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Authors: The Knight of Rosecliffe

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The same thought must have occurred to him, for his scowl turned slowly into a smile. He crossed his arms and leaned against the doorframe. “All right, then. I’ll stay.”
Rhonwen looked aghast at Josselyn. “You cannot mean for him to stay here. Not while I’m bathing!”
Josselyn pointed to a pair of hooks on the ceiling. “A curtain will protect your privacy.”
“Why can’t he wait outside?”
“There are two doors,” Jasper answered smugly. “And too many knives and other implements you might use as weapons. In this Josselyn is right. So, as she suggested, I’ll just sit here.”
He straddled a chair opposite the hearth, still grinning. “Get on with it, Rhonwen. I’ve other uses for my time than to nursemaid you.”
“’Tis not I who wishes your presence! Send someone else to guard me. Anyone would be more welcome than you—”
“Enough!” Josselyn cried, clapping her hands sharply. “You two are worse than a pair of bickering children. Even Gavin and Isolde are not this quarrelsome.” She yanked the curtain closed between Rhonwen and Jasper. “Now give me your soiled clothes and get into that tub while the water is yet warm.”
Rhonwen glared mutinously at her. She would do no such thing! Then she hesitated. Though she wanted to oppose Josselyn, to do so would contradict her newly conceived plan to go along with this ridiculous punishment. She hated to acquiesce, with Jasper lurking on the other side of a thin length of canvas. But the truth was, the bathtub looked awfully inviting. Certainly it would be a more pleasant bath than the chilly ones she usually took in the river.
So, taking a slow, calming breath, she willed her anger away. It was for the best, she told herself. And at least she couldn’t see Jasper’s smirking expression.
But there was no smirk on Jasper’s face as he watched Rhonwen disrobe. Josselyn added two logs to the fire so that
Rhonwen would not grow chilled. The leaping flames added another benefit, however, one only Jasper could appreciate. Though the plain canvas hid the exasperating Rhonwen from clear view, her silhouette was plainly displayed.
He watched, round-eyed, as she lifted the hem of her kirtle and pulled it over her head.
He saw her loosen the bit of ribbon that held her hair back and gaped in fascination as she finger-combed the luxuriant tangles.
He leaned forward, rapt with the scene being played before him. He could not see her save in shadow. Yet somehow the lack of detail in the shadow fired his imagination. He could almost feel those silky tangles and see their rich color in the firelight.
A hesitant rap on the opposite door broke Jasper’s reverie. “Mother?” came Gavin’s voice. “Isolde is sick. I think you should come.”
“Sick? How so?”
“She has vomited. Ugh,” he added. “You’d better hurry.”
“All right.”
In silhouette Jasper saw her look up at Rhonwen. “I’ll be back shortly. Everything you need is here.”
“Yes, but what of …” Rhonwen gestured with one hand. To him, Jasper realized.
His fingers tightened around the chair back. They would be alone.
“He will not come inside the curtain,” Josselyn said in a tone he knew was meant for his ears. “Do not fear, I will be back before you complete your ablutions. Go on, while the water is yet warm.”
She stepped from behind the curtain and gave Jasper a stern look. “I believe you know your duty.” Then, not waiting for his response, she departed.
Jasper’s attention returned at once to the curtain and Rhonwen’s shadowy form. She stood very still, her hair cascading around her, her chemise not entirely hiding the feminine shape beneath it.
He had to bite his tongue to prevent himself from urging
her to take it off. The flames leaped and twisted, and against the canvas her silhouette seemed to sway. Then he heard her sigh and slowly she pulled her chemise up.
He knew he would never forget the sight. He’d had her in his bed already. He’d kissed and touched every portion of her smooth, delicious flesh. But the sight of her standing there in shadow, her arms raised over her head, her legs long, her waist slender—her breasts full and outthrust—made him groan. He shifted painfully on the wooden chair, and she froze, her arms still tangled in the thin chemise. The suggestion of her nakedness was just as erotic as the reality of it.
Then her arms came out of the chemise, and her hair tumbled down.
He could just imagine her, staring at the curtain, wondering what he was doing. She probably held her arms across her naked chest, he speculated. He couldn’t be certain because of the silhouette of her heavy hair. But that only shifted his focus lower, to the apex of her shapely legs. The fire danced behind her, igniting new fires in him.
If he didn’t do something to cool his ardor, he feared he would embarrass himself!
“Get in the tub,” he muttered, pressing the heel of one hand against his aching groin. As if that would help him!
She shrank back even nearer the fire, for her silhouette grew longer. In his fevered state he could believe that she was approaching him. But she wasn’t, and even if she were, he could not risk anything here, where Josselyn or anyone else might barge in.
“Get in the damned tub! Else I will come and put you in it myself!”
“
Asyn
,” she swore. She leaned over the tub, testing the water, he assumed. But in reality, she presented him with a mouthwatering profile. Her derriere was high and firm. Her calves curving, her ankles narrow. And when she pushed her hair behind her back, her breasts showed, round with noticeable peaks.
He lurched out of the chair, sending it crashing to the floor. He must have her again or explode!
With a shriek of alarm, however, Rhonwen leaped into the tub. A splash. The slosh of water.
When he yanked back the curtain, she was chin deep in water, with rose petals floating around her face and her hair spread out like a rich cape of black velvet behind her.
“Get out of here,” she ordered. “Get out or I’ll scream.”
Though it was madness, he could not help taunting her. “Why scream, Rhonwen, when you know I can make you moan?”
Two spots colored her cheeks. She shook her head and the water rippled about her. But it still hid her from view. “Josselyn will return any minute. How will you explain this … this vile behavior?”
It was vile behavior. Jasper knew it as well as she. But something had taken hold of him and he seemed unable to conquer it.
That he was a man of strong passions was no secret. That he enjoyed women and knew how to give them an equivalent enjoyment was a point of pride. But this lack of control, this urgent need to possess her against any precept of logic, honor, or self-preservation, was madness. Desire was a raging beast within him and it took all his strength to rein it in.
“Josselyn, of all people, understands about passion,” he said, justifying his behavior. “Though she will leap to your defense for propriety’s sake, she will not judge me harshly for my desire.”
The spots in her cheeks grew brighter and she looked away. “I … I have done nothing to encourage your … desire.”
“No?” He drew a long breath. “With every move you make—”
He broke off, stunned by what he’d begun to say, stunned by the truth inherent in those words, and the power that knowledge of his weakness would give her.
He stepped back, his hands knotting into fists. “It will not work this time,” he muttered in a hoarse voice, though more for his benefit than hers. “You will not seduce me from my duty. Whether wench or lady, you will remain my hostage. And despite your intrigues and his, I will recapture Rhys ap
Owain. Sooner or later, I will have him back in Rosecliffe’s dungeon.”
She looked up at him and the pain in her eyes was evident. What was the hold Rhys had over her? It was driving him mad.
“What will be the benefit of capturing him?” she asked in small voice. “Will you imprison him forever? Or execute him? Will his head on a pike bring my people to their knees?”
She swallowed, then straightened a little so that her neck and shoulders were no longer hidden. She sat up further still, revealing the upper swells of her breasts and drawing his hot gaze. “What is it you want of me, Jasper? You desire me. You hate me. You desire me again. You intend to destroy Rhys and everything of my people. Where will it end? How can I end it?”
Jasper could not give her an answer. Desire was a thing worlds apart from logic. Hatred and desire, even more so. At his prolonged silence she bowed her head.
“You want the use of my body, without consequence, without guilt. But there is consequence. And there will always be guilt.”
Then without warning she pushed to her feet.
The water sheeted off her, leaving her hair clinging in long tangled webs to her lovely body. Her skin was flushed with the heat of the water, pink and smooth and gleaming in the firelight. Jasper gaped at the sight, unable to move a muscle. He wanted nothing more than to touch her. To taste her. To possess her.
“Do you want me?” she asked, as if she read his mind. When he still did not respond, she took a shaky breath. Her breasts quivered with the movement. Her nipples peaked.
And the pain in his groin nearly killed him.
She held out a hand to him. “If I thought I could buy peace between us in this way, I would. Is it possible? Will you leave Rhys and the others alone?”
Jasper closed his eyes and, miraculously, his brain began again to function, though feebly. He shook his head. “Sit down, Rhonwen. Sit down and think. Will Rhys end his rebellion
because you are in my bed? Even were I to cry pax, he would not. If anything, your presence here urges him on.”
“And that is why you keep me your captive, isn’t it? You use me as bait to lure him into a trap.”
He heard the resignation in her voice, then the slosh of the water when she sat. But still he kept his eyes averted.
“Rhys ap Owain will never forget that I killed his father. No matter that I saved Josselyn in the process, he sees me as a murderer. Rand took his father’s woman and I took his father’s life.”
He clenched his teeth and finally looked up at her. “Owain was a dangerous man, a murderous thug who was not above brutalizing women and anyone else weaker than himself. Everyone knows that, even you Welsh. ’Tis only twisted loyalty that prevents you from admitting it. But I understand Rhys’s loyalty. He is the son. He must avenge the wrong done his family and so he will never relent until he wreaks havoc on my family. Only I will not let him succeed.”
The room was silent save for the hiss of the flames. Rhonwen did not reply, nor did he want her to. There was no solution to their dilemma. They were enemies who desired one another. It was as simple and complicated as that.
In a moment of clarity he knew that taking her again to his bed would not change things. Nor would setting her free. The die was cast. Their tangled destinies would work themselves out with pain enough to go around for all.
Without a word Jasper turned on his heel and quit the overheated kitchen, leaving the door standing wide as he departed. He hurt as he strode away, physically hurt—and not just the pain of urgent desire unfulfilled. His chest hurt, as if something inside had been wrenched out.
In the past he’d always known how to kill pain. When women did not work, wine always did. But no amount of wine could kill this pain, and anyway, he didn’t want wine. He wanted Rhonwen.
 
 
Rhonwen sat in a patch of sunlight in Josselyn’s well-appointed solar, scowling at the strip of flurt silk in her lap. She could sew a kirtle or a hood as well as the next woman. She could patch hose and repair a hem. Serviceable goods she understood. But stitching a chain of leaves and flowers merely to ornament an already extravagant girdle? It was a waste of time—and much more difficult than she would have expected.
She looked up. Perched in a window quite as far from Rhonwen as she could get was Isolde. Three days and the child had not once looked at her, save with bitterness. Meanwhile, she worked on her own strip of the same silk with a zeal Rhonwen suspected came from competitiveness. She meant to prove herself better than Rhonwen at decorative needlework, and Rhonwen had no doubt she would.
Perhaps then the child’s hostility would ease. Rhonwen certainly hoped so.
“I have knotted the thread again,” Rhonwen announced. “Hopelessly, this time,” she added, gesturing to Josselyn with the pitiful girdle. Sure enough, Isolde sent a smug look in her mother’s direction.
For her part, Josselyn sighed. “You’re not putting your complete effort into this, are you, Rhonwen? But that’s no
matter. Rip it all out and begin again. Eventually you shall get it right.”
“Begin again! But this is the third time and the work is so tedious—”
“Pardon, milady,” the maid Enid slipped into the solar. “There is a messenger come from milord Rand.”
At once Josselyn laid aside her sewing. “Send for Jasper. Meanwhile, I’ll speak to the man in the hall. Then go you to the kitchen and fetch food and ale for him.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the girl said, then disappeared.
For a moment Josselyn simply sat there unmoving, and Rhonwen wondered at her calm. Then Josselyn’s head bowed and her lips moved silently. In prayer?
Of course, Rhonwen realized, and she felt a sudden kinship with her old friend. Josselyn prayed for her husband’s safety just as Rhonwen prayed for Rhys’s.
But there was a world of difference between those two sets of prayers. For Josselyn truly loved Rand. It became more and more obvious to Rhonwen with every day she spent at Rosecliffe Castle. What Rhonwen felt for Rhys was love too, but the love for a friend or even a brother. She wished she could love him in the full way a woman loved a man. But that love was reserved for another.
But not for Jasper, she told herself. Her love was not reserved for Jasper but for another man, one she’d yet to find.
One she feared never to find.
But that was neither here nor there. At the moment there was a messenger come from Randulf FitzHugh, and Josselyn’s immediate response was to pray. That she should fear for her husband’s safety while he was in the company of his own countrymen piqued Rhonwen’s curiosity much more than did the intricacies of embroidery. She too lay her work aside, and rose.
“Are you all right?” she asked, touching Josselyn’s shoulder.
Josselyn startled but immediately recovered. “Quite all right. Why do you ask?”
Rhonwen shrugged. “You looked worried.”
She turned to go, but Josselyn caught her hand. She stared earnestly up at Rhonwen. “I miss Rand when he is gone. I worry about him always, and I cannot be completely at ease until I have him safe in my arms again.” She smiled, and in her face the truth fairly shone. “I love him. He is the center of my life.” Then she stood and placed one hand over her stomach. “And I have news of my own I would share with him.”
She left the room, a serene woman made even more beautiful by the love she shared with her husband and children. Rhonwen stared after her, forgetting about her initial animosity. What must it be like to love so intensely, to love with your entire being—and be loved that way in return?
That was assuming, of course, that the Englishman FitzHugh did love his Welsh wife.
But honesty bade Rhonwen to admit what everyone knew. Randulf FitzHugh doted on Josselyn. Were it not for that fact, the people around Rosecliffe Castle would be more discontented by the English presence in their midst. From Afon Bryn south to Radnor Forest, Welsh leaders forever plotted ways to throw off the yoke of English oppression. But in Carreg Du and the lands between the River Geffen and the sea, it was harder to generate that sort of discontent. Rhys had often raged at the complacency in their narrow portion of Wales. The apathy. He called it fear, but Rhonwen wondered if it was something else. It was almost as if the love between Josselyn and Rand had cast a softer light upon this part of Wales they ruled.
The soft slap of shoe leather on the stone floor put Rhonwen’s reverie to an end. Josselyn and Rand might have found peace together, and cast it over their lands, but within their family they’d sired an irksome brat. Whenever her mother was out of sight, Isolde made certain to taunt or insult or otherwise annoy Rhonwen.
As the girl crossed to her now, Rhonwen braced herself and smiled. “Ah, Isolde. Perhaps you can advise me on this.” She held out the hopelessly knotted embroidery. “I try, but as you see, I do not succeed. And it comes so naturally to you.”
Instead of softening under the compliment, which was partly
sincere, Isolde’s piquant features wrinkled in suspicion. “You will never possess a fine hand with the needle because you do not value the skill. You may fool my mother when you pretend to try, but you do not fool me. You will never be a fine lady,” she finished smugly.
“Really? And why is that? Because I am Welsh? Your mother is Welsh, and you are half-Welsh, or do you forget?” She studied the truculent child. “You know, Isolde, I knew your mother long before she met your father, long before she became the ‘fine lady’ she is now. You yourself were born a Welsh baby in a simple Welsh cottage.”
“I was not!”
“Oh, but you were—” Rhonwen broke off. Did Isolde not know the circumstances of her own birth? Did she not know her mother had wed another man before she was born and had passed Rand’s child off as a Welsh child? Staring at the girl’s petulant face, Rhonwen was sorely tempted to tell her the truth of it. How Rand had not known she was his child. How her supposed father’s death and Owain’s mad rages had nearly resulted in her death, and her mother’s.
Owain’s mad rages.
Yes, Rhonwen thought. He had been mad, and perhaps Rhys had inherited a certain amount of the madness from his father. But that was a matter separate from the one at hand. If Isolde believed herself born into Rosecliffe Castle with her father in attendance, it was not Rhonwen’s place to reveal the truth. But it was an accusation she could wield over Josselyn. She was getting exceedingly weary of being the most powerless person in the castle.
“You are right, Isolde,” she said with a bland expression firmly in place. “You are the pampered firstborn of a handsome father and a beautiful mother. Your life is one of ease and you deserve every luxury that you have been given. By comparison, I am baseborn and undeserving. Truth be told, you should not be forced to endure my lowly presence. So I will leave you now. I will leave you to bask in your own bright glory while I slink back into my misery.”
She gave the child an arch smile then, and strode away,
humming under her breath. She knew she should not stoop to quibbling with a child, but Isolde’s determined dislike had begun to wear on her.
But it was the message from the lord of Rosecliffe that interested her now. On silent feet she made her way down the stone stairs, then halted when she heard Josselyn’s voice.
“ … but for how long?”
A man cleared his throat, and when Josselyn peeped past the curving stone wall, she saw the nervous fellow, worrying the Phrygian cap clutched in his hands. “Not above a fortnight, milady. He says to make you this oath. He will be home within a fortnight of this very day.”
“A fortnight.” Josselyn turned away and her hand flitted momentarily to her stomach. From where she stood Rhonwen could see the disappointment in her face, and though she didn’t want to be affected, her heart went out to Josselyn. She’d meant to eavesdrop, but instead she again started down the stairs.
“I hope the news is good,” she said, announcing her presence.
Josselyn looked up just as Gavin came bounding in. “Is there word from Father? Is he started home?”
Isolde brushed past Rhonwen and descended the stairs, as graceful and dainty as any princess of legend. “We should give a feast for Father upon his return,” she suggested. “’Tis near to his nameday. What say you, Mother? A feast for Father.”
“Ho, there’s an idea. A feast for Father,” Gavin echoed. Josselyn put an arm around the pair and in each of them Rhonwen saw their mother’s likeness—and their father’s. Isolde had her mother’s face, but for the eyes. Gavin had her mouth and jaw. Children of Wales and England, and beloved of both parents. What sort of future did the land of their birth hold for them and their younger sister?
Rhonwen stared at them, at the loving family they were, and felt like an interloper. She debated retreat, but Josselyn caught her eye. “Come down, Rhonwen. Come down—and walk like a lady. Head high, shoulders back.”
Head high. Shoulders back. Measured tread. Rhonwen hesitated, recalling Josselyn’s earlier instructions. Even before she’d become mistress of Rosecliffe Castle, Josselyn had possessed the bearing of the highborn. But then, she’d been the daughter of a Welsh leader. Like her mother, that same serenity came naturally to Isolde. But Rhonwen vowed to master it as well.
Just then one of the tall oak doors swung open and Jasper entered. His riding cape flared out behind him as he crossed the hall with his long-legged stride. “What news does Rand send?” He looked from the messenger to Josselyn. “Does he fare well?”
Rhonwen froze on the stairs, unable to tear her eyes away from Jasper. What was it about the man? she bemoaned. He walked into the room and immediately sucked every thought out of her head. There were other men as handsome, as manly and strong. Other men were as confident and arrogant. But he was the only man who made her heart trip over itself. That she hadn’t seen him in two days made her reaction even more pronounced.
As she watched from the stairs, Isolde sidled up to him and he absently stroked his niece’s hair. Rhonwyn watched the movement of his hand, like one mesmerized. Then she registered the smug smile Isolde sent her, and she reacted instinctively.
Head high. Shoulders back. She moved down the stairs, one measured tread at a time, as if she owned the castle.
As if she owned Rosecliffe and all of northern Wales.
It was gratifying to see Jasper’s hand still when he spied her. It was thrilling to see appreciation and desire heat in his eyes.
It was mortifying to trip over the too-long hem of the elegant gown Josselyn had given her, and totally humiliating to stumble down the last three steps and land painfully on her hands and knees.
“Are you all right?” Josselyn cried, hurrying to her side.
“Yes,” Rhonwen muttered, ignoring the hand Jasper extended
to help her up. She climbed to her feet and he backed away.
The only one smiling was Isolde.
Jasper frowned and turned back to Josselyn. “What word have you from Rand?”
Josselyn sat down, as did they all. “He left LaMonthe’s stronghold yesterday, thank God. He proceeds now to Oaken Hill.” She looked at her two older children, who flanked their uncle. “LaMonthe offered to foster Gavin but, of course, Rand declined. He hopes to reach an agreement with Lord Edgar. Then there is the matter of Isolde’s betrothal.”
“I do not wish to become betrothed,” Isolde announced. She leaned against Jasper.
“He will not match her with one of Lord Edgar’s sons,” Jasper said. “Not if Gavin fosters there. I know Rand and he will want to gain separate alliances for Rosecliffe through his children.”
“But I don’t want to be betrothed!” Isolde exclaimed.
“Don’t fret, dear. I will do what I can to delay,” Josselyn reassured her daughter.
“’Tis only a betrothal,” Jasper said. “Just a contract. She’s hardly of an age to wed.”
“I’m not a child!” Isolde cried.
“This is Wales,” Rhonwen interrupted. “No woman can be forced to wed against her will, even by her father.”
At her unexpected words, Jasper twisted his head and sent her an exasperated look. Isolde stared at her too, shocked and a little suspicious. Then the girl turned hopefully to her mother. “Mama, is it—”
“I am well aware of our Welsh customs,” Josselyn interrupted, staring at Rhonwen. “But I am mindful of my husband’s customs as well.”
“So you will wed me to someone I hate?” Isolde’s chin trembled with emotion. “I won’t do it. I’ll run away!”
Josselyn turned to Isolde and caught her daughter by the arms. “Listen to me, child. He may betroth you against my wishes and yours. But you will never be wed to a man you do not want. Never,” she vowed.
Jasper shot an aggravated look at Rhonwen. “You should not meddle in matters that do not pertain to you.”
Rhonwen planted her fists on her hips. “We women must support one another.”

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