Читать книгу The Welsh Lord's Mistress - Margaret Moore, Paul Hammerness - Страница 5

Llanpowell, Wales, 1205

Her heart racing, Bron stared at the man standing in the great hall of Llanpowell. She would know him anywhere, even though he had changed.

Trefor ap Gruffydd, disgraced son of the late lord of Llanpowell, had come home at last. The feud with his younger brother Madoc was finally over.

“Bron, take Owain to the kitchen. I think he’d probably like some bread or soup,” Madoc, the lord of Llanpowell, ordered, reminding her of the other shock they’d received that day-that the little boy standing beside Trefor was not Madoc’s son, but Trefor’s, a secret Madoc had kept since the lad’s mother had died giving birth to him six years ago. “Or honey cakes?” the five-year-old asked, his voice clear and confident, as befit the son of a nobleman.

“Yes, my lord,” Bron dutifully replied, smiling, although she wanted to stay and study Trefor’s altered visage. Where before there had been only ease and merriment in his blue eyes rimmed with black, now there was a cold wariness. His well-muscled, broad-shouldered body was leaner and harder, his face more angular and thin, providing ample proof that the formerly pampered son of the late lord of Llanpowell had become a battle-hardened warrior.

“Thank you, Bron,” Trefor said. “You haven’t changed a bit.”

She flushed and said nothing, but it was thrilling to think that the noble son of the household remembered a poor serving wench who’d been little more than a girl when he’d been sent away. She felt as if she could fly right up to the beams holding the high slate roof.

Or perhaps he simply said that to flatter her as he would any woman, Bron thought as she led Owain to the kitchen, her excitement dwindling as quickly as it had kindled. Trefor had always been a charming fellow, the favored eldest son destined for a happy, blessed life, until he’d come drunk to his own wedding and fresh from a brothel. The bride’s family had been so upset, they’d threatened to end an alliance that had lasted three generations. To prevent that, Trefor’s younger brother, Madoc, had married the bride and been named his father’s heir.Ever since, and although Trefor had been given a small estate by his father, the brothers had been sworn enemies, until today, when Madoc had revealed the truth about Owain’s parentage and so made peace between them.

“Is it true?” Hywel, the cook, demanded as Bron and Owain entered the kitchen. “Not Madoc’s son at all, but Trefor’s?”

“Aye,” Bron replied, realizing the other kitchen servants were likewise standing idle.

“The very eyes of him, to be sure!” Rhonwen exclaimed, her hands still covered in flour although her bread bowl stood neglected.

Owain’s grip on Bron’s hand tightened, and Bron hurried to set him more at his ease.

“Are there any honey cakes?” she asked as she led the boy to a bench beside one of the worktables in the vast, warm kitchen.

“There are,” Lowri, an older woman, confirmed, leaving the leeks she’d been chopping for stew. “I’ll fetch you some.”

On her way to the storeroom, Lowri paused to whisper to Rhonwen and glanced pointedly at Bron, who caught Trefor’s name and blushed. She should have been more guarded about her admiration of the lord’s son and kept her dismay to herself when he’d been cast out. It was too late to change that, but she must hide her feelings better now. .

Lowri returned with two small honey cakes, and the boy devoured them as if he’d been starving.

“Is Trefor staying,” Rhonwen asked, “or will he be going back to Pontyrmwr before nightfall?”

“I don’t know,” Bron truthfully replied and as if she didn’t particularly care.

“Go and ask,” Hywel ordered. “I’ll have to know for…”

The cook fell silent when Trefor himself strolled into the kitchen. “Well, Hywel, still here, I see,” he remarked, his deep voice as smooth and musical as a minstrel’s.

The Voice of Temptation, women used to call him and justly so, although he’d never tried to seduce Bron. He’d never paid any attention to her at all.Hywel nodded a greeting as he wiped his hands on the apron spread across his ample middle.

“And Rhonwen and Lowri, too. Like old times, eh?”

So, he remembered them all. Clearly she had been a fool to assign any significance to his memory of her. He also obviously still possessed the charm that had made him such a favorite with noble and peasant alike.

“Have you had enough to hold you until supper, my son?” he asked Owain, joy in his voice when he called the boy his own.

It must have meant so much to him to learn he had a child by the woman he had loved, even if he’d lost Gwendolyn to Madoc and then the grave.

Owain nodded as he warily regarded the man with eyes so like his own.

“Will you show me about the castle, Owain?” Trefor asked. “It’s been years since I was anywhere in Llanpowell except the courtyard and Madoc tells me he’s made a few changes.”

Owain looked desperately at Bron. “I haven’t been here in a long time, either, have I, Bron?” he protested. “Maybe you should take him.”

Trefor’s dark brows rose. “You think I should let Bron take me?”

The lad’s suggestion had been innocent enough, but when Trefor ap Gruffydd repeated it, with that voice and that look in his eye, the words took on a very different meaning—one that wasn’t lost on the other servants in the kitchen, either, as Bron’s swift survey revealed.

“Well, Bron, shall I defer to my son?” Trefor prompted.

Never had the kitchen seemed so quiet.

What choice did she have? Trefor was the lord of Pontyrmwr, if not Llanpowell, and she was just a servant. “If that is what you wish, my lord.”

“My brother has been busy,” Trefor remarked as he stood beside Bron on the battlements overlooking the outer wall of Llanpowell. “I knew he’d built up the outer defenses and added buildings, but I had no idea he’d done so much.” He leaned back against one of the merlons. “At least the hall’s the same, or I’d think I was somewhere else completely.”

Bron nodded in response and continued to look out over the wall, away from Trefor and his broad shoulders and strong arms crossed over his muscular chest. Although he was plainly attired in leather tunic, breeches and boots, with his sword belt slung low around his narrow hips, he looked as regal as a king. He always had and, she suspected, always would, no matter what difficulties beset him.

“I confess I was surprised to see you, Bron,” he continued. “I thought you’d be married and have a gaggle of children by now. You’re about nineteen, aren’t you?”

He remembered her age? “Aye, my lord.”

Surely a pretty girl like you has had offers.”

Yes, she had, but not from the man she’d dreamed about—dreams as real as life, except that in her dreams, she was a lady and thus worthy to be Trefor’s bride and share his life.

His bed.

In her dreams they had made love countless times. Sometimes he was tender, whispering words of endearment and encouragement with his wonderful voice as he kissed her and his hands stroked her body. Other times he approached with more lusty determination. Her response was eager, fervent, for in her dreams, there were no consequences to making love with the man she had admired since she was a girl.

“Madoc didn’t refuse to allow a marriage, did he?”

“There was nobody I cared to marry, my lord,” she managed to answer as a blush heated her face. Except you, and that can never be.

“I can’t believe you’ve found no one to wed in all the time I’ve been gone.”

His words were a torment, as if he were rooting about in her heart. “I’m not a lady or rich man’s daughter,” she reminded him. “I have little to offer a husband.”

“I wouldn’t say that, Bron,” he replied, running a measuring gaze over her.

Other men had looked at her with lust. More than one had laid hands on her, to be rebuffed and rebuked, told by Lord Madoc that his servants weren’t to be used for their pleasure.

This was different. Embarrassing, and yet exciting, too.

What would she do if he did more than look? If he took her in his arms, kissed and caressed her intimately? If he maneuvered her back against the stone wall, raised her skirts and…

Shocked by her own brazen, lustful thoughts, she said the first thing that came into her head. “You have yet to marry, too, my lord, although Lady Gwendolyn has been dead for many years.”

He reared back as if she’d slapped him.

“I’ve dawdled here long enough” he snapped as he started toward the steps leading to the yard below.

Silently berating herself for mentioning his lost beloved, Bron watched him go. Again.