Chapter 33
Time was moving too fast. Richard leaned against the wall and stared at the valley below. He’d taken up Gwen’s habit of coming to the castle walls whenever he was troubled. It was soothing in a way to stand so high and fool yourself into believing you were alone in the world.
They’d been home for a fortnight now, and Gwen was lovelier each day, her middle gently swelling with his child.
Richard loved to look at her, at the miracle of her body.
When she was clothed, it was barely noticeable because she was still so small.
But when she lay in their bed, naked before his eyes, the proof was there.
Sometimes when she slept, he would pull back the covers and just look at her, stamping every moment on his memory.
God only knew how long it would have to last him.
Another month and he would have to leave for the king’s council in Wessex. He rubbed his forehead absently. It was all happening much too soon.
Already, he’d noticed she was withdrawing from him. It was nothing specific, nothing he could definitely place his finger on, but he sensed it all the same. It was as though she held a part of herself back, as though she refused to share her innermost self.
Richard sucked in a breath. God, he’d never thought, never dreamed he could feel so deeply for a woman. He was indeed his father’s son. And she was the daughter of his father’s murderer.
He shoved that thought away, again picturing her, and a shattering pain tore through him. What if she didn’t survive childbirth? God forgive him, but he’d already killed one woman with his child. He could not bear to lose this one.
He refused to even think of leaving her while she was still pregnant, though the possibility existed.
His hand strayed to his sword hilt, a physical defense against a phantom threat. Going on crusade was something he had to do, something he could endure knowing he would see her again. But if she died, would he be like his father? Delusional, drunken, shattered?
“Richard?”
He spun around at the sound of her voice. God, she was beautiful! Her russet tresses were barely contained by the golden circlet she wore. Her skin, always the color of purest ivory, was rosy with the cold. And her scent…
Roses. It stole to him, borne on the chill wind. He breathed deeply. A rose in winter. She was the color of them, too, dressed in a crimson sendal surcoat and undertunic. Even her cloak was crimson.
Richard felt his loins responding, tightening, filling. She turned him into a slavering beast when she was near.
“Yes, my love?”
She smiled tentatively, and moved closer. Her delicate hands, gloved in soft velvet, splayed across his chest. Her lovely face turned up to his, and he found himself drowning in eyes the color of springtime.
Absently, he traced her lower lip with his thumb. What had he ever done to deserve the love of this woman?
“I have been thinking,” she began, “since you will not stay behind when the king goes, why don’t you take me with you?”
Richard closed his eyes. “Gwen…” They’d had this conversation too many times to count, though this was a new twist. Always before, she’d begged him to stay. “I cannot take you, cariad.”
“Why not? Queen Eleanor is going.”
He opened his eyes to look at her. “If I took you, you would hate me before ’twas over. The Holy Land is nothing but dust and heat so scorching it chokes the breath from you. The journey is long and miserable, cooped up on boats, sailing without seeing land for weeks at a time.”
“But if I were with you—”
Richard shook his head vehemently. “’Tis too dangerous. If, God forbid, we were defeated, do you know what those heathens would do to you? One look at you my precious wife and they’d hustle you off to a harem to service some fat, balding sheik for the rest of your days.”
She stared up at him, her lip trembling. Then her face clouded with anger. The change was so swift that Richard was not prepared when she flung away from him.
She whirled around in a blaze of brilliant color, spitting like a wildcat. “Fine! Go without me! You do not care what happens to me. You are willing to leave me, just like you did Eliz—”
“Silence!” he said, his voice cracking like a whip in the wintry air. She stopped, her teeth firmly seizing her lower lip. Richard clenched his fists at his side, fighting to contain his sudden rage. “I suggest if you do not wish to move us beyond what is forgivable, you will say no more.”
She stood there, staring at him, her pretty breasts rising and falling. Richard thought himself a madman. Angry though he was, the thought of loosing her nipples from her gown and suckling them into arousal made him harder than the stone ramparts he was standing on.
He almost hated himself for the weakness.
He took a step toward her, not quite sure what he was going to do at this moment. She held up her hand to stop him. “I wish I’d never met you,” she said, her voice edged with anguish. “The pain is too much. I hate you, even while I love you.”
She backed away until she was certain he wasn’t going to move, then turned and fled. Richard slumped against the unyielding stone, suddenly weary. Jesú, she was right. No wound received in battle had ever hurt this much.
Alys tsked as Gwen stabbed her needle through the embroidery.
“I didn’t want to sew anyway,” Gwen said, tossing the needlework aside and leaping to her feet. She paced, twisting her hands together unconsciously. Alys watched her for a minute, then shook her head and bent over her work.
Gwen felt she would burst at any moment. She was trying—God how she was trying!—to live each day with Richard as though it was their last. But the strain was wearing on her because she knew one day it would be their last.
She pushed him away, she pulled him to her. She loved him, she hated him.
He would not stay. He would not take her. He was determined she would have no say in the matter. Wasn’t her life and her happiness at stake too? But he was a man. And bloody men always thought they knew what was best!
She stopped at the window and looked toward Snowdon. She’d not told him what Dafydd had said about her father. She’d not told anyone, not even Alys who might have known something more. Gwen couldn’t bear to speak it aloud for fear it would make it true.
Her father had never denounced her and she would never denounce him. But one day she would ask him if he really believed she was not his, if that was the reason he’d never loved her like she wanted. He owed her an answer and she would accept nothing less than the truth, no matter how it hurt.
She didn’t see Richard for the rest of the afternoon. When the dinner bell rang, she descended to the hall and joined him on the dais. They ate in silence while laughter floated around them, teasing and tormenting.
When the meal was over, Gwen excused herself and returned to the master chamber. She sat for a while, working on the embroidery she’d tossed aside earlier, then gave up and prepared for bed.
Lying on her side, she stroked the sheets where Richard would lay.
What was happening to her? She didn’t like the person she was becoming around him.
Even though she knew it was wrong, she couldn’t stop herself from arguing with him, from pushing him, from trying to make him as miserable as she was.
If she kept it up, he would be pleased to leave her.
She drew her hand across the sheet and settled it on her belly. Caressing the soft curve, she talked to her baby. Ridiculous it might be, but she did it nonetheless, only stopping when she heard the door open and shut.
She closed her eyes and pretended sleep when Richard came to bed. She waited, hoping he would draw her in his arms, knowing he would not.
His breathing didn’t deepen, and she knew he lay awake as she did. She wanted to touch him, to breach the widening chasm between them, but it was too difficult.
“Richard?”
He sighed. “Aye?”
“You will not be faithful, will you?” she asked in a small voice.
He was silent for a long moment. Gwen cursed herself for saying it when in truth she didn’t want to hear the answer. But it had been at the back of her mind for so long that she needed to get it out.
Quietly, he said, “When the need overtakes me, ’twill be your face I see, your voice I hear, your body I touch.”
Gwen choked back bitter laughter. “Oh, ’tis so comforting.” Why had she asked? Why? Men could not be faithful, even where there was love. She’d already known that, but she’d insisted on making him say it. Stupid, stupid, stupid!
Her voice quavered with anger and regret. “And what about me? What about my needs? Will you mind terribly if I take a lover in your absence?”
She knew she was goading him and she hated herself for doing it, but she was on a path of no return. She wanted him to feel what she was feeling.
Lightning fast he was on top of her, his hard body pressing into her soft curves, her face imprisoned between his hands. In the shadows cast by the flickering fire, she could see the outline of his features, hard, angry, breathtaking. Oddly, a rush of exhilaration roared through her veins.
“Christ almighty, Gwen! You want my fidelity? Will that ease your mind? Will you finally cease this madness?”
Gwen opened her mouth, but he rushed on before she could speak.
“By God, you have it then! On my honor, I swear to you I will bed no other. Should I be gone for one year or ten, it matters not. I will have none but you, ever.”
His mouth claimed hers in a savage kiss. He was not gentle, nor did she want him to be. She needed to feel his passion for her, wanted to know he needed her desperately, so she could keep on living for another day.
“You are mine. Mine!” he said against her lips. “Do you need me to prove it to you? Do you need to know I hunger only for you?”
“Yes,” she breathed, “yes.”
With a groan, he slid his hands down her sides, over her quivering thighs, and hooked them behind her knees.
Gwen whimpered softly when he brought her knees up to her chest. And then she felt him.