His tone was light and bantering, but there was no answering lightness in her. All she could see was the deep blue of his eyes as he looked at her, the perfect angles of his face. He was so painfully handsome.

Then she heard her mother’s accusing voice, for this you say me no, and dropped her eyes again to her own lap.

It was not true. And yet, she knew that there was truth in it. She knew that she did not want to be where he was not.

“Will you tell the king?” she asked, her voice a brittle thing.

He answered without hesitation.

“Not now,” he said. “Not yet. But in spring, if she acts–”

“Madog will write me and say. We will have warning enough. If she acts.”

In a moment, she would break. She could only see her mother’s shocked face, the hurt there, and the betrayal. The tears that had gathered in her eyes.

“Then there is naught to tell the king,” he answered.

She nodded, still looking fixedly at her knees. His hand came toward her, moved to the veil she wore over her hair, and a harsh sound escaped her.

“Gwenllian,” he said, his voice full of a tenderness she had never heard in it.

She felt his touch on her face, but she could not look up at him. She reached to pull his hands a little away from her, holding them in hers, palms up. They were broad, calloused with years of swordplay, strong.

She lowered her face into his hands and wept like a child. For her mother, for her men. For the thing she had done, and because it could never be undone, she wept.

CHAPTER 15

––––––––

From high above, he watched her. Though he could see only the top of her white veil, there was no mistaking the purposeful stride, the broad shoulders and long limbs that were so unlike the slight woman who walked next to her. She was as comfortable at Morency, it seemed, as he was uneasy.

In the weeks since Lady Eluned had left, Gwenllian had turned to her duties as Lady of Morency with a focus and ferocity more suited to her swordplay. Ever moving, ever planning and anticipating, relentless purpose. She had gathered a few attendants, wives and daughters of his knights whom she commanded as she had commanded men. With his own eyes, he could see there was none of the easiness that there had been between her and Suzanna. These were not trusted friends, nor well-loved companions as her men-at-arms had been. They were but women who served her as she commanded.