A Memory of Love

“
Y
ou are flushed with the heat of your bath, Rhonwyn. It is very becoming to you,” he told her.“Are you coming out of the tub soon?”

“How can I when you are standing here, my lord?”

Reaching over the edge of the high wood tub, he put his hands beneath her arms and quickly lifted her out of the water, setting her down upon the floor. He drew a deep breath of pleasure.

With a gasp of both surprise and shock Rhonwyn snatched at the drying cloth and covered her nakedness. “That was unfairly done, my lord!” she scolded him.

“Has no one ever told you that all is fair in both love and war, my lady wife?” His eyes were burning a hole in the cloth.

“There is no love here, my lord, so we must be at war,” she declared,“and you will find I am no easy enemy.…”

By Bertrice Small

THE KADIN
LOVE WILD AND FAIR
ADORA
UNCONQUERED
BELOVED
ENCHANTRESS MINE
BLAZE WYNDHAM
THE SPITFIRE
A MOMENT IN TIME
TO LOVE AGAIN
LOVE, REMEMBER ME
THE LOVE SLAVE
HELLION
BETRAYED
DECEIVED
THE INNOCENT
A MEMORY OF LOVE
THE DUCHESS
THE DRAGON LORD'S DAUGHTERS
PRIVATE PLEASURES

THE O'MALLEY SAGA
SKYE O'MALLEY
ALL THE SWEET TOMORROWS
A LOVE FOR ALL TIME
THIS HEART OF MINE
LOST LOVE FOUND
WILD JASMINE

SKYE'S LEGACY
DARLING JASMINE
BEDAZZLED
BESIEGED
INTRIGUED
JUST BEYOND TOMORROW
VIXENS

THE FRIARSGATE INHERITANCE
ROSEMUND
UNTIL YOU
PHILIPPA
THE LAST HEIRESS

THE WORLD OF HETAR
LARA

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For Cora Alexandra Small,
when she's old enough

T
he prince lay atop his lover, groaning and sweating his pleasure. The child, standing at the head of the bed, watched impassively. The prince's eyes met hers.

“Go outside, Rhonwyn,” he said.

“ 'Tis raining,” the child whined.

“Then take your sheepskin and lie quietly by the fire, lass,” he replied. Beneath him the woman moaned softly, shifting her hips suggestively as her impatient ardor grew.

“I want to sleep with my mam,” Rhonwyn said stubbornly.

“Nay, lass,” the prince laughed softly. “Tonight I sleep with your mam. Now make your bed by the fire. If I have to get up, I'll beat you.
Go!
”

Finally cowed, the child did as she had been bid and lay by the fire, wrapping herself in the warm sheepskin. She hated it when the prince came to their cottage. Then her mother had no time for her or her baby brother. The prince was their father, her mother had told them. They owed him their love and their allegiance. Without him they would starve. She and Glynn must always remember that.

Her brother was already asleep by the fire, his thumb in his small mouth, his dark lashes brushing his rosy cheek. She loved Glynn more than any other person on this earth. He did not prefer the prince to her as her mother did. Yet when Llywelyn ap gruffydd came to their cottage, he always brought his children gifts and greeted them lovingly. But I still don't have to like him, Rhonwyn reasoned silently to herself.

She heard her mother cry out, and the prince's deep voice said, “Christ's bones, Vala, no one feeds my itch like you do!” And then her mother laughed her husky laugh.

Rhonwyn's eyes closed at the sound, and she slept at last. There was no use in trying to stay awake. The prince would remain the night.

The late spring rain was heavy and chill. Some of it was seeping through the roof where the thatch was worn. The fire had gone out the day before, and the two children did not know how to restart it. They huddled together to keep warm. Their mother's body lay on the bed amid a pool of blood that was now congealed and blackening. The stench in the cottage had already numbed their nostrils, even as the cold had numbed their fingers and toes. The wind suddenly howled in mournful fashion, and the smaller of the two children whimpered, pressing himself closer to his elder sister.

Rhonwyn uerch Llywelyn focused her brain again as she had these past two days. How was she to save Glynn and herself from certain death? Their mama was dead, birthing the prince's latest child. Their cottage was isolated from any village, for decent women would not tolerate the prince's whore and his bastards. The old crone who had helped Vala in her two previous births had not been there this time, because this time the child had come too soon.
Much too soon.

They needed to be warm, Rhonwyn thought sleepily. How did one start a fire? If only it would cease raining. Perhaps they could walk and find another cottage or village—but whatever a village was for she didn't really know, having never left the hill on which she had lived her whole five years. Rhonwyn hugged her three-year-old brother tighter against her when he whimpered again.

“Hungry,” he complained to her.

“There is nothing left, Glynn,” she repeated for the tenth time. “When the rain stops we will go and find food. If we leave the cottage now, we will surely die.” They were apt to die in any event, Rhonwyn thought irritably. If she could only start a fire to warm them, the gnawing in their bellies might not seem so fierce. She hadn't meant for the fire to go out, but when her mam began screaming with her pain, Rhonwyn had taken her brother from their cottage so he would not be frightened. They had gone out on the hillside to pick flowers for the new baby. But when they had returned their mother was dead, and the fire was out. Not even a lingering coal remained that rhonwyn might coax into a warm flame as she had often seen her mother do. Then the rain had begun. It had rained all night and into this day, which was almost over.