Rexanne Becnel (34 page)

That furious blush explained everything to Wynne. There was no need for Edeline to use drops of nightshade in her eyes when Druce was about. And judging from Druce’s avid gaze, he saw nothing but the slender English maiden.

Would that Lord William would be so generous to his daughter as he was being to his new sons, Wynne mused. If Edeline could choose, it was clear where her heart’s selection lay. But there was Cleve to consider in this messy triangle. Even if Lord William were inclined to extend such generosity to his youngest daughter, he would not break his word to the man who’d brought him his sons. He would never deprive Cleve of his justly deserved reward, and Cleve would never give up his prize.

“Greetings on the new day,” Druce said. He whipped his cap from his head and made a hasty bow. Wynne couldn’t prevent the shadow of a smile from curving her lips. Where was the masterful young man, so confident of his skills with the village maidens, the fellow who twisted their hearts about his smallest finger? The Druce who stood before her now, giving her a sheepish grin before he fixed his gaze on the trembling Edeline, was another lad entirely. Had the focus of Druce’s ardent pursuit not already been taken by another—and far beyond the reach of a poor Welshman anyway—Wynne would have been completely happy for him. As it was, however, she could only feel a sad heaviness for this misaligned pair. Druce and Edeline. She shook her head slightly as she glanced from one to the other. Their fledgling romance was doomed; that she knew. But she was just heartsore enough herself to wish it could succeed. Someone ought to find happiness with the one they loved. Lord William had not done so, and she clearly would not either.

Not that she loved Cleve. It was mainly a physical attraction. Nevertheless, they could not be together—nor could Druce and Edeline. But Rhys and Madoc would, as would all her other children. They would all marry for love and no other reason.

“Might I walk with you?” Druce was asking when Wynne finally focused back on the conversation. Though he directed his question at Edeline, Wynne answered him.

“Edeline and I have a matter to discuss. ’Tis private,” she added. Though she knew her obvious dismissal of him crushed his hopes, it was for the best, she decided when he sent Edeline a last, lingering smile. It was foolish for him to hope beyond his means.

“Oh, but that was too cruel!” Edeline rebuked her once Druce was out of hearing range. “You’re every bit as hardhearted as my father!”

The girl whirled to stalk away, but Wynne, despite her initial shock at such an outburst from the previously meek girl, stopped her with a hand on her arm. Wynne was inexplicably heartened by the spark of anger and defiance she saw on the girl’s face.

“Perhaps it was cruel. But not as cruel as to delude him into thinking he might have what we both know shall ever be beyond his grasp. ’Tis you who, are cruel to encourage him in such a manner.”

Under Wynne’s severe gaze Edeline’s temper dissolved, and quick tears flooded her eyes. “Oh, ’tis not fair. Not fair at all.”

Once more Wynne felt infinitely older than the sheltered maiden before her. She sighed then and relented.

“Come along. Let us adjourn to your garden and have that talk.”

“ ’Tis useless. You have already made that clear.”

“Dry your eyes and display some backbone,” Wynne snapped in irritation. How had she become cast in the role of confidante to the very girl who laid claim to Cleve? Edeline was right. It was not fair. No, not at all.

Once they were seated on a plain wooden bench, worn by years of exposure and devoid of either back or arms, but sheltered and secluded against the rear of the armorer’s shed, Wynne faced the sullen Edeline.

“Will you speak as you had planned, or shall I be forced to guess what it is that troubles you?”

Edeline raised her chin and stared resentfully at Wynne. “I think you would keep them both for yourself. Cleve and Druce. ’Tis not fair.”

“I? Oh, but you are most truly a youngest daughter. Spoiled and willful, thinking only of yourself.” She glared at Edeline’s pale face. “I have neither of them—as you so badly state it. Nor do I want either of them. Druce is my friend—the nearest I have to a brother. But no more than that. And as for your Sir Cleve—well, he is plainly yours, not mine.”

Edeline swallowed, and averted her eyes. When she looked up, her gaze was less accusing, but still miserable. “Sir Cleve’s eyes follow you everywhere. I have seen it and I know what it means. He wants you, not me.”

“Do you want him?” Wynne countered, for she was unwilling to address Edeline’s statement directly.

Edeline fiddled with the embroidered length of her girdle and restlessly braided the loose tassel at its end. “I am promised to marry him.”

“But do you wish it?” Wynne prompted, driven by a perverse need to know.

Edeline slowly shook her head. When her eyes met Wynne’s, they were devoid of all hope. “I dreaded it before, because I knew he valued my dower lands more than he valued me. Though I have known all my life that such is to be expected in any marriage, still I did pray that it might not be my lot. And now that I have met Druce … I think I should rather die than be given to any man but Druce.”

Despite the girl’s dramatics, Wynne could not help but be moved by her sincerity, “You’ve known him but one day, and not spoken with him at all. Oh—” she broke off when Edeline’s fresh blush proved her assumption wrong. “You have spoken. Well, even so, ’tis still awfully soon to tell.”

“How long after you met Cleve did you know that he was the one for you?”

Wynne shrugged. Not long at all, she feared. Then she jerked her head up and met Edeline’s watchful expression. “He—that is … I know no such thing. He is not for me.”

Edeline did not look convinced. “We are both in the same fix, you and I. It does not help your cause to be less than honest about it.”

Wynne stiffened. “If you wish to pursue Druce, so be it. But do not think to involve me in your schemes. I have no designs on the man to whom your father has betrothed you, nor on Druce either. If you would gain your heart’s desire, I suggest you confer with your father. Now, if you will forgive my rudeness, I have my children to see to.”

Wynne’s heart hammered an unsteady rhythm as she fled her interview with Edeline. Pity the man who married that schemer, she fumed, dabbling in matters not of her own business. What right had the girl to question her about either Druce or Cleve?

Yet Wynne knew that her anger at Edeline was misplaced. The girl was guilty only of speaking a truth that Wynne did not wish to hear, and of longing for a future that Wynne feared to hope for. Even if the girl managed to maneuver her father into accepting Druce’s suit—which was impossible given Cleve’s standing with Lord William—what good would that do for Wynne? Cleve wished to wed a well-landed Englishwoman. A noblewoman. Would he ever turn to Wynne? And even if he did, it would only be as a second choice. Wynne knew she could never resign herself to that.

As she hurried past the stables, she spied Druce loitering beneath one of the lean-tos. As soon as she passed, he was on his way in the direction whence she’d just come. Well, then, let the new lovers have their brief moments of heaven in each other’s presence, she decided. Too soon would they face that bleak hell of separation.

With that dreary thought uppermost in her mind she entered her chamber to be greeted by a most unhappy crowd of children.

“ ’Tis
our
castle, and we—”

“—wish to have the biggest bed,” Rhys finished Madoc’s demand. He and his brother stood upon the one high bed in the room, daring by their belligerent stances any of the others to advance nearer. Arthur was busy tracing the pattern of seams in the stones that formed the outer walls of the room. How to build the castle itself seemed a far more immediate problem to him than how to claim the softest bed from his brothers. Isolde, however, was in a high temper.

“Just because your father is rich doesn’t mean you can order us about. Nor does it mean this bed is yours.” She glared at the smug pair. “Just you wait. When I get home to Radnor Manor, I’m going to tear your old pallet bed to shreds and then … and then I’ll throw it in the pigsty!”

“Oh, Isolde,” cried Bronwen in true distress. “You can’t do that.”

“Actually it makes very good sense,” Arthur interjected, though he stared now at the rough beams that supported the floor above them. “Rhys and Madoc won’t be sleeping there anymore.”

His words, so straightforward and logical, silenced them all. Even Wynne was taken aback at the thought of their empty beds in the sleeping loft above the hall at Radnor. When Bronwen spied Wynne, she dashed to her and grabbed her skirts. “Do they have to stay here? Can’t they come home with us and sleep in their old beds?” She sent a fierce look about the spacious chamber. “I
hate
this old castle. It’s … it’s too big. And too ugly. I hope it all falls down.”

“It’s very well constructed,” Arthur remarked. “I don’t think anything could make it fall down.”

“Oh, do be quiet, Arthur,” Isolde snapped, tossing her sleep-tangled hair. “You always get everything confused.”

“It won’t ever fall down,” Madoc vowed. He jumped up and down on the bed as if that somehow verified his statement, but a quick frown from Wynne stilled him.

“Down, you two. And before you think to order others about, I think we should have a long talk with Lord William—with your father,” she amended. “If my discussion with him this morning was any indication, you shall both be kept far too busy to find time for giving orders to anyone else.”

When they appeared adequately subdued, she relented and gave them all a smile. “Come, now. Let’s prepare for the day. Lord William promises a celebration. I think, too, that perhaps he might like a little time alone with his new sons.”

When they finally descended to the hall to break their fast, a vast assortment of eyes followed them. The servants clucked and whispered over the identical twins, newly found and known now to be heirs to the master’s vast fortune. The outraged expressions of the displaced sons-in-law and their equally dispossessed wives had mellowed over the course of the night, Wynne noted with some relief, replaced, it appeared, by a mingling of irritation and resignation.

Conversation was low during the brief meal, just a murmur of voices rising and falling. When Lord William came down the stairs, however, leaning on his cane yet nonetheless projecting an aura of good spirits and hearty vigor, all discourse died away. Here were father and sons united at last, and in the sight of all.

Though Bronwen and Isolde shrank from the sight of the man they perceived as taking their brothers from them, Rhys and Madoc stared at him in frank curiosity. The night’s rest had clearly restored their natural ebullience. Lord William stared at them just as boldly, but his widespread smile softened his otherwise intimidating figure. His faded blue eyes were lit with new color, and his step seemed light despite his ample girth and lame leg.

“Well, lads, and how would you celebrate this first day in your new home?” Lord William began, enunciating slowly so that his sons might more easily understand his words, so foreign to them. “The kitchens shall prepare whate’er you like best. The minstrels and jongleurs shall entertain as you demand. Would you ride? Or play games?”

Wynne saw the look that passed between Rhys and Madoc, and despite the well of sadness in her heart she could not keep from smiling. The pair understood, all right. Lord William was in for a rough ride with these two. By the time he finished indulging them, as he so obviously intended to do, they would be well in command of their father and every other adult who thought to control their mischievous natures. God pity their poor tutors.

“Could we see jousting—”

“—and hawking?”

“Have you hounds for hunting?”

“May we have hounds of our very own—”

“—and our own horses as well?”

Lord William’s gaze leaped from one dark-haired son to the next, and slowly his grin began to fade. “How shall I ever tell you apart?”

“I’m Rhys—”

“—and I’m Madoc,” the pair responded after only the briefest pause. Still, it was enough hesitation to alert Wynne. She rose from her chair to approach the two. But as she reached their side, so did Cleve, and she stumbled to a halt. His eyes swept over her, at once devouring and accusing, setting her heart racing in an uneven rhythm. Oh, why couldn’t she put him out of her head and out of her heart?

His cool gaze left hers, and with each of his hands he tilted the twins’ faces up to him. “This is Rhys,” he said to Lord William, indicating quite the opposite of what the boys had stated. “If you will notice, milord, he has a scar on his left eyebrow. Here. ’Tis tiny, but telling.”

Lord William’s own brow lowered in annoyance with his sons, but when the dark-eyed pair turned their sheepish gazes upon him, that emotion fled. “Clever boys, my sons. Brave, loyal, and quick-witted.” He began to laugh and fondly rumpled the boys’ hair. “Jousting, you say. And hawks and hounds. All right, then. So be it. Harold. Thomas. Reginald,” he called his sons-in-law. “See to it. Arrange for the joust and any other sporting events. Anne, Bertilde, Catherine. See that a day of feasting is arranged for one and all. We shall have a fair in the low meadow beside the river.”

“Shall Edeline have no chores?” Bertilde complained, tugging upon her father’s sleeve. But he waved her away.

“Edeline is to be officially betrothed this day. She and Sir Cleve will be feted before one and all.” He spread his arms wide, causing the disgruntled Bertilde to catch his cane before it fell. “Ah, but life is good to me,” Lord William expounded as his eyes swept the crowd in the hall. “God is good to me, and I would have one and all share in my blessedly good fortune.”

But for Cleve’s disturbing presence beside her, Wynne might actually have shared in that sentiment. After all, she had negotiated as good an arrangement for her sons as any a mother could have wished, short of seeing to their everyday lives herself. And even she must now admit that Lord William’s parentage offered the pair myriad benefits, far beyond her ability to provide.