Daughter of Time: A Time Travel Romance (20 page)

“Now that you are well,” he said, as the
door clicked into place, “I wanted to talk to you.”

“What about?”

He hesitated, and then smiled again. “‘What
about?’ she asks, as if she doesn’t know.”

“Llywelyn,” I said, as confused by him
talking to me—or maybe it was to himself—in the third person, as
I’d been by his smile.

He was standing so close to me that I would
have stepped away had the table with his sword on it not been right
at my back. I was almost afraid to look at him and he appeared to
sense it because he put his finger under my chin and tipped my face
up so he could see my eyes.

Oh. About that.

“I’m not prepared to lose you,” he said.

I wasn’t sure how to answer that. “I . . .
I’d rather not be lost.”

Llywelyn didn’t seem to notice how terribly
lame that sounded. “You were very brave. When you dove out of the
boat and started swimming to shore, I couldn’t believe what I was
seeing.”

“Things have happened to me here that I
never could have imagined in a million years,” I said. “Where I
grew up, I would never have fallen into a river—I would never even
have been on a horse. Did you know we don’t even use horses anymore
in my world?”

Llywelyn’s fingers found mine and he laced
his through them. “Do you think about your world all the time?”

“Yes,” I said. “Sometimes it feels like this
is a dream that I’ll wake up from at any moment. There were times
over the last few days when I was sure I would find myself in my
own bed in Radnor when I opened my eyes.”

“I’m not a dream,” Llywelyn said.

“I noticed that,” I said. “Truly.” He was so
close to me know I was having trouble speaking and my breath caught
in my throat.

“Would you return if you could? You and
Anna?”

I opened my mouth to answer, and then
lowered my eyes, not wanting to hurt his feelings.
You have no
idea, Llywelyn. You have no idea what it’s like.
“So many
terrible things have happened since I came here. I wasn’t prepared
for any of it.”

He gave a half-laugh. “I take that as a yes,
then,” he said.

“Is the question so important Llywelyn? I’ve
no way back. Whatever door I opened when I came here has closed.
This is real and Radnor is just a dream.”

“So you’ll make the best of a bad job, is
that it?” Llywelyn laughed again, without humor, and then sobered.
“Does that include me?” His voice had gone soft. “Can I make up for
some of what you’ve lost?”

“Oh,” I said, and forced myself to look into
his face. “I think so, yes.”

“You do have a choice,” he said.

“Are you giving me one?”

“Yes,” Llywelyn said. “I am. I won’t keep
you like a selkie who only stays with her man because he’s stolen
her true self and hidden it in a chest. I won’t keep you here if
the door to your world opens and you want to walk through it. I
thought about this as I sat by your side these last few days, with
you fevered, afraid I would lose you before I really made you mine.
I decided that I’m quite selfish enough to bind you to me, but not
against your will.”

I was trying to keep up, to figure out where
this was going. “Bind me to you?”

“I’m forty years old, Meg,” he said. “I’ve
never married. Do you know why?”

“Angharad said something to me about it,” I
said. “But I’d rather hear it from you.”

“I’ve not dared marry anyone. There is
danger in tying myself to one woman if she cannot give me an heir,”
he said. “I’ve loved women in the past, but never committed to
taking that last step with them.”

“But you can’t with me either,” I said.

Llywelyn studied me. “Perhaps I can.”

“Llywelyn,” I said. “I’m a nobody, a
commoner.”

“Who says?”

“Everybody!”

“Is that so?” Llywelyn said, back to the
half-smile. “You’ve heard people speak of it?

“Well, no. Actually, I haven’t. I just
assumed it to be the case.”

“I have chosen you,” Llywelyn said. “And
that should be enough for everyone, including you. It is certainly
enough for me.”

“So . . .” I felt more and more at sea.
“What are you saying?”

“I believe God has put you in my path and
swept you along with me for a reason. I will not turn my back on
what He has given me.” His voice had lowered and I began to believe
what he was saying. “At the same time, I must warn you that I can’t
marry you in the eyes of the Church. The Pope must approve any
royal marriage, to prevent relationships with close kin. I can’t
produce any bloodlines for you that would satisfy the Pope unless
you can tell me different.”

“No.” The hysterical laughter that came at
the most inopportune times rose in my chest. “Not exactly. And
especially not if I claim kinship with Madoc ap Owain Gwynedd.”

“The Pope has threatened me with
excommunication in the past, and I well remember the long years of
the interdict placed on my grandfather. The candles were
extinguished in all the churches in Wales because of his actions.
My grandfather refused to bow to King John of England, as I have at
times to King Henry. As you tell me I will to Edward when he takes
the throne. If I must, I will risk my own soul, but I prefer not to
risk the souls of my people unless the need is very great.”

Llywelyn’s face held such earnestness, I
couldn’t look away. “I’m not sure where you’re going with this. I
don’t understand what you’re asking of me.”

“I’m asking you to marry me,” he said.
“Right here, right now. As God is our witness.”

“Llywelyn.” I couldn’t speak above a
whisper. “I don’t know what to say. You can’t mean it.”

“I do mean it, Meg.”

The laughter caught in my throat. “What if
I’m the same as all those other women? What if I can’t give you a
son?”

Llywelyn laughed too—and this time it was
genuine. “You could never be the same as any other woman! I can’t
imagine such a thing.” Then he sobered, watching me, and
waiting.

“And Anna?”

“I love Anna as my own daughter.”

Silence. I couldn’t think.

“Say yes,” he said. “Say you love me. You
do, don’t you?” A sliver of worry appeared in his eyes at that last
question, perhaps not as sure of himself as he wanted to be.

“I’m not sure that’s entirely the
point.”

“So you do,” he said, self-satisfied. “I
want to hear you say it. Say you love me.”

The abyss opened before my feet and this
time it was one of my own making. “I love you, Llywelyn.”

Llywelyn grinned. He moved his hands to my
waist and pulled me closer. “You’ve been married before. What are
the vows you say in your time?”

“Llywelyn,” I said, trying to be rational
through the fog in my brain. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m trying,” he said, tucking me under his
chin, “to do the right thing. I’m trying to give you my heart.”

“Oh.” I stepped forward over the edge and
accepted that I was falling and that I would find no
bottom
.

“
I, Marged ferch Evan, take thee,
Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, to be my husband; t
o have and to hold, from this day forward, for better,
for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness or in health, to
love and to cherish, until death do us part."

Llywelyn bent to touch his
forehead to mine. “I don’t like that last
bit,” he said. “What is death to part us? It’s
time
I’m worried
about.”

“
We can leave it off,
then.”

He nodded. “Among the common
folk, when there is no priest to hand, we say:

For as long as
there is wind in the mountains; for as long as there’s salt in the
sea; for as long as rain falls on these green hills; I will stand
with thee.
Marged ferch Evan, I claim thee
as my wife.”

He brought his hands forward
and clasped mine
to his chest, one of my
hands in each of his, and we stood there, pressed close and
breathing each other in, for a long time.

Chapter
Fourteen

“
Y
ou seem
inordinately pleased with yourself this morning,” Goronwy said
sourly as we met over my desk the next morning. He’d spent the
previous evening going through the castle accounts with Castell y
Bere’s steward. Goronwy had trained this man well, but sometimes
two eyes were better than one.

I smiled at Goronwy. “I am.”

I’d just left Meg sleeping in our bed and
was looking forward to breakfast with her later. I’d been reluctant
to leave her warmth and the inviting curve of her hip, outlined
under the blanket, but the duties of the day called. I found myself
changed, in no more time than it took to turn a page in a book.
Finally being acknowledged the Prince of Wales in the eyes of King
Henry was like the closing of one chapter, and Meg’s coming into my
life the beginning of another.

Goronwy rolled his eyes. He was slumped in
his chair, his hair mussed, having run his hands through it time
and again as he wrestled with the numbers on the pages. A scholar
Goronwy was not, but of all my advisors, I most trusted him.

“We’ve lost a dozen men to death and
injury,” he said, “we’ve progressed only a few days from Criccieth
in nearly two weeks, and are no closer to deterring Clare’s
despoiling of your land.”

“It’s winter,” I said. “Clare couldn’t have
laid more than a few stones this week. The intrigue we’ve uncovered
is more important; not only is Dafydd ricocheting around my lands
wreaking havoc, but he’s in league with Owain of Powys, whose
father claims loyalty to me. We must determine if Dafydd’s
disloyalty has spread further than this.”

“To Powys, then, as we initially
planned?”

“To Powys. We will summon Gruffydd to us at
Brecon,” I said. “He must account for his son’s actions, even if he
doesn’t countenance them.”

“And the boy, Humphrey?”

“We will escort him to his grandfather’s
lands, or allow his grandfather to come get him. That is one young
man I hate to let go, for he could become a great enemy some day.
It’s my hope that our treatment of him will outweigh that danger,
at least for now.”

“And ransom?”

“As I told the boy—no ransom,” I said. “I
prefer that the senior Bohun is beholden to us.”

“He would prefer to pay ransom, I’m sure,”
Goronwy said. “He will hate that you return Humphrey for free.”

“I look forward to greeting him in what was
once his own hall,” I said. Then I stood abruptly, shut the door to
the office, and pulled up a chair next to Goronwy, whose eyes
turned wary. “I have something to tell you, old friend.”

He straightened, the gloom in his face
lifting with the intensity in my voice. “What is it?”

“It’s about Meg,” I said.

Goronwy lifted his brows. He may not like
numbers, but he was good with people. She’d impressed him on this
journey, and he adored Anna, who’d attached herself to him whenever
he was available. If I was going to tell anyone who they were, it
was he.

“What do you make of her strangeness?” I
said, by way of easing into the truth.

“We should simply call her Morgane and be
done with it,” he said.

That made me sit up. “What makes you say
that?”

“She comes from a faraway land, she’s a
healer, and she’s bewitched the Prince of Wales. She even sings of
apples.”

I laughed. “Everyone knows that song. No,
the truth is strange enough without bringing Arthur into it.” I
stopped.

“What is it, my lord?”

“She has come to us from a future time,
Goronwy. Thus, her sudden appearance and the strange vehicle.”

Goronwy studied me, his gaze neither
quizzical nor skeptical, just waiting. “What do you want me to say,
my lord? I saw her chariot, so I can’t say what is and is not
impossible, but I can’t see how what you say could be true.”

“I didn’t either, at first,” I said. “But
after some reflection, and the more she spoke of the future we
face, the more credible her story seems. On top of which, why would
she lie about this? How could she invent such a story?”

“My lord, you know it can’t be true. The
priests speak of a beginning and an end. There is no possibility of
returning to a time once we’ve passed through it.”

“She gives me fourteen years, Goronwy,” I
said, getting to the heart of the matter. “I am betrayed on a snowy
hill at Cilmeri by the Mortimer boys, who profess to be seeking an
alliance with me against Edward.”

“Ho,” Goronwy said, sitting back in his
chair. “That is a tale.”

“She also says that if Edward troubles us
now, it’s nothing compared to the difficulties he will present when
he becomes king.”

“That I can believe,” Goronwy said. “I’ve
observed the man and he’s come into his own since Evesham. He
awaits the day of his father’s death with impatience. He seeks to
grasp the reins of England and ride her where he wishes. That day
will not be a good one for Wales.”

“So Meg says.”

Goronwy looked thoughtful. “That a young
woman such as she should expend her energies thinking of such
things is best testimony to their truth, but surely, you can’t
really believe she’s from the future?”

“I’m beginning to, Goronwy.”

“Perhaps she’s a throwback to an earlier
time as I said before—that time of Morgane when a woman might see
the future in a scrying bowl?” Goronwy said. “The world has changed
from those days and perhaps she denies what is in herself for fear
of retribution. Such a one would not be welcome in a church—or in a
prince’s bed.” Goronwy lowered his voice to match the depth of his
concern.

“I love her, Goronwy,” I said. “Whoever she
is, she’s in my bed and there she will remain.”