“I’m sorry if you think that, Richard. I
can’t help what happened between you and Lord Rhirid; that’s your
business,” she said calmly. “I just want my son. Surely you can
understand he’s too young to be without his mother.”
“And never to see his father again?”
She didn’t answer. She looked away.
“Olwen?”
“Sir Richard, if I may?” Teleri stepped
closer to them. “Olwen didn’t get here much before you,” she said
quietly. “I’m sure you’re both hot and uncomfortable and hungry
from your journeys. Why don’t we all go inside, where it’s cooler,
have something to eat and then you two can speak privately and not
in the open where everyone can hear you.”
“Yes. Thank you, Lady Teleri,” Olwen said and
after a moment, Delamere inclined his head. As the two women moved
off towards the keep, he stared at Olwen’s retreating figure with
sinking spirits.
“What was that all about? What were you
saying to each other?”
He glanced at Longsword. “She wants to take
little William back to Llanlleyn,” he told him.
“Oh…I had thought perhaps she…Well, when I
didn’t see Rhirid, I thought she might be coming back here to stay
with you…”
“No, Will. It’s all exactly as I predicted,”
he said in a tight voice.
“Oh…”
Delamere looked back again at the keep. The
women were almost to the steps when a small figure darted out from
the kitchens on the lower level. It was his son. He watched in
dismay as the child ran to Olwen with obvious joy and as she knelt
down to meet him, scoop him up in her embrace and whirl him
around.
“Did you truly mean it when you told Sir
Richard you wanted to remain at Llanlleyn?”
“Yes, Lady Teleri…”
“You don’t sound too certain,” Teleri said
sharply.
Olwen raised the towel to her face and
blotted it dry, taking care around her bruised eye. “I’m not
certain,” she said in a low voice. “I think it’s the right
decision—I’ve been happy at Llanlleyn; Lord Rhirid has been kind
and I know I’m welcome—but I also feel as if I’m betraying
Richard.”
“You’d only feel that way if you still loved
him…”
“But that doesn’t matter, Lady Teleri. I have
to think of my children. Is it fair they grow up without a father?
When William was first born, Richard came to stay with us quite
often. But after Henry was born, he came less and less. I know he
was needed here because Lord William was injured but for months on
end?” She looked down. “I began to imagine there was another reason
he didn’t come.”
“You imagined wrong, Olwen.
I never heard even the hint of a rumor that he was with someone
else. He loves
you
.”
Olwen was silent for a moment. Then she
looked at Teleri. “I don’t know if I love him still. Don’t you
remember when we were at Llanlleyn? I dreaded waking up every day
to hear the story of yet another holding burned and ransacked, its
people perhaps murdered, by Lord William’s men. By Richard, Lady
Teleri! I hated him then.”
“Our people…their people…” Teleri shrugged.
“What does it matter? We’re all people and there are as many evil
Welsh as Norman. You must remember, it was Lord Rhirid who brought
all this on his head by shooting Lord William. Speaking of heads,
did he show you his cousin’s blackened one which adorns the gate to
Llanlleyn?”
“Please, Lady Teleri, say no more!” Olwen
begged. “I’ve already made up my mind. I never grew used to that
manor. Llanlleyn is more like the Perfeddwlad—there are women to
speak with and men to teach my sons.” Her face was throbbing too
much for her to be more than mildly curious about the amount of
interest Teleri was taking in her relationship with Richard.
Teleri shrugged. “Very well. Anyway, you
don’t leave until the morning; you have the rest of the day and all
night to reconsider.”
“I won’t, Lady Teleri,” she whispered.
The other woman gestured towards the bed.
“Rest as long as you like; those meals below are interminable. One
man tells a story and all the others clamor to top it. I call it
hell with refreshment.”
Olwen smiled politely but even as Teleri left
the chamber, her thoughts turned to Richard and the smile faded.
Was she making a mistake? Was she doing him a misservice? She was
reminded of the day before, when she waited in the women’s house
while her escort to Rhuddlan was being readied and in the sudden
silence, he had crept into her mind. A small movement had caught
her attention and she’d looked up; there in the doorway, the sun
streaming behind him and obscuring his identity, a man had paused
to adjust his eyes to the dim interior. It was Lord Rhirid, of
course, come to find her, but for one instant, one heart-stopping,
confused, joyous instant, she had thought it was Richard.
If Delamere had not been feeling as if his
entire life had just been turned on its head, he might have seen a
wry humor in the situation in the hall that evening. Always in the
past, it was Longsword who would sit in silence, morosely
contemplating a cup of wine, while Delamere made the attempt to
cajole him out of his misery; now it was the other way around. And
now he understood how maddening it was to endure the friendly but
strained conversation when all he really wanted to do was disappear
into some dark recess.
His face was bruised and his body battered
but he felt little pain; the fact of Olwen leaving him was a
sufficient analgesic. He hadn’t been surprised by her decision
because he’d spent the last few months believing she was gone for
good, anyway, but there was still the shock of hearing the words
spoken. And he remembered Rhirid, with that smug expression on his
face…
“…And I said, you’re not taking the boy
without Richard’s permission!” Longsword was telling him what had
happened before he’d ridden in to Rhuddlan. “She looked a little
stunned. I thought she might get hysterical but she didn’t. I was
actually glad Teleri was with me.”
“Thank you, Will,” he said mechanically.
“She’ll come back, Richard,” Longsword said,
his voice slightly anxious. “As long as you keep William…”
“Yes,” he said. He stared at the cup in his
hand and pushed it away slowly. Getting drunk didn’t appeal to him
at the moment; somehow, to forget it all tonight but to wake up
with a raging hangover and stark reality would be worse than
getting it all over with as soon as possible.
He just hoped he’d be able to get over
it.
A woman hovered behind him and he put his
hand up to signal that he wanted no more wine but to his surprise,
she leaned forward and whispered into his ear. He nodded in
response. Longsword looked at him questioningly. “Excuse me, Will,”
he said, rising from his seat.
It was clear from Longsword’s face that he
thought the woman had propositioned Delamere—a face at first
shocked, then impressed and finally encouraging.
Delamere followed the woman through the maze
of tables, uncomfortably aware that the noise in the hall had been
reduced to the low buzz of gossip and that everyone was watching
him. They entered the stairwell behind the pantries and climbed the
winding steps. His heart beat quicker and not merely from the
exertion; he was nervous. He couldn’t remember the last time he was
nervous to meet a woman.
They stopped at Teleri’s chambers. His guide
pulled the latch on the closed door and pushed it open, standing
back so that he would enter before her.
“Sir Richard, come in!” Teleri, seated on a
chair in the middle of the floor, invited him. She gave him a
critical stare. “You look much better than you did earlier. How do
you feel?”
“Better, Lady Teleri,” he lied.
“I thought you might want to see Olwen here.
She’s resting in my bedchamber; she didn’t want to eat, she said.
She’s very upset, Sir Richard and not just because of William. She
really loves you.”
Delamere was surprised. Ordinarily, he would
have never have discussed such private business with Teleri, but
now he was greedy for the least information…the slenderest twig of
hope.
“I know I’m intruding,” she continued, “but I
thought you should know what she told me before you see her.”
“She said
that
?”
“Well, I put it to her and she didn’t deny
it, Sir Richard.” She stood up “You’ll be alone. My women and I
will go to the hall. We won’t return until you come down.”
“Thank you. May I ask you a question, Lady
Teleri?” he said as she started to move past him. “Why are doing
this for me?”
“I’m repaying a favor you did me, Sir
Richard.”
He frowned. “I don’t know what you’re talking
about.”
“That stormy day I told you about Gwalaes. Do
you remember? I’m not stupid and I knew of the earl of Chester’s
interest in her, so I merely took everything to its logical
conclusion…and that meant figuring out who Bronwen was. And then I
told the earl that night at supper. I was angry with Lord William.
Getting a child on Gladys was bad enough but then to turn to yet
another woman? I knew I’d become the laughingstock of
Rhuddlan—probably all of Gwynedd, for that matter—if my husband
kept this up.”
“At the time, you said you were afraid Lord
William’s men would desert him and he’d be forced to return to
England,” Delamere said slowly. “And you didn’t want to leave
Wales…”
Teleri shrugged. “That, too. But anyway,
despite the pain it caused Lord William when Gwalaes left, you
never told him that it was I who discovered everything.”
“I saw no reason to, Lady Teleri; I never
approved of his interest in that woman and I was glad when Chester
claimed her.” He hesitated. “How is it between you and Lord
William? He has a tendency to hold a grudge and he was still angry
when I left…”
She gave him a wry smile. “It’s more than a
grudge he holds but our marriage yet lives.” She put a hand on his
arm and squeezed. “Good luck, Sir Richard.”
He turned toward the door to the bedchamber
and hesitated. For a moment he contemplated it, unable to
understand his sudden ambivalence. Perhaps, he thought, he’d simply
spent too much time imagining his life without Olwen and because of
it, in his mind, the decision was final. To go through that door
meant confrontation and accusation and he’d already rehearsed every
argument in his head and come to every conclusion.
He took a step backwards.
Yet…perhaps there was still a chance. There
wouldn’t be a better time or place see her again, because now she
was alone, without Rhirid standing at her shoulder, without the
children clinging to her skirts, without even the servants
overhearing the whispers they might exchange in the dark. There
would be only the two of them.
And Teleri’s last words echoed in his
mind…
He went quickly forward before he could
change his mind, tapped firmly on the door and, after a pause, went
through.
He’d never been in Teleri’s bedchamber
before; it was a large room and his eyes were not immediately drawn
to the bed up against the farthest wall. The unshuttered windows
showed a waning daylight but combined with the flame of a single
lamp perched on the table near the door, there was enough
illumination for him to see the array of neatly ordered furnishings
and then the figure lying in the bed. He moved closer and heard
Olwen stir.
“Who is it?” she called out softly, in
Welsh.
He walked to the foot of the bed. “It’s
Richard.”
“Richard!”
He couldn’t tell whether her short
exclamation was pleased or angry. He asked cautiously, “Do you mind
I’m here? If you wish, I’ll leave…”
“I don’t mind,” she answered.
He moved up to the head of the bed and sat
down on the stool alongside it. Once again, he couldn’t take his
eyes from her but this time it wasn’t because he feared she’d
disappear. This time it was because he hadn’t been so physically
close to her in months, alone, and she looked so wonderfully
familiar that he wanted only to bend his head to hers and kiss
her.
She pushed herself up into a sitting position
and met his hungry stare with barely disguised trepidation. It
chilled his ardor and he sat back. “What’s wrong?” he asked. “You
act as if you’re frightened of me.”
“Not of you, perhaps, but of what you might
say…”
“What do you mean?”
She hesitated. “Your answer about
William…”
He shook his head slowly. “To my mind, this
isn’t about William. It’s about us, Olwen. You and I.”
She looked away. “It’s about William,
Richard. That’s all. Everything else has been decided.”
“By whom? By you? Or by Rhirid?”
“Please, Richard! Why do you keep harping on
Rhirid?”
His voice reflected his frustration. “Because
he’s the one who’s turned you away from me, Olwen! And after what
he did to our home and to you and the boys, I don’t understand the
regard you have for him!”
She stared at him. “I have no regard for Lord
Rhirid, at least not in the way you mean it,” she said quietly.
“He’s been kind to us; he’s sorry for what he did. But he has
nothing to do with you and me.”
“Then why are you going back to Llanlleyn?”
he asked. His heart pounded painfully but he forced himself to ask
the questions. “Why not send for Henry and stay here? With me?”
Her eyes were large and sympathetic. “And
return to what? Will you build a new manor? I’m sorry, Richard. If
anyone’s to blame, it isn’t Lord Rhirid. I suppose it’s me. I just
couldn’t stand to be at that manor on my own.”
He was bewildered. “But you have servants…the
children…”
“I wanted
you
.”
“I came—”
“And then you left.”
For a moment, he didn’t speak. They looked at
each other, unblinking. Then he said quietly, “I don’t know what to
tell you, Olwen. That’s the way my life is. I serve Lord
William.”