Hearts in Cups (45 page)

"Aye your
ladyship, 'tis as fine an answer as he deserves and one that her late ladyship
might well have given. Thank ye; I'll be sending Brescom's hound back to his
master forthwith." With a rough bow Griswold strode out of the room and
Angharad, feeling ridiculously giddy, saw that she was alone with an astonished
Dame Edwinna.

The flush of power and
approval still on her, Angharad asked again where Lord Ian was. Shaking her
head, as if to dispel a dream, the older woman replied that his lordship had
not been seen since earlier this morning and that, though they had searched for
him when Griswold came looking, none knew his current whereabouts in the
castle.

Casually dismissing
Edwinna, Angharad went to sit down in a corner and decide what she should do
next. Her first impulse was to run back and bury herself in her rooms, but upon
brief reflection she discarded the notion. For the first time in months, a
decision she had made had been taken seriously and acted upon. The lethargy
that she usually felt was replaced by a sense of vitality as she realized that
what she said and did could actually matter. This large, bluff soldier had
consulted her and listened to what she had to say. What was happening around
her, the war, the siege, the efforts of those entrapped within the castle,
began to take on substance and reality. Deep within came her acceptance of the
fact that she had been treated as a child because she had spoken and behaved as
one.

The pattern of sunlight
across the room caught her attention as it moved into her eye, waking her from
her reverie. Action was the key, and the first action that she must engage in
was finding Lord Ian and letting him know what she had done. Heady with her resolve,
she stood up and headed for his private apartments, the logical place to begin
searching for him.

Never having been to
Ian's personal rooms before, it took her quite a while and a few wrong turns to
find them. Standing at his door she was struck with an attack of shyness that
made her hesitate. Wetting her lips and silently reaffirming her resolve to
act, she raised her hand to knock. Before her hand reached the door, it
suddenly swung inwards and she found herself face to face with a woman who looked
familiar, but to whom she could attach no name.

At first the woman
seemed equally taken aback. Then a slow, not very nice smile began to play on
her lips. "Well, well your ladyship..." she intoned archly.
"What brings you here?"

Flustered at being
caught off-guard, Angharad tried to peer over the woman's shoulder and into the
room, while she inquired in a faltering voice after Lord Ian. At this, the
woman's smile became a smirk. Leaning against the edge of the door she looked
Angharad up and down, saying nothing more. If she intended to intimidate the
girl, she had under-estimated her opponent. Angharad's back stiffened and her
chin lifted as it dawned on her that the woman behaving so insolently to her
must be Ian's mistress. Angharad's relationship with the lord of the castle
might be only one of state, but she was the daughter of a duke and the purebred
pride of many generations now came to her aid. "Stand aside!" she
ordered.

"He's not
here," the woman replied without moving.

"That may or may
not be, but when I command you to step aside, you will do so." Angharad's
voice acquired a steely edge to it.

"I tell you that
he is not here!" Kathryn stared back at this little stick of a girl
contemptuously. She was not overly concerned at the girl's wrath. Being the
lord of the castle's mistress, in her mind, put her up several notches from
this dressed up doll who reputedly spent all her time sulking in her own rooms.

"I said to step
aside!" Angharad reiterated imperiously.

The two women stood
glaring at each other: one angrily and the other mockingly. Neither was willing
to budge and the tension between them crackled. What would have occurred next
was forestalled by the arrival of Ian's personal attendant, Evan.

"Who is it?"
he asked coming up behind Kathryn. Looking over her shoulder, he quickly
exclaimed in alarm, "Your ladyship! What can we do for you?"

"You can begin by
removing this obstruction," she replied pointing at Kathryn.

His look of alarm
became compounded with annoyance and fear. Angharad was unsure as to which of
them was causing his evident consternation. "Step aside and allow her
ladyship to enter at once," he hissed in Kathryn's ear.

She glanced mutinously
at him, read something in his face that changed her mind and reluctantly
stepped aside. Without speaking, Angharad swept by her and into the room beyond
as if the woman had ceased to exist. She came to a halt inside a large, well
furnished room and waited. At the door a whispered argument was taking place
that abruptly ended with a sharp retort as the door was closed behind Kathryn.
The young man who had admitted her returned.

"How may I serve
your ladyship?" There was a gentle solicitude in his inquiry that
surprised Angharad.

"I am looking for
Lord Ian," she replied simply.

"Oh dear, there
were others seeking him earlier today but I'm afraid that he still has not
returned," Evan replied, trying to put the young woman at ease. He did not
need to have heard what must have been said between the girl and Kathryn to
guess that Ian's "whore" had been indefensibly rude. Over the last
months the friction between these two servants of the duke regent had rapidly
escalated to an explosive level.

"Do you have any
idea where he might be found?"

Evan's dark, square face
furrowed in thought. At last he ventured, "Occasionally, when my lord
wants to be by himself without any interruptions, he goes to the late duchess'
private study. No one else ever goes there."

"Where is it? Do
you know whether anyone has yet checked there for him?" she asked eagerly.

"I doubt if anyone
has checked it. It had slipped my own mind until just a moment ago," he
admitted. "It's up in the western tower, away from the main halls. Her
grace liked solitude," he added irrelevantly.

"How do I find
it?" Evan offered to conduct her to the room himself, but she was filled
with a sudden desire to find the room on her own. Repeating his instructions
several times, Evan saw her to the door.

 At first,
Angharad passed many servants and courtiers pursuing their tasks and paying her
scant heed except to incline their heads respectfully as they hurried by. From
Ian's quarters in the eastern wing of the main castle, she had to go up several
flights of stairs to a connecting corridor through the northern wing and then
climb more stairs until she found herself in a deserted hallway in the far
tower of the western wing. She stood alone now facing a short flight of stairs
and a closed door. A rush of trepidation filled her as she forced herself up
the five steps and gently tapped on the door.

There was no response
to her soft knock and she was about to leave in discouragement, but curiosity
stopped her, and she tried the handle of the door. Unlocked, it turned easily
and she gently pushed the door inwards. Standing on the threshold, she peered
into a narrow room faced with mullioned windows and crowded with books, trunks
and an odd assortment of furniture. It resembled nothing so much as a storeroom
for unneeded and excess items. Against the bright glare from the window she
shaded her eyes with her hand and looked to find a human form sprawled on a
chair before an unlit fireplace.

At the opening of the
door the figure's head moved spasmodically and a harsh voice ordered that the
door be closed and its opener leave behind it. There was a slight twisting in
Angharad's stomach as she recognized Ian's voice in the rasp of the command.
For an instant, she thought to obey, but something in his voice and demeanor
checked her, and she closed the door behind her. She came forward several paces
until she could see him clearly, and was shocked at what her eyes discovered.

The habitually elegant
and self-contained young man that she was used to was gone. Ian lay slumped in
his chair, hair and clothing in dishevelment, his eyes closed and the pallor of
his skin vivid against the dark fabric where he lay his head. She had said
nothing, but a sudden suspicion that he was not alone caused him to raise his
eyelids, revealing eyes that glittered in their intensity and caused her to instinctively
step back. It took him several minutes before he recognized her, and then he
closed his eyes as his voice inquired wearily, "What is it that you
want?"

There was that which
was so ineffably sad in his voice and demeanor that Angharad found herself
regarding him with unexpected sympathy. She came forward again, this time to
crouch beside his chair. His eyes opened once more, revealing mingled
uncertainty and weariness. He did not move; only his eyes betrayed the life
within him as he continued to stare at her.

"We have been
looking for you all afternoon," she began timidly. "Everyone was very
worried..." her voice trailed off as she became aware of how inadequate
she sounded. The eyes watching her closed for a moment, as if what she said added
to an unseen burden. In desperation she cried out: "What is it? What is
wrong?"

A ghost of a smile
barely lifted his lips as he replied. "What is wrong is myself, my lady. I
cannot understand what madness possessed Holly to make me her heir when I am so
entirely inadequate. I am going to fail her and myself, and the fear of it is a
constant knife in my guts." He ceased speaking but his anguished eyes
remained on her face.

Angharad felt acutely
embarrassed by this disclosure, but compassion rooted her. As she continued to
gaze at him an awakening comprehension filled her. She had known that he had
been particularly devoted to his cousin but did not understand until now how
deep that devotion ran. She sat back on her heels and remained staring at him
in wonder.

Realizing that she was
not going to leave, an inner compulsion to speak of his fears and his loss
prompted him to continue. "When they told me that Holly was dead, I was
tempted to leave Langstraad and the Pentarchy. To flee to the ends of the earth
where I would know no one and none would know me. You see, I could live with
the knowledge that she might be another man's wife, because then I would still
be able to see and speak with her. But without her in the world, everything
became meaningless. It was only because she made me her heir, and made me
promise to take care of that which was hers, that I stayed here. I have tried,
but I am not of the stuff that leaders are made."

"That is
nonsense!" Angharad exclaimed involuntarily. He stopped his rambling and
regarded her in surprise. "You are doing as well as any man in this
situation could do. You did not ask for this war! The fact that you foresaw as
much as you did and took the measures that you did saved many lives."

"Not Alwyn's, nor
the men who fell with him." He remained morose. "I am not a soldier,
not a captain of men. I am not even particularly noble except on my mother's
side." To Angharad's puzzled look, he explained. "My mother was Baron
de Medicat's daughter, but my father was a common man by the name of Toller
Branwell whose trade was making objects out of clay." Angharad was
abruptly enlightened on some of the obscure comments that she had overheard
during the course of Ian's stay at Gwenth and their betrothal. A flame of anger
rose in her heart as she recalled the unkind jests that had been made at both
his and her expense.

"I must apologize
for having dragged you into this," he continued, forcing her thoughts back
to the present and the man seated before her. "At the time, it seemed that
an alliance with your father and his duchy was the best way to preserve
Langstraad. But I can now see that it has drawn off soldiers who might have
stayed and helped Alwyn to repel Brescom's army. It also dragged you off to
unwilling exile in a strange castle." There was silence in the room as
Ian, in his self-recrimination and misery, turned his gaze to the ceiling.

While he had been
speaking, Angharad reached out to lay her hand gingerly on his sleeve in a
gesture of comfort. Something of her movement caught the perimeter of Ian's
vision and he moved to put her back into his line of sight. Meeting her eyes,
luminous blue-violet, he saw in them an acceptance and understanding entirely
foreign to him. It came to him suddenly that for the first time since he had
lost Holly, he might not be alone. As he continued to gaze at her, a reciprocal
feeling began to flow back along the emotional bridge that Angharad had
unintentionally forged, and she also was comforted with the knowledge that she
was no longer friendless.

Shyness overcame
Angharad at last and she had to bend her head over her knees to recover her
composure. When she finally grew bold enough to steal a glance at Ian's face,
his manifest surprise forced a smile from her. Swiftly he returned that smile
with one of his own. Not knowing precisely what to think or say, Angharad took
refuge in the mundane and launched into an account of Sir Griswold's coming to
her with Lord Brescom's message, the urgency with which it needed to be dealt,
his absence, and her response to the earl's demand. As she spoke she remained
dazzled about the last hour and the change she had seen in Ian's expression,
from the withdrawn despair when she had first come upon him to the interest and
the approving glint in his eyes as she now spoke.