LadyOfConquest:SaxonBride (48 page)

More for Elan’s sake than the watch he was to keep on Edwin, Maxen had journeyed to Blackspur each month, several times in Christophe’s company. Though certain his sister was under no threat of physical harm, he had feared for the emotional state of one so foolishly young, heartbroken, subject to the demands of a babe, and hated by the one with whom she would spend her life.

But tick by tick, husband and wife seemed to be making peace with each other, and Maxen thought it possible their marriage would be tolerable enough to raise their son without inflicting wounds so deep Harold would suffer. It was the most he hoped for, and he prayed that if one or both strayed from their wedding vows, it would be done with discretion. Again, for Harold.

“I have missed you!” Elan exclaimed, still holding fast to her sister-in-law. “You know not how!”

As Rhiannyn returned her embrace, feeling the fullness of the young woman Maxen had assured her was not wasting to skin and bone, her worries receded.

Elan seemed in good health, and there was lightness in her voice. Though she and Edwin might not be happy, if they could maintain civility, it would not be a miserable existence. In years to come, they might even settle into a kind of friendship.

Rhiannyn pulled back slightly and smiled. “I have missed you as well, and I am pleased to see how Harold has grown—such a healthy, handsome lad.”

“Though my father would not agree,” Elan said, “Harold is of good stock. As shall be our next.”

Rhiannyn frowned. “I do not—”

Elan captured her hand and drew it between them and onto her abdomen.

She was not adequately fleshed merely because she ate well. As evidenced by the bulge that, though not yet visible, should not have escaped notice while they embraced, she was with child.

“It was but the one time—again,” she fiercely whispered, throwing her eyes wide with exaggerated frustration.

“Oh,” Rhiannyn whispered back, “I did not think you…he…”

“As I did not, but one eve we were much too civil with each other.” A satisfied smile rose to her lips. “’Twas right after I sent Theta away. Maxen told you of it?”

He had, and been proud of his sister. He had not witnessed the confrontation, but as Elan had related and Edwin had confirmed, Theta had made derogatory remarks about Rhiannyn in her mistress’s hearing. Elan had confronted Theta, and what had ensued sounded much like Rhiannyn’s long-ago brawl with Meghan.

“Maxen did tell me of it,” she said, “and I thank you for defending me.”

Elan shrugged. “You
are
my sister. And as ugly as my cuts and bruises were—Edwin tended them—I was rather proud of them.”

Edwin had tended them… And now his wife was with child. “Tell,” Rhiannyn said, “does he know he will be a father again?”

Elan leaned near. “I was so ill with worry when I missed my monthly flux. All I could think was that he would not believe this babe was his—that I had cuckolded him.”

“But he does know,” Rhiannyn pressed, “and he believes he is the father?”

“Aye, he knows and seems to believe.”

“Seems?”

Maintaining a whisper, she said, “He keeps a near eye on me and, for once, I am grateful. Otherwise, I might be bruising my knees praying this one also lacks a toe.”

“Is he pleased you are to give him another child?”

She gave a soft snort. “A fortnight past, he said I should begin sharing his bed, and after several days’ thought, I did. But the only time he intentionally touches me is to lay a hand on my belly—and once the dreaded
wolf
even pressed an ear to it.”

Rhiannyn caught laughter behind her lips, and when it was back where it belonged, said, “Surely he is pleased.”

She sighed. “At least he is not ever glowering at me. And when I am of a mood, I spare him my own displeasure.”

“Mayhap one day you will discover you are happy together,” Rhiannyn submitted, only to regret words sure to bring Guy to mind were he not already there.

Elan’s gaze wavered. “You dream where I dare not.”

“Permit me the indulgence. And know I also pray for you and Harold and Edwin.”

“I do that sometimes myself.” Elan removed Rhiannyn’s hand from her belly and, keeping hold of it, pulled her toward the dais. “Brother,” she called, “I would see your Leofe.”

Maxen stood, and when his sister came alongside, kissed her cheek and passed the babe to her.

Elan’s delight in the infant appeared as genuine as Harold’s jealousy.

Straining toward his mother, the little boy reached with splayed hands and demanded, “Mama!”

Gently jostling Leofe who had begun to fuss, Elan stepped alongside her husband’s chair and tapped her son’s nose. “Be big, Harold,” she softly rebuked. “You must become accustomed to mama holding another.”

As he continued to protest and reach to her, Rhiannyn gave Maxen the gaze he sought. In answer to the question in his eyes, she nodded.

His smile was uncertain, but when she brightened her own, he relaxed into his and said, “It appears I must congratulate my sister and her husband.”

“So it does,” Edwin said with what seemed a determined lack of interest, then shifted his attention to the big man who entered the hall. “All is in readiness?”

Aethel halted just inside the doors. “Aye, my lord,” he said and glanced at Rhiannyn.

As when he had greeted her and Maxen upon their arrival in the outer bailey, there was a gruffness about him, but not the angry one that had made her ache for the Aethel of old. He would never again be that, but enough of him was returned that he was recognizable. And it made her heart feel more sweetly full.

“If we ride now, Pendery” Edwin said, pushing back his chair, “we should be able to visit two of the four villages ere nightfall. And the sooner you can satisfy your king as to the state of a demesne lorded by a Saxon.”

Not
his
king, but hopefully it would come with time.

“Rhiannyn”—he stepped toward her and held out Harold—“your nephew.”

Who should have been our son? she wondered as she opened her arms to the little one. Was that what Edwin was thinking? If so, it was not apparent in his eyes.

She took Harold onto her hip, and for a moment there was such outrage in the boy’s regard she thought he might bundle his chubby hands into fists and strike her. But then he looked to his mother, and catching her gaze, dropped his head beneath his aunt’s chin and began to stroke the hair on her shoulder. Surely he was not now trying to make
her
jealous?

Rhiannyn rejected the thought, but after Maxen and Edwin took their leave and the two women settled before the hearth, Harold vehemently shook his head when Elan attempted to exchange children to allow Rhiannyn to nurse Leofe. Finally, Harold was convinced to stand alongside his aunt while she put the babe to her breast. And after many a glance toward his mother that turned flirtatious, he walked on surprisingly steady legs and climbed onto her lap. Her betrayal forgiven.

That eve, when Maxen lay down beside his wife after supper, he considered the sleeping babe between them, touched Leofe’s cheek, and smiled at Rhiannyn across the dim. “Methinks I shall have to bring you more often to Blackspur.”

“Oh? Does absence from your wife and daughter pain you so?” she said, then added a note of teasing. “Or is it that you have never been offered the lord’s chamber?” She had noted his surprise when Edwin relinquished it to one who, in the order of nobility, could not be said to be his superior.

“Above all, the first,” he said, “though I can hardly protest the comfort of the latter.” He patted the mattress Elan had proudly told Rhiannyn she had seen stuffed twice as full before taking her place in this chamber. “Too,” he continued, “you are good for my sister, and I thank you.”

“Do you think it will come right for them?”

“I do, though how right, only they can say.”

“Then not as right as it is between us?”

He pushed up onto an elbow, and peering down at her, said, “Though ’tis hard to believe any man could be happier than I, only God knows what is ahead for Elan and Edwin. Indeed, when we first wed, I did not even hope it could be like it is between us now.”

Rhiannyn wondered if she would ever become so accustomed to the leaps of her heart that she would no longer notice them. “We are blessed,” she said.

“Aye.” He lowered his head and kissed her brow. “
Fricwebba
.”

Peace weaver.

He kissed her nose. “
Leof.
”

Dear.

He put his mouth so near hers their lips brushed. “
Deore
. My beloved Saxon bride.”

Dear Reader,

On the day I finished the first draft of
Lady Of Conquest
—the last of my rewritten “Bride” books—I was so emotional that the writer in me attempted to convey some of what I was feeling in a note to my dear readers:

I am wrung out, hand as tired of supporting my head as the desk must be of supporting my elbow, vision blurred as I reread the last line which requires no
The End
to alert the reader that at this time and in this place, the story ends—on paper. If I have written these lives well, the imaginations of those who have been the much-envied fly on the wall will take up what I have put down and fill in what comes after. And if the stress and sorrow amid the joy of non-fiction life make them long for a scenic detour, an extended
Happily Ever After
will put babes in arms, faith in uncertain hearts, and years in the lives of those who beautifully grow old together. I have been there. I have done that. I aspire to give what I have been given. ~ Tamara Leigh

Hopefully, I succeeded in some measure, and you enjoyed Rhiannyn and Maxen’s love story. If you would consider posting a review of
Lady Of Conquest
—even if only a sentence or two--I would appreciate it. Thank you for joining me in the age of castles, knights, ladies, destriers, deep, dark woods and--dare I mention it?--outdoor plumbing. Wishing you many more hours of inspiring, happily-ever-after reading.

EXCERPT

BARON OF GODSMERE

Book One (The Feud)

Available Now

CHAPTER ONE

York, England

Early autumn, 1333

Rage hurtled up Bayard Boursier’s throat, but before the emotion could cast itself across his tongue, the king leaned near and warned, “Make your sacrifice an honorable one, Boursier.”

Bayard glared at England’s third Edward—all twenty and one years of him to his vassal’s thirty and one. Golden hair sifting in air that wafted the scent of summer’s end, the whelp arched an eyebrow.

Ignoring the danger in which he placed himself, Bayard bit, “Honorable? ’Tis my enemy you ask me to wed.”

Edward spread his hands on the chess table between them. “Ask? ’Tis not a request, Boursier.”

Then if Bayard refused, there would be forfeiture to pay—the barony passed to him by his father ripped away as surely as the barony of Kilbourne had been torn from Denis Foucault years ago. Of course, it would be the same for Bayard’s enemies should they reject the king’s solution to the warring between the three families.

“Methinks the Verduns and De Arells will like it no better,” Edward fed into Bayard’s head, “but they shall do as commanded.”

Bayard did not doubt it. To retain lands awarded to their fathers twenty-five years past when the three men had united against their traitorous baron and the king, the latter having fathered this Edward, they would yield.

Bayard dragged patience up from his depths as Father Crispin would counsel. “Six weeks,” he said in a barely level voice. “Grant me that, Sire, and I shall end this warring.” Somehow.

Edward scowled. “Six weeks when twenty-five years could not resolve your petty differences?”

Bayard nearly protested the pettiness of those differences, for there was nothing trivial about pillaging villages, burning crops, and slaughtering cattle. However, pettiness did play a role, for jealousy and bitterness were at the root of the offenses. Ulric de Arell, denied his desire to become baron of all, had been dealt another blow when Castle Adderstone was awarded to Archard Boursier. Thus, he had struck at Boursier, and Boursier had struck back. When Verdun would not side with one or the other, his lands had been attacked, and he had attacked back—a three-pronged vicious circle they had passed to their sons.

“Nay,” Edward said. “We will not tolerate further raiding and plundering. The marriages will be made.”

Bayard tightened his hold on the chess piece he had captured before Edward’s announcement of his plans to ally the families. Feeling the imprint in his palm, he opened his fingers and looked down. Though it was but a pawn, the ivory piece had been destined for greatness in the form of an exchange that would have returned Edward’s queen to the board. However, as Bayard was not one to willfully lose, even to a king, he had taken the piece. But still Edward would have his pawn—and its name was Bayard Boursier.

The king settled back in his chair and surveyed the lavish garden into which Bayard had been admitted an hour past. A smile hitching up his mustache, he said, “Though it cannot be said our father held your father in high regard, Boursier, that is all the more reason I look fondly upon your family.”

It was putting it kindly to say the feckless Edward II had not thought well of the Boursiers—or the De Arells and Verduns. After all, they had turned against Foucault who had forfeited his life along with the barony of Kilbourne when he had taken up arms against his liege, the earl. Fortunately, as with most things to which Edward II had aspired, the king had been largely unsuccessful in retaliating against the three families, including his attempt to have Foucault’s son, Simon, claim his father’s title. However, that particular failure was a result of the young man’s death during a skirmish in service to his French lord.

And now Edward II was also dead. Forced to abdicate to his estranged fourteen-year-old son nearly seven years past, he had been murdered shortly thereafter—if the tale was to be believed. And it was.

“Thus,” the third Edward continued, “we have decided to grant you first choice of wife, which will determine the other alliances.”