Border Bride
Deborah Hale
For Thirteen Years He'd Been A Wanderer…Now Con ap Ifan had returned, a tested warrior and a talented bard. But Enid of Glyneira remained unimpressed. No stolen kisses or honeyed promises that faded with the dawn could tempt her to abandon hearth, home and betrothed–not even for the father of her cherished firstborn son!Con wanted Enid more than words could tell. But could he dally with her, now a widow with children, forever? For though she'd always been his heart's melody, his soul's rhythm, he knew the siren song of the wider world might break their passion's bond!
“Will gold and glory warm your bed at night?
“Will they tend you when you’re ill, or weep for you when you die?”
Dumbstruck, Con struggled into his breeches, trying to think of something, anything he could say that might convince Enid to have him on his own terms.
For once it was her turn to have the final word.
“I think the world of you. I’d sooner have you for my husband than any lord or prince. If you thought half as highly of yourself as I think of you, you’d have nothing to prove to anyone.”
Without giving him a chance to reply, she closed the door of the wash house, plunging it once again into stifling darkness.
“I have nothing to prove.” Con tried to believe it, but the words rang false in his ears and the empty place inside him gaped wider than it ever had before….
Acclaim for Deborah Hale’s recent titles
THE WEDDING WAGER
“…this delightful, well-paced historical will leave readers smiling and satisfied.”
—Library Journal
THE ELUSIVE BRIDE
“…an absolute pleasure!”
—The Romance Reader Web site
THE BONNY BRIDE
“…high adventure!”
—Romantic Times
A GENTLEMAN OF SUBSTANCE
“This exceptional Regency-era romance includes all the best aspects of that genre….Deborah Hale has outdone herself…”
—Romantic Times
#620 BADLANDS LAW
Ruth Langan
#621 A PERILOUS ATTRACTION
Patricia Frances Rowell
#622 MARRIED BY MIDNIGHT
Judith Stacy
Border Bride
Deborah Hale
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Available from Harlequin Historicals and
DEBORAH HALE
My Lord Protector #452
A Gentleman of Substance #488
The Bonny Bride #503
The Elusive Bride #539
The Wedding Wager #563
Whitefeather’s Woman #581
Carpetbagger’s Wife #595
The Love Match #599
“Cupid Goes to Gretna”
Border Bride #619
For my eldest son, Robert, the best birthday present I ever received, who more than deserves a dedication after eight books. Thanks for your patience, sweetheart!
Special thanks to Heidi Hamburg, who knew just what kind of woman Con ap Ifan needed.
Contents
Chapter One (#u5ac62df2-0d99-5117-8beb-2fdaa1156890)
Chapter Two (#u64c650e2-063e-5ef2-9af3-07ebeca5f63b)
Chapter Three (#uaeeb9d89-5528-50ed-b794-b4dacbb6d298)
Chapter Four (#u8a91c4d6-e39f-5476-afbe-fc07c25bda4b)
Chapter Five (#u4bd3b0a7-7a86-5728-bf56-944e572d4693)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One
Have a care, now! a small voice whispered in Conwy ap Ifan’s thoughts as he picked his way through the quiet, greening countryside of the ever-shifting border between England and Wales. Watch your back. Stay on guard.
He was a carefree, impulsive fellow by nature. It had taken him many years of mercenary service in the Holy Land and elsewhere to cultivate a sense of caution.
Con had the scars to prove it.
Perhaps he ought to heed that vigilant little voice, now. These borderlands, which Norman folk called The Welsh Marches, were far less serene than they might appear to the casual traveller on a fine spring day.
“Tush!” Con muttered to himself as he scrambled from stone to stone, fording a swift-flowing stream. Between planting and shearing, even Welshmen were too busy to make war at this time of year. And who’d take notice of a lone wanderer on foot, anyhow? Especially one with a bard’s harp slung over his shoulder?
Once again Con congratulated himself on adopting such a clever disguise for this mission to his native land. In Wales, a bard could roam the country at will, with the door of every maenol open to him—always assured a seat of honor by the hearth, a good belly-filling meal, and a warm woolen brychan to roll himself in at bedtime.
When a bard plucked his harp and sang the heroic ballads that were his country’s lifeblood, folk dropped their guard to listen. After the last notes died away, oft as not they’d tip another cup of ale or hard cider and grow talkative. Then Conwy ap Ifan, envoy and spy for Empress Maud, Lady of the English, would listen and weave another thread into his tapestry of intelligence about the Marches.
Not a spy! Con’s sense of honor bridled. At least not in the usual sense of that word. He meant no harm to his countrymen, and never would he put the interests of a Norman monarch above those of a Welsh prince. However, if the ambitions of the border chiefs should harmonize with those of the Empress, it would make sweet music for all.
Sweetest for Con himself.
As he ambled along a well-trodden forest path, inhaling the rich, pungent scent of new life, Con recalled his Christmas audience with the Empress, and her special commission for him.
“My Lord DeCourtenay says you gave a good account of yourself when his forces recaptured Brantham Keep from Fulke DeBoissard. Thanks to the arrow you put through his elbow, that’s one traitor who will never again hoist his sword against me. It takes a cool head and a true aim to turn your bow on a man who holds a knife to the throat of your dearest friend.”
For all her imperial bearing, the lady had returned Con’s admiring smile. Perhaps she’d been flattered that her arresting beauty still had the power to stir an attractive man some years her junior. Con had never been one to hide his appreciation of a pretty woman.
“Such a decisive fellow could be a great asset to me on the Marches just now, sir. Particularly if he has an agreeable humor and a persuasive Welsh tongue in his head.”
Con had acknowledged the compliment and expressed his interest in hearing more.
The Empress chose her words with care. “During these past years, while my cousin and I have contended for the throne, many Welsh border lords have seized the chance to take back lands conquered during the time of my sire and grandsire. It would be only fitting if my loyal southern Marches remained free of strife, while those manors which hold for Stephen of Blois suffered for their treachery.”
“Fitting indeed, your Grace,” Con agreed.
As a Welshman, he had no sworn fealty to either the Empress or King Stephen, but his natural sympathy lay with Maud. For as long as he could recall, Con had always sided with the underdog in any fight.
The Empress swept a lingering look from the toes of Con’s soft leather boots to the tangle of dark curls atop his head. She appeared to approve what she saw. “A man who could tame some border lords on my behalf while inflaming others would be well rewarded for his labors.”
With a raised brow and a curious half smile, Con inquired what form that reward might take.
“I would be prepared to honor such an enterprising fellow with a knighthood.” Maud’s shrewd dark gaze probed his. “Then I would equip him with suitable men and arms to return to the Holy Land. It would buy me favor with His Holiness the Pope as well as my husband’s kinsman, the Prince of Edessa.”
Con had struggled to keep his face impassive, even while his heels yearned to break into a jig. By heaven, this woman could calculate a man’s price to the groat. In a stroke she’d offered him the two greatest boons he had ever desired from life—advancement and adventure.
On this bright, green April day fairly bursting with promise, Con journeyed north, basking in the satisfaction of having fulfilled half his royal commission already. The more difficult half, to be sure, since it was a far easier task rousing Welshmen to war than persuading them to keep the peace.
During the long, dark months of winter, Con had made his way from cantrev to cantrev in the guise of a wandering bard. At each maenol he’d engaged in secret talks with the local border chief, counselling peace and consolidation of territory. Hinting at Angevine favor when Maud or her son, Henry, finally wrested the English throne from her cousin Stephen.
To a man, the chiefs of Deheubarth had heeded him.
Now with Empress Maud’s promised reward beckoning, Con had come to Powys on the latter half of his errand, to stir up trouble for the Marcher lords of Salop. He judged himself at least another full day’s journey away from Hen Coed, the stronghold of powerful border chieftain Macsen ap Gryffith.
When Con emerged from the eaves of the forest, he spied a thin plume of smoke rising from beyond the crest of the next hill. It must come from a dwelling of some kind. A dwelling where he could expect to receive warm hospitality on a cool spring night, along with the latest news from the surrounding country. All for the price of a song and a tale.
And if his usual luck held, he might find a comely lass among the household on whom he could exercise his ivory smile and extravagant flattery. Somehow, that prospect did not hold its usual appeal for Con.
Since coming to Wales, he’d found his appetite for feminine company unaccountably dulled. Could it be his age? Though often mistaken for a good bit younger, he was a trifle past thirty.
Or was his fleeting interest in the women he met always tempered by bittersweet memories of one woman? Long-slumbering recollections roused since Con’s boon companion, Rowan DeCourtenay, had found the one lady for whom he’d been destined.
Heading toward the smoke, Con shook his head and chuckled to himself. Queer that he should still burn for the one lass of whom he’d never made a conquest, when others he’d bedded had long since faded from his memory.
“Mother,” sang nine-year-old Myfanwy as she skipped into the washhouse at Glyneira, “Idwal said to tell you there’s a traveller come. Shall I fetch my harp and keep him company till supper? Or should I offer him water first?”
Enid looked up from her task of cleansing wool in the great iron cauldron. With the back of her hand, she nudged several fine tendrils of dark hair off her brow. They’d escaped her long braid, teased into curls by steam and sweat.
Traveller? Could Lord Macsen have come so soon?
Why did her belly suddenly feel full of wet wool at the thought of her chosen suitor arriving earlier than she’d expected him? Perhaps because Glyneira wasn’t yet fit to receive such exalted company, she decided. For a dozen good sensible reasons, Enid wanted to wed the border chief. She couldn’t afford to make an unfavorable impression.
“Of course you must offer him water straightaway, my pet. A big girl like you should know that by now.” Enid couldn’t help but smile at the child who looked so little like herself. Both Myfanwy and young Davy took after their late father, who’d had Mercian blood. “If our guest accepts, then we’ll know he means to stay the night at least.”
The ceremonial offer of water to wash a traveller’s tired feet was a tradition as old as the Welsh hills. If a guest refused, it meant he would not bide the night under his host’s roof. If he accepted, then the hospitality of the house would be his for as long as he chose to stay. Enid cherished the comforting familiarity of such traditions.
Myfanwy bobbed her golden head, eager as eager. “If the stranger says he’ll take water, can I wash his feet?”
“Not this time.” If Macsen had come to Glyneira, Enid wanted to make certain he was properly received—with her best ewer and basin, herb-sweetened water neither too hot nor too cold, and her softest cloths for drying. “I’ll see to it as soon as I tidy myself up. You can entertain him with your harping and singing, in the meantime. Go along now. Our guest will be pleased to hear you, I’ve no doubt, for you have a sweeter song than a linnet.”
As the child raced off, her mother called after her, “Tell Auntie Gaynor I need her to come finish a job for me.”
The wool only wanted one more rinse. Enid knew she could trust her sister-in-law not to handle the fleece over-much and risk felting it.
Hiking up her skirts, she dashed the short distance from the wash shed to the back entrance of the house, startling an old goose that ruffled up its feathers and hissed at her.
“Keep a civil tongue, or I might pluck and roast you for our guest’s supper,” Enid warned the testy fowl.
The goose waddled off with its bill in the air.
The lady of the house managed to reach her own small chamber without being harassed further. After pulling off her coarse-woven work tunic, she rummaged in the chest at the foot of her bed, looking for an overgarment better suited to welcoming such an important guest.
A flash of green caught her eye. From the very bottom of the trunk Enid lifted a fine woolen kirtle, trimmed at the neck and wrists with close-stitched embroidery. Her breath caught in her throat as she held the garment in her hands.
During the years since she’d come to Glyneira, she had found one excuse after another to avoid wearing it, until she’d almost forgotten it existed. She had worn this fine garment on her wedding day, though it had been fashioned to impress a much grander bridegroom than Howell ap Rhodri.
It reminded Enid of all she’d risked once upon a time. And all she’d lost in the risking.
“Oh, don’t be fanciful,” she scolded herself as she slipped the garment over her head. “A kirtle’s a kirtle and this is the best you own.”
As she covered her hair with a fresh veil, a small boy barrelled into the chamber. A stubby-legged puppy scrambled through the rushes at the child’s heels.
“Myfanwy said to tell you the man wants water.” Blurting out his message, Master Davy looked ready to bolt out of the room as fast as he’d bolted in—until he caught a good look at his mother.
“What’re you dressed so grand for, Mam?” Davy scooped up the puppy, who wriggled in his arms. “You look as fair as the queen of springtime. All you need is a crown of flowers in your hair like Myfanwy makes for hers.”
“Queen of springtime, is it?” Enid blushed as she remembered a young fellow who’d once fashioned a garland of spring blossoms for her hair and offered equally extravagant praise to her looks. That fellow had danced all over her heart, then danced away…never to return.
“I mind you’ll make a bard yet, Davy-lad.” Enid ruffled her son’s honey-brown hair, determined not to let thoughts of Con ap Ifan spoil this moment. “But you make it sound as though your poor mother goes around like a slattern most of the time. Away with you now before that dog messes on the floor again.”
As the boy ran off laughing, Enid noticed how tall he’d sprouted through the winter. It was a wonder he could still wriggle into his tunic, it had grown so tight. She’d have to look through her other trunk to see if there were any clothes Bryn had outgrown that might now fit Davy.
Thinking of her older son made Enid remember their guest. Of the many boons she stood to gain from wedding Lord Macsen, she most craved the chance to reunite her family. It’d been such a long time since Howell had sent the boy away for fosterage. She’d rather hoped Macsen might bring her son along on this visit.
A wistful pang gave way to questioning. It wasn’t like Macsen ap Gryffith to travel alone, without a small but skilled escort of armed men. Did the border chief have reason to call on Glyneira in secret? Or could something be wrong?
From out of the chest Enid snatched a handsome basin and ewer of beaten copper along with linen drying cloths, all too fine for any but Glyneira’s most honored guests. Making her way to the kitchen to fetch hot water, she schooled her steps to a brisk but decorous pace appropriate for a lady of the maenol. Her thoughts fluttered though, like doves in a cote when a fox prowled the ground below.
What if Macsen had changed his mind about the betrothal he’d hinted at when Howell lay dying? What if he’d never meant it in the first place—only wanted to calm her fears for the future? She’d managed well enough, had even come to enjoy being mistress of Glyneira in her own right instead of always deferring to a husband.
But the past winter had been an uncommonly quiet one. Such tranquility could not last on the borders. When strife erupted again, as surely it would, Enid wanted her children tucked up in the comparative safety of Hen Coed, buffered by a stout palisade with a canny warrior lord for a step-father.
Almost without her noticing it, the rhythm of her footsteps quickened.
The nimble music of Myfanwy’s harp greeted Enid as she entered the hall. For an instant the mellow glow of maternal pride radiated through her. Then she heard a second instrument join her daughter’s, lower in pitch and more assured in touch. Myfanwy began to sing in her high, pure treble, while a masculine voice chimed in a pleasing harmony.
The voice had a most agreeable timbre in the mellow middle register, unlike the ominous resonant rumble of Macsen ap Gryffith’s.
Enid crossed the cavernous hall with a halting gait, like a sleepwalker drawn by the Fair Folk. Something deep within her quivered to life at the sound of that all-but-forgotten voice. Or perhaps it shivered with foreboding.
She approached so quietly the two musicians did not pay her any mind at first. In the dim interior of the hall, Myfanwy’s young face seemed to cast a radiance of its own, kindled by the admiring attention of their guest.
He was a handsome fellow. Not towering and brawny like Lord Macsen, but medium tall for a Welshman, his lithe frame fleshed with hard, lean sinew. The eastern sun had tanned his face since last Enid had beheld it, and any suggestion of boyish roundness had been pared away by the years.
Topped by a vigorous tangle of nut-brown curls, it was a well-shaped face in every way. Agile brows arched above a pair of eyes that shimmered with lively charm. Beneath the straight sloping nose with its potent flared nostrils, poised a tempting pair of lips. They were neither too full nor too thin, but so ideal for kissing they made Enid’s own lips quiver just to look at them. Below that melting mouth jutted a resolute chin, softened by the disarming hint of a dimple. It was a face to break a woman’s heart.
How many more had he broken since hers?
Clutching the basin with a remorseless grip to keep her hands from trembling, Enid willed her voice not to catch in her throat as she spoke loud enough to be heard above the music.
“Well, well, Conwy ap Ifan, what are you doing in Powys? The last I heard you’d hired out as a mercenary to the Holy Land.”
His voice fell silent and he glanced up at her with a sudden questioning look. For a moment Enid’s unhealed heart wrenched in her bosom fearing he would not remember her.
Then his smile blazed forth. “Well, well yourself, Enid versch Blethyn. What are you doing in Powys? The last I heard, you were set to wed some princeling from Ynys Mon.”
Something about the set of his features or the tilt of his head sliced through Enid like an arrow loosed at close range from a powerful Welsh short bow.
Dear heaven! She must get Con ap Ifan away from Glyneira before Macsen and his party arrived.
Chapter Two
A pity he couldn’t linger here, Con found himself thinking as he cast an admiring eye over the cariad of his boyhood, since ripened into vivid, beguiling flower.
Enid’s sudden appearance and sharp questions had taken him by surprise. Yet in another way they hadn’t. Something about the child had put her mother firmly in his mind, though he’d scarcely been aware of it at the time. The sweet lilt of her young voice, perhaps, or some trick of her smile, for all else about the pair went by contraries.
The girl was fair and tall for her age and race, while her mother had the dark, fey delicacy of a true Welsh beauty. Full dark brows cast a bewitching contrast to her dainty elfin features. Her eyes were the dusky purple of black-thorn plums, and her hair—what Con could see of it and what he recalled—still black as a rook’s wing. Skin like apple blossoms and lips the rich intoxicating hue of Malmsey wine.
Indeed, a kind of besotted dizziness came over Con as he drank in her twilight loveliness.
A trill of laughter from the child startled him halfways sober again. “Mam, do you mean to wash our guest’s feet before the water gets cold?”
Enid gave a startled glance down at the ewer and basin in her hands as if they’d appeared there by magic.
“Aye.” She took a step toward Con, then hesitated. “If you wish it, that is. I only heard secondhand that you’d accepted the offer of water.”
“With pleasure.” Con set his harp aside and pried off his boots, wondering if he’d only imagined the shadow that had dimmed her features. Had she hoped he’d change his mind about accepting the water? “After a day’s brisk walk, your hospitality is most welcome. The young lady’s music has already lightened the weariness of my spirit. Such a jewel is a mighty credit to you and her tad.”
Enid had dropped to her knees on the rush-strewn floor, and begun to pour gently steaming water into the basin. At Con’s tribute to her daughter, her slender form tensed.
“Myfanwy, cariad, will you go check how Auntie Gaynor is coming with the last rinse of the wool? That’s a good girl.”
When the child had made a subdued exit, Enid explained, “My daughter does mighty credit to her father’s memory. She’s much like him in many ways.”
“I’m sorry.” Con chided himself less for the compliment gone awry than for the envious curiosity that flamed in him. By the tone of Enid’s answer, he might guess how much or how little she had loved Myfanwy’s father.
It should not matter to him…but it did.
“Was it very long ago you lost your husband?” At the last instant he managed to stop himself from adding the Welsh endearment, cariad.
“In the fall.” Enid pushed the basin toward him. Though her curt reply told him she didn’t want to dwell on the matter, it gave no real clue about her feelings for the man. “There was some trouble with the Normans, so Howell joined the muster of Macsen ap Gryffith. He took sore wounds in the fighting. They brought him home where he lingered until the first snow.”
Con eased his feet into the warm water as he digested this intriguing scrap of news about Macsen ap Gryffith. If the border chief had lost men in an autumn skirmish with the Normans of Salop, he might not need much nudging to retaliate in the spring.
“What brings you to the borders?” asked Enid, her head bent over the basin. “Did you grow tired of plying your sword for hire to the Normans?”
Her question caught Con like an unexpected thrust after a cunning feint. For a moment his glib tongue froze in his mouth. If he told her he’d come on a mission from the very people who’d killed her husband, she’d likely turf his backside out the gate, traditions of Welsh hospitality be damned.
“You might say I’m taking a rest from it.” No lie, that—not a bold-faced one, anyhow. “I mean to go back to the Holy Land, though.”
As Sir Conwy of Somewhere, riding at the head of an armed company of his own men. The dream sang a most agreeable melody in Con’s thoughts.
“In the meantime, barding lets me enjoy a bit of adventure without the danger. Mercenary or travelling bard, both make good jobs for a vagabond.”
“You’ve always had itchy heels, haven’t you, Con?” Enid mused aloud as she washed his feet. “I suppose you’ll be on your way from here tomorrow morning?”
The water was no more than tepid, but Enid’s touch set flames licking up Con’s legs to light a blaze in his loins. He could almost fancy it searing the itch of wanderlust from his flesh…but that was nonsense.
Though part of him longed to stay and visit, that tiny voice of caution urged Con to go while he still had a choice.
“Tomorrow.” He nodded. “Before Chester dogs arise, if the weather holds fair. I don’t want to wear out my welcome.”
A quivering tension seemed to ebb out of Enid as she dried his feet. For all her show of welcome, she clearly wanted to be rid of him. The realization vexed Con. He wasn’t used to women craving his absence.
Enid raised her face to him then, and Con struggled to draw breath. In the depths of her eyes shimmered a vision of the playful sprite he remembered from their childhood—so close and physically accessible, yet as far beyond the reach of an orphan plowboy as the beckoning stars.
“I’m surprised to see you whole and hale after all these years. I feared you wouldn’t last a month as a hired soldier.”
She’d worried about him. The knowledge settled in Con’s belly like a hot, filling meal after a long fast. He hadn’t expected her to spare him a backward glance.
“White my world.” That’s what the Welsh said of a fellow who was lucky, and Con had been. “I’ve had the odd close shave, but always managed to wriggle out before the noose drew tight enough to throttle me. I’ll entertain your household with some of my adventures tonight, around the fire.”
He leaned forward, planting his elbows on his thighs. “That’s enough talk of me, though. You never did say how you came to Powys from your father’s maenol in Gwynedd. From time out of mind I heard nothing but that you were meant to wed Tryfan ap Huw, and go to be the lady of his grand estate on Ynys Mon.”
Enid scrambled to her feet and snatched up the basin so quickly that water sloshed over the rim to wet the reeds on the floor. “You ought to know better than most, Con, life has a way of turning out different than you expect.”
Which was exactly how he liked it. How tiresome the world would be without those random detours, bends in the road, hills that invited a body to climb and see what wonders lay beyond.
But Enid had never thought so. More than anyone Con had ever known, she’d longed for peace and security. She’d craved a smooth, straight, predictable path through life, content to forgo the marvels if that was the price for keeping out of harm’s way. What calamity had landed her here on the Marches where turmoil reigned?
Enid flinched from the memories Con’s question provoked, in much the way she would have avoided biting on a sore tooth. Once in her life she’d taken a risk, hoping to gain the only thing she’d ever wanted more than a safe, ordered, conventional life. She’d rocked the coracle and it had capsized, almost drowning her. That ruinous venture had taught her a harsh but necessary lesson about leaving well enough alone.
The man who had cost her so dearly spoke up. “Did this turn in your life bring you happiness, Enid?”
How dare he ask such a thing, as if he had any business in her happiness after all these years? And how dare he pretend to be taken by surprise over the unexpected direction her life had taken? He’d been there when the road had forked, after all. Then he had wandered away, lured by the fairy-piped tune of adventure, leaving her to bear the consequences.
A sharp answer hovered on her tongue, but died unspoken.
If Con ap Ifan had forgotten what happened between them thirteen years ago, on the eve of his departure from her father’s house, she did not wish to remind him—could not afford to remind him. For then he might guess what had become of her, and how it had all fallen out.
“It brought me my children.” She measured her words with care, anxious not to disclose too much, nor rouse his curiosity further with blatant evasion. “They are the greatest source of pride and happiness in my life.”
A grace she’d ill-deserved.
Con’s face brightened, as if she’d told him what he wanted to hear. “No wonder you’re proud of them. They’re a fine pair, though I only saw the little fellow for a moment. Your last yellow chick, is he?”
“I beg your leave for a moment,” she interrupted him, “to toss this water out.”
Somehow she knew that after inquiring about the baby of the family, Con would next ask if she had any children older than Myfanwy and Davy. “I must see that supper’s started, too. Will you take a drop of cider to refresh you until then?”
Con did not appear to notice that she hadn’t answered his question. “Your duties must be many now that you’re both master and mistress of the house.”
He waved her away with a rueful grin. “I won’t distract you from them. We’ll talk over old times and catch up with each other during the evening meal. In the meantime, if there’s aught I can do to make myself useful, bid me as you will. I can turn my hand to most anything.”
“I wouldn’t dream of putting a guest to work.” She didn’t want him snooping around the place, talking to folks about things he had no business knowing. “Take your ease and tune your harp until supper. It’s been a long while since we’ve been entertained by a minstrel from away. You’ll more than earn your bread and brychan tonight.”
She bustled off to prepare for the meal. And to make sure her children had plenty of little chores to keep them occupied and away from the hall until supper.
“He’ll be gone in the morning,” she muttered under her breath as she worked and directed others in their work. “He’ll be gone in the morning. He’ll be gone in the morning.”
The repetition calmed her, like reciting the Ave or the Paternoster.
Yet along with the rush of relief that surged through her every time she pictured Con ap Ifan going on his way tomorrow morn without a backward glance, a bothersome ebb tide of regret tugged at Enid, too.
A small but bright fire burned in the middle of Glyneira’s hall that evening, its smoke wafting up to the ceiling where it escaped through a hole in the roof. A sense of anticipation hung in the air, too, as Enid’s household partook of their supper.
There were over two dozen gathered that evening, most distant kin of Enid’s late husband. All eager to hear the wandering bard who, according to rumor, had fought in the Holy Land.
Enid sat at the high table with Howell’s two sisters, Helydd and Gaynor. She had placed Con at the other end, between the local priest and Gaynor’s husband, Idwal, who’d taken a blow on the head a few years before and never been quite the same since.
Though everyone at Glyneira had gotten used to Idwal’s halting speech, outsiders often had trouble understanding him. Father Thomas was voluble enough to make up for what Idwal lacked in conversation, and then some. His uncle had gone to Jerusalem on the Great Crusade and returned to Wales years later to ply a brisk trade in holy relics. Enid trusted the good father to keep their guest talking on safe subjects.
Subjects that did not concern her or her family.
Once all were seated, the kitchen lasses bore in platters of chopped meat moistened with broth, and set one between every three diners, as was Welsh custom in honor of the Trinity. A young boy brought around thin broad cakes of fresh lagana bread on which diners could heap a portion of the meat dish for eating.
Gazing at their guest, Helydd leaned toward Enid and whispered, “My, he’s a handsome one, isn’t he? And so pleasant spoken. Is it true you knew him back in Gwynedd?”
Enid nodded as she worried down a bite of her supper. Though she’d eaten nothing since a dawn bite of bread and cheese, she felt no great appetite. “Con’s mother was a distant kinswoman of my father. She died when the boy was very young, and nobody knew much about his father. Con used to coax the oxen for us until he got big enough to hire out as a soldier.”
He had been the only other youngster around her father’s prosperous maenol in the Vale of Conwy, for Enid’s two brothers were several years their senior. Since neither of the children had mothers to keep a sharp eye on them, they’d run wild as a pair of fallow deer yearlings.
In spite of herself, Enid found her gaze straying to Con’s animated features as he spoke with Father Thomas, watching with jealous interest for some reminder of the winsome boy she’d once loved so unwisely.
Sudden as a kingfisher, he glanced up and caught her eyes upon him. Though she scolded herself for her foolishness, Enid felt a scorching blush nettle her cheeks. She prayed the fire’s swiftly shifting shadows would mask it. The last thing she wanted was for Con ap Ifan to entertain a ridiculous notion she still harbored a fancy for him.
On second thought, there was one thing she wanted even less.
Con swilled another great mouthful of his cider and nodded in pretended interest at some long-winded tale of Father Thomas’s. At the same time he tried to fathom the queer sense of dissatisfaction that gnawed at him.
What reason on earth did he have to be disaffected? He’d been met with scrupulous hospitality from the moment he’d crossed the threshold of Glyneira. He’d eaten his fill of plain but nourishing fare, and the cider here tasted far superior to that of the last place he’d stayed. The company appeared good-natured and eager to be entertained.
So what was goading him like a burr in his breeches? Con asked himself. Surely it wasn’t childish pique at Enid for neglecting him? Or was it?
After all, they’d grown up almost like brother and sister for their first seventeen years, then hadn’t lain eyes on each other for the past dozen odd. Was it too much to expect she might set aside her chores to spend a little time with him? Especially since he’d be off in the morning and might never see her again.
Clearly he’d hoodwinked himself into imagining she’d worried about him after they parted, thirteen years ago. If she’d cared for him half as much as he’d worshipped her once upon a time, she’d have shown him more than the dutiful interest of any hostess in the comfort a chance-come guest.
If he hadn’t known better, he’d have suspected she was deliberately trying to avoid him, until she could send him on his way at the earliest opportunity. But what reason could Enid have for that?
“Were you ever to Jerusalem in your travels, Master Conwy?” The priest’s question shook Con from his musings.
“Twice or thrice.” He nodded and glanced from Father Thomas to Idwal, a big quiet fellow who followed their talk with a look of intense concentration. “Mostly I fought in the north, in the service of the Prince of Edessa.”
The priest drained his flagon of cider, probably to grease his tongue for another rambling tale about his uncle.
Partly to forestall that, and partly because he hadn’t been able to coax a straight answer out of Enid, Con said, “It can’t have been an easy winter here since the master met his end.”
Kiwal’s broad brow furrowed deeper, while the priest replied, “Not as bad as it might have been, perhaps.”
“How so, Father?” When he sensed the priest was reluctant to say more, Con reassured him. “I only ask because Enid and I are old friends and distant kin. She might be too proud to beg my help on her own account, but if there is anything she or her children need, I’d find the means to assist them.”
“You are a true Christian, sir!” Father Thomas clapped a beefy arm over Con’s shoulders. “As you can see, this is no prince’s llys, but folks aren’t starving either. The lady Enid has always been a careful manager and Howell’s sisters are both smart, industrious women. Though it was hard on them to watch Howell die slowly of his wounds, they had Our Lord’s own comfort knowing they’d done everything needful to ease him.”
Con replied with a thoughtful nod. The old priest had a point. What part of the hurt a body took from the loss of a loved one came from guilt over being unable to prevent or assuage the death?
“Everyone had time to grow used to the idea of Howell’s going before he went,” continued Father Thomas. “Not too much time, heaven be praised for mercy, but enough. Enough for him to make a good confession and die shriven. Who of us can ask for more?”
“You speak wisdom, Father.”
The priest cracked a broad grin and nodded around the room where folk were leaning back from their meal, rubbing their teeth with green hazel twigs to clean them, and talking quietly amongst themselves. “I’m wise enough to know it’s poor manners to keep the bard’s stories all for my own amusement when the rest of the company is eager to hear.”
He cast a look at Enid, who nodded. At that Father Thomas lurched to his feet and clapped his large fleshy hands for silence. “Attend you, now! We have the very great honor this evening of a proper bard among us. Conwy ap Ifan is kin to our lady Enid and a native of Gwynedd. He passed the winter months in the southern cantrevs and spring has lured him north to Powys. In his time, he’s ventured far abroad, travelling through the kingdoms of the Franks and as far away as the Holy Land. But I will sit down and hold my tongue now, so you may hear the rest from his own lips. The hall is yours, Master Con.”
The company cheered as Con hoisted his harp and left his seat at the high table to move nearer the fire.
“I thank you for that eloquent welcome, Father Thomas.” He pulled his fingertips over the harp strings in a quick run. “It’s true I have wandered far abroad in my travels, but it only taught me the wisdom of the old saying ‘God made Wales first, then, with the beauty he had leftover, he fashioned the rest of the world.’”
If that didn’t dispose the crowd in his favor, nothing would. Yet as he spoke the words, Con knew they were more than hollow flattery. These past weeks, as he’d reacquainted himself with the land he’d forsaken in his youth, it seemed as though a skilled but invisible hand plucked at the cords of his heart, making warm, resonant music such as he could only echo with his harp.
“Here’s a tune I often sang to myself in far-off places when I grew lonely for home.” Con plucked out the bittersweet melody he’d played so often. “Llywn Onn.” “The Ash Grove.”
“The grand Ash Grove Palace was home to a chieftain, who ruled as the lord of a handsome domain.”
Around him folks swayed to the music and began to hum haunting harmonies.
As he went on to sing of the chieftain’s beautiful daughter who had many rich suitors, no amount of will could keep Con’s gaze from flocking to Enid.
“She only had eyes for a pure-hearted peasant, which kindled the rage in her proud father’s chest…”
That hadn’t been the way of it, of course. Enid had been too dutiful a daughter and too practical a creature ever to brave her father’s displeasure by choosing a lowly plow-boy over the nephew of a prince.
“I’d rather die here at my true love’s side than live long in grief in the lonely Ash Grove.”
As the song wound to its beautiful, poignant conclusion, was it his foolish fancy, or some capricious trick of the firelight…? Or did a mist of tears turn Enid’s eyes into a pair of glittering dark amethysts?
What of it, good sense demanded, if a woman who’d been recently widowed got a little teary over a plaintive song? Only a fool would think “The Ash Grove” meant to her what it had long meant to him.
Besides, it was too early in the evening for sad songs. Time to lighten the mood.
“Here’s one for the children.” Con swept his gaze around the room, winking at each one in turn. “I hope they can help me sing it, for I always make a fearful muddle of the colors.”
“Where is the goat? It’s time for milking.” He cocked a hand to his ear and the young ones sang back to him, “Off among the craggy rocks the old goat is wandering. Goat white, white, white with her lip white, lip white, lip white…”
By the time they called the black, red and blue goats, everyone was laughing and clapping. Con followed with several more light ditties about robins and larks and the return of springtime. Then he recited the familiar story-poem about the children of Llyr being magically transformed into swans.
As he oiled his throat with a few more drops of cider and tuned his harp for more music, Con noticed Enid trying to usher her protesting children off to bed.
“Let them stay a while longer, why don’t you?” He added his own entreaty to theirs. “Remember when we were their age and the bard from Llyn came to your father’s hall? How vexed we were over being chased off to bed.”
Enid shot him a glare of purple menace that told him she remembered all too well. He’d had a grand idea they should crawl onto the roof and listen to the music that wafted up the chimney. It had all gone without a hitch until Enid had fallen asleep and rolled off the roof, knocking out a tooth and breaking her arm. He’d been able to scramble away and pretend innocence. Since Enid had vowed by all the Welsh saints that she’d been alone in her mischief, he’d escaped the skinning he probably deserved.
How many other wild schemes of his had she paid the price for over the years?
Before Con could ponder that question, Enid scoured up a grudging smile for her children. “Very well, then, you may bide a little longer. Only a wee while, though, mind? And only because the pitch of this roof is steeper than my father’s. You’d break your young necks, like as not.”
Myfanwy and Davy exchanged sidelong glances and mystified shrugs. Con understood, though. He winked at Enid and was rewarded with a reluctant twist of her lips.
“I’ll keep it brief,” he assured her.
“You do that.” If Enid meant to sound stern, she didn’t quite succeed. “It isn’t only the children who need their rest. Others have a full day’s work ahead of them tomorrow, and you have a long walk to wherever you’re headed.”
Wherever he was headed? To Hen Coed and Macsen ap Gryffith. Another step closer to that knighthood and his triumphant return to the Holy Land. Why did that prize not glitter as brightly as it had just a few hours ago?
Never one to dwell on unpleasant thoughts, Con pushed the question out of his mind.
“Here’s a song I learned in Antioch,” he told his audience, launching into an eerie wail of a melody.
That prompted the Glyneira people to ask him all sorts of questions about his time in the Holy Land. Without too much poetic embellishment, Con managed to hold them spellbound with tales of his adventures—the wonders, the opulence, the intrigue. When a wide yawn stretched his mouth, he realized he’d been talking far longer than the “wee while” he’d promised Enid.
He ventured a sheepish glance her way, only to find her looking as enthralled by his tales as the rest.
“I mind it’s past time to put the harp on the roof,” he said, meaning they should bring the festivities to an end. “Here’s a quiet tune to lull you all to sleep?”
As he played, folks fetched their brychans and found good spots among the reeds to stretch out for the night. Enid motioned her children away to their private chamber. Con wondered if this was the last glimpse he’d have of her before he headed off to Hen Coed at the cut of dawn.
After the last notes of the lullaby had faded into the night, some of the company responded with muted applause. Others murmured their approval of the night’s entertainment. Father Thomas bid Con an effusive farewell before wending his way home.
“Fine music,” declared Idwal, nodding his head slowly.
“Indeed it was,” agreed Gaynor, holding tight to her husband’s arm. “What a pity you have to be on your way so soon, Con ap Ifan. How grand it would be if you could stay and entertain at the wedding.”
Con flashed a regretful smile at Gaynor’s younger sister Helydd. “I wish I could oblige you. But the man who takes so fair a bride won’t need any songs or poetry from the likes of me to crown his joy of the day.”
After an instant’s bewilderment, the lady blushed. “Oh, I’m not to be the bride, Master Con. Once Enid and his lordship are married, I hope they can find me a—”
“Enid?” Con squeaked like a half-grown boy. Then Helydd’s other words sank in. “His lordship?”
“Aye.” Gaynor beamed with pride. “Macsen ap Gryffith, himself. He’s due to arrive in a few days’ time. Enid pretends it isn’t all settled, but we know better. I haven’t a doubt in the world but there’ll be a wedding ere his lordship departs Glyneira again.”
Well, well. Con bid Idwal and the women good-night, then rolled up in the thick, coarse-woven brychan he’d been given.
Why venture off to meet Lord Macsen if the border chief was coming here? Glyneira might be the perfect place for them to confer, more distant than Hen Coed from the prying eyes of King Stephen’s vassals at Falconbridge and Revelstone.
Con settled into sleep with a contented sigh. Now he and Enid would have plenty of time to warm over their old friendship—before she wed the border chief.
Somehow that thought threatened Con’s peaceful dreams.
Chapter Three
Though Enid slept in later than usual the next morning, she was not sorry for it. The hounds of Chester had long since risen, no doubt. Con ap Ifan might be miles from Glyneira by now, depending on which direction his roving inclination took him. And she’d been spared the polite necessity of seeing him off and wishing him godspeed.
Yet some bitter herb had crept into her sweet brew of relief at Con’s going.
“Think no more of him,” she chided herself as she buried the handsome green kirtle at the bottom of her trunk once more, then pulled on another, better suited for all the work she must do to prepare for Lord Macsen’s arrival.
Con’s surprise coming yesterday had made her realize the border chief might appear any day. She wanted the maenol in good order to welcome him.
Despite their late night, her children had not slept past their normal rising time. Myfanwy must be out feeding the fowl, while Davy would be off conning lessons with Father Thomas.
With no company and the prospect of a good day’s work ahead of her, Enid dispensed with a veil. Instead she combed out her long dark hair and plaited it back into a thick braid, with only a passing speculation as to how many white threads it had sprouted as a result of Con’s unexpected advent.
As she dressed her hair, Enid mulled over the preparations needed for Macsen’s arrival. They must butcher a few geese and perhaps a suckling pig so the meat could hang. She’d send Idwal with the hounds to bring in some fresh game. The hall must be swept out and fresh rushes strewn with sweetening herbs.
Once all those tasks were seen to, she would turn her attention back to such of the wool clip as she’d chosen to keep for their own use. The rest of the shorn fleeces awaited a visit from the merchant in early summer. Now that the wool had been washed, it would need to boil with dye plants, and mordant to fix the colors.
Did she have enough woad on hand to dye a batch blue for a new cloak for Bryn? Enid mulled the question over on her way to the wash shed. As she rounded the corner of the house, her mind already planning the pattern of weave, she collided with…
“Con ap Ifan! By Dewi Sant, what are you still doing here? I thought you meant to be on your way early.”
If he minded her uncivil greeting, Con gave no sign. “Call it the caprice of a bard.”
With those airy words and the casual hoist of one shoulder, he razed Enid’s carefully constructed plans to the ground.
“You and I never truly got a chance to talk over old times,” he added by way of explanation. “Though you got your ears filled with all the news of my doings, I scarcely know a jot about you. Why, I had no inkling you were set to wed your first husband’s lord. As private as a mole, you are, woman. Most ladies I know would boast of such an honor even before they offered a guest water.”
“How did you come to hear of that?” The abrupt question had hardly left her lips before she guessed the answer.
“Your sister-in-law told me last night.” Con confirmed Enid’s certain suspicion. “After you’d taken the children off to bed. Gaynor said it was a pity I couldn’t stay to entertain the wedding guests. On reflection I agreed it would be a terrible shame. So I made up my mind to accept your hospitality a few days more.”
Suddenly aware of how close he hovered over her, Enid took an unsteady step away. “Gaynor’s a good soul, but she gets ahead of herself betimes. There’s nothing settled between Lord Macsen and me by way of wedding.”
A teasing light twinkled in Con’s blue eyes, like the swift dance of water over a stony mountain riverbed. “You do expect him to come soon, though? And you have hopes of him?”
“What business is it of yours if I do, Con ap Ifan?” Enid wasn’t sure what vexed her more—his dangerous decision to linger at Glyneira, or the fear that each day he spent here would make it that much harder to part with him again.
“I only clapped eyes on you yesterday for the first time in a dozen years. You’re burnt brown as a Saracen and you fought long in the service of the Normans.”
The more she spoke, the hotter her indignation kindled. “You said yourself, you mean to go away again as soon as you may, leaving who knows what kind of a pig’s breakfast behind you. You’ve got no call to meddle in my plans or even to know what they might be.”
Con flinched back from her vigorous rebuke as he might have from a man brandishing a sword. “What’s got into you, woman? I thought we’d parted as friends. Besides keeping your young ones awake late last night, I haven’t done you any harm since I’ve come under your roof. Why must you scold me so, and do your best to chivvy me away? Am I not welcome in Glyneira? You did offer me water…”
And that bound her, damn his hide! Having paid so dear a price for her youthful rebellion, Enid could no longer imagine transgressing against the laws of tradition that obligated her.
“I thought you were someone else.” She doubted the excuse would sway him.
“Macsen ap Gryffith?”
She resented the sharp edge in Con’s voice when he spoke the border chief’s name. “As it happens, yes.”
“Are you saying you wouldn’t have offered me your hospitality had you known who I was?” If she’d kicked Davy’s puppy, the boy and the dog together could not have treated her to such a look of innocent, injured reproach.
“Yes…I mean…no” she sputtered “…that is…” If she wasn’t careful, she might pitch herself into Con’s arms or gather him into hers.
“Have I risen too high to suit you, Enid versch Blethyn?” Con’s posture stiffened and the yearning azure of his eyes froze to dark ice. “Is that it?”
He was the one imposing on her hospitality, rooting into all sorts of matters he had no call to concern himself about. The gall of the fellow to answer her back, proud as a prince!
“I’m sure I don’t know what kind of air you’re mincing.”
“Do you not? Then I’ll be plainer, shall I?” Con’s chiselled chin jutted. “When I was a poor plowboy in your father’s house and you the intended bride of a great lord, it amused you to befriend me. Even flirt a bit to exercise your wiles for your future husband.”
If Enid had soaked her cheeks for a week in bloodroot, she could not have dyed them any redder than they must be at that moment. Con thought she’d been toying with him, when instead she’d been over her head and ears in love.
“Now that you’ve come down a bit in the world,” said Con, “while I’ve come up, it doesn’t suit you, does it, your ladyship?”
“I never heard such idle talk…”
“Let me tell you one thing, then, Blethyn’s daughter, I’ve warmed the beds of plenty women richer and higher-born than you since I left Wales. And they seemed to like it well enough.” With that, Con spun on his heel and stalked off.
Enid stood rooted to the packed earth of the courtyard, trembling with a mixture of fury and dismay. She feared the bubbling cauldron might also contain a tiny but potent measure of that well-aged poison…desire.
He was right in what he’d said, Con knew it better than he knew the gospel. He stormed the length of the timber-walled compound, not certain where he was headed.
When they’d been boy and girl together under her father’s roof, ripe to bursting with all sorts of forbidden inclinations, Enid had fanned his calf-love into a blaze that had consumed him day and night. Especially at night.
How often had he woken in his loft bed above the oxen’s stalls, rampant and slick with sweat over a dream of that elusive girl naked in his arms?
As much as he’d been lured into mercenary service by the call of adventure and advancement, Con had also fled headlong from the demons of lust that had gnawed at his young flesh. And the bitter certainty that he had no chance in the world of winning Enid versch Blethyn.
Con barely noticed his steps slowing.
If she’d been haughty and scornful of him, it would have been so much easier to bear. For then he’d have craved only her ripening beauty, and any other girl would have made a tolerable proxy. But Enid had never once hinted at the difference in their stations and expectations. Then again, she hadn’t needed to. He’d been aware enough of the gulf between them for both.
As far back as Con could remember, she’d always spoken and behaved as though he was every inch the equal of the princeling her father meant her to wed. To the most menial member of Blethyn ap Owain’s household, struggling to cultivate a sense of worth, Enid’s manner toward him had been sweet balm.
“Fie!” Con kicked a tussock of weeds that had forced their stubborn way out of the courtyard’s hard dirt. “You’re thinking yourself in circles, fool! Was she only toying with you back then? Or did you imagine her soft looks because you craved them so badly?”
A deep halting voice issued from the stables, “You must…talk slower…if you mean me to answer.”
Enid’s brother-in-law emerged into the courtyard with a dung fork in one hand. A big fellow was Idwal, with ruddy-brown hair and a nose that looked like it had been broken at least once. That and his size might have given him an air of grim menace, but for his guileless blue eyes and ready grin.
“I need no answer, friend.” As Con’s mouth stretched wide, he could feel his annoyance with Enid slipping. He grabbed onto it and tried to hold tight. “I was only thinking with my tongue, as ever.”
“Oh.” Idwal nodded as if he understood, but his jagged features contorted slightly in a look of puzzlement.
It passed in a flash, chased off his face by a broad smile. “Fine music you made…last night.” He broke into a chorus of “Goat white, goat white, goat white,” then stopped abruptly. “Will you play again tonight and tell more stories?”
That was the question of the day, wasn’t it? Con thought. Would he let Enid’s coldness drive him out of Glyneira, to blunder into Macsen ap Gryffith on his way to Hen Coed, or chance missing the border chief altogether?
His time in the East had taught Con not to waste effort chasing quarry that might come to him if he exercised a little patience.
“I’ve a mind to stay a few days more. Would you like that?”
“Oh, yes!” The vigor with which Idwal’s head bobbed up and down warmed Con. In the fellow’s uncomplicated welcome, he found an antidote to Enid’s baffling shifts of manner.
“I may even hang about until Lord Macsen comes.” Con mused aloud. “He might think it an honor that Glyneira has a bard on hand to entertain him.”
Idwal considered and appeared to see the sense in that, even if his clever sister-in-law couldn’t.
Con himself was still firmly on the fence. This would be an ideal opportunity for his talks with Lord Macsen. All he had to do was wait around for the plum to drop into his lap. On the other side of the balance, his pride rankled at the notion of staying where he wasn’t welcome.
From as far back as Con could remember, he’d been blessed, or cursed, with the ability to see both head and tail of a coin at once. For the most part it had been an advantage, helping him make peace between his fellow warriors when they fell out among themselves. It had come in handy on his mission for the Empress, too, letting him see events through the eyes of the chiefs he was trying to pacify. By anticipating their arguments, he’d been able to marshal all the reasons to counter them.
Perhaps he’d been too hasty with Enid—blinded by his own tetchy pride and the old ulcerous wound of his hopeless boyhood longing for her.
“There’s only one wee problem in all this, Idwal.” Con blew out a breath, not certain if he was more exasperated with Enid…or with himself. “I think the lady of Glyneira would just as lief be clear of me.”
Idwal mulled the idea over and over, like an old hound worrying a tough bone.
“No,” he ventured at last. “That’s just…her way. She’s not a…merry lass like my Gaynor. There’s a…sad place in her. A sore spot she fears folks may…poke at…if she lets them too close like.”
He grew more and more agitated with each word, until at last he broke off, slamming the tines of his dung fork against the dirt in frustration. “I must sound…a fool. I’m that bad…with talk now. Words is all riddles to me.”
“Don’t you fret, Idwal.” A qualm of shame gripped Con’s belly. What was his imagined slight compared to this man’s struggle to make himself understood? Or whatever troubles Enid might carry on her slender shoulders? “You talk better sense than lots I’ve heard. It can’t have been easy for any of you at Glyneira since Howell was killed.”
Idwal calmed. “Not bad…for me. I do as I’ve done…all along. Muck out the animals. Watch the gate. Hunt some. Enid has the…running of the place. Wants to keep it…going…till the lad’s of age.”
It would be many years until Master Davy was old enough to lift the responsibility from his mother. No wonder Enid had looked for a strong, canny husband to share some of the burden. And no wonder she shrank from the prospect of a troublesome guest underfoot while she was trying to prepare for her suitor’s coming. Considering some of the mischief he’d gotten up to during their childhood, Enid had good cause to believe he might be more bother than he was worth.
Then and there, Con swore he’d be no fuss to her. He would work his heart out in the next few days to prove his worth.
“Have you another fork, Idwal?” he asked, striding toward the stable. “Two can muck out a barn twice as fast as one. Then we can go scare up some game for the feasting when Lord Macsen comes.”
She must have gotten rid of him after all, Enid decided as the day wore on with not a sign of Con ap Ifan around the maenol compound.
Not that she’d been looking for him, of course.
As she went through the familiar steps of wool dying, Enid swept her thoughts clean of the dreadful fancies that had plagued her. When Macsen ap Gryffith and his party arrived at Glyneira, Con would not be here to meet them.
Con would not set eyes on Macsen’s fosterling, her twelve-year-old son, Bryn, and see the truth he might have guessed sooner, if he hadn’t willfully blinded himself to it.
That her late husband had not been the boy’s father.
The flutter of panic in Enid’s chest eased, but an ache of regret took its place. She would probably never again set eyes on the only man she’d ever loved for she had driven him from her door with harsh words.
She’d had no choice, Enid reminded herself. Con had lain waste to her life once already. She had so much more to lose now than she’d had then.
Her plan to bind her family closer together, safe as downy chicks under motherly wings, would all be for naught. Even if Macsen would still marry her once he found out the secret she’d hidden for so long, she’d be sure to lose Bryn.
The boy was so much like Con—daring to the point of foolhardiness, eager to venture forth into the big dangerous world beyond Powys. If Bryn discovered he had a Crusader for a father, the boy would stick to Con like a burr.
And Con? He’d be just irresponsible enough to permit it, like as not. Imagining fatherhood a great lark without sparing a thought for the responsibilities.
For the first time, Enid understood something of her father’s actions when she’d informed him she could not wed the man he had chosen for her because she’d surrendered her virginity to a young plowboy turned mercenary. At the time she’d thought her father harsh and hateful.
Part of him might have wanted to punish her for challenging his authority and thwarting his plans of a grand alliance, but another part had likely just wanted to protect her in the way she now longed to protect her own children.
“Mam!” As if summoned by her thoughts, Davy came tearing into the wash shed. “Mam, come see. Idwal and the bard have brought meat and fish!”
O Arswyd! For a moment Enid struggled to catch her breath. She should have known it would not be so easy to rid herself of Con ap Ifan. As a boy, he’d deafened his ears to scoldings until all but the most severe physical punishment rolled off his back. His temper might have flared a little when they’d spoken that morning, but Con had never been one to nurse a grudge. His quickness to make up a quarrel had baffled and infuriated her by turns when they’d been young.
How would she ever get rid of a man who refused to take offense and leave? Unless she defied the most sacred traditions of her people by chasing off her unwanted guest at the point of a sword?
“Come, Mam!” Impatient with her delay, Davy grabbed Enid by the sleeve and tugged her into the courtyard.
For a moment, she could barely see Con through the crowd that had gathered around him and Idwal. As Davy towed her toward them, though, the flock of admirers parted.
Idwal toted a mess of fat brown trout, while Con held aloft a pair of good-sized hares by the hind legs. Catching sight of Enid, he waggled the rabbit carcasses and flashed her a smile of such infectious appeal that the corners of her lips twitched in spite of her.
“Now, no talk of guests sitting idle and being entertained while the rest of the household is scurrying to make preparations,” Con insisted. “Clever fellow that he is, Idwal found the means to satisfy both. I enjoyed a fine day’s hunting, and we’ve brought back a fair catch to stock the larder.”
The look of beaming pride on her brother-in-law’s broad features made Enid bite back the sharp words that tingled on the tip of her tongue. What could she say that wouldn’t knock poor Idwal flatter than a cake of lagana?
Did Con understand just how dirty he was fighting?
“A few more days like this,” quipped the bard-turned-hunter, “and you’ll be able to gorge Macsen ap Gryffith until he’s as round as the old Earl of Chester!”
In what she hoped would pass for a bantering tone, Enid replied, “Lord Macsen won’t thank us if he grows too heavy for his horse to bear him. Still, we should be able to furnish a good table with such a fine catch.”
She glanced around at those who’d gathered. “Don’t forget, we have other preparations to make for our expected guests from Hen Coed, and our regular spring tasks besides.”
As the small crowd dispersed back to their chores, Gaynor took the hares from Con. “Let me go hang these, won’t you? My, they’re fine and heavy. Bring the fish along, Idwal, that’s a good fellow.”
The children ran off after their aunt and uncle, leaving Enid and Con standing alone outside the wash shed.
A ridiculous wave of bashfulness suddenly swamped the mistress of Glyneira. Swallowing several times in quick succession, she nodded toward the low building behind her. “Can we talk for a moment, Con? In here, where we won’t risk being overheard by anyone who cocks an ear.”
He followed her into the shadowy interior, lit only by what sunrays spilled through the open door and by the small fire that crackled under the dye cauldron. Beneath the faint reek of smoke and the sharp aroma of the dye plants hung the smell of wool.
Enid spun around to face Con…too quickly. He blundered into her and for a heart-pounding instant they gripped each other to keep from falling. The innocent fumble of Con’s hands on her fully clothed body made Enid burn for him as she never had for her lawful husband, God rest him.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”
“No, Enid. I’m sorry.” Con’s hand trailed down her arm to offer her fingers a fleeting squeeze before letting go. “Sorry for bumping into you just now, and sorry for making such an ass of myself this morning. Of course it’s no business of mine who you wed or when.”
And nothing could persuade him to make it his business. Enid dismissed that twinge of regret the way she would have swatted off an insistent fly.
“As it happens,” Con said, “I have a bit of business to discuss with Macsen ap Gryffith. And Glyneira would be a better spot to meet with him than Hen Coed, for a number of reasons. You’d be granting me a great favor if you let me stay. In the meantime, I’ll put myself at your service to do whatever needs doing around here. Be it to prepare for your company or to get your spring crop sown. I’m not the mischief I used to be as a lad. I swear, you’ll never know I’m around.”
Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Con ap Ifan. Enid nearly choked to prevent that thought from coming out in words. She would know he was around. Her body would tingle with the knowledge from daybreak until dusk every day. Through the dark, empty hours of the night, that tingling would intensify to an unbearable itch.
But how could she deny his request without blurting out the secrets she dared not reveal?
Just as when they were young, he’d woven a circle of words around her—all the reasons and sound arguments his facile mind could spin so easily. He even seemed able to anticipate her objections and counter them before she got them out of her mouth.
All she had was her tenacity and patience. Sometimes, if she clung to her opinion stubbornly enough, she would wear him out. But not often. More frequently, he would dizzy her until she lost her grip and tumbled into his sticky web.
Perhaps he suspected her present silence was an effort to dig in her heels against him, rather than a desperate scramble to rally a reply.
Grabbing the tip of the long braid that hung over her shoulder, he tickled her cheek with it, the way he’d often teased her in their younger years. “Come, now, Enid. I don’t mean you any harm.”
Of course he wouldn’t mean it. He would cause her harm, though, if he stayed. She tried to hold on to that painful certainty, even as her head spun and she tilted toward Con.
Somehow, their lips found each other.
On several special occasions Enid had tasted mead, sweet and intoxicating. Con’s kiss was better. It seemed to transform her blood into honey, flowing in a thick, languid pulse. In her breasts and her loins it distilled into something hot and tipsy.
Before she could melt into a puddle of seething need on the floor beneath him, Con wrenched himself away from her, muttering some guttural Saxon-sounding oath.
“I beg your pardon, Enid.” His easy poise shaken for once, Con staggered back toward the door. “I didn’t mean to do that! I don’t know what came over me.”
As he fled, Enid struggled to bring her rebellious feelings back under control.
Though that kiss had hoisted her high only to cast her back down again, she did not regret it. For she had glimpsed the key to ridding Glyneira of Conwy ap Ifan.
Nothing would spur him to run so far and so fast as if she made believe she wanted to keep him here with her.
Forever.
Chapter Four
Have a care now! Con’s tiny voice of caution fairly bellowed as he reeled his way out of the washhouse. Enid’s kiss resonated on his lips like a perfect golden note plucked on an enchanted harp of the Fair Folk.
How could he have stolen that kiss?
True, he tended to speak before he thought and act before he spoke. Over the years he’d learned to exercise some prudence, though. Particularly when there was much at risk…as there was now.
Kissing the lady of the maenol, uninvited, might constitute offense enough for her to withdraw the hospitality of her house. And how agreeable an ear was Macsen ap Gryffith likely to lend the man who’d been taking liberties with his intended bride? If Con cherished any hope of success in his mission, he realized he’d better tread warily around Glyneira from now on.
Around the mistress of the place most warily of all.
He heaved an unbidden sigh, part rueful…part wistful. For one sweet fleeting moment, when Enid had stepped into his embrace and fit there with a sense of perfect rightness, nothing else had mattered to him. Not ambition, not wanderlust, not even his own life.
Fie! Con shuddered to think of another person having such power over him.
Before he could ponder the threat, Enid’s children barrelled past him—young Davy hotfoot in pursuit of his sister, both of them squealing with infectious laughter.
“Where are the pair of you bound?” he called after them.
Myfanwy skidded to a halt. “Auntie Gaynor sent us to gather kindling.”
“Want to come?” Davy collided with his sister, who gave him a playful shove. The boy entreated Con with a wide smile no less bright for the loss of one or two milk teeth.
“Why not?” He might do worse than keep out of their mother’s sight until supper.
The girl grabbed one of Con’s hands and the boy the other. Together they towed him toward the maenol gate. Their eager grip on him and their unfeigned relish of his company provoked a curious warmth in Con, as though someone had wrapped a snug but invisible brychan around his shoulders.
“Auntie has plenty of kindling.” Myfanwy glanced up at Con, her blue eyes twinkling. “She only wanted to get Davy out of the kitchen before he scalded his hand trying to fish a scrap of meat from the stew pot.”
Con laughed as he squeezed the boy’s hand. “Hungry, are you?”
Master Davy gave a vigorous nod. “Big folks can go without eating till nightfall, but my belly won’t hold as much as theirs to last me.”
“And you still have your growth to make.” Con hoisted the little fellow off the ground as the three of them ambled through the gate. “Tell that to your Auntie Gaynor the next time smells from her stew pot set your mouth watering. Or offer to test a spoonful to make sure it’s properly seasoned.”
He remembered all his own wiles for coaxing an early bite during his hungry boyhood years. Having no position in the household, he’d learned young how to get what he wanted by making himself agreeable. The skill had stood him in good stead as he’d matured and his appetites had…changed.
“Properly seasoned!” crowed Davy. “That’s a good one. I’ll try it tomorrow.”
“Only don’t let your mother catch you.” Con pulled a face for Myfanwy’s benefit. “Or she may guess where you picked up the trick. Then she won’t be any too pleased with either of us.”
“I don’t think she was any too pleased with you from the minute you came, Master Con,” teased the girl. “What spite has she got against you? When you were young, did you used to tag along and pester her the way Davy does me?”
The question tripped Con up. “I reckon I might have caused her a spot of bother in my time.” Was that how Enid had remembered him—as a troublesome tag-along?
They reached a copse of beech trees that bordered a large field within sight of the maenol. Though both children knew the chore was only an excuse to get them out from underfoot, Davy and Myfanwy quickly set to work, competing to see who could collect the biggest load of twigs. Con joined in their game, scrambling to assist whoever fell behind.
Would he ever know this kind of simple fun with children of his own? Con wondered as he dropped a fistful of twigs onto Davy’s pile. Fatherhood was a matter he’d never spared much thought before.
With good reason, he reminded himself. A child would tie him to one woman, possibly even to one place. That prospect held little appeal for a wanderer of his ilk. It wasn’t all selfishness that made him shrink from the notion of having a family, either. Con knew his own shortcomings too well to fool himself into thinking he’d make a good father.
It was one thing to gambol about with Enid’s youngsters, more like a fellow playmate than anything. He wouldn’t want to bear the ongoing responsibility for keeping them fed, clothed, sheltered and protected from harm. Yet, for the first time in his life, Con acknowledged the possibility that his solitary existence might be lacking something important.
They had amassed two fine piles of kindling when their uncle called from the gate, “Time to…eat.”
“Coming, Idwal,” chorused the children.
Davy lifted his heap of twigs only to have half of them fall to the ground again. His lower lip thrust out.
“Here.” Con unfastened his cloak and spread it on the ground. “Make a great bundle and I’ll carry it back for you.”
Pleased with the idea, the children shifted both piles onto Con’s cloak, than ran off ahead as he hoisted the light but bulky burden over his shoulder. He got halfway to the open gate when some ponderous movement out in the field caught his eye. A stocky youth manoeuvred a plow, pulled by two yoke of oxen. The beasts strained fitfully as the lad now and then poked the rumps of the hindmost pair with a stick.
“Boy!” Con shouted. “Did you not hear Idwal? It’s time to eat.”
The lad shook his head. “I want to finish this furrow before night falls, if I can only make these shiftless brutes pull as they ought. At the rate they’ve been going, this field won’t be fit to sow until midsummer.”
Con had forborne to criticize. He recalled all too well what it was like to have everyone picking on him and finding fault. But hearing something like a plea in this plowboy’s gruff young voice, he set down his load of sticks and vaulted over a low stile into the half-tilled field.
“Let’s see if between the two of us we can’t get this furrow plowed before supper’s all eaten.” Con rubbed the oxen’s brows between their long horns and crooned a few words of nonsense to them.
He held out his hand to the boy. “Give over that stick of yours, will you? Let me see if I can’t put it to better use.”
Beckoning with the slender rod until he drew the beasts eyes, Con began to walk backward, calling them to follow in the singsong litany he’d learned as a boy. “Hai, you oxen! Come, then, come. Plow you this last furrow, there’s the fine brawny fellows. Then we’ll set you free to drink and graze and rest.”
Straining into their yolks, the oxen followed him, as the astonished plowboy clung to the heavy share they pulled. A foolish flame of satisfaction flickered in Con’s heart that he hadn’t lost this homely skill he’d once despised.
When they reached the end of the furrow, he patted the beasts on their sweaty hindquarters and accepted the boy’s profuse thanks. Then he carried the children’s kindling into the maenol and deposited the great load of twigs in the bin beside the kitchen door. Finally he made his way to the hall, and tried to join the company unnoticed.
It didn’t work.
He had barely set foot over the threshold when Enid left her place at the high table and bore down on him. Con braced himself for a scolding at best, eviction at worst.
“Conwy ap Ifan, where have you been skulking?” She slipped one slender but capable hand into the crook of his elbow, drawing him toward the table. “Idwal and I have been waiting on you. Though I’m not so hungry, he has a sharp appetite from all the hunting and fishing the pair of you did today.”
Struck as dumb as any ox, Con let himself be led to the slightly raised platform. To his further amazement, Enid slid onto the bench beside her brother-in-law and pulled Con down next to her. Con peered the length of the table, surprised to see that Father Thomas had been relegated to the company of Gaynor and Helydd at the far end.
“Will you play and sing for us again, tonight?” Enid passed Con his round of lagana while Idwal heaped his own with meat. “Everyone enjoyed it so, last eve.”
“I…suppose.” Con heard his words struggle out in a halting manner, more like Idwal’s speech than his own glib prattle. “If you…like.”
What had gotten into the woman? If she’d greeted him with such warmth when he’d first arrived at Glyneira, Con would not have been surprised. But after last night’s frosty reception, this morning’s quarrel, and that abrupt kiss in the washhouse, Enid’s sudden change in manner left him puzzled and suspicious.
“Don’t look at me like I’m apt to bite you, old friend.” Enid longed to hug herself with glee—her plan was beginning to work already. If Con looked skittish now, imagine how fast he’d flee when she pretended to mistake some scrap of hollow flattery for a marriage proposal. “You and I got off on the wrong foot yesterday and I beg your pardon, for the fault was all mine.”
She had bungled things badly, Enid owned to herself. For a start, she should never have kept Con at arm’s length, seating him at the far end of the table, then spiriting the children away to bed and never returning to the hall for a word of good-night. If she meant to keep Con from finding out anything she didn’t want him to know, she must stick close to him, telling him only those things she deemed safe for him to hear, acting as a buffer against slips like the one Gaynor had made last night.
As she reached to scoop a bit of meat onto her bread, Enid let the back of her hand swipe against Con’s. When the touch set a giddy sensation wafting within her, she reminded herself it was only a ruse to drive him away.
“I was that surprised to see you again after so many years, it took me aback. I hope you’ll forgive me for being so ungracious, and let us start over.”
Con choked on a hasty bite of his bread, but gave a vigorous nod as he coughed to clear his throat.
“I knew you would.” Under the table, she pressed her knee against his, enjoying Con’s unease at the same time she felt uneasy over her enjoyment of the sensation. “You never did hold a grudge.”
No, he hadn’t been constant even in that. Was it any wonder he’d found his way from one woman’s bed to another? Perhaps it was a mercy from heaven that Con hadn’t stayed at her father’s house and been made to wed her, rather than running off to play at war and freeboot around the Holy Land. Sooner or later he’d surely have strayed, and broken her heart worse than his going had.
Howell hadn’t been without his faults, God rest his soul. But at least he’d never been unfaithful to her.
“So you’re content to have me stay awhile at Glyneira?” Con shifted her a sidelong glance as he helped himself to more meat.
“How could I expel a guest who’s claimed the hospitality of my house?” How, indeed? “You’re welcome to remain with us for as long as you wish, Con.”
Then she muttered as if she did not mean him to overhear. “Maybe even longer.”
Perhaps Con didn’t hear…or perhaps he didn’t understand. For the first time since he’d stepped into the hall, the watchful tightness in him seemed to slacken. “I’ll keep out of your way, I promise. And I’ll do all I can to help you ready the place for the more honored guests you’re expecting.”
“You and Idwal have already made a grand start at stocking the larder.”
Idwal had been following their talk with silent attention as he ate. Now he ventured a comment. “Con is a fine…shot.”
“But you knew where to find the game, my friend.” Con shrugged off the praise. “And how best to harry it into range of my bow. The pair of us make a well-matched team.”
Though he chewed on his food and made no reply, a proud, self-conscious smile spread across Idwal’s broad face. When Con lowered his hand onto the bench, Enid fumbled for it and gave his fingers a quick squeeze that had nothing to do with her plan for ousting him from Glyneira.
“Do you mind the time you took me hunting up in the Gwynedd hills and got us lost?” she asked Con.
Hot and sweaty from walking, they’d stripped off their clothes and cavorted in a stream like a pair of otter pups. When Con had swiped her bare flesh in play, the sensation had felt different than any time he’d touched her before. From that day, her girlish fondness for him had taken on an ever sharper edge of womanly desire.
“Lost? Not a bit of it. I knew where we were well enough.” Con took a long thirsty swig from his cup of cider. “It was all those hills and trees between us and home that caused the trouble.”
She could laugh over it with him now, marveling that the years had not tarnished his easy confidence. At the time, she’d feared they might wander the wooded hills until they starved. Worse yet, she’d worried over how her father would rage when, and if, they found their way back.
Fortunately they’d stumbled across a narrow brook, followed it to a larger one, and followed that until it emptied into the River Conwy some distance downstream from her father’s estate. There had been scoldings and punishment when they got home after sunset, none of which had dimmed Con’s enthusiasm for their next adventure.
That night before he’d gone whistling off to his bed in the hayloft, he’d tickled her on one cheek with the tip of her braid as a feint to let him swoop in with a kiss on the other. “All’s well that ends well, eh, Mistress Worrywart? Think what fun you’d miss if you didn’t have me around to make life exciting for you.”
She might have told him that she didn’t crave excitement the way he did, but what would’ve been the use? Con had needed a steady diet of thrills the way most folk required meat and drink, air and sleep. He’d never been able to fathom how anyone might feel otherwise.
“I’ll skin that brace of conies we bagged to line your winter hood.” Recalling Con’s parting words to her on that eventful night, Enid’s belly churned.
She’d treasured that hood lined with soft rabbit fur—one material gift from a lad who’d had so little to give, apart from the elusive magic of his company.
Here he sat beside her again after all these years, a man grown, one lean hip pressed snug against hers, eyes glittering with infectious merriment which time had not dimmed. That old bothersome magic stirred again just beneath the surface of Enid’s skin, prompting her feet to dance, her voice to sing and her heart to skip in a fast wild jig.
A coal burst in the hearth just then, with a loud crack and a shower of sparks. Almost like a warning that she might be playing with fire.
Enid gave a guilty start at the noise and pressed her hand to her bosom.
Casting her a wry look, Con chuckled. “You’re strung too tight, woman. I imagine it’s a great responsibility to be master and mistress both of Glyneira. You need to take your ease now and again. It’s not good for a body to work and worry all the time. Physicians in the East say it’ll put the humors out of balance, then you’ll be more apt to fall ill.”
From Enid’s other side, Idwal spoke up. Was it only her fancy, or had her brother-in-law grown more talkative in the short time since their guest had come? “You should…take her fishing…Con.”
“That wasn’t quite what I meant.” Con stuffed his mouth with meat and bread, as if the familiar act of eating suddenly required his full concentration.
“I think it’s a fine idea,” Enid said. “I can hardly remember the last time I was out in a coracle. Don’t they say a change is almost as good as a rest?”
The little round boats favored by the Welsh might be the perfect vehicle for her flirtation with Con. Out on the river they’d be well away from any curious eyes and ears. The whole experience might bring back pleasant memories from their youth when they’d paddled about on the upper reaches of the River Conwy in Gwynedd.
Besides, Glyneira needed to lay in a greater supply of fish against the arrival of Lord Macsen and his party. And while they were out there, close and alone, Enid would cast her net for Con ap Ifan.
When the time came to leave his place at the table and take up his harp, Con couldn’t decide whether he was sorry…or relieved.
What had gotten into Enid? Her explanation sounded sensible enough—that she’d been too surprised by his sudden arrival to greet him as graciously as she ought. Somehow, he couldn’t bring himself to swallow it whole.
The Enid he’d known would never change course in so drastic a fashion, especially in the blink of an eye, like this. She’d never been given to impulsive action, like he was. And once she’d made up her mind, she clung to it with calm tenacity that no amount of reasoning or arguing could sway. Often enough, Con had thought the elfin slip of a girl more stubborn than any massive ox he’d ever coaxed to plow a furrow.
Picking up his harp, Con spent a few moments tuning it. Then, with his eyes fixed on Enid, he began to play and sing.
“Blackbird, oh, blackbird with your dark silken wings. Blackbird with your beak of gold and your silver tongue. Fly for me to a distant shore and ask there how my beloved does.”
Whenever Con ap Ifan had crooned this ballad during his long voluntary exile from the land of his birth, Enid’s face had always been the one to rise in his mind.
This spring evening, as he plucked his harp by her fire and drank in her slender, dark beauty with a thirsty heart, the words of the second verse took on a more urgent meaning for him.
“One, two, three things are past my skill. One, two, three things I cannot master. How to count all the stars in heaven on a winter night. How to polish the silver face of the moon. How to fathom the mind of my beloved.”
He’d known Enid longer than he’d known any other woman, yet she remained an enigma to him. Perhaps that was part of the spell that had held him in her power for so many years. The woman was a challenge and a mystery wrapped within an enchantment.
As the last note of the song died away, Enid’s face paled to the cast of winter moonlight while her eyes darkened to the bottomless black of the night sky between the stars.
Why?
Perhaps if he could puzzle out the riddle of her, aided by his hard-won knowledge of the world and his pleasantly acquired understanding of women, he could free his heart from her gossamer hold. But did he dare run the risk that she would snare him so tight, he might never want to escape?
Chapter Five
Perhaps her plan wasn’t such a wise one, after all, Enid mused the next morning as she hurried through her usual duties, and prepared to set off fishing with Con. Her last scheme involving him had gone so disastrously wrong. Rather than forcing Con to stay and her father to let them wed, that one night in Con’s arms had cost her what little freedom she’d possessed.
Last night, when he’d stood by her fire and crooned “Blackbird, oh, blackbird,” his gaze had never once left her face, growing more fervent whenever he sang the word beloved.
What was there about blue eyes that made them look so sincere? Could it be the color of the sky on a clear day, or water undisturbed that let one see far and deep?
To how many other women had Con sung those words in the past thirteen years, while she had been nursing a wounded heart, raising their son, and trying to salvage a life for herself and her children out of a marriage she hadn’t wanted? How many other women had he caressed with his candid blue gaze, convincing them and perhaps himself, that the passing attraction he felt for them was love?
She could not afford to be fooled into believing he cared for her. No matter how blue his eyes, how engaging his smile, or how sweet his kisses.
Intuition warned her that this strategy to get rid of Con might turn on her, like a high-strung horse in battle or an untested coracle over swift water. By spending time with him again, trying to lure him into some rash words of commitment, she ran the risk of stirring up her old feelings for Con.
Behind her, Enid heard a familiar jaunty whistle. One that made her breath quicken and her mouth go dry, hard as she willed them not to.
“Are you ready, then, Enid?” Con called. “I feel as though I’ve already put in a full day’s work dancing before your plow. I could do with a few hours out on the water to cool me down.”
The sound of his voice made Enid feel the need to cool down as well. A faint flush prickled in her cheeks and the verge of her hairline grew damp. She told herself not to be so foolish. She was a widow, past her thirtieth year, after all. A mother of three children, not some green girl without the sense to know how much bother a man could be.
This man more than most.
Spinning around to face him, she warned herself not to heed the glimmer in his eyes.
“There’s always plenty to do around a place this size,” she replied in a tart, teasing tone. “Most of all in the spring. But I can spare a few hours to fish with you.
“Come.” She held out her hand to Con. “I’ll show you where we keep our coracles.”
A qualm of doubt passed across his face, but fled as quickly as it came. He reached out to clasp the hand she offered, with the humid grip of a man who’d put in a good morning’s work.
“They make the coracles a little different here than they do in Gwynedd,” she said as they scrambled down the bank to a wide stream that flowed east to join with the River Teme. “It’s to do with the frame, mostly. They handle much the same, I’m told. It’s been that long a while since I netted fish with coracles, I hope I can remember how.”
Con gave her fingers a squeeze. “You mustn’t suppose I’ve had the chance to practice off in the Holy Land all these years. Never you worry. There are some things a body remembers long after the mind believes it’s forgotten. You only need to make a start and not think too hard about what you’re doing, then it’ll all come back to you.”
He couldn’t have tailored an opening for her much better than that. To ignore it would be disdaining a heaven-sent opportunity. Enid thrust aside all her misgivings about this plan.
“You mean like that kiss you gave me yesterday in the washhouse?” She stopped and turned, so Con would have to slam into her. “Did our bodies remember what our minds had tried to forget?”
She failed to reckon with his swift warrior’s reflexes. Con checked his step in midstride, bringing him within a finger’s breadth of her, yet not touching except for the hand she clasped.
“That…could be.” Con’s Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat as he thrust his free hand through the tangle of brown curls which spilled over his brow. “I told you I didn’t do it on purpose. I told you I was sorry and that I’d not let it happen again. Can we not just drop the matter? Pretend it never happened?”
“Did I ask for your apology?” Enid lofted an encouraging glance at him as she rubbed the pad of her thumb over the base of Con’s. “Did I demand your assurance it wouldn’t be repeated?”
Her questions appeared to unbalance him as her abrupt stop had failed to do.
“Well now, I don’t know that you did in so many words. But surely…with Lord Macsen coming, and the two of you…”
Enid lowered her voice. “He hasn’t arrived yet. Nothing’s been settled.”
Before Con could summon an answer, she tugged him on down the hill to where three of the light, bowl-like boats rested upside down on the shore. They had frames of ash wood over which reeds had been woven, then made waterproof with a coating of linen soaked in pitch. An admirable little craft, a coracle could navigate the shallowest water, then be hoisted over onto a boatman’s shoulder for an easy walk between streams.
There was only one fly in the ointment. Coracles demanded a good deal of skill from whoever wielded the paddle. A novice boatman could easily find himself whirling round and round, carried off on a wild ride by the current.
Just as her old passion for Con might do to her if she wasn’t careful, Enid realized with a spasm of alarm. Ah, but she had a good sturdy paddle to help her retain control. One end was the desperate necessity to keep Con away from her son, the other was the painful recollection of what her girlish fancy for him had cost her. The skill to ply that paddle came from the hard-won understanding of how wrong they were for one another in so many ways.
Letting go of Con’s hand, she turned over the smallest of the three coracles and shifted it to the water’s edge.
“Pass me a paddle, will you?” She took her place on the low-slung seat. “Then stand ready to dive in and rescue me if I tip over.”
“You’ll manage fine.” Con winked. “Don’t fret so much. Just be easy and enjoy the adventure.”
“Fine for you to sa-aaay.” Enid squealed when he gave her coracle a gentle nudge into the stream.
For a moment she felt as though she had three left hands all fumbling the paddle. The boat began a dizzy spin. Then Enid stopped thinking so hard about what she must do. Instead she let her hands move as they wished. One end of her paddle dipped into the water, caught, and stopped the coracle turning.
By the time Con was ready to cast off from shore, she had begun to feel the almost-forgotten rhythm drumming in her sinews once again—a quick responsive dance, with the river as her powerful partner.
She was able to spare just enough of her attention to call out, “Mind you bring the net, Con, or we won’t be taking many fish this afternoon.”
He bowed with an exaggerated flourish, “As you command, Lady of Glyneira. I am your humble servant.”
Enid used her paddle like a huge spoon, to fling a splash of water his way. “Don’t be mocking me, Conwy ap Ifan. You haven’t a humble bone in your whole body and you never did!”
During that instant she let her attention wander, the coracle got away from her again, twirling her downstream before she managed to bring it back under control. All the while Con stood on the bank laughing at her awkward efforts to handle the fractious little craft.
It was Enid’s turn to laugh when he pushed off into the water and promptly began to spin in circles. Muttering a stream of curses in some outlandish tongue, Con fought with the coracle until he nearly tipped himself into the water.
“A fine way to take your ease, this,” Enid called to him, her voice laced with genial mockery.
“Get away with you!” As the current drove Con’s boat close to hers, he grabbed at the edge and pushed it into another spin. “This was Idwal’s idea, not mine, I’ll thank you to remember.”
Enid squealed with mirth as she battled to remaster her dancing coracle. Con laughed, too, though whether at her or himself, she wasn’t sure.
His laughter sounded so good in her ears, perhaps it didn’t matter what had prompted it.
Out on the river that sun-dappled spring afternoon, the years Con had been apart from Enid drifted off downstream one by one. With each jest, each volley of laughter, and each meeting of their eyes, a powerful current of remembrance carried them closer to the old days when they’d been inseparable companions.
“We can’t frolic about here until sunset and come home with an empty net,” Enid protested when they’d finally regained some of their old knack for managing the coracles.
“Why not?” Con asked. “I say it’ll be time well spent supposing we don’t so much as see a fish.”
“You would.” Enid pulled a wry face, soon tempered by a fond smile. “One of us must be practical though.”
“You would,” Con countered with a grin of pure devilment.
That sparked a gleeful battle to see who could soak the other worst, accompanied by shrieks, whoops, and fits of laughter that left them limp and gasping for breath. By the time they noticed their surroundings again, they had floated some distance downstream.
Canopied by wide-reaching branches of tall trees on both banks, the stream broadened and deepened along this stretch of water, slowing the current. Gazing around him with newly appreciative eyes, Con admired the rich, varied pattern of greens.
“In all my travels, I’ve never seen a spot more lovely than this.” He hadn’t meant to give voice to the thought.
As long as he could remember, Con had cherished the notion that distant places must be better than his humble home. Without a doubt, he’d seen many marvels in his travels. But their exotic beauty had not touched his heart as did this lush expanse of border wood. Nor had any bejewelled Byzantine courtesan stirred him as did this diminutive Welsh widow in her coarse-woven work gown.
Now Enid gazed around her, too. “I take it for granted most of the time. Or think it’s only because this is home that I find it so wondrous. Thank you for making me look at it with fresh eyes, Con.” A shiver went through her slender frame.
A gentle breeze raised Con’s skin in gooseflesh, too. “Damn me for a fool, drenching you like that! We’d better dry ourselves off before we try catching any fish or all we’re likely to catch is a bad chill.”
For a moment Enid looked as though she meant to argue the point. Instead she replied, “It mightn’t be much use trying to cast our net just now, anyway. After our carrying on, the poor fish have probably all swam off to Hereford, frightened for their lives.”
As she paddled toward a grassy outcropping of riverbank, she called to Con over her shoulder, “You needn’t bear all the blame for getting our clothes damp. I was every bit as quick to splash as you, and a better aim. I expect you’re twice as wet as I am.”
How could he resist such a challenge?
“Never!” He struck the water with his paddle, sending one last great spray raining down on Enid.
“Bounder!” She scrambled ashore, her movements nimble as a girl’s, hauling her coracle up onto the bank. When his craft came within reach, she grasped the lip and toppled it, sending Con flailing into the water.
He came up sputtering, “I’ll make you sorry for that.”
After heaving his coracle onto the bank and retrieving his paddle before it floated away to England, Con wallowed ashore and raced off chasing Enid, who already had a good lead on him.
She’d kilted up her skirts so as not to trip herself, perhaps not realizing that the provocative glimpse of her bare legs spurred Con to run faster in pursuit.
His nostrils flared wide, drawing in air to feed the fire inside him. His pulse pounded a swift beat in his ears. It outstripped even the muted thud of his fleet footfall on the soft earth carpeted with last year’s leaves and new growth of ferns and moss. His body roused with the wild instinct of a stag scenting a doe.
Leaping over a fallen tree trunk, Enid spared a quick glance behind to find Con gaining on her. Dusky eyes flashed mock terror and genuine mischief.
As she crossed a sun-drenched patch of thick moss, Con tackled her from behind. His diving grab brought them both down onto the springy turf in a reckless tangle of limbs, panting with laughter…and perhaps something more?
With each deep draft of air Con gulped, the capricious odor of spring assailed him—sweet new growth rising from the pungent decay of the old. He caught the scent of a woman, too. Wet wool, wet hair, the subtle musk of sweat…and desire?
Beneath the coarse fabric of Enid’s kirtle, the soft flesh of her breasts heaved against Con’s chest. Her bare leg slipped between his. Her thigh rubbed against the lap of his breeches, sending a surge of pure animal lust coursing through him.
He groped for her leg, shoving her gown higher as his lips sought hers. The way his body throbbed to lose himself in her, it felt as though he’d spent the past thirteen years in a cloister rather than well and frequently bedded by a succession of eager women.
Or perhaps those years and those women were nothing more than the dreams of an ambitious youth. Perhaps he was still only a boy of seventeen, green as spring grass and aching fit to burst for the ripening maiden who tantalized his every thought. Cariad Enid Du. Dear dark Enid.
His mouth closed over hers—demanding, yet pleading, too, in its way. Her kiss put him in mind of hard cider. Half tart, half sweet, wholly intoxicating. As her arms encircled his neck and her fingers plowed passionate furrows through his unruly hair, Con had reason to be glad of his sodden clothes.
At least they might prevent his fevered flesh from bursting into flame.
If she let Con keep on like this, the heat of her body was apt to make her clothes dry from the inside out! Enid wriggled beneath him, wishing Con had been this eager on the night they’d begotten their son, rather than ale-addled and content to let her have her way with him.
Their son! Enid’s tardy self-control caught up with her at last. Her aim had been to lure Con into a verbal commitment, not a physical one. She didn’t dare let him sow another babe in her belly, ruining her hopes for wedding Macsen ap Gryffith.
Fighting her lips free of his, she fought her own desire at least as much as his.
“Do you always work this fast to satisfy yourself when you come to a new place, Con ap Ifan?” Frustration sharpened Enid’s voice as she pushed her skirts down to cover her bare thighs. “How quickly you forgot your vow not to kiss me again.”
Con jerked back from her, his face betraying more surprise and dismay than when she’d upset his coracle into the stream. “You…you said you’d never demanded that promise.”
“Nor did I, but you gave it all the same.” The puzzled, hurt look in his eyes reproached Enid almost as much as her own conscience. By nature she preferred fair and open dealing, not this sticky tangle of lies and schemes.
“It’s well enough for you to stroll into Glyneira from who-knows-where, lift my skirt as the fancy takes you, then wander off again. I have my future to think of, and my children’s.” At least that much was true.
Con peeled himself off of her. Putting a little distance between them, he crouched at the edge of the moss bed, leaning against a stout tree stump. “You know I didn’t mean it like that, Enid.”
His features bore a truculent look she remembered from their younger years, when he’d been scolded or punished unjustly. How often had she taken sole blame for one of their misadventures to keep Con from getting that look?
“How am I supposed to know?” She pressed her attack, despising herself for it, though she knew it must be done for her children’s sake. “After you boasted of all your conquests? How am I different from any of them?”
“I didn’t love them!” The words burst out of Con with such force, Enid sensed he would’ve tried to contain them if he could have.
For an instant she hesitated. Reason prompted her to press the attack and send Con ap Ifan packing. His reckless admission had caught her unwary. She’d expected this campaign of hers to take longer. Perhaps she had better not spring the trap prematurely.
“And you fancy you love me?” Retching up a bitter chuckle, she shook her head in disbelief. Once upon a time she might have swooned to hear Con come close to declaring such feelings. Thirteen years in purgatory had taught her to distrust the dubious promise of heaven while fearing the certain threat of hell.
A sheepish crimson tinted the bronzed flesh over Con’s high, jutting cheekbones. He dodged the searching gaze she shot him, perhaps afraid of what his unguarded eyes might reveal.
“You and I, we had something special between us, once,” he said. “We didn’t dare act on it then. You know all the reasons as well as I do.”
At least I had the courage to try! Enid clamped her lips together between her teeth to check the accusation she dared not voice. Suddenly she was grateful Con refused to look her in the eye. Otherwise he might have marked the foolish, futile tear she could not quell.
A tense, troubled silence stretched between them until Con shattered it. “Just because we couldn’t own to the feeling between us, doesn’t mean it wasn’t there. Doesn’t mean it went away.”
With that he commenced to spin his web of words and reason around her. Did he truly mean what he said about the old bond between them, or was he just using it as bait to bed her? And if he had cared for her in the way he claimed, why had the reckless warrior gone tamely on his way while she, the cautious one, had risked all for him?
Little do you guess the trap I’ve laid for you, Con ap Ifan, Enid thought. With every word, you blunder deeper and deeper into it. Once you get the bait well between your teeth, I’ll spring it and make you run.
She stroked her hand over the velvety moss, hoping she’d get at least one more chance to run her fingers through his hair before she had to bid him farewell forever.
“We were so young back then.” Enid tucked up her knees and hugged her arms around them. “Neither of us knew anything of the world, or of other lads and lasses our age.”
She’d met plenty of men in the meantime, most far better suited to her than this charming, restless vagabond. Why had none of them caught and held her heart the way he had?
A smile took her lips by surprise. “For a little while, just now, I wondered if the Fair Folk had played a trick on me by stealing the years away. I felt like a young girl again, with no responsibilities…no worries. Just the water, the sun, the trees and a handsome boy chasing after me. It was a rare gift and I thank you for it.”
Con bobbed his head in a vigorous nod. “That’s how it felt for me, too.” Innocent mischief twinkled in his eyes. “Why can’t we just go on that way—pretend we’re sixteen and seventeen again, off on a day’s larking?”
If only he knew how he tempted her…
“There’s been a lot of water flow over the falls since those days, Con. Perhaps you can’t understand since you answer to no one, with none to depend on you. I can’t afford to think only of myself.”
Was she warning him, or reminding herself? “My children and all the Glyneira folk need me.”
Con shuddered—perhaps from the chill of his damp garments or possibly from the horror of being shackled by that kind of responsibility. “Then I suppose we ought to go see if there are any brave fish still lurking in the river after all our commotion.”
“Not until we get you dried off.” Enid stretched out her hand. “Give over that tunic and I’ll hang it on a branch in the sun.”
As Con shrugged out of the garment, she added, “Breeches, too, while you’re about it.”
“They’ll dry on me well enough.” He tossed the tunic to her.
“Please yourself.” Resisting the impulse to gloat over Con’s sudden attack of modesty, she stretched his over-garment across the splayed branches of a fallen sapling in a patch of sunlight. “I’m not sixteen anymore. I know what a man looks like with his clothes off. Come to think of it, I did then, too, since you and I swam like fish whenever we stole the chance.”
She heard a rustle of underbrush behind her, but still let out a squeak of surprise when she felt Con’s fingers tugging at the laces of her kirtle, and heard his voice so close to her ear.
“Have a jest at my expense, will you, cariad?” He pulled loose the ties that secured the back of her gown. “For all you weren’t dumped into the water, your clothes are every bit as wet as mine. With all those folks relying on you, I’d hate to be the cause of you taking a chill.”
Words of protest stuck in Enid’s suddenly parched throat. With the protective cover of her woolen kirtle removed, she’d only have her thin, damp linen smock between her body and Con’s impudent gaze. And if the tips of her breasts puckered, pushing brazenly out against the threadbare cloth, would Con blame it on a chill or would he guess the true reason?
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