“Is this the thanks I get?” Jasper jested. “I save the day and yet you end up with the beautiful damsel.”
From the litter came Osborn’s voice, weak but distinct. “You’ve still much to learn, lad. Your turn will come.”
Rand smiled down into Josselyn’s eyes, a smile filled with all the love in the world. “Your turn will come, Jasper. I only hope you can find a woman who will make you so complete as my Josselyn makes me.”
Then he put Josselyn up on the horse and mounted behind her, and together they turned for home, for Isolde and for Rosecliffe.
Say, wilt thou go with me, sweet maid
—John Clare
Epilogue
Rosecliffe Caste, Wales
May A.D. 1137
R
and hoisted Isolde high onto his shoulders, and her squeals of utter delight only made his duty more odious. How he would miss this child of his heart!
How he would miss her mother
He leaned from side to side, eliciting even more squeals from his precious daughter. She trusted him not to drop her, to always keep her safe. God willing, he would never fail that trust.
Across the bailey, in the newly constructed pleasaunce, he spied Josselyn. In the past two years she’d made Rosecliffe into a home. He’d raised the walls of a spacious and imprenable keep. But she’d warmed those walls of his with tapestries and painted frescoes. She’d scented the rooms he built with herbs, and furnished them with pillows and rugs. Most of all; though, she’d filled the sturdy walls of Rosecliffe with love. Love for him and love for their child.
He knew he must leave for the south, to confer with the other Marcher lords on this matter of Stephen’s and Matilda’s dual claims to the British crown. Ever since king
Henry’s death, the country had been thrown into turmoil by their political machinations. Stephen demanded loyalty of the border lords, but Rand knew Matilda and her young son had the truer claim.
As much as he wished to stay apart from their conflict, he could not do so. Duty called and he must go.
Josselyn’s determined cheerfulness in the face of their first separation only strengthened his love for her. She bore another child.She had not told him, but he knew it was so But she didn’t want him to worry, so she kept her secrets.
Sweet Jesu, but he loved the woman!
As if his emotions had reached out and touched her, she looked up ans smiled. At once he started toward her, his boisterous baby rider secure on his back.
“Jasper sends word that the men are ready to leave,” she said. Then her efficient manner broke and her eyes grew misty. She placed her hand on his chest. “You will be careful, won’t you? I cannot like it that this meeting takes place in Simon LaMonthe’s stronghold.”
“I will be careful.” He circled her with one arm while bracing Isolde with the other. Then he bent s down to kiss her sweety upturned mouth.
“What about me?” Isolde demanded. She patted his cheek and the top of her mother’s head. “What about me?”
They broke apart, laughing. Then Rand slid their giggling daughter down so that she became the center of their embrace.
“How’s that?
” he asked Isolde in Welsh.
“Just perfect,
” she answered, circling each of their necks with one arm.
Yes, Rand thought. It was just perfect, this loving circle of a family they’d created. Unable to stop himself, he spread his palm gently over Josselyn’s still flat stomach. When her eyes widened, he murmured, “I love you. All of you”
“Then hurry home to us,” She whispered, learning into him?
“Yes, hurry home, Papa.”
Home. Rand took a deep breath. In his arms he held his family, and around them circled them circled the safe walls of their home. Three years ago he’d wanted nothing but to do his duty here then return to London. Now leaving Rosecliffe even for a fortnight was tearing him apart. Politics called him, but family called him louder.
He Hugged Isolde and Josselyn closer←and also the unnamed child that grew beneath her heart. “Never worry. I’ll come home as fast I can. As fast as I can.
As Rand and his men departed the castle, a single file of knights with a double file of foot soldiers following, more than one pair of eyes marked their passage through the valley.
Rhonwen lurked in the shadows of a grove of hollies, watching. Brooding. Maybe with her English husband gone Josselyn might become more amenable to reason. ’Twas she, after all, who’d said that women could defeat men despite their greater strenght. Women had but to smarter. Craftier. Had she forgotten that? Had the English knight stolen that from her? Rhonwen pulled her shawl tighter against the damp chill. Perhaps now was the time to find out.
Rhys ap Owain watched from a place farther down the long hill. He perched high in a massive oak, sitting very still amid its clinging vines of mistletoe. The English left, both the lord and his nine-fingered brother. A just God would keep them away forever.
But God was not just. God had killed his mother and his grandmother, and He’d tricked Rhys into believing Josselyn cared about a lost little boy.
But he could manage without God’s aid. Hadn’t he taken care of himself and mad Meriel for these two years since his father had been murdered by Jasper Fitz Hugh? They might live in wretched poverty, but they did not starve. He’d seen to that. No one could match his skills at stalking the wild beasts and bringing them down.
His eyes focused on Jasper Fitz Hugh. Someday soon be
would stalk that one and make him pay for murdering his father. If Owain ap Madoc still lived, these English would be gone from Welsh lands. But Rhys meant to avenge his father and save his people.
He spat at the faraway riders. He would kill Jasper Fitz Hugh and his brother also. Then he would rip the red wolf pennant down and live in the fortress they’d built. After that no Englishmen would ever dare trespass on the lands of Rhys ap Owain again.
Newlin watched the departure too, and memories of another day came to him.
Winter’s end is nigh.
Josselyn had said that once, before the English had come. Before Owain had become drunk with vision of his own power. Much had changed since that blustery winter day.
“‘When stones shall grow and trees shall no’,’” he chanted out loud. His good eye wandered toward Rosecliffe Castle, toward the newly cleared lands below the town site, and the walls that grew daily to newer, stronger heights.
Much had changed, yet much was still the same. Winter’s end was nigh, yet for these hills the balm of spring remained a long way off. Though Randulf Fitz Hugh was a fair lord and kept the peace in this valley, there was yet much discontent fermenting.
A vision of Rhonwen came to him, and the wild boy Rhys. They were not alone in their hatred of the English. Then he thought of Jasper and knew that hatred was not one-sided.
But there was another generation to consider, those children born of a Welsh and English union. little Isolde and the brother that followed her would lead the way to peace.
He smiled and turned back to the
domen
. Winter’s end
was
night, perhaps not right away, but soon.
Soon.
HEART OF THE STORM
THE MAIDEN BRIDE
DANGEROUS TO LOVE
THE BRIDE OF ROSECLIFFE
“And you need to understand that I cannot be your willing prisoner.”
“Then you will be my unwilling prisoner.” She stood there between his outstretched legs, looking down into his dark, opaque eyes, which glinted the flickering firelight back at her. When he spoke again, the low timbre of his voice seemed to vibrate through her. “I wonder just how unwilling a prisoner you shall finally prove to be.”
Her heart began to pound, like the surf booming against the rocks, like thunder rattling the heavens. Her heart pounded, her body trembled, and she knew she was in grave danger of succumbing to this enemy she wanted to despise … .
Please turn the page for an excerpt
from Jasper and Rhonwen’s story,
the second book in
Rexanne Becnel’s trilogy
Mistress of the Wildwood
coming soon from
St. Martin’s Paperbacks
Northern Wales, April A.D. 1144
J
asper reached the river and dismounted, letting Helios browse freely while he took both ale jug and wineskin and clambered onto a boulder. The only good thing in the whole of his brother’s considerable holdings was the quality of its ale and wine, he groused. He took a deep pull of the wine and settled onto the boulder.
Being left behind by Rand again was the final indignity, he told himself. The river rushed by, dark and cold. A perch broke the surface with a silvery flash. A crow’s raucous cry echoed; another answered it. And all the while Jasper brooded and drank and subsided into morose daydreams, of adventure denied and daring suppressed.
When his brother returned, Jasper knew he must leave. He would attach himself to Stephen’s army—or Matilda’s. He didn’t care which. He would fight battles and win rewards, and if he died, he didn’t care about that either.
He drained the wineskin, then tossed it aside. What was a knight but a noble warrior? What was a man but a creature of blood and bone? He would fight with honor; he would win with honor; he would die with honor.
So he drank and he dreamed and the sun moved across the sky. It lit the opposite riverbank and cast him into shadow. He needed to relieve himself, but he could not move. He was too relaxed. Had the rock not been so hard, he could have slept.
He squinted at the diamond reflections on the river. If he kept his eyelids half-closed, one of the twisting willow trunks on the opposite bank very nearly resembled a woman. Slender and strong. Supple in the breeze.
Then the tree stepped nearer the water and into the sunlight, and Jasper blinked his eyes. The tree
was
a woman.
A woman
.
He pushed up onto his elbows and tried to focus. At his movement she looked up and spied him. He froze, praying
she would not flee. A woman, and alone as far as he could tell.
His head began to pound from the effort of staring so hard. But he remained still, sprawled upon the boulder, no weapon in his hands. Perhaps that was what reassured her, for after a moment she advanced farther into the sunlight. Her hair was long and dark, as black as a raven’s wing. It gleamed in the waning sunshine. And she was young. Her waist was narrow and her breasts high and firm. Jasper felt a portion of his own anatomy began to grow firmer, too.
She saw him and yet she did not shy away. One hundred paces and an ice-cold river full with snow melt protected her. It emboldened her, it seemed. As he watched, she put down the bundle she carried, then began to remove her dark green mantle.
Slowly Jasper sat up.
She stretched her arms high to let down her hair, then shook it out and began to finger-comb the thick, luscious length of it.
He was mesmerized. Was she real, or was she a lovely dream, some fanciful conjecture created of wine and ale and restlessness?
Then she removed her short boots, and tucked her skirt up, baring her pale ankles and legs. This time his heart stopped. She waded into the water. Did she mean to cross over to him?
He jumped to his feet—an unfortunate movement, for he’d consumed more spirits than he realized, and on an empty stomach. But he refused to succumb to his spinning head or to his traitorous stomach, for her breasts were such lovely thrusting things, and her legs were long and shapely. She wanted to wrap them around his hips. He was convinced of it.
God, but he must have her!
Across the river Rhonwen was shocked by her own daring. Baring her legs to a hated Englishman! But it had caught the scurvy knave’s attention, for he stood now on
the flat rock that jutted into the river. He stood there swaying and she thought he would lose his balance and topple over. What was wrong with the man? Though her feet were turning numb from the ice-cold river, she squinted at him. Was he drunk?
Suddenly she gasped. It was
him
! Brother of Sir Randulf. Jasper Fitz Hugh, whom she’d first laid eyes on when she was but a child and he a newly dubbed knight.
At the time he’d been the captive of Rhys’s father, Owain. Now, ten years later, Owain was dead by Jasper Fitz Hugh’s hand, and Rhys had become the scourge of the English. Meanwhile, Jasper Fitz Hugh had no claim to fame, save as English sot and despoiler of Welsh womanhood.
She’d seen him once or twice in the intervening years, but only from afar, as now. But there were few as tall and broad-shouldered as he. Even from this distance, she could see the square jaw and straight nose that lent his face a comeliness no man should possess. Especially an Englishman.
Yes, it was Jasper Fitz Hugh. Would he recall the wild little girl who had saved his miserable hide?
She snorted. Not likely. Had she the opportunity to do it all over again, would she save him a second time? Absolutely not!
Ten years ago she had saved him, but only so he could be exchanged for her friend Josselyn, who’d been taken hostage by Randulf Fitz Hugh. But Rhonwen’s efforts had all been for naught, for Josselyn had eventually wed her captor. Jasper Fitz Hugh had recovered from his wounds and stayed to become one more Englishman oppressing her people.
Across the river, Fitz Hugh raised a hand to her in drunken salute. Rhonwen frowned. The past was past. She could do nothing to change it. But the present … The present demanded that she act. So she waved back at him, all the while wondering what Rhys would do were he here.
The answer was uncomfortably clear. Rhys passionately believed that Wales should be purged of the English by whatever means necessary. Those who would not leave willingly must be killed.
The Fitz Hughs had long ago made it clear that they did not intend to leave.
So she steeled herself to do what she knew any true Welsh loyalist must do. Slowly she reached back for the small hunting bow she carried. Carefully she eased an arrow from the quiver that hung at her waist.
Then not allowing herself time for doubt, she swung the bow into place, notched the arrow, and let it fly …