Tempt Me With Kisses (32 page)

Fiona fell to her knees, unable to breathe, while Cordelia’s scream pierced the air as Iain’s knife had pierced the cloth.

Oh, God, oh, God
, she inwardly keened, her hands clasped as she rocked, but her eyes wide open as if closing them would kill him.
Save him. Help him. This is not his fault. It is mine, all mine. Do not make him pay for my folly and my pride with his life
.

“Is she worth it, Taffy?” Iain mocked, the sight of the blood making him bolder as he danced around Caradoc. “No beauty, Fiona, to die for. As for that old woman, I did you both a favor there. The tongue on her!”

Caradoc’s grim expression didn’t alter as he regarded his enemy. Still he pivoted slowly as Iain danced, as if he was uncertain what to do.

“Patience, man, patience!” Jon-Bron called out. “Wait for an opening.”

Did Caradoc hear his friend? She could not tell. Around her, the noise increased—Cordelia’s panicked cries, the men muttering, her own heart pounding as if it wanted to flee her body or kill her trying.

“You should have stayed in Dunburn, Fiona,” Iain sneered as his sword lashed out again, making Caradoc jump back. “Married the better man. Look at him—useless with a sword. Probably useless in every—”

Suddenly Caradoc swung his sword not at Iain’s chest, which was protected by the way he held his sword upright, or his arms, but at the calf of his leg.

A cry went up from the watching Welshmen as the blow connected with a sickening sound. Then, with a shriek of pain and dismay, Iain crumpled and fell, his sword dropping beside him. Fiona held her breath as Iain clutched his wounded limb, the blood pouring out from between his fingers while he groaned in writhing agony.

“Still think I’m useless?” Caradoc growled as he raised his sword to strike.

Chapter 15

“H
e just stood there looking at the man’s body for a while,” Jon-Bron said later in Bronwyn’s tavern, his mood as grim as a lost cause. The ale in his mug, and that of Dafydd and his brothers, warmed as it sat untouched on the table. “Not a word, not a sound. And then he walked over to Ganore. Cradled her like a child as he cut her down.”

Every man listening looked grave, and the place had been crowded with curious and concerned villagers as the tale of that day’s event spread like rushing wind down the valley.

“He said nothing to Fiona?” Bran-Bron asked softly.

“Nothing, and her kneeling there as white as a pillar of salt. He talked to Cordelia as he helped her to her horse and led her home, but he just left Fiona.”

Eifion wet his lips anxiously. “Didn’t
she
say anything? Or cry?”

“No. She went to her horse and followed them. I sent two of the men with her. I couldn’t leave myself, because we had the rest of the Scots to deal with. The leader of them that was left was quick enough to say the dead fellow was their clansman, so they had been duty-bound to come with him, but they had no quarrel with Lord Rhys or Caradoc, so they would go back to Scotland and call the matter settled.”

“Cowards,” Emlyn-Bron muttered under his breath.

“What, would you have had a battle?” Jon-Bron demanded, cuffing his younger brother on the back of the head. “A war between Welsh and Scot started here at Llanstephan?”

“Jon’s right,” Dafydd said. “Bad that would have been, to have something like that laid on our doorstep.” He returned his attention to the garrison commander. “Where is he now?”

“You know how he is,” Jon-Bron replied. “Goes to ground like a wounded bear. He’s in his solar, and who knows when he’ll come out?”

Dafydd sighed. “I’m that glad I wasn’t there to watch. I would have been beside myself, expecting him to be cut down like Goliath.”

“He’s improved, but by God, I never thought Caradoc would ever be able to beat anybody in a fight,” Jon-Bron agreed, “let alone kill a man. Not got it in him, I thought. I tried to talk him out of it, but the eyes of him! He would have attacked me if I had touched him, I think. A warrior after all, our Caradoc, for that Iain was as good as any I’ve seen. Fast, like a fox.”

“Caradoc got him in the leg first, eh?” Emlyn-Bron asked as he wiped up a bit of spilled ale with his finger. “Not the usual thing to do.”

“Aye, but it worked. Then brought down his sword like a headsman’s ax,” Jon-Bron said.

“I wish I’d seen that,” Bran-Bron remarked. “Must have been some blow.”

The others gave him a disgusted look.

“Well, I do,” he mumbled, finally lifting his ale either because he was truly thirsty or to hide his embarrassment. “He’s strong, is Caradoc.”

The others grudgingly conceded his point.

“What about our lady?” Bronwyn demanded as she set down new mugs of ale. “How is she?”

They started, not having seen Bronwyn approach in the dimness.

“I don’t know,” Jon-Bron replied, taken aback by both her appearance and her question. “I didn’t go into the hall. Too much weeping and wailing for me over Ganore. Cordelia crying a storm, and the other women sobbing.” His expression hardened. “Besides, it’s all Fiona’s fault with her secret lover—”

Bronwyn rapped him on the head so hard and so sharply with her knuckle, the brawny soldier cried out in pain.

“All her fault!” she chided, her hands on her hips and her eyes fairly glowing with disgust. “She made a mistake. She had a lover who tricked her so she left him and found a man who deserved her. It’s as obvious as that nose of yours, Dafydd, that the man was a lout. What other kind of man would come all the way here after her and demand to be compensated because she jilted him? He should have been too ashamed of himself.”

“You seem to know a great deal about what happened,” Dafydd muttered into his mug.

Bronwyn tossed her raven tresses. “One of Lord Rhys’s men stopped by here and told me about it. And I’ve met a few smooth, handsome men like that Scot. Fairly live to trick honest women, they do, and it’s a mercy to my sex that Caradoc has rid the world of one of them. Aye, and not just women, I don’t doubt. A dishonorable blackguard like that cheats everybody.” She waved her hand at them. “Now drink up and be gone. I’m that put out with the lot of you!”

She turned on her heel and marched off toward the kitchen.

“Well, she’s certainly on Fiona’s side,” Jon-Bron unnecessarily noted after a moment’s silence.

Dafydd cleared his throat. “So am I. She loves Caradoc dear, and I think we should give her another chance. I hope he will, and if he asks my advice, that is what it will be.”

“I doubt Cordelia will agree,” Eifion observed. “I’m foreseeing a leaving, and I don’t think it’s going to be his sister.”

Dafydd sighed wearily. “I hope that proves as true as the rest of your predictions.”

“Dafydd?” a woman’s voice whispered in the still of the night.

Sleepless, he swiftly sat up and peered into the darkness surrounding him. “Who is it? What do you want?”

“It’s me, Rhonwen.”

“Rhonwen? What is it? What more has happened?”

She reached out and patted him comfortingly on the arm. “Nothing more,” she assured him. “But I must speak to you nevertheless.”

Dafydd quickly got out of bed. He struck flint and steel to make a light. The rush flared up before settling back into a steady flame, revealing Rhonwen’s face still red and puffy from crying.

Her gaze flicked down his naked body. Surprisingly embarrassed by her swift inspection, although plenty of women had seen him naked before, he pulled on his breeches and tunic.

“Now then,” he said, sitting back on his bed. “Why have you come to me in the dead of night, Rhonwen? I hardly think you intend to seduce me.”

“How can you say such a thing at a time like this?” she demanded as her eyes filled with more tears. One slipped and caught on her lash, trembling for a moment before it fell upon her cheek.

“I’m sorry. Habit, that is, and wrong of me now.” He took hold of her slender hands in his and rubbed them to warm them. Very small and very frail they felt, despite the calluses of hard work.

“What brings you here?” he asked with gentle sincerity.

“Lord Caradoc has gone into the solar and he hasn’t come out. You know it might be days before he does.”

“Aye. He’s acted this way before. He’ll come out eventually.”

Rhonwen’s expression turned fierce. “But in the meantime my sweet and gentle lady is sitting outside the solar waiting for him. She’s been there since she returned, and she refuses to leave that drafty tower. She says she’s going to stay there until he’ll talk to her.”

“By the saints,” Dafydd murmured, running his hand over his forehead. “Do you think she means it?”

Rhonwen grimly nodded. “Aye, she does, and she looks that resolved, I think she will, no matter how cold or stiff she gets.”

“He’ll come out when he’s hungry,” Dafydd offered, trying to be hopeful.

“That doesn’t mean he’ll talk to her. You know how he can be, like after his parents died.” She clasped her hands and regarded Dafydd anxiously. “He’ll listen to you, though. You can make him come out.”

Dafydd shook his head, a mournful expression on his face. “No, I can’t. I’ve tried before when his parents died and it was no use.” He eyed Rhonwen speculatively. “What about Lady Fiona? Can’t you try again to get her to go? She likes you, and justly so.”

A look passed over Rhonwen’s face, as if his words had been a compliment she hadn’t expected.

The look disappeared as quickly as it came.

“I’ve tried,” she said despondently. “I’ve been trying all night, but she just says she has to talk to her husband and she’ll wait there until she can. I took her a stool and a blanket, but she’s going to get sick if she sits in that tower too long. If he won’t come out and she won’t leave, what are we to do?”

He sighed and once more warmed her cold hands in his. “I don’t know if there is anything we
can
do. I think they’re both that stubborn.”

“But won’t you
try
?” Rhonwen pleaded, her soft brown eyes begging him in a way that went straight to the hidden, serious center of his heart. “They love each other and it’s breaking my heart. I heard all about it in the kitchen. I don’t say my lady was right not to tell him everything, but I can understand why she didn’t. He should, too. His pride is hurt, but that’s no reason—”

She burst into tears and covered her face with her slender hands.

Dafydd pulled her into his arms and gently embraced her. “It just so happens I agree with you, and so do other people.”

After a moment, he sat back and wiped her tears from her cheek with his thumb. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Sniffling, she smiled, her lips quivering. She reached out for the rushlight as he drew on his boots.

As she led the way to the door, the glow illuminated her face, and it occurred to Dafydd that it would be a wonderful thing to wake in the night with that pretty, loyal woman lying softly beside him.

Her forehead resting upon her knees, her back against the unyielding stones of the wall, Fiona waited as she had waited for hours before this. Inside the solar, Caradoc made no sound. He had made no sound since she had arrived. She had knocked and pleaded and knocked again, all to no avail.

She could imagine the thoughts running through his head, and she did not fault Caradoc for them. She had drunk from the same cup of bitterness. She, too, had been deceived, as Caradoc had been deceived by her.

For whatever reason, she had tricked him with that blood. She had been wrong not to tell him about Iain, and foolish to believe that she could put her past completely and secretly behind her. She should have realized that Iain would not countenance anything like a rejection, for unlike Caradoc, he was a vain and selfish man.

But now, after hours had passed, she could not accept Caradoc’s continuing solitude, or that their situations were exactly the same. She had offered Caradoc only her dowry and her body, but she had given him her heart. She felt
more
for Caradoc than she had promised, not less. Surely he could see that. Surely he would realize that she was not like Iain. Yes, she had been wrong to deceive him on their wedding night, but at the time, she thought she had no choice. She had not known Caradoc well then, and feared that he would demand an explanation that her pride made her loath to give.

He had said the Welsh didn’t put as much stock in virginity as others. Had that been a lie? Or had the Norman part of him proven stronger than the Welsh when it came to that? Was his pride so sorely wounded, their relationship was destroyed?

She had to find out, and she would stay here until she could.

Weary from her long vigil, she closed her eyes, hearing again Cordelia’s wrenching sobs that had not abated by the time she had returned to the hall. Indeed, coupled with the crying of the other women, it seemed worse.

And then had come Cordelia’s fierce accusations. “She would still be here if not for you! She would still be
alive
!”

It was the truth. Remorse for this, too, filled her, even as she tried to convince herself that the woman’s death was not her fault. Iain had done the deed. His hand had struck the fatal blow.