by Lynn Kurland
They didn’t even blink.
She contemplated snatching one of their knives to aid her cause, but heaven only knew how that act might turn itself upon her. She grasped the keys on her belt and with the most hefty of them poked the nearest man. It made little impression, so she searched in her purse for her finest sewing needle. Armed with a very sharp needle in one hand and a heavy key in the other, she poked and prodded and bullied until she had said handful of knights flinching out of her way and right out the front door. While they were still twitching from various small and irritating injuries, she slammed the door home and struggled to heave the beam into its brackets.
There was no heaving to be accomplished. Gwen surrendered without a fight and put her back against the door. She braced her feet on an unslippery portion of her floor and prepared herself for the worst.
“My lady,” a plaintive male voice pleaded from without, “we beg you to cease—”
“Begone, you coward!” Gwen said in her most commanding tone. “I’ve no fear of that black-garbed demon. I’ll hold the hall against him myself!”
There was no formal reply, but Gwen could hear them conferring amongst themselves in frantic whispers. They were no doubt racking their pitiful brains for some other foolish ploy to secure her cooperation.
“My lady,” the spokesman began again, “if you would—”
“I will not! Off with you all!”
“But, my lady, de Piaget is the captain of your personal guard—”
“Not anymore!”
They seemed to chew that one over for a few more moments. Gwen adjusted her back more comfortably and gathered her strength for the task of holding the door firmly closed.
“Perhaps he has been detained these many seasons,” one of the men offered.
“Aye, by other more important matters!” another put in enthusiastically.
“Shut up, you fool,” yet another guardsman said frantically. “Think you that will please her ears?”
“Aye, ’tis not what a lady wishes to hear,” another voice said, obviously delivering some sort of cuff with his words. He cleared his throat. “My lady,” he said loudly, “I feel certain Sir Rhys was perhaps held captive, or found himself detained unjustly at the French court . . .”
Gwen shut out the rest of his list of excuses. They were just words and she had long ago decided that words held little weight in matters of the heart. She hadn’t always believed so. Indeed, hadn’t words been what she had clung to for months after he had left?
Wait for me.
Aye, wait a year. Or, knowing Rhys, perhaps a bit longer than a year until he’d plundered every coffer on the continent to his satisfaction. One year. Not three.
There were several very audible gulps on the other side of the wood. Gwen dug her slippered heels more firmly into the floor. A pity ’twas stone and not dirt. She might have had better control that way.
Absolute silence surrounded her. She fancied she might have heard the echo of horses’ hooves, but she couldn’t be sure. Her heart was hammering too loudly in her ears to know for certain.
The timid knock against the wood almost sent her into a swoon.
“What?” she demanded in her haughtiest tone, praying it sounded less breathless than her own ears attested.
“My lady,” a quavering voice said, “would you be so kind as to open up the door?”
“Nay, I will not.”
“But, my lady, he caught hold of the drawbridge ‘afore it came all the way up, and flung himself over it—” a knight began.
“Then rolled himself under the portcullis ‘afore it could slam home—” another interrupted.
“And he single-handedly raised the portcullis and lowered the drawbridge so as his army could bring itself in behind him!” yet another finished breathlessly, as if this final act indicated beyond doubt Rhys’s godlike prowess.
“I couldn’t care less!” she exclaimed.
“Oh,” yet another knight moaned, sounding as if he thought himself already a dead man. “We beg you, my lady. We’ve families, my lady. Small children still in need of their sires. I myself have a wife with a belly fair stretched to bursting, and if I weren’t to be there to see to the feeding of that child, and my ten others—”
“Oh, by the saints,” Gwen grumbled. She would just open the door and bid Rhys be on his way. Coldly. As a great lady of the realm would. She would show no emotion, raise not her voice, shed not a tear. She would remain perfectly in control of herself and the encounter.
She turned and calmly opened the door. With a regal wave of her hand she sent her handful of kneeling knights to their feet and on their way down the steps to the courtyard. She lifted her chin and looked down at the sight that greeted her. And had she not been so in control of herself and her emotions, she might have gone down on her knees herself and begged for mercy.
By the saints, ’twas no wonder her household had been scrambling for cover.
Some thirty-odd, grim-faced warriors stared back at her. Each was clothed in black from head to toe. Each wore armor that had been mended and repaired countless times. Helmets bore scratches and dents; cloaks were patched and travel-stained; saddles were scarred and worn. And then there were the faces themselves: hard, inflexible, seasoned. Mercenaries, the lot of them. A rougher group of ragtag knights she had never seen before in her life.
A terrifying group of men, to be sure.
Oh, and then there was John, of course. He made their tally a score and eleven, but even though he sported black as the rest of them did, his fresh scrubbed face and idiotic grin set him apart from the rest. Gwen glared at her brother-in-law, then turned her attentions back to the more intimidating souls.
One man nudged his great black destrier forward with his knees. He dismounted and thirty hands went to the hilts of their swords. The man who had dismounted held up his hand in peace, and his group of devils relaxed immediately. In spite of herself, Gwen was impressed. It would take a strong man indeed to command such loyalty from men whose loyalty likely could only be bought.
The man put his foot on the bottom step and stopped. Steel gray eyes stared at her from within the battered helm. Then large hands came up, jerked off the helm, and pushed back the mail coif. Tousled black hair fell down around broad shoulders, shoulders that should have bloody well made an appearance long before now. Gray eyes twinkled merrily and a foolish grin graced lips that were the stuff of a giddy maid’s dreams.
“Good morrow to you, chérie,” he said, coming up the steps with a joyous bound and reaching up for her hand. “I came as soon as I could. I had expected to find you at Ayre. Why were you barring your mother’s gates? Did you not recognize me?”
She’d promised herself she would not scream at him. She’d vowed she would not shed a tear in his presence. She’d been certain that she could dismiss the lout with a mere flick of her wrist and that would be enough to satisfy her.
But somehow, she found that remaining unmoved was the very last thing she wanted to do. She pulled her hand away from his. It was all she’d meant to do. Truly.
But somehow her fingers found themselves forming a fist.
And then her fist did what it had been longing to do for almost three years.
27
“Bloody hell, Gwen, why must you always do that!” Rhys exclaimed, stumbling back down the stairs. Several gasps accompanied his feet reuniting with the dirt of the courtyard. Rhys clutched his nose with both hands and looked around him.
Segrave’s pitiful guardsmen who had been clustered about the great hall door all stood looking at him with their mouths agape. John was still atop his horse, gaping just as mightily. Rhys’s army wore looks of astonishment, as well they should have. He had bested every last bloody one of them so thoroughly, they never dared gainsay him in anything. The sight of him being vanquished by a woman had likely scattered what wits remained in the company.
Then he looked to his right to find the Fitzgerald twins staring not at him but at Gwen
with looks of supreme satisfaction, as if they’d taught her the bloody maneuver themselves. Rhys was faintly surprised to see them there. Evidently they had somehow, in the past pair of years, managed to get themselves to Segrave intact. He had the feeling, based on the throbbing of his nose, that he might have been better off if they’d remained at Ayre.
And then there was the sound of a chuckle.
Rhys looked to the source. It was Montgomery, who stood to Jared’s right with a finger or two covering his lips and his eyes watering madly.
Rhys wondered if he had time to humiliate his friend in the lists before finding out what Gwen was about. Montgomery only smiled and held up his hands in surrender.
“I wasn’t the one to bloody your nose,” he said with another grin.
There was suddenly much murmuring amongst his mercenaries, and Rhys turned and swept them all with a glare. To a man, they clamped their lips shut and suddenly found other things to look at besides him.
Rhys turned back around to face his errant lady and gave her the same glare he’d just dealt his men.
“This is the greeting I receive?” he demanded. He mounted the steps. “After three long years of driving myself into the dust, sleeping on my sword, risking my life in war and tourney alike?” He dragged his sleeve across his bleeding nose. “This is my greeting?”
“Nay, this is,” she said. She looked at him so coldly, he felt as if a chill winter wind had blown through him. “Go to hell,” she said distinctly.
And with that, she turned and disappeared into the hall, slamming the door home behind her.
If it hadn’t been that he had truly seen Gwen with his own eyes, he would have believed he had just stumbled into the wrong keep.
He stared at the closed door, feeling more bewildered than he had in the whole of his life. By the tone of her missives he’d been led to believe she was anxiously awaiting his arrival. He’d expected tears of joy. He’d expected smiles and looks of love. He hadn’t expected a fist in his nose.
“At least she didn’t have a blade at her disposal,” Jared offered suddenly. “Would have done you more harm than a little bruise.”
“Especially after what I’ve taught her,” Connor added.
“You? What did you teach her? I’m the one who taught her to approach coyly and blink her eyelashes rapidly at her opponent while slipping a dagger under his ribs—”
“But I taught her to feign a stone in her shoe, then catch him under the chin as he bends to see—”
“And I taught her to examine the embroidery on her sleeve as she slips a blade from its sheath strapped to her arm, then to bury it suddenly in his gullet—”
“Aye, a womanly move if ever I encountered one, which is why I showed her how to distract an enemy with a great baring of her teeth in a ferocious smile whilst she pulls a sharp stabbing needle from her purse—”
Rhys tried to ignore just what Gwen had been taught in favor of looking the twins over for new scars. Jared had a nick or two on his forehead, a bright red slash down one forearm which appeared to be rather recent, and a bandage wrapped around his hand.
Connor was missing part of his left ear.
“Did you allow her to sharpen that blade?” Rhys demanded.
Connor and Jared stopped their discussion and looked at him, blinking.
“Well?” Rhys asked. “Did you?”
Connor pursed his lips. “Didn’t see any harm in it.”
“I’d say your ear might have a different view of it,” Rhys said.
Connor folded his arms over his chest and frowned at Rhys. “Had to keep the child busy somehow. She’s been powerful irritated for these past pair of years.”
“And as usual,” Jared added with a grumble, “’tis his fault. He never writes.”
“I never write?” Rhys echoed. “Of course I write! I wrote! I wrote every bloody fortnight for almost three years and fair beggared myself to see the missives delivered!”
Connor and Jared both blinked several times, sure signs they were having trouble digesting what they’d just learned. Montgomery’s mouth had fallen open in surprise.
Rhys frowned. Something foul was afoot.
He turned to his ragtag group of followers and dismissed them with a flick of his wrist. They’d been instructed to set up camp outside the walls and seek what sustenance they could in the village. Rhys waited until they’d gone, then tapped his foot until John had seen to the horses before he turned back to Montgomery.
“I have the feeling there are things we should discuss.”
Montgomery continued to look at him in surprise. “You wrote?”
“And a bloody inconvenient thing it was, too. If you knew the places I’ve been in just the last year—”
“Gwen only received two letters,” Montgomery said. “And those just in the pair of months right after you’d gone.”
Rhys felt himself to be the one gaping now. “Just two missives?”
“Aye. If it hadn’t been for the snatches of gossip we’ve heard over the past many months, we would have thought you dead.”
“But I sent her scores of letters! And she responded!”
Montgomery shook his head. “I think perhaps you misread them. I’m surprised you didn’t expect your reception, what with what she’s been saying to you.”
“You read the letters she sent to me?”
“She forced me to. Wanted to see a man’s reaction, I suppose.”
“But her letters were full of love!”
“Rhys, my friend, either you’ve lost all sense, or you weren’t receiving what she sent to you.”
Without another word, Rhys turned and strode off after John. Fortunately his squire seemed to be taking an inordinate amount of time to get to the front gates, likely because he would have rather stayed behind and eavesdropped, and Rhys was able to catch him easily enough. He rummaged about in his saddlebags, drew forth a bundle of missives, and turned to stomp back up to the keep. He entered the hall and stopped, realizing with a start that he had no idea where his lady might be hiding.
He’d been to Segrave, true, but that was many years ago. There was no one at the lord’s table to ask where he might find his lady. The first servant he approached took one look at him and fled to parts unknown.
And then he heard the faint sound of cursing.
At least, he thought philosophically, there was something to be said for being out of favor. It certainly made finding the curser a great deal less difficult.
He followed the sound up the steps and down the passageway. He stopped at a likely door and gathered his wits. Clutching the proof of his devotion in hand, he pushed open the door.
“And if that pompous horse’s arse thinks he can—”
Gwen stopped in mid-curse and glared at him. Rhys looked, about the solar to see who else had been privy to the slander. A handful of Segrave’s ladies sat near the window, sewing industriously. Gwen was on her feet, and Rhys suspected she had been pacing just as energetically. Joanna sat in the largest and finest chair, holding a small child in her lap. Out of the corner of his eye, Rhys noted that Robin was in the chamber as well, staging a mock battle with wooden figures. A gift from the Fitzgeralds, no doubt. Rhys had received his own set to enjoy, though he’d already been wielding a small sword at the time he’d received them. He’d treasured them just the same and had plotted battles just as enthusiastically as Robin seemed to be doing. Rhys lifted an eyebrow in surprise. The boy had grown.
“We will have privacy,” Joanna announced. “Ladies, if you will.”
Sewing was cast into baskets and five women filed reluctantly past him. Rhys scowled. They likely were regretting not being able to be privy to more of the slander they’d no doubt been enjoying those few moments past.
“Close the door if you will, Sir Knight,” Joanna said with a smile.
“Why?” Gwen said sharply. “I care not if the entire keep hears what I have to say about him.”
Rhys looked from one woman to the other
and made a hasty decision as to whom to approach first. He shut the door behind him, then walked across the chamber to kneel at Joanna’s feet. He was painfully aware of his travel-stained clothing and the dust in his hair, but that couldn’t be helped. He gave her his best smile.
“Lady Joanna,” he said, bowing his head. “God’s blessings upon you and upon yours. My grandsire and my mother send their greetings to you.”
“How is Mary?” Joanna asked. “Still well-satisfied with her vocation?”
Rhys lifted his head and smiled at her. “Aye, my lady, she is.”
“And you left your grandsire hale?”
“Stirring up as much mischief as he ever did. His only regret is that he could not come with me to present himself to you in person. He says you are the only sight worth making the journey for in the whole of England.”
Joanna blushed and Rhys had to stop himself from smiling at the sight. Beautiful and charming. ’Twas no wonder men made excuses to pass by Segrave to tarry for a day or two. Joanna was indeed well worth the delay. She had to have been very young when she bore Gwen, for she was still an enormously beautiful woman and looked more of a sister to his lady than a mother. Rhys couldn’t help but agree with his grandfather’s words, though he himself would have made the journey merely for Gwen, no matter how she looked.
And she looked passing furious now. He turned to her and tried a smile to see how things would go for him.
She glared at him in return.
Ah, well, perhaps more conversation with the lady of Segrave would allow his love to cool her temper. Rhys turned his attention back to Gwen’s mother. It was then that he had a good look at the girl-child sitting upon Joanna’s lap. And then he felt his mouth fall open of its own accord.
The child was Gwen’s. She could be no other. Already she resembled her mother as greatly as her mother resembled the lady Joanna. No one could mark those aqua eyes as belonging to any other line of women.
“Who is this?” he asked in a strangled voice.
“She’s mine,” Gwen snarled.
“Now, Gwen,” Joanna said gently, “there’s no need for that tone.”