Chapter Twenty-Two
It had been a very long trip from Wales.
At least, it felt like that. The weather had been excellent and they’d made astonishingly good time. But even so, it had been a long trip for one very good reason: life-changing news was awaiting them and they couldn’t seem to get to Lioncross fast enough.
Bhrodi and Penelope had been at Lioncross ten days now, and it had been ten days of excitement, sorrow, and exhaustion.
Even though neither of them had gotten much sleep on the trip from Wales, there was no possible way that Penelope was going to rest once they arrived, and she hadn’t.
She wanted answers, as she’d had the entire journey to think about de Lohr’s missive, and what Corbett Payton-Forrester had said about her brother.
So by the time they arrived at Lioncross, she was full of questions and nearly frantic about it.
As fortune would have it, Corbett was still at Lioncross, still recovering from his harrowing ordeal. He’d lost a good deal of weight and was fairly weak, so a diet of good food and regular attending from Lioncross’ physic were needed to nurse him back to health.
But that didn’t stop Penelope from interrogating the man until she could interrogate him no more.
She’d asked the same questions a hundred times, always with the same answer, and within a day of their arrival to Lioncross, Penelope was convinced that her brother, James, was alive and leading a rebellion.
So was Corbett.
It was problematic even under usual circumstances, but these were unusual ones.
A dead man was leading the Welsh against the English, and Bhrodi knew that, at some point, Penelope was going to want to go to Wales to see for herself.
He had been preparing himself for the showdown to come, ten days of discussions and intimation from his wife that the next step would, indeed, be heading for Wales.
Of course, he wasn’t going to take her into Wales and that wasn’t going to sit well with her once she came right out and asked him.
Bhrodi never denied her anything, nor had her father or her many family members, so a denial to Penelope wasn’t something she was accustomed to.
He was going to have to watch her very closely because the woman wasn’t beyond sneaking out when her husband wasn’t looking.
She knew that her brother was most likely at Gwendraith Castle, because that’s where Corbett said he would be, and she knew that if she headed southwest, she would eventually be able to find it.
Bhrodi knew he was going to have to keep an eye on her.
The showdown that he feared came on the afternoon of their tenth day at Lioncross.
Penelope had spent the morning with Kaedia, Chris’ wife, in the garden of Lioncross, tending the smaller animals that they kept for food and as pets.
There was an astonishing bank of rabbit cages, containing more rabbits than Penelope had ever seen, and she was fascinated by the rabbits that were about as large as a small dog.
They were friendly, and soft, and she was growing quite fond of them.
But she had also been talking to Kaedia as the woman tended to the hare collection, and Kaedia had strong opinions about family.
She knew about the situation with Penelope’s brother and she had told Penelope that she would let nothing stop her from discovering the truth about a long-lost brother.
It was an opinion Penelope shared. Therefore, after her visit with Kaedia, Penelope wandered into the stables of Lioncross, near the soldier’s training field, to find her husband tending to his horse.
And that’s when it began.
It was quite innocent at first.
“I was told you were here,” she said, leaning in to Bhrodi as he put his arm around her shoulders and kissed her on the forehead. “Is something wrong with your horse?”
Bhrodi shook his head as he watched the smithy file off some of the big, black beast’s hoof. “Nay,” he said. “He has a loose shoe that must be fixed.”
Penelope watched the smithy working on the horse. “His gait was strange on the trip, wasn’t it?”
Bhrodi nodded. “It was, indeed,” he said. “The shoe did not seem loose to me, but the smithy assures me that it was.”
The conversation died as they both watched the man work on the horse until Penelope changed the subject.
“Do you know where I have been?” she asked.
“Where?”
“With Kaedia as she tended the rabbits.”
“I would have never guessed.”
He was jesting with her since she spent so much time at the hutches. She grinned at him. “Kaedia and I were talking,” she said. “Did you know that she has thirteen brothers?”
Bhrodi’s eyebrows lifted. “Then her father has his own army.”
Penelope laughed softly. “I have six,” she said. “That is plenty.”
“Your father would have been happy with thirteen, too. Imagine the damage he could have done with that bunch.”
She grinned at the comment, but that smile soon faded. “Now he has a chance to have a son returned to him,” she said. “Bhrodi, I cannot sit here any longer while James is in Wales. I must go to him; I must see him.”
The hammer had been lowered, just like that. Bhrodi didn’t want to argue in front of the smithy and he could sense that such a conversation was coming. With his arm still around her shoulders, he turned around and pulled her out of the stable with him.
Now, the battle could begin in earnest.
“I understand that you wish to go,” he said patiently. “Truly, caria, I do. But you know what Corbett and Chris have said – it is very possible that James is an agent for Edward and if you go running into Wales to save him, you may ruin everything he has accomplished. Do you understand that?”
“Of course I do,” she snapped softly. “I am not daft. But I cannot believe that he is on any special mission for Edward. Surely, if Edward had any mission in mind for my brother, he would have told my father, and I am positive my father knew nothing. You were not there when he returned home from Wales without James; you have never seen anyone so broken.”
Bhrodi faced her, putting his hands on her shoulders. “It is possible that Edward did not want your father to know simply to protect him,” he said. “Even if your father did not know, and James truly is an agent for Edward, what will rushing into Wales accomplish? What do you intend to do?”
She was growing upset. “I must see him,” she said. “I simply want to see if it is him.”
“And then what?”
“Then I will know that he is not dead!”
He was trying not to become irritated with her. “And then what?” he asked. “Will you tell your father? Because you know he will go running right into Wales to see for himself, and that will probably get him killed. Is that what you want?”
She frowned. “Then why did you let me come to Lioncross if you were not going to let me go into Wales to see for myself whether this Blayth is my brother?” she asked. “Your plan was to come here and not take any action?”
He cocked an eyebrow at her. “I am going to take some action,” he said. “You already know that Howell has sent a missive, requesting my support for Rhys ap Maredudd’s uprising. I intend to go to Howell and size up the situation before I allow you anywhere near the Welsh rebellion.”
“But…”
He held up a finger, cutting her off. “When we came to Lioncross, we did not know that Corbett suspected your brother might be an agent for Edward,” he pointed out.
“Now that we know, the situation has changed. I cannot allow you to go charging in and possibly give him away to the Welsh. That is why I must size up the situation first before I permit you anywhere near him. Surely you understand that, Penny. This is a very delicate situation and it must be handled carefully.”
Although it didn’t make her particularly happy, she understood. “I do not want to ruin whatever James has been working towards if, in fact, he is an agent for Edward,” she said begrudgingly. “But there is also the possibility that he is not an agent for Edward. What then?”
“Then we shall decide what needs to be done,” he said quietly. “As Chris mentioned, we cannot allow your brother to bring down the entire de Wolfe legacy. It is a very delicate situation, caria. We will do our best to deal with it.”
Penelope was deeply unhappy that he wasn’t going to let her go into Wales right away. “When will all this be?” she asked. “When do you plan to tell my father?”
“As soon as he arrives.”
She looked at him curiously. “Is he coming here?”
He shrugged. “He should have received your missive six or seven days after you sent it from Rhydilian,” he said matter-of-factly.
“Based upon the content of the missive, I would not imagine that your father would wait to come to Lioncross, meaning he has already been on the road for several days. I expect he should arrive any day now.”
Penelope was looking at him, her mouth hanging open. “How did you know I sent him a missive?”
He cast her a sidelong glance, a smile playing on his lips.
“Rhydilian is my castle, Penelope,” he said with some irritation.
“There is nothing that goes on at my castle that I am not aware of. You paid a stable groom to ride to Castle Questing to tell your father about James after I specifically told you not to.”
She was both defiant and contrite. “I did,” she said, thrusting up her chin.
“I could not, in good conscience, keep such information from him. How would you like it if someone kept information about William or Perri from you? They are your sons, Bhrodi. You would have a right to know. So does my father. It simply wasn’t right not to tell him. ”