Chapter 16 #3
“I’m sorry you have to endure such a family,” she said, barely resisting the urge to place a kiss on the top of Alexander’s head.
To her, who loved each and every one of her siblings, being in that situation was hard to fathom.
“But please, tell me, what did he mean earlier by ‘the bones are reunited’?”
Without knowing quite why, she had the impression this was something that could be important.
“It’s nothing worth worrying about. When we were children, everyone started to call us the bones. A not-so-subtle allusion to the fact that our parents were dead and a pun on our family name, nothing more.”
His family name. Rathbone.
Gwenllian stilled. Arglwydd Mawr.
Of course. How had she not thought about this before?
What if… What if the “bones” she was destined to live amongst were not, like everyone had always thought, the walls of Castell Esgyrn, but Alexander’s family?
Or at least, the family he would create with her, the children he would give her, who would bear his name?
Rathbone? Old Myfanwy had not been wrong, it was only that she, Gwenllian, had misinterpreted her prediction.
She almost laughed out loud, because if this were the case, then she had nothing to worry about. Alexander might not want to resume their affair, but he would end up marrying her anyway. He might not want her as a casual lover, but he would take her to wife.
It was an even better solution, because in truth, she was not sure she would have been strong enough to be just a friend.
No need to fear it now, or that he would disappear from her life.
When she’d entered the hall on his arm earlier and imagined herself as the mistress of the place, it had been a vision of what the future held for her.
“Is anything wrong?” Alexander asked, his tone cautious. He would have noticed her sudden change of mood.
“No, not at all,” she answered, resuming his ministrations. Everything was just as it should be. She would not end up alone. “Just keep your eyes closed.”
Now was not the time to tell him what she’d just realized.
After his confrontation with his brother, Alexander needed calm.
On the battlements, she had told him that she had come to question her desire to live in Wales and asked if they could be friends.
Next she would tell him that she would actually live in England—with him, her husband.
It would be a lot to take in.
Besides, she wanted to enjoy this intimate moment with him. The night of the banquet, she had been afraid he would not want to have anything to do with her, yet here he was, abandoning himself into her hands, confiding in her, drawing strength from her presence. It was delicious.
The hands at his shoulders slid around his neck, traveled up, and soon her fingers came to enmesh themselves into his hair, massaging his scalp. Alexander groaned again and allowed his head to roll back.
“Bones,” he said after a while. She could almost swear his thoughts had followed hers. “Talking of which, you did tell me once that your family castle was called Bones Castle. Why is that? It is such an odd name.”
“When it was built, long before my time, the workers found two skeletons in the ditch they had dug to prepare the foundations. Everyone has been trying to find out who these people were ever since that moment. Lost travelers, victims of murder, doomed lovers—I’ve heard it all and still cannot decide what happened. ”
“It’s odd, is it not? Had the men dug just a few yards to the right or to the left, no one would have been any the wiser.
Then they would have spotted a mighty oak in the distance and called the place Green Oak Castle, or they would have seen an eagle fly overhead, and you would now be living in Eagle’s Lair.
I mean, the bones do not define the castle, do they? ”
“No… I suppose they don’t.”
She had never thought about it that way before.
But if the bones did not matter, at least not in the way everyone had thought, if they weren’t enough to define Castell Esgyrn, then why should Old Myfanwy’s prediction mean that she should stay there all her life?
This second realization was earth-shattering.
Tonight she had discovered that she was not, as she’d thought, destined to live her life, unmarried and unloved at Castell Esgyrn, but with a man who would give her all the “bones” she was ever going to need.
Her fingers coiled around Alexander’s hair with renewed sensuality, and he let out a long exhale.
After a while, he turned to her. His eyes were ablaze and his voice rough with desire.
Gwenllian shivered because that look was the one he always threw her before kissing her, and that voice was the one he used when they were in bed together.
No, the two of them would never be able to be simply friends.
“Gwenllian, you have to stop.”
“Why?”
Because he was about to pounce on her, that was why. He didn’t need to answer for her to know.
“We should go to bed,” he said, standing up. Then he stilled when he realized that the words were more evocative than he’d intended. “We’re both tired,” he added, as if to avoid any possible confusion.
“Yes.” Gwenllian did not think it wise to point out that she was anything but tired, and she doubted that he was either. Without looking at his groin, she guessed he would be hard as steel. Sleep would be a long time in coming for both of them.
“You can take the same bed as you did last time,” Alexander told her, doing his best to act as the friend he was supposed to be.
“Thank you, but where will you sleep tonight if Hugh took your room?”
“I’ll find a place, don’t worry.”
She stood up onto her tiptoes, coming to speak in his ear. “Come to my bed.”
“Gwenllian—”
“Only to sleep. I swear I will not try anything. I couldn’t, not with your brother and his squire in the other room.” It would be too mortifying to be overheard. But she needed to hold him. “You cannot sleep on the floor in the main hall.”
“I won’t. There are other rooms in the castle, you know.”
Oh. Silly her. Of course, she was not saving him from a night on the hard stone. “Please. One night, in the warmth of your arms. Then I promise I will leave.”
Yes. For now.
But she would be back before long, to make sure that Fate delivered on her promise.
At last, Alexander relented. “Very well. You’ll sleep in my arms tonight.”