After a while, to his enormous relief, her sobs began to ease. She shuddered a few times, then wiped her face on the bed linens and finally pushed up and cautiously glanced around. When she spied him, she averted her eyes.
That fearful gesture wrenched something in Rand’s gut. Fear had never been the emotion he wanted to evoke in her. But fear was all she’d ever know now. That and loathing.
He cleared his throat. “You need fear me no longer, Josselyn. My fit of fury is spent. I regret that I vented it upon you.”
She peered sidelong at him again. Her eyes were red and swollen. Her dark lashes clumped together in wet spikes. With her garments in disarray and her hair loosened from its neat coiffure, she looked buffeted and misused. His need to comfort her increased tenfold.
It was his turn to look away. “The exchange will be made. You for Jasper.”
After a long moment she replied. “Then your brother lives?”
“He does.”
“I see.” Another pause. “When is this exchange to occur?”
He turned back to her and met her damp gaze. “At dawn.”
“At dawn.” Moving stiffly, as if she were an old woman, she pushed herself to the edge of the bed. She smoothed her skirt as best she could, then folded her hands in her lap. “I … I am sorry for what Jasper has suffered at Owain’s hands.”
Rand’s fists tightened. He didn’t want an apology from her. She’d not been the one to cut Jasper’s finger off. “I should not have summoned him here.” That left much unsaid between them. But in her eyes Rand saw her understanding of the rest. He should not have threatened to marry her to Jasper.
He should have wed her himself.
He reared back at that unwelcome thought. That would never have worked, for he did not plan to remain long in Wales, and she would be sorely out of place in England. It was only his physical desire for her that made him think such foolishness. He’d always wanted her. He wanted her now.
“You need only wait until dawn,” he said, trying to suppress his inappropriate longing for her.
“I see.” She took a long breath, as if she gathered her strength, and her breasts strained against the bodice of her gown.
Blood rushed at once to his loins and he muttered another curse. That was done between them. She was lost to him now, as much by Owain’s doing as by his own. He would find some other woman to vent his lust upon. An Englishwoman, this time, with no complications between them.
Then she stood and moved slowly toward him, the last thing Rand expected. Her expression was impossible to
read, hesitant and yet determined. Sad but somehow relieved.
“So we have until dawn?” she asked when she stopped before him.
She was so near. Too near. Her face tilted up to his.
“We have until dawn,” she repeated, her voice a hoarse whisper in the silent room. “And after that I must wed a man I do not want. I must lie down with a man I do not desire.” She hesitated, then he watched as she gathered her courage and spoke again. “But I desire you. I desire you, Randulf Fitz Hugh.”
He searched her face, unable to believe what she was implying. He shook his head. “You don’t understand, Josselyn. It’s not necessary for you to do this. In a matter of hours you will be free.”
She smiled sadly. “No, ’tis you who do not understand.” She placed a hand on his chest, her palm flat, her fingers splayed.
He should have questioned her last words. What did he not understand? But her touch, though light, was powerful. It was overwhelming. The desire he fought to hide leapt fully formed to life. He covered her hand with his, knowing he would regret this, but knowing as well that he could no more resist her entreaty than he could choose to cease breathing.
This time they removed all their clothes. Or rather, she removed his and then her own.
This time no fist pounded interruption on the door.
This time he guided her to mount him, and afterward, while they were both still breathless and damp with their exertion, he rolled her onto her back and made love to her again.
There were few words. There were no promises. It was good-bye they said to one another, for with dawn’s arrival, they would become enemies once more.
But for the waning hours of this night, they were lovers,
and urgency demanded they wring every moment of pleasure they could from it.
Inevitably, however, the dark began to recede.
Josselyn was the first to acknowledge it. She lay with her back to him, snuggled in the curve of his body. Both their heads rested on his bent arm. His other arm was draped over her; his hand enveloped hers, their fingers twined. She lifted her head, bumping his chin. “’Tis time, Rand.”
She thought he was asleep, for he did not respond. But when she tried to slip her hand from his, his fingers tightened. For a moment, one foolish, hopeful moment, she thought he would not let her go. But then he slid his hand from hers, and she knew he had no more choice than she. His brother’s life hung in the balance.
She rose, grateful for the shadowy dark that hid her naked flesh, as well as the naked emotions she could not quell. She did not want to leave him. It was irrational, of course, but no less true. He was a man with considerable capacity for good—certainly more so than Owain. But he and she were caught between their countries and there was no escaping that fact.
So she donned her smock and kirtle, pulled on hose and found her shoes. She gathered her few belongings, then sat and began to finger-comb her hair.
Rand had lit a lantern and she heard his movements as he too dressed. The room was cool and yet the heat and scent of their joining overwhelmed her senses. That was how it was meant to be between a man and a woman. Would she ever again know such a night?
Her lower lip trembled but she pressed her lips together until her weakness passed. The answer to that question was no, she would never again know such a night. She should be grateful to have had even one such night, she told herself. Many women were denied even that, married to men they did not love.
Love? A lump rose in her throat. Was that what she felt
for Rand? Was this intense longing, which was as much emotional as physical, love? She feared it was. But did he feel the same toward her?
She did not know, and anyway, love could not change their present circumstances.
She resumed her efforts on her hopelessly tangled hair, but her fingers stilled when Rand crossed to her. She looked up at him, meeting his eyes for the first time. He was dressed as a warrior in his studded leather hauberk, with short sword and dagger at his side. He lacked only his chain mail to complete the picture. But he held a comb out to her, and his expression, though somber, was not fierce.
“Thank you,” she murmured. Their eyes held an endless, shattering moment.
“Don’t marry Owain.”
Josselyn’s heart began to race. Her chest hurt from its terrible pounding. “What are you saying, that I should stay?”
He shook his head. “You cannot. I must protect my brother. You have to go. But …” He took a harsh breath. “Owain will treat you badly. It’s in his nature.”
Josselyn broke the hold of his eyes. “I know his nature.”
“Then don’t agree to wed him.”
Suddenly she was angry. “Why? Why, Rand? So his family and mine will not unite against you?”
“No!” He threw the comb in her lap. “Damn you, it’s your well-being I’m thinking of, not mine! Your people cannot hold out against English might. These lands are claimed for Henry and England, and they will remain English lands for a thousand years and more. No matter who you wed, nothing will change that.” Then his temper eased. “I don’t want to see you hurt, Josselyn. That’s all.”
How final that sounded. That’s all. She’d wondered if he loved her. Now she had her answer. There would be no offer from him, she realized. No request that she wed him as assurance of peace between the English and Welsh. What had he said once before—that he would not long remain in
Wales? Once the castle at Rosecliffe was built he would be gone. She’d known that all along, so why had she allowed herself so stupidly to hope?
She turned blind eyes away from him and began automatically to comb her hair. The knots were stubborn, but she yanked through them, oblivious to the pain. Time to go. Time to bid him good-bye.
D
awn was a nebulous thing. The clouds hung low and leaden. Sorrowful, Josselyn thought. She and Rand did not speak on the grim walk to the wall. Down the stony hill the land lay in shadow. If her kinsmen were there, she could not make them out.
They stopped at a place where the wall was but knee high. He stepped up onto the rubble packed solid between the flat courses of facing stones, and offered her his hand in assistance. But Josselyn could manage without his assistance. She would have to manage the remainder of her life without him; she could certainly manage this wall.
And yet it was this very wall and all it stood for that kept them apart; it was the wall between England and Wales, the wall between his ambitions and hers. The wall Owain had raised a hundred feet high when he’d sent Jasper’s finger to Rand.
She looked over at Rand. The least she could do was reassure him that she would not agree to marry Owain. But as she turned, Osborn called from just beyond him. “There he is. See?” He pointed and they all strained to make out the two figures that emerged, ghostlike, from the forest edge.
The two walked through the mist, floating, it seemed, on a cloud that enveloped their feet and legs. One of them
walked stiffly, like an old man. As he came up the hill and the mist fell away, they could see he cradled one arm, and that his hand was bandaged. Jasper, she realized, with Owain triumphant beside him.
Bile rose in Josselyn’s throat and she fought the urge to retch at the sight of Owain and his vicious handiwork. Had Rand not caught her by the arm and started the two of them forward, she could not have made herself approach him.
They jumped from the wall then marched down the damp hill. The grasses swept their legs with a soft sigh, the coarse gravel crunched beneath their boots. But other than that there was only silence. Even the small creatures of the earth cowed in Owain’s murderous presence, she fancied. Or perhaps it was Rand’s fury they shrank from.
She glanced sidelong at him. His narrowed gaze focused on the approaching men. She could feel his tension, his readiness to do battle with Owain.
On impulse she stopped. She would not give Owain the chance to hurt Rand too.
When she stopped, Owain did also. “Send Josselyn forward,” he called from fifty paces away. Josselyn translated for Rand, then she started forward, anything to forestall combat between them. But Rand caught her arm. “Don’t marry him, Josselyn, unless you desire soon to become a widow.”
She lifted her face to his. Fear for him and for herself—indeed for all the peoples of these hills who must suffer the wars to come—made her voice bitter. “That would solve all our problems, wouldn’t it? I wed Owain to please my uncle and Owain. You kill Owain to please me and you. Everyone receives some portion of their desires. But then what? For all that unhappiness, nothing would have changed. Nothing ever will.”
Because you will not choose the most obvious path to peace.
But she would not say that out loud. She could not. So she turned and fled and he let her go. Tears welled in her eyes, blinding her. But she knew
where she was going. Down the hill. Away from Rosecliffe, never to return.
She paused in her headlong descent only when Rand’s brother started forward. They stopped midway and studied one another. One of his eyes had swollen shut. His lip too was swollen and split on one side, crusted with blood. He cradled his mutilated hand against his chest.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, horrified by the abuse he’d suffered, filled with guilt.
He stared suspiciously at her with his one good eye. “I’ll recover. Mostly. But surely those tears are not for me. Has Rand used you so poorly?”
Her chin trembled. She shook her head. “No. I have not fared so poorly at your brother’s hands as you have at his.” She indicated Owain with a gesture.
“Josselyn!” Owain called. “Come. Now!”
She saw Jasper’s jaw clench with hatred, but to her he gave only a painful smile. “Farewell Josselyn ap Carreg Du.”
“Good-bye, Jasper Fitz Hugh.”
Man that I might have
wed. Though their exchange had been brief, she knew he would have made a far better mate than Owain.
What if she turned right now and fled with Jasper to Rosecliffe? What if she wed him, as Rand wished her to do? Wouldn’t that be better for everyone, even her?
But how could she? How could she live in Rand’s household and yet be his brother’s woman? She could not.
She started away. Every step was an effort. Every step nearer Owain was a step farther from Rand. As she neared her brutish countryman, she could not look at him, he repulsed her so utterly.
If he noticed, he did not care. He caught her arm in a crushing hold, then drawing his sword, he hustled her back toward the woods, toward safety, and toward a future too bleak for Josselyn to contemplate.
The village of Carreg Du was in an uproar. The influx of men from Afon Bryn had the two streets crowded and muddy, and thick with the droppings of their many horses. Every villager housed a soldier in their cottage. Talk was loud, tension ran high, and weapons were everywhere in evidence. The women kept to their kitchens, their children close beside them. Only the men moved about, and Josselyn sensed they were as uneasy with Owain’s presence as they were with the Englishmen’s.
They all watched as she trudged into the village, flanked by Owain and her uncle, and trailed by two very separate sets of guards. She’d slept but little, and her physical union with Rand had taxed muscles that were unfamiliar to her, yet neither of those was the source of her exhaustion. Her emotions were overwrought, stretched to the breaking point. When she spied her Aunt Nesta smiling a tremulous welcome, Josselyn could be strong no more. With a sob she rushed into her aunt’s embrace, buried her face in her warm, comforting shoulder, and wept like a little child.
“I’ll kill the bastard,” Owain growled.
How her uncle responded Josselyn did not hear, for Nessie hustled her into the kitchen and shut the door against the intrusion of men. There was no privacy in the kitchen either, for Gladys and Rhonwen tended Cordula and Davit there. Still, it was the domain of women, and Josselyn took some comfort in that.
Gladys hugged the two younger children to her and stared silently at Josselyn. Like Nesta, she obviously had some idea of the treatment Josselyn had suffered in Rand’s care. Rhonwen, however, was a child. She saw no obvious injuries and so rejoiced.
“We have defeated them and got you back! You were right. We women
are
smarter. We can outwit all of those stupid men!”
“Rhonwen!” Gladys rebuked her.
Rhonwen turned and sent an impatient glare at her mother, and when she did, Josselyn gasped. The child
sported a bruised face almost as ugly as Jasper’s. “What happened to her?”
The two women were silent but Rhonwen gave her a triumphant grin. “I outwitted them all, Owain and that awful Englishman. And also that ragged brat, Rhys,” she gloated.
“Rhys? Owain’s boy?” Josselyn remembered an angry little boy heaving curses and stones at her. “He did that to you?”
“’Twas Owain did it,” Gladys bit out. “Not the boy, but the father.”
“But why?” Josselyn asked. Concern for Rhonwen had banished her own miseries. “Why would he strike a child so viciously?”
“’Cause I made his stinking son my captive.”
Josselyn’s disbelieving eyes darted from the boastful little girl to the silent women. When they both nodded, she looked back at Rhonwen. “Why?” was all she could say. “Why?”
Rhonwen crossed to stand in front of her. “To save you. Owain wanted to cut off that Jasper’s hand and send it to his brother. Not just his finger. But I was afraid of what the English lord would do to you, so when I found Rhys, I made him my hostage.”
“Your uncle agreed with Rhonwen and so Owain was forced to back down,” Nesta said.
“Owain did not like being bested by a child,” Gladys added.
Josselyn cupped the unmarked side of Rhonwen’s face and stared down into the child’s guileless eyes. Nine-year-old Rhonwen had held Owain’s son hostage to ensure Josselyn’s safety? Could such an outlandish tale be true? But clearly it was. If Nesta and Gladys had not confirmed it, the purple bruise on Rhonwen’s face did.
God, but she hated that man!
“Is it very painful?” she asked, past the lump in her throat.
Rhonwen shrugged. “Not very.” Then she grinned. “It was worth it to see you set free. And also to see
him
so furious.”
Josselyn could only imagine how livid Owain had been. He’d hit Rhonwen. Had he vented his anger on his son as well? “Where is Rhys now?”
“That ragamuffin?” She sniffed in disdain. “He’s pro’bly rooting in the refuse heap. He stinks, that one does.”
Josselyn’s brow creased in a faint frown. She hoped he was all right. “I know he is a troublesome lad, but remember, he’s had no mother to tend him and we all know what sort of father he has. At least you have a mother who loves you, Rhonwen.”
The child met her steady stare, and though Josselyn could see resistance in Rhonwen’s eyes, she knew it would not last. When the child averted her eyes, then peered warily at her mother, Josselyn gathered her up in a tight hug. “Your mother loves you,” she whispered into the child’s tangled hair. “You know she does. And you love her too. We women must remain united if we are ever to achieve our goals.”
Rhonwen looked up at her. “What are our goals?”
Josselyn hesitated. What indeed? “Peace, I suppose. Peace and a good harvest. Husbands who honor us, and healthy children.”
The two other women murmured their agreement, and after a minute they turned to the task of preparing the midday meal. But as Josselyn worked alongside them, her own words echoed in her ears. Admirable goals she’d outlined for them. But in truth, women had no power to achieve any of them at all. Peace was dependent on men. A good harvest relied on the weather. A husband could not be forced to treat his wife well, and the health of a child rested in God’s hands.
Her shoulders slumped as defeat weighed heavily on her.
Fine goals indeed. But she’d not live long enough to achieve even one of them. No woman ever would.
Jasper’s face was pale, save for the enormous purple bruise that sealed his eye. He’d been bathed and fed, and his mutilated hand had been freshly bandaged. Now he sprawled back in Rand’s chair with his eyes closed.
Rand studied his younger brother, the brother he hardly knew. The boy had been barely out of swaddling clothes when Rand had been fostered out. After that he’d seen him but rarely. Rand had then gone into the king’s service. Jasper had been sent to the abbey in Walsingham, and three years further had passed with no contact between them at all.
Then suddenly Jasper had left the abbey and become squire to their father’s good friend, followed soon thereafter by his knighting. Rand had suspected he was not truly prepared for a life of warfare. Now he was here at Rosecliffe, his face battered, his finger crudely severed—his boyhood come to a rude end. And for what purpose? Rand had not wanted him here. For a brief moment, however, marrying him to a Welsh heiress had seemed a convenient solution to the political situation here.
Except that Rand had deflowered the would-be bride, while her betrothed tortured Jasper.
God’s bones, but he should never have sent for the boy! He shoved up from the stool he perched upon, toppling it back with a crash. Jasper jerked upright, startled from his exhausted doze.
Rand cursed. “I’ll have that bastard’s head on a pike.”
Jasper grimaced and shifted into a more comfortable position. He clearly knew of whom Rand spoke. “What of her head? ’Tis the woman, this Josselyn ap Carreg Du, who didst betray you more so than Owain ap Madoc.” A knowing grin lifted the unmarked side of his face. “Or was bedding her so sweet as to put you in a forgiving frame of mind?”
Osborn sat across the table and his brows rose. But he did not laugh at Jasper’s crude jest. It was a measure of how well he knew Rand’s moods—and how little Jasper did, Rand decided. He fixed his brother with a fierce look. “Her marriage to Owain will solidify Welsh opposition to us. It will make our task here all the harder. More blood will be lost than the paltry amount you have spilled.”
“Then why did you trade her for me?” Jasper snapped. “You’ve had no use for me in the past.”
“And I have no use for you now,” Rand growled. “But you’re my brother.”
“Half brother.”
Better than John, who is my full brother,
Rand thought, though he could not bring himself to say it out loud. “Half or no, you are of my blood,” he responded grudgingly. “I would not leave you to languish in Owain’s murderous clutches.”
Rand poured himself a mug of ale, aware his brother watched him closely. It was pointless to hide the truth from Jasper, so when the question came, he was prepared to answer.
“Why did you send for me to come here, when previously you bade me stay in London?”