Deborah Hale - Border Bride

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.

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?”