to Ralph and being the one to guide his huge, strong hand. She watched the thick taut hand in fascination as his fingers flexed and stretched around the quill, yet creating light, fluid strokes.

  ‘I suppose, but for me it is a little more than that.’ She lessened the grip, allowing the shapes being created by the ink to flow through the nib e
venly and allowing Ralph to take the lead.

  ‘Oh? How so?’

  ‘I have always enjoyed this...creating and making things that give me pleasure.’ She shrugged. ‘Or try to evoke that same pleasure in others.’

  His hand stilled mid-air.

  ‘You do not need to try, my lady,’ he whispered.

  ‘Sometimes.’ Gwen darted her gaze at their laced fingers and her work strewn around the coffer. ‘It feels as though that I am leaving little pieces of myself in what I create.’

  She heard him take a slow breath and drop the quill. His hand turned palm against palm, his fingers curling around hers. She watched, mesmerised, as the pad of his thumb stroked her skin in a circular motion. Over and over again.

  Dear God.

  Without looking up, Gwen knew that his breathing had quickened, but then so had hers. She untangled her hand from his and took a step back, smoothing down her kirtle skirt.

  ‘I seem to have got a little ink on my skirt. That teaches me to forget to wear an overskirt.’

  ‘Gwen.’ Her name reverberated in the chamber. She lifted her head and met his eyes, filled with confusion and barely concealed longing. They stood staring at each other for a moment. But it would not do. These feelings and emotions were ones that she could no longer afford to have.

  ‘It grows late,’ Ralph murmured, breaking the silence and seemingly this growing tension between them. ‘I should go.’

  ‘Before you go, I want to give you something.’

  ‘You do not need to.’

  ‘I know, but it’s something I would like you to have, especially as I will not be able to give you my token openly tomorrow.’ She strode to the coffer and opened a small wooden box, pulling out a length of green-coloured linen. ‘I would like to be able to give you it now, as a symbol of our renewed friendship. Please...’ she held out her hand ‘...I embroidered it myself.’

  For a brief moment Gwen thought he would not take it, but his damaged hand reached out and caught it. She placed her other hand over the top and gave it a gentle squeeze, hoping he understood.

  Friendship was all she could offer now. Nothing more.