Chapter Six #3
Gruffydd ended up sitting next to her because she refused to release him. “Calm yourself,” he told her, trying to unwind her fingers from his arm. “Get control of yourself, Melusine. There is no need to be so frightened. You have not even greeted Lord Hereford, who is our ally. Do not be rude.”
Melusine’s gaze moved from Gruffydd to Christopher, who was pouring himself more wine. “Hereford,” she repeated, her voice trembling. “That is de Lohr.”
“It is, indeed,” Christopher said. “Have you eaten, my lady? There is still food on the table if you are hungry.”
Melusine’s hysteria was fading, but now she seemed dazed. She looked at the food as if unsure she needed or wanted it.
“It was your army,” she said. “Your army attacked us.”
Gruffydd cleared his throat. “That is none of your concern,” he said. “We have peace now, and that is all that matters.”
Melusine looked at him, studying her dark-eyed cousin who looked much thinner than the last time she saw him.
She knew why.
She knew what Elle had done to him. She knew it had been at her urging. Melusine was a woman of many secrets, all of which were unknown to Gruffydd but most of which were known to Elle. They were a pair, the two of them. Poor Gruffydd had taken the brunt of the ambitious women in his family.
But she could never let him know.
“Elle,” she said quietly, trying to whisper in his ear. “What happened to her?”
“She survived,” Gruffydd said, making sure Christopher heard him. “She is in the encampment, in fact, but I do not know where.”
“She is being well tended,” Christopher said, looking at the lady. “You needn’t worry.”
Melusine eyed him with uncertainty. “What is going to happen to her?” she asked. “What is going to happen to me?”
She was starting to get agitated again, so soon after she had recently calmed, and Christopher went to her, handing her his cup of wine.
“Drink,” he said quietly. “Nothing is going to happen to anyone tonight, so drink this. Eat something. You’ll feel better.”
With quivering hands, Melusine reached for the cup and took a long drink, almost draining it. She was a woman who liked her drink, even though she pretended otherwise.
“May I see Elle, please?” she asked, licking her lips of the wine.
Christopher seemed to consider that. “In time,” he said. “But first, you will tell me what your participation in the battle was.”
Gruffydd started to answer for her, but Christopher held up a hand, silencing him. When Melusine saw this, she drained the remainder of her wine before speaking.
“I live with Elle and Gruffydd,” she said. “Brython is my home.”
“Are you a warrior like your cousins?”
She shook her head with horror. “Nay, my lord,” she said. “Weapons and battle frighten me. I tend to the meals. If a man is wounded, then I care for him.”
“Then you are a chatelaine.”
She nodded. “Mostly,” she said. “May I see Elle now?”
Christopher looked to Gruffydd, who nodded faintly. “It might make things easier with my sister,” he said quietly. “Melusine may calm her down.”
Christopher pondered that request for a moment before going to the tent opening and sending a man for Curtis. As he lingered over by the tent flap, waiting for his son to appear, Melusine picked up a piece of stale bread and shoved it in her mouth.
“What is he going to do with us?” she hissed at Gruffydd.
He eyed her as she continued to shove crumbs in her mouth.
“Nothing,” he said in a normal tone so Christopher wouldn’t think they were conspiring.
“I am returning to Tywyl, and I am going to marry Hawise. Elle is going to marry the Earl of Leominster and they will live here, at Brython, because it will become a castle garrisoned by Hereford. And you… I do not know. Mayhap he will allow you to remain here with Elle.”
Melusine was looking at him in complete shock. “Married?” she repeated. “Elle is to be married?”
Gruffydd nodded, fully aware that Christopher was listening. “It is time for her to grow up and find her place in the world,” he said steadily. “She will have a husband and children and a title as the Countess of Leominster. Quite suitable for a daughter of Gwenwynwyn.”
But Melusine wasn’t having any of it. She wasn’t aware Christopher was listening simply because she wasn’t that smart. Or that aware. More than that, she had her back to him. She was focused on Gruffydd in utter horror.
“Are you mad?” she said. “She killed Cadwalader! Why do you think she would not kill an English husband? She will do it, and we will be in more trouble than before!”
Gruffydd hadn’t expected her to spout that very revealing bit of information. “Cadwalader was an old man who died in his sleep,” he said, loudly and firmly. “Elle had no hand in it. Stop perpetuating those vile rumors.”
“But she did!”
If Gruffydd could have throttled her in front of Christopher and gotten away with it, he would have. But all he could do was snap at her and pray Christopher wasn’t going to change his mind about everything.
“You will keep your lips shut,” he hissed angrily. “Shut your mouth and live longer, Melusine. You are a stupid and foolish girl. That is why none of your relatives want you to live with them. That is why you have no husband!”
Melusine turned red in the face, suddenly realizing she shouldn’t have said what she did in front of Hereford.
But that was typical for her—speaking first, thinking later.
She further realized she could make a fragile situation worse, and from the look on Gruffydd’s face, he was ready to kill her. Quickly, she struggled to make amends.
“You are correct,” she said. “I… I am sorry. I do not know what I am saying. Elle did not deliberately do anything to Cadwalader, I know that. But the men said that she killed him because she was so young and he was so old, and she wanted him to bed her nightly, so it killed him. That is all I meant.”
Gruffydd rolled his eyes. “For the love of God,” he muttered. “Just stop talking.”
Melusine did. Feeling rebuked and ashamed for running off at the mouth, she lowered her head and pulled scraps of food off the table, eating anything she could get her hands on simply to keep from talking.
Gruffydd had his hand on his head in disbelief of what Melusine had just done, of the horrible things she’d said.
He dared to glance at Christopher, who was still standing at the tent opening, gazing out at the night beyond.
But Gruffydd knew he’d heard everything.
As Melusine kept her head down, Gruffydd stood up and stretched his weary body.
He was hoping that Hereford would let him go into the keep and retrieve his personal possessions, if they were even still there.
Elle might have given them away, for all he knew.
As he made his way to the brazier to warm his hands, Curtis suddenly appeared in front of his father.
“You summoned me, Papa?” he asked.
Christopher nodded, stepping back to indicate the small, dark-haired woman seated with her back to the tent opening.
“We have found another Gwenwynwyn female,” he said.
“This is Lady Melusine, a cousin to Gruffydd and Lady Elle. She has been most concerned for Lady Elle’s health, so I thought you could tell her how the lady fares. ”
Curtis looked at his father in puzzlement, and then frustration, before looking to the lady, who had turned to look at him by this time. He found himself looking at a dirty, pale young woman who in no way resembled her cousin.
“You summoned me for this?” he muttered to his father. “Papa, I should be back—”
“Tell the lady her cousin is well,” Christopher said, interrupting him. “In fact, you can take her with you. It might help Lady Elle to have her cousin with her. It might ease her anxiousness, if you understand my meaning.”
Christopher was trying to help Curtis with Elle’s rebellious demeanor. Curtis began to understand that. Surely it would calm her to have her cousin with her. But he shook his head.
“She is sleeping now,” he said. “Most peacefully, I might add. Bringing this woman—her cousin—to her now would not only awaken her, but would more than likely agitate her again, because she’d have to deal with her cousin’s emotions now. Truly, she has enough of her own.”
Christopher didn’t want to be unkind. “Curt…”
But Curtis shook his head firmly. “Nay,” he said. “She is asleep and she is calm, and that is what I wish for my own evening—calm and sleep. I do not need to watch over two hysterical women tonight. Please, Papa.”
Christopher gave in, though reluctantly. “Very well,” he said. “I will have Myles watch over Lady Melusine tonight. But tomorrow, they are to be reunited.”
Curtis waved him off. “As you wish,” he said. “I must return. Westley is watching over the lady, and if she wakes up and finds me gone, and a squire as her guard, she might give Westley a struggle.”
He didn’t even wait for Christopher to reply. He was heading back the way he’d come, out into the night. Christopher didn’t give his abrupt behavior too much thought because the man was exhausted, as they all were.
Curtis wasn’t the only one who wanted calm and sleep.
After that, Christopher summoned Roi and Myles and had them both tend to Gruffydd and Melusine.
Christopher would trust his sons to tend to the Welsh prisoners, and tomorrow would dawn a better, brighter day.
But for tonight, Christopher simply wanted to be alone in his own tent.
It was yet another victory in a long line of victories for the mighty Earl of Hereford and Worcester, and he’d done enough today. He’d earned his solitude.
When sleep finally came for him, it was filled with dreams of home.