Deborah Hale - My Lord Protector

Sitting alone in the darkness gave Julianna an illusion of safety. Even as a child, she had loved the dark. Darkness guarded hidden fears. Darkness kept watch over secret tears. Darkness respected private sorrow. In the cool embrace of the dark, she concentrated on the sound and feel of her harp. It was an easy armful. Carved with intricate twining knots, the sounding post rested in its accustomed place, bridging her lap and the hollow of her shoulder. She had dreaded losing it as much as she would have dreaded losing the fingers that plucked its strings. By ancient Welsh law, a person’s harp was the one possession that could never be seized to satisfy a debt. No Englishman would ever understand that.

Tonight no music would satisfy Julianna’s soul but the Welsh ballads her harp had been crafted to play. Its strings vibrated from the fleet undulations of her fingers as she played every haunting lament of her embattled people. How many of her ancestresses, younger than she, had gone off to marriages made by others? How many had been taken as spoils of war and used accordingly? How many, eschewing the love of mortal men, had found some barren peace in the arms of the church? So many centuries had passed, and still a woman was no more than chattel.

On and on Julianna played, long after her fingers had begun to ache, singing in a voice hoarse with unshed tears, lost in the sweet, mournful music. To one especially poignant lament she returned again and again. Composed by her ancestor, Gryffud ab yr Yneed Coch, the song was an elegy for Llywelyn Olaf, the last true prince of Wales:

“Do you not see the path of the wind and the rain?”

“Do you not see that the world has ended?” it concluded in despair.

“Oh milady, that sounded lovely!”

Julianna startled at the sound of Gwenyth’s voice. In the protective cavern of her bed, she had managed to lose herself. Now she must come out and face a fate she could not escape.

“I haven’t heard anyone play the harp since I came away from home.” Gwenyth drew back the bed hangings. “‘Llywelyn’s Lament,’ wasn’t it? It has a pretty sound, though it is so sad.”

As she laid her harp aside, Julianna wondered if Gwenyth would ask why a bride should sing a dirge on her wedding night.

Though she might have been curious, the little maid was obviously too well trained to question the actions of her new mistress. “I’ve brought you a bite of supper like you asked, milady. If you feel up to it.”

Julianna nodded. For a moment she lingered in the doorway to the sitting room, looking back at her bed. After tonight, would she ever be able to think of it as a sanctuary again? An icy chill licked its way up her back. Pulling her wrap protectively around herself, she quickly turned to the sitting room, where a cheery fire blazed in the hearth and Gwenyth was setting the table. Never had Julianna felt such an overwhelming need for distraction and the companionship of another woman.

“Gwenyth, will you kindly do me one last service? Please sit and take tea with me?”

The girl darted a furtive glance behind her, as if expecting a wrathful Mr. Brock to materialize at her heels. “Oh, ma’am, I couldn’t! Wouldn’t be fitting, would it?”

“Perhaps not, but I desperately need some company. It would be a great boon to me if you would stay.”

Gwenyth wavered between an obvious desire to oblige, and an exaggerated sense of propriety. “I will stay, ma’am, if that’s what you’d like. But I’ll take no tea. I’ll just unpack a few things from your trunk while you eat.”

“Thank you, Gwenyth. That is the perfect solution, isn’t it? Perhaps you can tell me something of the captain—other than his distaste for dirt. I’ll admit I am not very well acquainted with my husband.” That last word stuck in Julianna’s throat.

“Dunno as I can help you on that score, milady. The master’s said no more than a dozen words to me before today. You could have bowled me over with a feather when he asked me to direct you up here. Auntie Enid and Mr. Brock have worked for him the longest. They both think the sun rises and sets by the master.”

Her face must have betrayed her feelings about Sir Edmund’s intimidating steward, for Gwenyth chuckled in sympathy. “Oh, he’s not so bad, our Mr. Brock. For all he guards the master like an old bulldog, his bark’s a good deal worse than his bite.”

Julianna rolled her eyes. “I hope I will not have to be bitten to find out the truth of that.”

The two girls shared a guarded laugh. How Mr. Brock’s ears must be burning! Gwenyth continued her story.

“When I saw all your books go into this room, ma‘am, I thought to myself, ’Whoever she is, this lady’ll be a good match for the master!’ He has more than one great room full of books. Spends most of his time in the library, reading and smoking his long pipe. What a black look a body gets if he’s disturbed! He’s not a very sociable man, you know. Why, that luncheon today is as much entertainment as we’ve had in this house since I’ve been here.”

Two sharp raps at the door made Julianna start guiltily. Dropping her pretense of unpacking, Gwenyth scurried to answer the summons. Sir Edmund stepped into the sitting room. At the sight of him, Julianna’s heart leapt into her throat, suffusing her face with blood and beating a galloping pulse in her ears. Her husband looked as if he had slept—in preparation for tonight? With his jabot and waistcoat discarded and the top several buttons of his shirt undone, he cut a somewhat less daunting figure than he had at their wedding ceremony. At the moment, that was little consolation to Julianna.

“I’ll come back in the morning and finish this up, shall I, milady? Unless there’s something special you want out just now?”

“No, thank you, Gwenyth, tomorrow will be fine. Good night.”

Bobbing a quick curtsy, the girl made her escape. Given her wish, Julianna would have been hot on Gwenyth’s heels.

An awkward silence fell over the sitting room, punctuated only by the crackling of the fire and the ticking of the mantel clock. Had it been damaged in the move? Julianna wondered. It seemed to take longer than usual to count each passing second.

“Will you have a seat, Sir Edmund?” she asked in a rush. “I was just finishing my tea. The food at luncheon looked lovely, but I was too nervous to touch a bite. Will you join me?”

“Thank you, no.” Sir Edmund took a seat at the far end of the chaise. “I rarely find myself hungry these days. However, you needn’t stop on my account.”

“I have eaten as much as I can manage.” Julianna felt the appetizing little meal turn to a lump of lead in her stomach. Taking a cautious step back from the hearthside table, she perched on the other end of the chaise.

Sir Edmund cleared his throat. “I trust the accommodations meet with your approval.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Julianna glanced at her bridegroom. He looked every bit as anxious and uncertain as she felt. Somehow it eased her own apprehension. Whatever else he might be, Sir Edmund Fitzhugh obviously was not practiced in the art of seduction.

A bubble of nervous laughter broke from her lips. “Meet with my approval? Are you much given to understatement, Sir Edmund? Why, I wept with joy when I saw my possessions returned to me.”

His expression darkened. “They should never have been taken from you in the first place. Of all the infamous conduct... I suppose Skeldon responsible for this, and these?”

He gestured toward the bruises on her face. Mortified that they had drawn his notice, Julianna flinched. Perhaps he misread her reaction, for he reached out and tilted her smarting chin with the subtlest of pressure, urging her to look him in the eye. When he spoke, his voice was hardly above a whisper.