Bound to Her Blood Enemy Page 17

  “It was my sister that found him, see, along with his poor daughter, although I pray she was too young to understand. He’d got hold of a flask of belladonna and downed the lot. God have mercy on his soul.”

  Huw crossed himself, his heart wrung with pity. No one, let alone a child, should have to make such a discovery. No wonder she bore scars. Now his overriding impulse was to dash to the laundry yard, take Matilda in his arms, and promise he would never abandon her as her father had done.

  That would have to wait, though. There was a job to be done, and all his instincts told him the stable master would play a large part in it.

  “Did Comyn’s daughter marry Fitzjohn, then? Is that why he’s lord here now?”

  “No, poor lass. She’s been spared that, for now, at any rate. Fitzjohn already has a wife. Or, rather, had. I gather the poor woman has died. But getting back to William Comyn’s daughter, she was made Fitzjohn’s ward. It was a black day for her and Coed Bedwen when King Stephen made that decision. By all accounts, Fitzjohn’s kept the girl caged away and denied her a marriage. Ever since he’s had the management of Coed Bedwen, he’s been felling good timber and draining the land dry to fill his own coffers. There are those of us who—”

  The lame gelding chose that moment to whinny and stamp his foot. The noise seemed to recall the stable master to himself. He pushed himself upright and muttered, “Never mind. Get on with your work.” He retreated into the gelding’s stall.

  Huw knew better than to press further. The man was frightened, and so he should be if he was scheming against a man like Fitzjohn. He had probably felt able to confide in Huw because as a Welshman, he would be unlikely to hold any love for the Normans. But Huw’s mind buzzed, wondering what he had been about to say.

  Even more than the stable master’s possible conspiracy, however, the matter of Matilda’s father occupied his thoughts. He needed to see her as soon as possible.

  Accordingly, as soon as the stable master released him for the noonday meal, he dashed round to the laundry yard. Various garments and undergarments were stretched upon the drying racks, but the women had gone, probably to the meal. There was nothing for it but to go and eat and hope to speak to her before the afternoon’s work began.

  Matilda was with the laundresses and some other women at a trestle table near the door. There was no room for him, so he snatched a quick meal at another table and then left, catching her eye with a meaningful nod as he passed her table. The other women giggled and nudged her, obviously teasing Matilda, suspecting they were arranging a tryst.

  Heat pooled in his groin as he remembered their urgent, passionate coupling of last night. He thought back to his objections to bringing her on this mission with a wry grin. Would he have been so against it if he had known then how exciting a hasty tryst in a forbidden room could be? On the other hand, it was so much harder to concentrate on the mission when one’s mind was filled with lustful thoughts of ripe curves and a hot mouth.

  He paced along the edge of the cliff. Bloody hellfire, he’d better cool his thoughts down before he combusted.

  “Do you have news?”

  His heart leapt when Matilda appeared. Even in her stained, shapeless gown, she was a beautiful sight. The sunshine gave her skin a lustrous glow, and the guarded wariness that had previously haunted her expression was gone, replaced by an air of confidence.

  He brushed away a golden curl that peeped from beneath her coif, his fingers lingering on her jaw. Her eyes darkened, and he knew her thoughts had strayed to last night’s lovemaking.

  There was no reason why he couldn’t make the most of their meeting. He sat on the bank, at a point just before it steepened into the cliff edge and patted the patch of grass next to him. “Come and sit with me, Mallt. Seeing as we’re trysting lovers, we might as well act the part.”

  His pulse sped up when, with a smile, Matilda sat beside him and snuggled against his side.

  “I spoke with the stable master this morning,” he said. “He told me he used to work here in your father’s time.”

  Her muscles tensed beneath his arm. “Oh? Did he say anything about my father?” Her voice was light. Brittle. It was clear she didn’t want him probing her wounds, but now he had allowed himself to acknowledge his deepening feelings he wanted to do everything he could to help her. Heal her.

  “He told me he was a fair lord to work for. But…” there was no easy way to put this, so he plunged straight in. “He also said your father took his own life.”

  She twisted out of his hold. “You wormed it out of him, didn’t you? That’s what you do—make people tell you things that should remain hidden.”

  She scrambled to her feet and glared down at him, her arms spear-straight at her sides, fists clenched. “You knew I didn’t want to talk about him, so you went behind my back and found out anyway.” She choked on a sob and turned her back to him.

  Huw closed his eyes for a moment. So much for helping. What had he expected—Matilda to thank him for digging into her past, fling herself into his arms and say all was well? He gave a harsh laugh. He might be expert at worming out secrets, as Matilda put it, but he was a fool when it came to understanding women.

  Matilda turned. His gut twisted when he took in her red-rimmed eyes. “Are you laughing at me?”

  He climbed to his feet, shaking his head. “I’m laughing at myself, for being such a clumsy oaf.” When he put an arm around her rigid shoulders, she didn’t pull away. He let out a breath.

  “Forgive me, Mallt. Sometimes I get so embroiled in hunting out secrets that I don’t know when to stop. Just because you’re my wife, it doesn’t give me the right to force something from you that you don’t want to share. But I wanted to know about your father because it’s clear your father’s death scarred you deeply, and I can’t bear to see you hurting.”

  Matilda studied him, frowning, then her shoulders relaxed fractionally. “I forgive you. Now, tell me what you’ve discovered about the stable master, before we have to return to work.”

  She would have been more convincing had she not glared at him, fists clenched. Still, there was no time to pursue the matter of her father if she was determined to bury the truth. Not that he intended to give up, but there were more important concerns. He sat next to her and related the conversation with the stable master and his suspicions.

  “I don’t think I can get any further with him unless I can gain his trust,” he concluded. “He’s clearly nervous. And inexperienced.”

  “So how do you plan to do that?”

  “If we had more time, I could afford to act more cautiously. But with Fitzjohn here—looking for you—we must move fast. I want to take the stable master into my confidence.”

  “Tell him why you’re really here?”

  Huw nodded. “But this involves you, too. He knows we’re married. If I tell him who I am, I’ll have to tell him about you, also. Are you prepared to take that risk?”

  She plucked a blade of grass and studied it, her brow furrowed. “If you’re wrong, he’ll go straight to Fitzjohn.”

  “I’m not wrong.”

  She gave a grim smile. “This is where you’re asking me to trust you, isn’t it?”

  He nodded.

  She dropped the grass and wiped her hands. “In that case, when do we approach him?”

  Warmth flared in his chest. Just a week ago, she would never have trusted him so readily. With every passing day, her guard was lowering. He had to believe he would eventually gain her complete trust. “We?” he said. “It would be safer if I spoke to him alone.”

  “If we’re both at risk, we both talk to him. And anyway,” she looked down, blinking. Huw’s heart clenched when he saw tears beading on her lashes. “I want to see if he remembers me. With my father.”

  She drew up her knees and hugged them to her chest.

  Huw hesitated, then said, “I’m sorry about what happened. That was a terrible thing for a six-year-old to face.”

  There was a long
silence. From Matilda’s shuddering breaths, she was trying to control her tears.

  At length she said, “I didn’t understand what I’d seen at first. I saw the flask but didn’t know what it had contained. I think Alys must have destroyed it, probably to make sure my father received a Christian burial. For a long time, I believed the story that was put about, that he’d died after drinking himself into a stupor.”

  Huw hardly dared breathe. He wanted to take her in his arms, give her the comfort she’d never had at the time, but to do that might break the spell and close her off from him again.

  “It was only some time later, when Alys was teaching me about remedies, that I remembered the smell. Funny…the things you remember that seem so insignificant at the time. The first time she showed me belladonna, that ghastly smell took me straight back to the morning I walked into that chamber and found him. There was a litter of wine skins all around him, but I remembered the smell that clung to the flask by his side.”

  She wiped her face and when she spoke again, her voice was controlled, matter-of-fact. “I knew then what he’d done. He’d followed my mother. He loved her too much and me not enough.”

  Huw put his arm around her then, and she leaned against him but didn’t break down as he had expected.

  He couldn’t shake off the feeling that there was still more to discover. To find out her father hadn’t cared enough for her was a terrible thing, but did it really explain her mistrust? He dismissed the notion. First her father then Fitzjohn had let her down. They had hardly provided her with a good example of what a caring man should be like. But his instinct niggled at him that there was more.

  After her last outburst, however, he knew better than to pry where he wasn’t wanted.

  ****

  “Thank you,” Matilda said eventually, enjoying the comfort of Huw’s strong arm around her. “It’s difficult for me even to think about my father, but it has helped to talk about him.”

  She leaned her head against his chest. At every step, Huw had understood her, gone out of his way to show he cared. Maybe things between them really would be well when they were settled in their new lives, without having to plot or look over their shoulders at every step.

  And last night…last night had opened her eyes to whole new possibilities. Their physical closeness made her long for an emotional closeness, too. It had never occurred to her before that confiding her hopes and fears to Huw could ease her mind. Instead of feeling as though she had handed him more power over her, unburdening her heart had left her more carefree than she had been since her father’s death.

  Although she still hesitated to depend on him completely, she dared to imagine life with Huw as a joy not a trial to be endured.

  With her new-found confidence, she poured out more thoughts as they occurred to her. “It’s funny, isn’t it, how memories work,” she said. “I’d forgotten all about discovering my father until Alys showed me belladonna a few years later. But most of the time around then—between my mother’s death and my father’s—is a complete blank.”

  Huw stirred and looked down at her, frowning. “Well, you were very young. I don’t have clear memories from that age, either. Smells do recall memories, though. Only this morning, the smell of saddle soap took me right back to the day I tried to ride my great-uncle’s stallion, when I was five. Thankfully, his stable master found me and stopped me before I could do myself any harm.”

  “The stable master,” said Matilda, sitting up as a thought struck her. “Huw, how did he know my father had taken his own life? It was such a big secret.”

  “He said his sister told him. Apparently, she was there when you discovered your father.”

  “His sister? I was with Alys.” She gasped. “Of course! Her brother was a groom here. I never made the connection.”

  “You mean the stable master is Alys’s brother? She did mention she had a brother in the castle, now I come to think of it.”

  “I’m sure we can trust him, Huw. He taught me to ride. He was always kind to me.”

  Huw nodded. “We’ll speak to him tonight.”

  No question, no prompting her if he was sure she was right. She glowed at the respect and trust Huw demonstrated. Telling him about her father had been the right thing to do. It had deepened the trust between them. The trust she felt in him.

  ****

  They found the stable master alone in the stables, tending to the lame horse. The light was fading fast so all the lanterns hanging on the beams were lit.

  The stable master frowned when he saw them. “You should be resting,” he said. “There’s another hard day’s work for you tomorrow.”

  “I need to talk to you,” Huw said. “I wasn’t entirely honest with you earlier.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When I said I didn’t remember anything about last night, I was lying. I wasn’t drunk. I saw you come through the tunnel.”

  The stable master attempted to smile, but it looked like a grimace. “Tunnel? What tunnel? I think that wine must have addled your brain.”

  “I went through the tunnel after you’d gone. I know you had a meeting down by the river.”

  The stable master paled. In a hoarse voice he asked, “Have you reported me to Fitzjohn?” Perspiration beaded his brow, and he mopped it with a hand that trembled.

  Matilda’s heart twisted with pity. “That’s enough, Huw. Can’t you see you’ve frightened him half to death?”

  She took a deep breath. If they wanted his trust, they must trust him in return. Taking a step closer to the stable master, she said, “Don’t you remember me, Godric? It is Godric, isn’t it? Alys’s brother?”

  “That’s right. How did you—?”

  “Don’t you know me?” she repeated.

  Godric picked up his lantern and held it up to her face, frowning. “You do look familiar, now I come to look at you properly, but I can’t think—”

  “It’s me, Godric. Matilda Comyn. You were kind to me when I was younger, taught me to ride.”

  “Lord bless me, so it is! You’ve got the look of your mother about you, I can see that now. But what are you doing here, my lady, all…” He made a gesture that took in her splotched, rough gown and reddened hands. “And you’re married to a stable hand?”

  Huw shook his head. “Not a stable hand normally. We’re here on other business. After our…encounter last night and our chat today, I thought you might be able to help us.”

  The man gaped at them. “How?”

  “We’re trusting you with our lives,” Matilda said. “We have reason to believe that you, like us, want to oust Sir Reginald and his Normans from Coed Bedwen.” She studied his face, her heart pounding. Huw had trusted her judgement without question. She prayed she wasn’t mistaken, because if she was, she had just handed Godric the rope to hang them with.

  “Who were you meeting last night?” Huw asked.

  Godric swallowed, looking from Matilda to Huw. Then he seemed to make up his mind and nodded. “I was meeting with the folk who want to see Fitzjohn driven from Coed Bedwen.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  A knot of anticipation squeezed Matilda’s stomach. Godric’s information had brought them a step closer to their goal.

  Godric blotted more perspiration from his face. “Now I’ve placed my life in your hands, tell me who you’re working for.”

  “The king of Gwynedd,” Huw answered. “Coed Bedwen will become a fief of Gwynedd once more. Can you accept that condition?”

  Thinking it might be a stumbling block, Matilda spoke up. “I’m fully in agreement, Godric. I haven’t been coerced into this.”

  Matilda bunched her hands in the folds of her gown. If Godric couldn’t agree, what would happen then?

  Godric smiled and relief blossomed. “Bless you, my lady. Anyone can see you’re happy with your man, here. It would never have crossed my mind that you were forced into it. You two belong together.” He looked at Huw. “And I have no problem turning to the Welsh
. As I see it, the king of England has done precious little to protect anyone’s rights, bar his own. If the king of Gwynedd wants Coed Bedwen, then as long as he will protect the folk living within its bounds—even the English—then I’m happy.”

  Matilda had hardly taken in the last of this speech; she was too busy pondering Godric’s assessment of their marriage. Happy with Huw? It struck her then that if there was any man she could hope to find happiness with, it was Huw. He had treated her with respect, with tenderness. And time and again he had proved himself trustworthy.

  A leaden weight lifted from her heart. Hope blossomed. She had found the one thing she’d thought impossible: a man who made her feel secure and safe. Maybe when all this was over, she would indeed face a happy future with him.

  “Matilda?”

  She jumped, seeing Huw looking at her, eyebrows raised.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t hear what you said.”

  Huw frowned. “I assured Godric that as long as we oversaw Coed Bedwen, we would protect all its folk, whether Welsh, English, or even Norman, just so long as they accepted Welsh rule.”

  “Yes, of course.” She smiled at Godric, forcing herself to concentrate. The only way she could seize her chance of happiness with Huw was by retaking Coed Bedwen. “I am half Norman, half Welsh, remember. King Owain chose me to rule Coed Bedwen with Huw because as well as being the rightful heiress through my father, I have links to Welsh royalty through my mother. And though I may not have English blood, Alys is dear to me, and I promise to treat the English as fairly as I will the Welsh and any Normans that choose to remain.”

  Godric smiled. “Then I’m content, and the others will follow my lead.”

  “Very well,” said Huw. “Now to business. Tell me what your plans are. And who knows about the tunnel?”

  No matter that she should be paying attention to Godric, Matilda was unable to drag her eyes from Huw, the animated spark in his eyes at the prospect of action. Exactly how he made her feel.