Rexanne Becnel (29 page)

The man nodded, but his brow creased in thought. “I count five children.”

Cleve also nodded. He sent Wynne a sidelong glance. “I will explain everything to you.”

Lord William let out a noisy breath. “So be it. Anne, Bertilde. See to our guests’ rooms. Catherine, Edeline, they will wish some sustenance while Sir Cleve and I speak, but not in the hall. Clear the hall. The meal proper shall wait on us.”

The four women jumped to his command. For a moment Wynne forgot her fears as she tried to determine which one might be Edeline. But then she reminded herself sternly that she did not care. Who Cleve was to wed mattered not a whit to her.

“Come with me,” Cleve said, taking hold of her horse’s bridle.

“I must see to the children first,” she replied. “You and your arrogant Lord William will just have to wait.”

But he ignored her completely, and that cut her to the quick. “Druce. Barris. You can supervise the children while Wynne and I speak with Lord William.” Then he addressed the wide-eyed children. “Arthur, there is nothing to fear here. I want you to be brave and set a good example for the rest. Rhys and Madoc, you were both very brave outside. Can you be just as brave inside?”

The twins shared a look, then slowly their two heads bobbed assent.

“And you girls, Isolde and Bronwen. You shall both be treated as fine ladies at Kirkston. If you wish a bath, or a pastry, you have but to ask. Druce and Barris will be near. And Wynne and I shall return very soon. Will you be all right?”

Not to be outdone by her brothers, Isolde nodded gamely. Bronwen clung to Barris, but she, too, finally murmured her agreement.

Had it not been for her reluctance to upset the shaky calm Cleve had wrought, Wynne would have objected, and loudly, to his presumption. But the children were too round-eyed and their peace of mind too precarious for Wynne to risk unsettling them once more.

She waited, fuming, as he dismounted, then came to help her down. His touch was sure and easy as he lifted her from her mare, and she had to try very hard to ignore the shiver of recognition she felt to have his hands upon her so. But once on her feet, she shook off his grasp and gave voice to her fury.

“Do not think to treat me like a piece of baggage,” she muttered in the shelter of the horses.

He gave her a considering look. “ ’Tis time to trust me, Wynne. I told you the time would come, and so it has. Leave this to me.”

“Leave it to you? Just hand over one of these helpless children to you and this … this band of thugs and runagates?”

“Does Lord William look the thug?” he asked in a maddeningly calm voice.

“He is old and infirm now, but seven years ago—What of seven years ago? He was a thug then. And a rapist!”

It was at that inopportune moment that Lord William appeared from around the rump of Wynne’s mare. He was stiff with anger, and it was clear he’d heard her last words.

“How unfortunate that she speaks our language so well,” he bit out angrily. “You would do well to put a guard on your tongue, wench. Here in England we do not condone such disrespect from our womenfolk.”

Wynne rounded on him, her chin outthrust and her fists clenched, fully prepared to let fly with all the furious words that begged to be set free. She meant to flay him with them. But Cleve stood at her side, and he obviously guessed her intentions. Before she could open her mouth he jerked her roughly to his side.

“She is tired, milord—”

“I’m angry, not tired.”

“She is distraught over this matter—”

“I am outraged that someone could try to steal—”

“She has raised these five children all alone.”

“And not one of them bears a drop of your blood—”

With that last of her interruptions Cleve clamped his hand over her mouth. Though she struggled and clawed, and elbowed him in his ribs as hard as she could, his hand did not give.

“She has been mother to them all these six years past,” Cleve spoke as fast as he could. “She cannot yet resign herself to parting with even one of them.”

“Then why did you bring her along on this journey? And why bring all the other children?” Lord William snapped. “Achh! I do not wish to stand here and argue like two dogs over a bone. Bring the wench inside.” So saying, he turned and limped away.

Wynne’s gaze followed him, shooting daggers at his broad back, wishing she could strike him down with only her eyes. She would break his other leg. Or pluck out his heart from his chest, except that he had none.

Her silent invective was cut short, however, by a furious oath from Cleve. He whirled her around and pushed his face almost nose to nose with hers. “Are you a complete fool? Or perhaps merely out of your head!”

“Both, it appears! A fool to think anything good of you. Anything! And out of my head with fury. I should have poisoned the lot of you—”

“Keep silent, woman.” He shook her so hard her teeth rattled. “Keep silent and do not speak again until you’ve thought out your words.”

Inexplicably tears started in her eyes. Had she been able, she would have brushed them away. But his hold on her prevented it, so they spilled hot and salty down her cheeks.

“Ah, sweet mother of God,” Cleve muttered. For a moment their eyes met and held, and she saw the conflicting emotions he felt. “Wynne, just … I don’t know. Just try to calm yourself. Speak to Lord William—No, let me do the talking. Just answer any question he directs to you and try to keep your emotions under control.”

“Wynne?” Druce and Barris appeared, the children in a cluster behind them. “Shall we stay with you?”

She took a shaky breath and tried to blink back her tears. “No. No, I … we … we shall speak a little while with this Lord William, and then I’ll seek you out.” She wiped her face with the backs of her hands when Cleve released her, then she turned to her friends and children with the ghost of a smile on her lips. “I’m all right, and so shall we all be. Go along, now.”

Once they had departed, she took several slow, calming breaths. “Are you ready now?” Cleve asked.

She refused either to answer him or to look at him. She was not ready. How could she ever be ready to lose one of her children? But she was as ready as she’d ever be to confront Lord William. Without a word she turned away from Cleve and strode stiffly toward the stone steps and the double wooden doors behind which her worst enemy awaited.

The great hall at Kirkston was easily three times the size of the hall at Radnor Manor. The ceiling soared high enough that a full gallery was fitted at either end. In the middle of one long wall was a huge fireplace, large enough to roast an entire boar, Wynne estimated. Lord William’s wealth was evident everywhere she looked. The display of plate upon the surveying board. The huge embroidered tapestry hanging above the wide mantel. Even the generous number of candle branches attested to it. His housekeeping, too, was well managed, if the freshness and abundance of the rushes were any indication.

But the fineness of his abode only caused her to hate him all the more. He already had so much. Must he have one of her children as well?

The lord of the demesne had seated himself on a substantial chair made of English oak and oxhide. Two servants hovered near him, setting pewter mugs and a ewer on the table before him, but at a sharp gesture of his hand they scurried away. Only when the hall was absent of all but the three of them did Lord William speak.

“Which child is mine?” From beneath his thick, beetling brows his eyes jumped from Cleve to Wynne, then back to Cleve. “Which is mine?”

“One of the boys, sire,” Cleve replied. “We’ve narrowed it down to either the twins or the other boy, Arthur. But beyond that …” He shrugged. “If you could remember some further detail. Perhaps something of their mother, or the circumstances of—”

“The circumstances of what?” Wynne broke in. “Do Englishmen put to memory each time they brutalize a woman? Rape her? Do they commit the act to memory so they may trot it out to savor again and again—to boast and brag? Your victims’ suffering never ceases, yet fat old men like you recount their exploits—”

Cleve’s harsh grasp on her arm put an end to her diatribe. But in truth Wynne could hardly go on. Too many awful memories of the past assailed her. Sweet Maradedd had saved her younger sister, but at what a cost to herself.

Keeping a death grip on her upper arm, Cleve addressed Lord William. “Milord, I implore you not to judge her words too harshly. We have traveled long and hard, and she is not pleased to lose a child she has loved so long—”

“So you said before,” Lord William barked. He leveled an angry glare upon Wynne. “Who are you, wench? How came you to have possession of a child of mine?”

The very presumptuousness of his words chased Wynne’s overpowering sorrow away and replaced it with a burning rage. “They are all the results of English rape upon Welshwomen.
Milord.
Their mothers are gone—all except one who was but a child when she was so viciously raped—”

“You?” he interrupted.

That brought her up short, and she began to shake with impotent fury. “No. Not I. I was saved by my elder sister. She hid me. In my stead she was raped. Over and over. By more men than could ever be counted.”

For a long moment her words hung in the air, ugly and cold, like an ominous storm cloud caught within the hall. Hovering. Waiting to destroy them all.

“I did not rape my Angel,” Lord Somerville vowed in a voice gone thick with emotion. “No. Not ever.”

A bitter smile twisted Wynne’s lips. “I wonder if she would say the same.”

“Hear the man out,” Cleve whispered. His hand slid up and down her arm a fraction, as if he hoped to encourage her.

“She loved me,” the old man swore, surprising both Wynne and Cleve with his vehemence. “And I loved her,” he added more softly.

For a moment Wynne was hard-pressed to reply, for Lord William’s face was contorted in an agony of remembrance. But her brief stab of pity for him was swiftly replaced by the more comfortable emotion of contempt.

“You loved her? You raped her—no, even if your claim not to have raped her is true, you still left her, alone and pregnant, shamed before her people. For seven years you did not care for her. Now you want any child of that union. Any
son,
that is. You will understand, of course, why I scoff to hear that you loved her.”

Again Lord William surprised her. She expected anger and outrage at her impudent sarcasm, at her clear disgust. But he only stared at her, a haunted expression on his face.

“Did she … did she ever speak of me?”

The heat seemed to dissolve from her anger. Even Wynne could not ignore the abject misery she witnessed in the aging lord opposite her. She started to speak, then hesitated and shook her head in confusion. For an instant she met Cleve’s piercing stare, and once again his hand slid along her arm.

Oh, but this was too illogical. Too confusing.

She focused again on Lord William, willing away any softening of her feelings for this man. Toward both of them.

“I did not ever meet any of the children’s mothers. Save my own sister, who was mother to Isolde.”

He held her eye. “Where are they, then? Why do you have these children?”

Wynne considered her answer. But in truth there would be nothing lost in speaking the truth. She’d done as much to Cleve, and still there was no proof of who fathered any of her children.

“My sister is dead,” she began, keeping her explanation brief and her voice cool. It was the only way she could keep the horror of those times at bay. “She was never right after the rape. She flung herself from a cliff once the child was born. Bronwen’s mother was but eleven when she was raped. Her parents told her the babe died and they gave the child to me to raise. As for the boys, their mothers are dead.” She saw him wince, but pressed on. “Arthur’s mother died a few days after giving him birth. The twins’ mother died when they were barely walking. Her husband would not raise them once she was gone.”

She took a deep breath, relieved as always that her dreadful tale was done. But her gaze never left Lord William. “I raised them all as my own. I am mother to them. They know no other than me.”

If she’d thought to shame him, she realized right away that she’d failed. He did not bluster as before. His arrogant and possessive demeanor had been reduced to one more humble and beseeching. But he did not forget his quest.

“Which child—which boy—is my Angel’s?”

Once again her anger flared. But before she could respond, Cleve spoke up.

“We cannot be certain, milord. That is why I brought all of them to Kirkston. Perhaps together we can determine the answer to that.”

Lord William’s gaze remained on Wynne. “And shall you aid us in this task?”

Slowly she shook her head. A lump formed in her throat, and she closed her eyes to avoid the man’s beseeching gaze. But that was a mistake, for she was at once overcome by a horrifyingly clear vision of the manor house in Radnor Forest. So vivid was the vision, she could have sworn she was back home. Only there was something wrong.

Wynne jerked her eyes open when she recognized just what it was. There were no children in her vision. No childish voices or giggles. All was quiet and still, just as this hall was. Quiet as death. Empty of life.

Lord William faced her with an almost desperate expression on his coarse, lined face. Cleve waited just at her side, yet she sensed his tension and his anticipation. It emanated from him and seemed to mirror her own confusing emotions. For an aching moment she wondered why he of all men must tap so deeply into her emotions. He tore at that part of her heart that was her very own. And now Lord William tore at the rest of it, that portion that so fiercely loved her children.

Between the two of them they would surely kill her.

Once again she shook her head, steeling herself to speak and behave as if she were not bleeding inside. “I cannot help you.”

T
HEY PARTOOK OF A
sumptuous meal. The five children, Wynne, Druce, Barris, and Cleve all joined Lord William and his daughters and sons-in-law at the high table. But it was not a jovial meal.