Mary Reed McCall (8 page)

Catching herself smiling at the thought of his discomfort, Gwynne grasped her layers of skirts more tightly around her legs and picked up her pace. Aye, ’twould be interesting to see just how Aidan would react when he realized that she knew what he’d been up to tonight.

Very interesting, indeed.

Diana pressed back into the shadows, fisting her hands as her breathing slowed. That had been close. Only a few seconds more and she would have been spotted.

She closed her eyes and leaned her head against the smooth stone of the brewhouse wall. She’d gotten one good look inside the Welshmen’s chamber before they’d surprised her with their return. She’d been so startled that she’d almost fallen from her hay perch; as it was, her skirt had caught on something and torn when she’d jumped away to hide.

She looked down now at the ragged edge of her gown, her heart beating faster as she remembered the way the younger of the two men—the one they called Owin—had looked right to the place where she’d been crouched in the
gloom, his mysterious dark gaze leaving her breathless and tingling.

But then he’d gone inside with his older friend, and she’d made her getaway.

Diana wrapped her arms around her waist now, excitement and fear giving way to dark anticipation. Because in the one moment she’d had to look inside the men’s chamber, she’d seen something that was worth all the aggravation she’d endured thus far. Something that, shocking as it was, might prove exceedingly useful in her plan to rid Dunston Castle of the troublesome woman whom Aidan had taken in, claiming her as one of their own.

Diana tapped her fingertip against the soft, full curve of her bottom lip, thinking about exactly how she might make the most of this unexpected boon. She would have to be careful, to be sure, but the possibilities were too delicious to resist. Because tonight she’d seen Gwynne ap Morrison reclining on a pallet in her countrymen’s empty chamber, calm as could be…

And she’d been dressed as a
man
.

“W
hat do you mean, I’ve been spying on you?” Aidan asked, trying to sound indignant, even as he turned his face aside to prevent Gwynne from seeing the guilt he knew must be there. They’d met here in the clearing for her first dancing lesson, and the last thing he needed was for her attention to be diverted from the pleasure of the activity by a dose of righteous anger at him.

“I’ve no need to spy in my own castle,” he added for good measure. Pretending to dismiss the idea, he unsheathed his sword, dropped to one knee, and ripped off a handful of dry grass to rub down the blade, wondering how in God’s name the woman had learned that he’d been watching her train.

“There’s no need to hide it, de Brice. I know it was you. Just admit it and be done.”

Aidan stopped what he was doing and looked up at her, almost certain he’d caught a whisper of pleasure in her voice as she’d berated him. Her complaints rang more
with feigned outrage than anything else, he’d bet his boots on it.

Deciding to play out his hunch to its end, he leaned back and asked, “Even if someone
were
spying on you, Gwynne, what makes you think it was me?”

“No one else would have reason to watch me,” she answered, tipping up her chin to look down at him, though the disdainful gesture lacked conviction.

He kept his gaze intent upon her, and his attention was quickly rewarded with a delicate flush of pink on her cheeks. Ah, yes, his intuition had been right; there was more going on here than met the eye.

A smile pulled at his lips. A skillful warrior she might be, but it appeared that when it came to the subtle tensions that could play between men and women, she was as much of an innocent as ever. Slowly he stood to face her, so near that he felt her startle and heard her breathing go shallow at his movement. He leaned in closer…then a bit closer…

“And what do you think was
my
reason for watching you, Gwynne?” he countered softly.

“I…I think it was because…” She closed her eyes as if feeling a momentary pain, then turned her face away, her voice trailing off to a whisper.

He stood very still and close, breathing in the fragrance of her hair. It was incongruously gentle, like fresh air and rain, and it made something catch deep inside him. He wanted to brush back the errant curl at her temple and press his lips to the soft, warm skin beneath, just as the boy he’d once been had done so many times before; the urge returned now as naturally as if twelve long, painful years of separation hadn’t passed between them.

Steeling himself against the yearning, Aidan pressed his fists to his sides and reminded himself to keep a clear
head. He was not the same youth of years past—and she was most certainly not the same woman. They were here together now only because of his need to repay the life-debt he owed her, that was all. True desire had no place in the mix. He was going to marry Helene—he
had
to marry Helene—and he was only doing what was necessary with Gwynne to make her remember him and the love they’d shared, so that he could resolve his obligation to her and go on with his life.

Aye, this was necessity, nothing more…

She shifted suddenly, trying to back away, but he gripped her upper arms with a firm intensity that made her gasp and look up to his face. He started to say something but found that he couldn’t for the emotions sweeping through him. She stood still in his embrace, seeming to understand as he did that there were forces at work between them more powerful than either could explain.

He held her gaze as long as he could before the temptation of her mouth beckoned. Even knowing that he would regret it, he glanced down to the full curve of her lips. Her tongue darted out nervously, its pink tip moistening the tender flesh in its wake, and his belly twisted with a jolt of hot, hard need. He dragged his gaze upward again, hoping for salvation, but the look in her eyes only devastated him more—silver softened to misty gray, inviting warmth that battled with a shadow of wariness. And above all, pure, unadulterated wanting…

God in heaven, help him
…

“Gwynne,” he murmured, tilting his head down, a whisper away from brushing her lips with his own. He felt her exhale on a sigh, and her exquisite eyes fluttered shut as she leaned toward him…

“Aidan, I—”

“We’re here! We’re ready to play for you!” called out Clara as she danced into the clearing, followed by a more
sedate Ella, who clutched a handful of reed pipes. The two girls jerked to a halt when they saw Aidan and Gwynne standing so close together, and Clara frowned, stamping her tiny foot. “You didn’t wait for us,” she pouted. “You’re dancing already, with no music. But you promised to wait!”

Gwynne jerked away from him, and Aidan closed his eyes, blowing out his breath. He swiveled to face the girls, trying to smile. “We’ve waited, Clara, never fear. I was just helping Lady Gwynne to…relax a bit before we began.” He heard her cough behind him. “Ready yourselves to play, and we’ll be right with you.”

Clara seemed to accept his explanation, for after a moment she busied herself with sorting through their pipes, while Ella found a comfortable mossy spot for them to sit. Aidan turned back to Gwynne. Trying to recapture at least a bit of the intimacy they’d shared, he murmured, “You were saying…?”

“Hmmmm?” Gwynne had succeeded in backing away from him this time, and now she fiddled with the draped edges of her sleeves.

“You whispered my name, as if you were about to say something more…but you never finished.” Unwilling to give up, he bridged the distance between them, just brushing her chin with the caress of his fingers before she jerked her head up to meet his gaze. She might as well have slammed her forearm into his chest. The warmth that had been in her eyes had fled, leaving naught but a brilliant gleam that cut him like glass.

“I was merely readying to voice my demand that you provide my men’s chamber with tapestries.”

“
What
?” Now it was his turn to step back. “What in blazes do tapestries have to do with what was happening between us just a moment ago?”

“Nothing was happening, de Brice, except in your own
vivid imagination,” she answered coolly, though she looked away as if she knew that what she spoke was a falsehood. “I want tapestries to hang on the walls in my men’s chamber to prevent whoever was spying on us,” she glanced back to give him a pointed look, “from doing it again. Will that pose a difficulty?”

He didn’t answer at first. An aching pain lanced through him, though he would have denied it to anyone who claimed it true. After a long pause, he forced a smile that felt more like a grimace and inclined his head to her in courtly fashion. “Nay, milady, ’tis no problem—your desire is my command. Tapestries it is, then.”

He had the satisfaction of seeing her give a tiny flinch at his response, but other than that, she remained without expression. They readied themselves for the dance lesson, the girls’ enthusiasm for their undertaking masking, for the most part, the uncomfortable silence between him and Gwynne. She moved through the positions he instructed her to take with as much life as a wooden doll, her face as hard as if it were carved from stone. It reminded him of the look she’d worn while driving herself through her series of training exercises, and he couldn’t help but wonder if she didn’t consider their dancing together as much of an arduous duty as those daily exhausting drills.

That sent another swell of pain through him, and so he forced himself to stop thinking about it. He pushed himself through the remainder of the lesson much as she did, managing to thank Clara and Ella when they were done, and arranging for them to return to the clearing again the next day. After they’d left, it was silent again. Agonizingly so.

Aidan stood there in the empty quiet for as long as he could bear it. Then he bowed to Gwynne without a word and stalked into the comforting embrace of the woodland beyond the clearing. But he was unable to prevent himself
from stopping a few feet into the concealment of the trees to turn and take one last look at her.

She stood as motionless as a statue, her arms crossed over her chest just as she’d been when he’d taken his leave. He thought for a moment that she might show some response, now that she believed herself to be alone. A muscle in her jaw twitched, and if the distance between them hadn’t been so great, he’d have sworn that he saw a suspicious sheen in her eyes. But he was too far away to tell, and in the next instant she’d turned away, her movements rigid and controlled as she, too, left the clearing…

In a direction exactly opposite the one he’d taken.

Gwynne broke into a run once she entered the cover of the trees, crashing through the woods until everything in her vision blurred. But she wouldn’t cry. Damn it to everlasting hell, she couldn’t. She didn’t cry. Ever. Through the burning in her eyes she saw a huge, moss-covered log lying on the ground ahead of her. Stumbling the rest of the way to it, she collapsed against its damp surface, feeling her breath rasp in her throat.

It hurt. Oh, God, it hurt more than she’d ever thought it could…

How could he have taunted her like that? Tempted her—made her feel emotions and desires she’d thought long dead, buried beneath the steel she’d long ago forged round her heart? Anger fought to find release, and she struggled against it, sucking back the agony that filled her.

Aidan had almost kissed her, damn him—and to her shame, she’d almost let him. She’d wanted him to. Pulling away and acting like nothing had happened had been pure torture. It had been nigh impossible, like refusing a cup of ambrosia after years of agonizing thirst. She remembered the strangely erotic sensation of his breath brushing over her cheek, the warm, masculine scent of his skin as he’d
stood so near to her…she could almost taste his lips, tantalizing hers in the moment before they were to kiss. A rush of excitement and longing had swept through her then, pounding in time with the fevered beating of her heart.

They’d come so close, so close
…

Jamming her fists into her eyes, Gwynne doubled over and held herself so stiffly that her muscles ached, not wanting to recognize the faint keening sound that came from deep inside her.
Damn, damn, damn
…

She couldn’t let him get to her like this. Marrok was counting on her, as were Dafydd, Owin, and the rest of her clan. She had to remain strong in the face of de Brice’s tender assaults on her. She was the Dark Legend, a creature of myth, bloodshed, and war. An instrument of duty for the Welsh patriots who followed her. She couldn’t risk it all by indulging herself in carnal temptations she had no right to experience or enjoy.

Sucking in her breath, she squeezed her eyes shut at the images that hammered through her brain to remind her of that fact. Clear memories of those first dark days in the Welsh encampment when she was simply a frightened girl, her mind an empty canvas, her past somehow horribly erased. Memories of the man who’d called himself her father railing against her, enraged by her feminine weakness.

She’d felt as if the black intensity of Prince Owain’s eyes would swallow her whole every time he looked at her. His face would twist into a mask of anger and disappointment, and he’d push her to the ground. When she wouldn’t get up, he’d stand over her, shouting his curses and taunts…until one day, she’d shot to her feet again and flailed wildly at him, crying and screaming with all the hate that was inside her.

He’d smiled when she did that—the only time she
could remember seeing that expression on his handsome face—and then he’d handed her over to his trainer of warriors, his own brother, Marrok. Her transformation into the Dark Legend had begun that day, and she’d never looked back. Not when the other young women her age began to attract suitors—not when they married and had babies and settled into the homes they’d made for their families. Not even after Prince Owain died, killed during a battle against the English in her twenty-first year.

Nay, looking back was pointless and painful. Yet now she was being confronted with a threat to her identity that was far greater than any other she’d faced thus far. A danger that attacked from within, triggered by feelings and sensations barely recalled, and hot, full-blown desires only just now being realized…

Desires that came in the virile form of her arch enemy, Aidan de Brice.

Swallowing hard, Gwynne forced her eyes open and lurched to her feet. Slowly, she lowered her fisted hands to her sides and tried to relax each of her muscles in turn, willing her mind to calm and focus as Marrok had taught her to do years ago.

There, that was better. The sounds of the forest, the music of the leaves brushing against each other in the cooling breeze, the fertile scents and vivid colors filled her senses again, and she breathed more easily.

She would resist her desires, that was all. Aidan could ply her with tender looks, sweet caresses, even claims of an amorous past with her, and none of it would matter. She would stay strong in the face of his most tempting attacks. Aye, she would stay strong, she thought, as she headed back to Dunston Castle. It might take every ounce of inner strength she possessed, but she would do her best to resist Aidan de Brice.

Pray God that it would be enough
.

Much later that night, after avoiding both her men and the usual evening feast in the great hall, Gwynne crept to her chamber and climbed into bed. Sleep eluded her for the first hours that she waited for its sweet release. But when she finally drifted off, it wasn’t into peaceful slumber. The old dream came again, winding seductive tendrils around her as always, keeping her immersed in its vivid and disturbing world of images and feelings…

The misty woodland beckoned her, a damp blanket of fog veiling her sight as she strode forward. The woman’s voice called to her again, wispy as the swirling breeze, her haunting melody an irresistible force.

Gwynne’s heart beat thickly, her breathing harsh as she pressed forward, searching the wood. The wind picked up force, howling through the branches and tangling in the dark canopy of leaves before lifting them to the black sky.