Tempt Me With Kisses (24 page)

The men exchanged wary looks.

“Early days yet, isn’t it?” Eifion offered. “At least he’s trying. That’s what I call a sacrifice.”

Dafydd frowned. “Look you, I am no beauty, either, but I don’t think any woman’s ever had cause to complain about what we do when we’re alone.”

“Well, aye, of course,” Eifion quickly agreed. “But you’re … well, you’re
you
.”

“Oh, that’s helpful,” Dafydd retorted.

“We’re not here to talk about you and your conquests, Dafydd,” Jon-Bron pointed out, peeved. “Something has to be done about what’s going on. Caradoc’s too distracted by all this turmoil, and it’s got to stop. He’s got enough to worry about with the theft of his sheep. He doesn’t need his hall to be a misery to him, too.”

“Any more gone missing?” Bran-Bron asked the bailiff.

“No, thank God and all his saints. Or,” he amended, “none that we know of. We’ve had so many patrols out, I think we would know. Hoping they’ve moved on, I am. The bastards,” he finished in a rancorous mumble.

Eifion hunched over and looked around nervously. “You don’t think it was … it was brownies, then?”

Dafydd gave him a sour look. “Since when have brownies taken to sheep stealing?” He waggled an accusing finger at him. “You’ve been listening to Ganore. I’m surprised she’s not accusing Lady Fiona of stealing them and hiding them in their bedchamber or doing sacrifices by the light of the full moon.”

He realized the three brothers were exchanging nervous glances. “Don’t tell me she’s saying something like that?”

“She would if Lady Fiona ever went out of the castle alone,” Jon-Bron replied. “But I’ve been hearing Ganore mutter about witchcraft and red hair.”

“If Caradoc ever gets a whiff of that, there will be hell to pay,” Dafydd said firmly, “and I think even Ganore realizes that it wouldn’t be wise to cross him about his wife.”

“That’s why she’s only muttering.”

“There’s no doubt in my mind that it was the work of men, and I’ve said so all along,” Dafydd declared. “Clever ones, maybe, but if they’re still nearby, we’ll catch them now that Caradoc’s sending out more patrols.”

“And taken to riding out with us, too,” Bran-Bron noted, shaking his light brown hair out of his eyes, “so he’s that worried.”

“Or trying to get some peace and quiet. I’ve never seen him look so weary,” Dafydd said. He looked pointedly at Emlyn-Bron. “And that has nothing to do with what goes on in the bedchamber. We never saw him look more rested than he was the first days after the marriage, did we? I had real hopes then, I can tell you, despite Cordelia and Ganore. Foolish, I guess. Nor can we blame Fiona. She’s been more patient than most.”

The men all nodded.

“I tell you, he was silence itself when we were practicing yesterday, like when Connor was about,” Jon-Bron said after he swallowed the last of his meat pie. “A nod, a shake of the head, a grunt.”

Eifion paused as he lifted his mug. “Maybe it’s time Cordelia was married, or sent off to a convent.”

“He won’t make her marry, and there’s no man asking for her,” Dafydd replied after he wiped his mouth on his woolen sleeve. “And he would die before he sent her away from home. You know that as well as I.”

“Spoiled she is,” Bran-Bron muttered, his leather jerkin creaking as he rubbed the crumbs from his hands. “Always was, always will be.”

Dafydd nodded and wrapped his hands around his mug. “That may be, but that’s the way it is, and he knows it better than we do. What else can we say to him?”

“We?”
Eifion squeaked. “I’m not going to try to tell Caradoc what to do when he’s like this. Value my head, I do.”

“He’s got a point, you know, Dafydd,” Jon-Bron said, toying thoughtfully with his mug. He glanced at the bailiff. “He won’t like having anybody telling him he should be doing something. Stubborn like that, isn’t he? We were, um, discussing this before you got here, and we think it would be best if
you
talked to him. Man to man, you know. Maybe you can suggest something to help. You’re his best friend, after all, and an expert with the women.”

Dafydd frowned. “I thought this was to be a united effort, not just me alone to beard the lion in his den.”

“But you would be
best
,” Jon-Bron insisted. “You have to see that.”

Dafydd sighed and downed the last of his ale before he replied. “Aye, I suppose I do,” he conceded. “Very well, I will speak to him. But what am I going to suggest he do? He won’t send Cordelia away, and I have to tell you, lads, quarrel or not, I don’t think he wants to send his wife away.”

“There’s those sheets,” Eifion reminded them sagely.

Dafydd grinned for the first time since he had arrived. “Aye, the sheets. Whatever bump they’ve hit in the road, I believe he likes her more than we know, and probably more than she does, either.” He sobered. “But they’ll never be able to make it up the way things are now, not with all the conflict in the hall. Peace has to be restored, so I think Ganore ought to go.”

Emlyn-Bron whistled. “By the saints, Dafydd, that’s almost like asking him to send away Cordelia.”

“Almost,” Dafydd replied, “but not the same. Ganore’s been a thorn in his side and a cross to bear all his life. She’s getting worse, too, in her old age, and she’s encouraging disrespect. The time has come for her to leave Llanstephan.”

“You think Caradoc will agree?” Bran-Bron asked warily, clearly believing he would not.

“I think he already understands that, but doesn’t want to upset Cordelia any more after their last quarrel,” Dafydd replied. “He loves his sister dear when all is said and done, maybe too dear. He’s given her her own way too many times.”

Eifion ran his long finger around the neck of his tunic, as if it had suddenly grown too tight. “You’ll tell him that?”

“I don’t have to. But knowing a thing and doing something about it can be two different notions,” Dafydd pointed out as he folded his arms on the table and leaned forward.

“She’ll have another fine fit if he tells Ganore to go,” Emlyn-Bron noted with a sigh.

“Aye, and that’s the problem. If it was just his misery, he would never do it. But it’s a choice he’ll have to make—try to make Cordelia content, or his wife.”

The others exchanged glances, as if they weren’t sure this was a good enough reason.

“As you say, I am his best friend,” Dafydd said as he straightened, determination in his brown eyes, “so trust me in this. He cares for Fiona, and if he won’t send Ganore away for his sake, he may do it for hers. I think that’s the only way to have a hope of peace in the castle.”

The men gravely nodded their assent.

“So we’ll leave it to your tender care, Dafydd, eh?” Eifion asked, obviously glad he wasn’t the one who was going to talk to Caradoc.

“Aye.”

“He should be in a good humor after we have a practice, or as good as he gets these days,” Jon-Bron noted as he got to his feet. “Very well he’s doing with his sword. He used to be so clumsy, I can’t think what happened.”

“Age, maybe,” Dafydd said as he, too, stood. “Or maybe it’s not having the glorious Connor about to be compared to.”

“Aye, could be,” Bran-Bron agreed, glancing at his brothers. “Not easy to be compared.”

Jon-Bron began to gather up the mugs. “Help me clear or Bronwyn will have our heads. Caradoc’s not the only one with a sister with a temper.”

Caradoc surveyed the large sacks of wool in the storeroom with some satisfaction. The stacked sacks reached all the way to the top of the stone walls, piled one on the other in rows.

Whatever else was amiss in his life—and there was much—between Fiona’s dowry and this year’s fleece, his financial troubles were definitely over.

“Are you trying to hide from me or what these days, Caradoc?” Dafydd demanded from the door.

Caradoc turned. “What is it? More sheep missing?”

“No, thank God,” Dafydd said, giving him a grin. “I think the thieves must have seen the error of their ways and repented. Either that, or the sight of the fearsome lord of Llanstephan riding about his estate has sent them scurrying away.”

“As long as they’re gone,” Caradoc replied, overlooking Dafydd’s jibe in his relief.

If the sheep thieves had taken themselves elsewhere, that would be one less worry to darken his days.

“Impressive,” Dafydd noted, nodding at the wool sacks as he sauntered inside—and it was, considering each sack held over two hundred pounds of fleece. “Remember the time you hid in here and fell asleep, and when you woke up in the dark, you thought you were surrounded by ghosts and screamed fit to make the walls fall down?”

Caradoc did remember. He had been terrified, for he had forgotten that freshly shorn wool was warm, so in the cooler night air, a mist would rise off it. Not only that, the fleeces stirred, making noises like soft whispers. He had been certain that a legion of evil spirits had surrounded him, ready to carry him off to hell.

He had been ten at the time, and Connor eight, and Connor wasted no time in telling the tale to anyone who wanted to listen. Caradoc wouldn’t be surprised to find out that Connor had regaled King Richard with the story on the road to the Holy Land.

His relatively good humor slightly spoiled by the recollection, Caradoc leaned back against the wool sacks and crossed his arms and ankles. “I don’t think you’ve come to reminisce.”

Dafydd likewise reclined against the stuffed sacks. “Why not?”

“Because it’s a fine sunny day and the village women are doing their washing at the river. Surely one or two of them should be claiming your attention, not me.”

“Maybe I’ve sworn off women,” Dafydd replied with an airy wave of his hand.

Caradoc raised a skeptical brow. “Oh, and the sun will not rise tomorrow?”

“Cur.”

“Varlet.”

“Blackguard.”

“Nit.”

Caradoc realized Dafydd must have something on his mind, or he wouldn’t be in the storeroom in the middle of the day. “Then I’ll wager you’ve come about Cordelia and our quarrel about her riding alone.”

Dafydd nodded. “Aye, that’s part.”

“I’ve made my decision about that, and thus it will be—and about time, too,” he finished firmly.

“Not criticizing you there, Caradoc.”

He didn’t show his relief that Dafydd agreed, although he was glad to think Dafydd didn’t consider him overly cruel for the restrictions he had finally placed on his sister’s freedom.

“I’ve come to talk to you friend to friend, Caradoc.”

Dafydd looked so serious, a sliver of dread scurried down his spine. He didn’t want to have a serious talk with Dafydd, especially when he feared he knew where this conversation would lead.

His relationship with his wife was his business, and nobody else’s, not even his best and oldest friend’s.

“We’re all worried about you, Bronwyn’s brothers and Eifion and me,” Dafydd explained. “You’re exhausted and your patience is as thin as an apple peel these days. That’s not surprising, though, considering somebody’s been after the sheep and your household is like a battleground. But the loss of some sheep, even to thieves, shouldn’t have you looking worse than when you had no money for your taxes. We lose more than a few over the winter. So, it’s the battleground, isn’t it?”

He spoke of the household, not his wife. Caradoc’s pride still urged him to deny that there was anything wrong, but he had suffered in silence for days.

“God save me, Dafydd,” he said with a sigh as he slid downward to sit on the floor, “I think my household has more conflict than the East.”

“Aye, I know,” Dafydd said sympathetically, sitting cross-legged beside him.

“Ganore’s the worst, of course,” Caradoc admitted. He rubbed his jaw, then shrugged his shoulders. “She simply won’t give Fiona a chance.”

Dafydd cleared his throat delicately. “Then don’t you think it’s time she left? It’s true Cordelia and some of the others would fault you for it, but surely you can see that your wife doesn’t stand a hope of being accepted here until Ganore is gone.”

He slipped into an uncannily accurate impersonation of the elderly woman. “‘Silken coverlet, pillows, carpets on the floor. Sinful luxury, that’s what it is, the brazen hussy! Incense it will be next, and all manner of decadence! I never thought I would see a Scot so free with money. Why didn’t she just throw it at Caradoc and then go away!’”

His imitation might have been funny, if it didn’t ring so true. “She said that?”

“Near enough. And she’s whispering about witchcraft, too. Nobody’s paid much heed to her—yet—because everybody knows she would claim Mary Magdalen was a witch if she knew Mary Magdelen had had red hair. But in time, Caradoc, especially if more sheep go missing and we don’t find the thieves…”

He didn’t have to finish.

Caradoc sighed and raked his hand through his thick hair.

“I can’t send her away, for Cordelia’s sake,” he said, voicing the justification he had given himself since Fiona had come. He also continued to hope that Fiona would be able to tame the surly Ganore. “She misses Connor, and our parents. I won’t force her to lose Ganore, too.”

Now Dafydd didn’t look nearly so sympathetic. “You may have to choose between making your wife happy, or your sister, Caradoc.”

An ultimatum. Friend or no friend, he hated ultimatums. Copy that scroll or go without food. Memorize every Latin irregular verb and repeat them without error or miss the Christmas feast. “I have already made Cordelia feel like a prisoner in her own home. It would be too much to send Ganore away, too.”

Dafydd laced his fingers, clasped his hands and regarded Caradoc with a serious intensity that was rare indeed. “Look you, Caradoc, I know you love your sister dear, but what about your wife? If you will not think of your own peace and happiness, what about hers? She’s suffering, Caradoc, a great deal. Can’t you see that? How long must it go on? Until she leaves you?”

Caradoc got to his feet, too agitated to sit. He knew Fiona was having a difficult time, but he had hoped—continued to hope—that she could overcome the animosity. That the time she spent alone with him would be enough to counter the struggle of the days. That she would know, somehow, how much he cared for her. Aye, and how much he needed her, too.