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Authors: The Mistress of Rosecliffe

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He stared at the keep, at the doors closed and sheltering her within. This was his castle now, not hers. His fortress. He’d taken it and he would hold it fast against his enemies.
He would take her, too, if he so desired. And he would keep her so long as she roused him to lust. But she was no more than any other wench to him. Even less. The day would come when he would send her away from Rosecliffe. But only after her father and uncle lay dead by his hand.
Then he would be done with the FitzHugh family once and for all.
 
The day passed in an obscene blur. Isolde knew her duty. She was of the lord’s family, and when their people turned to her she must be brave and confident and reassuring. So, as much as it galled her, she did as Rhys ap Owain bade her do. With that odious man Dafydd trailing her like a slovenly hound, she
circulated among her people. She put them to their work, cleaning, cooking, washing. It was mostly women’s work. No men came up from the village to repair leather harnesses or weave stout ropes of shredded reeds and coarse flax. No one shaved barrel staves. No one worked the bellows. But the meal was cooked, and when the bells rang sext, the midday meal was served.
She wanted to stay away from the hall during dinner, for she did not wish to sit near Rhys. But the barrel-chested guard would not cooperate.
“Get you to the hall,” he ordered. “Your parsley plants will still be here after dinner is done.”
“I’m not inclined to eat,” she retorted, continuing down the straw-covered garden path.
“Well, I am.” Dafydd caught her arm in his ham-sized fist. “Come along—”
“How dare you! Unhand me, you vile cur!”
“I’m hungry,” he snapped, hustling her along despite her struggling. “Move your arse!”
He dragged her to the garden gate but not through it. For propped against the fence was a spade, and Isolde did not think twice. She snatched it up, and with a wild, desperate swing, she caught him below the knee with one edge.
“Ow!” he yelped and let her go. “Uff!” The burly brute went down like a felled tree when she slammed him on top of the head.
From a distance someone shouted—one of the guards in the gate tower, she vaguely realized. But Isolde simply stood there, gaping at the crumpled Welshman, filled with righteous anger—and then with a sickening fear. Had she killed him?
She threw down the spade and leaned over the man.
“Damnation!” Rhys bellowed from across the yard.
Isolde’s head whipped up and she sucked in a sudden breath as he bolted across the bailey. Dear God, but she was in for it now!
“Damnation!” he swore again, shooting her a black look before crouching over the fallen guard. “Dafydd. Dafydd! Can you hear me?”
A low groan answered and, in spite of her fury, Isolde felt an immeasurable relief. She hated these men who’d taken
Rosecliffe, but she wasn’t quite ready to kill any of them herself.
The man groaned again as he sat up, and raised a hand to the top of his head. “Ow. Oh, I’m bleedin’!” He held out a bloody hand to show Rhys, while he sent her a damning look. “She cracked my head open with a spade—an’ for no good reason.”
Rhys stood and looked at Isolde, too, as did the other men who had come to investigate the row. “If it is your plan to take us down, one man at a time, Isolde, heed my advice. You will succeed far better with your attacks at night than during midday when everyone can see you.”
His men guffawed with laughter, all but the one she’d felled. Isolde glared at Rhys. “I will not be strong-armed by your thugs.”
“Strong-armed?” Rhys’s attention turned abruptly to the guard.
“I didn’t do nothin’!” Dafydd protested, lurching to his feet. “It was dinnertime an’ I was hungry. That’s all.”
A muscle ticked in Rhys’s jaw. Despite her own fears, Isolde noted that subtle movement, and noticed also that his anger was focused on the unpleasant Welshman now, not her. As if he sensed the danger he suddenly was in, the guard took a step backward.
Isolde’s mind spun. This was not at all the reaction she’d expected after such an act of insurrection. She was the prisoner, yet it was one of her jailers being accused by Rhys’s night-dark stare.
Then those eyes turned upon her and the incident was finished. “Enough of this,” he snapped. “Bandage his head then return to the hall and preside over the meal in your usual fashion.” To Dafydd he said, “Go with her then get your dinner.”
With one stern glance he sent the onlookers on their way. Then he too left, and Isolde and the disgruntled guard were alone in the kitchen garden once more. Isolde watched Rhys stride away, confused by what had just occurred. What was she to make of that?
The Welshman took the spade and heaved it across the garden. Despite her distrust of him, Isolde knew just how he felt.
“Come along,” she muttered.
“I don’t need nothin’ from you.” He growled the words at her. “But I owe you something’ for this, an’ I won’t be forgettin’ it.”
Isolde’s nostrils flared at the threat in his voice and she turned away, heading for the stillroom. She’d made an enemy of him, that was certain. But then, they were all her enemies. When the man nevertheless appeared in the stillroom a few minutes later, Isolde understood two important things.
One was that Rhys ap Owain ruled men with an iron hand. It took but one look, the raising of his brow, or a mildly stated command to make them react. The threat he made, though not overt, was nonetheless real: do as I tell you or suffer the consequences.
The second was that she must watch her back with this Dafydd. His narrow eyes watched her with an avidity that made her skin crawl. She glared back at him, but her hands shook as she assembled powdered alder bark and dried wound-wort in a small crockery bowl with a small amount of oil and melted beeswax.
“Here.” She thrust it at him. “Clean the wound first, then put this on it.”
He gave her an ugly grin. “You do it.”
“Not bloody likely,” she swore. She set a bowl of water before him and a small cup of soft soap. But she had no intentions of touching the unsavory brute. After a moment he began the task himself, and when he winced at the sting, she felt an unwonted glimmer of regret.
“I’m sorry,” she said, though with less sincerity than she hoped. He was a despicable example of Welsh humanity; however, she did not need his enmity.
He scowled at her.
“I said I’m sorry. Did no one ever teach you manners?”
His eyes swept over her, lingering insolently at her breasts. “You’re sorry, are you? Then whyn’t you make it up to me?”
Giving him a disgusted look, Isolde yanked open the door. “I hope it festers and turns putrid and that your head rots off.” Then she swept from the stillroom, her head high and her jaw clenched. Inside, though, she shook with impotent rage. She
hated him. She hated all of them, most especially their wretched leader!
But she could not reveal her fears, she reminded herself. She could not reveal her exhaustion, for that’s what they all wanted. She must be brave and fierce. And she
must
control her emotions, for her people were depending on her.
Easy to say; infinitely harder to do. For when Isolde entered the hall, the sudden silence was deafening. Dozens of faces turned her way and watched her progress through the hall. The castle folk were bewildered and fearful. The Welsh invaders, cocky and watchful. And the most cocky was Rhys ap Owain.
She strode between the tables, ignoring him. Instead, she stopped here and there, forcing herself to behave as if it were any other midday meal. She spoke to the pantler’s stand-in, a twelve-year-old lad pressed into duty, and to the woman who was performing the butler’s chores. She checked the ewers and nodded to the pages to pour. The serving maids paraded their trays before her and she gave approval for each of the dishes. Slowly sounds filled the hall: low murmured voices; mugs thumping softly against the tabletops. The Welsh voices were louder, but there were more English, and eventually their voices dominated.
Only then did Isolde take her own place. Only then did she acknowledge Rhys’s presence. For he stood and pulled out her chair, and she was compelled to mutter a reluctant thanks.
“You did that very well,” he said, filling her goblet with wine and offering it to her.
“I hardly require your approval for behaving as my parents would expect me to behave.”
“Nonetheless, I approve.” He signaled a page. “Serve your mistress the best portion of the bird. A tender piece.”
“I am not of a mind to eat.”
The serving lad halted and glanced from Rhys to her, then back to Rhys, his eyes round with worry.
“Nonetheless you shall eat,” Rhys said, serving her himself.
“Will that be your answer to every objection I make?” Isolde erupted in anger. “‘Nonetheless you shall do it.’”
Rhys waved the boy away. Then he propped his elbow casually on the arm of her father’s chair and leaned nearer to her. “You can choose to oppose me, Isolde. No doubt you
would like to do so at every turn. But in the end you shall obey me—from the smallest task I set you, to the greatest. You may fight me all you want, if that is your will. But know this: I will be the victor in our every confrontation.” Then he speared a piece of meat with his knife and began to eat.
Isolde forgot her promise to hide her emotions. He went too far! She jerked to her feet. “You will rue this day for the rest of your very short life,” she swore.
He grinned up at her. In the suddenly quiet hall his voice carried too well. “Do you think so? One thing I shall never rue … the night just past.” He yanked her arm, forcing her once more to sit, then added in a lower voice for her ears only. “Nor will I rue the ones to come.”
RHYS KEPT ISOLDE WITHIN HIS SIGHT THE REMAINDER OF THE day. It was a foolish decision, he suspected, but one he could not undo. Because he did not like the way Dafydd’s resentful gaze followed her, he set Linus and Gandy to guard her, with strict instructions that no one was to manhandle her. Then he ordered the steward and the former captain of the guard to be brought up from the donjon. He meant to review the castle record books with the former. As for Osborn, he wanted the man to witness the smooth transition Rhys was making at Rosecliffe, from English rule to Welsh.
He watched through the open door of the castle office as the two men entered the great hall, shepherded by three guards, and he saw Isolde’s glad response. She threw down the needlework in her lap and rushed to their side, and when Osborn opened his arms, she flew into them.
Rhys rubbed his knuckles against the slight bristle along his jaw and stared at the three prisoners. No one could ever accuse her of being dispassionate, nor of lacking empathy with her people. He watched her reunion with the old knight and the fidgety steward, and knew the affection they shared was real.
She was no cold English bitch, he conceded. In her volatile emotions, at least, she revealed some portion of her mother’s blood. But she’d been raised as English nobility, and the men she huddled with now were English invaders in Welsh lands. The blood of dragons might run in her veins, but she’d long ago turned her back on Wales.
Could she defeat him, she would do so. It behooved him never to forget that fact.
He strolled out of the office, cognizant of the precise moment the threesome became aware of his approach. Osborn stiffened first, then the other two turned to look. Rhys had to suppress a spurt of anger when Isolde leaned back against the old knight and the man circled her shoulders protectively.
“You have had your time together,” Rhys said. “Now we have business to discuss.”
“What sort of business?” Isolde demanded to know.
He had originally addressed Osborn. Now he looked directly at her. “Men’s business.”
Her chin tipped up belligerently. “Whatsoever occurs in this castle is as much my business as anyone’s.”
The steward groaned. Osborn tightened his hold on her. “Be still, girl. Odo and I will deal with him.”
“Yes. Be still, girl,” Rhys echoed, enjoying her frustration. “You have work to do. Get you to it.”
She was a study in seething fury. Her gray eyes sparked with it, her porcelain skin fairly glowed with it. Her hands knotted into fists, yet somehow she controlled her temper. Osborn murmured in her ear, and Rhys saw her grit her teeth. But when the man patted her shoulder and gave her a little shove, she went.
Rhys wanted to watch her go. He wanted to watch the natural sway of her hips and see the flicking back and forth of her long plaits as she moved. She was the epitome of femininity: small but strong; slender yet shapely; soft, yet possessed of a core of steel. But he had other matters to tend, so he cut his observations short.
Osborn too had watched her walk away. When he looked at Rhys his eyes were narrowed. “Only a coward attacks his enemy through his child—especially a girl child!”
“She’s hardly a child,” Rhys drawled, then smiled at the black look his words drew from the man. “But enough of that. We have business.”
“Ransom?” the old warrior muttered.
“I am not in need of your English coin. I’ve plenty enough of that. Earned honestly,” he added.
Osborn studied him a moment. “Yes. We’ve had word of your prowess, both in battle as well as in tournaments. You are a mercenary and come at a high price. Have you never thought to whom you owe a debt for the training you have received?”
“A debt?” Rhys laughed, though with little mirth. “Your liege sent me to Barnard Castle to separate me from my homeland. He sent me there to suffer at the hands of Englishmen because he did not have the fortitude to punish me himself. He sent me there in the hope I would not survive. That I did so—that I have prospered and grown rich—is not to his credit. I owe him no debt, nor his brother, save one. The debt of revenge. And that I will have!”
Osborn did not shrink from his bitter words, but Odo did. The three guards who accompanied the English prisoners also shifted nervously. Linus and Gandy were near Isolde, close enough that all of them heard his threat. With a slight frown on his broad face, Linus stood and crossed the hall.
“A ship is sighted,” he said to Rhys, breaking the tense silence. “Glyn saw the sails.”
Rhys shuddered as he beat back the rage that threatened to engulf him. “Right on time,” he muttered. Then he stared at the two Englishmen. “Ransom is of no interest to me. I am casting you out of Rosecliffe, casting you out from this castle and from this country.”
“What?”
“You’re letting us go?” The steward spoke at last, and relief was evident in his voice.
“You and all the others not born of this land will go,” Rhys said.
“But you can’t just put us out,” Odo began.
“I can. Those among you with Welsh wives may choose to stay, but only if you swear fealty to me. Even now the ship comes. Tomorrow you go.”
To his credit Osborn considered this startling information a long moment before reacting. “Where do you send us?”
“Tintagel.”
“Tintagel!” Odo exclaimed. “But that’s so far!”
“Who’s to go?” Osborn asked. “All of us?”
There was no reason for evasion, for Rhys knew to whom he referred. “She stays.”
Odo instinctively grabbed Osborn’s arm, but there was no need. For instead of erupting in fury, the old knight cocked his head. “Why do you keep her?”
Rhys crossed his arms. “Why do you think?”
Osborn studied Rhys for a moment. “I am not certain. May-hap it is more than the obvious. Why Tintagel?” he asked, changing the subject.
“FitzHugh will not expect it. He will arrive here with few men and then find no reinforcements. I will defeat him,” he vowed. “I will defeat him and his brother.”
Osborn crossed his arms, mirroring Rhys’s stance. “What will you do with Isolde, then?”
Rhys stared at the man. He was a cagey old fellow, wise enough to see past the surface of his own situation to the deeper implications. He was also loyal to FitzHugh and FitzHugh’s children. Rhys shrugged. “She is partly Welsh. If she can throw off her English upbringing, mayhap I will wed her to some good Welsh fellow. One who will beat the pride out of her,” he added, trying to provoke Osborn.
But even that did not rouse the man’s temper. Osborn studied him thoughtfully, then heaved a great sigh and scanned the hall with his faded eyes. “You have taken charge of a good fortress, a good home.” Then those eyes fastened on Rhys’s once more, sharp and fierce again. “Learn something from this. Learn that it is better to build up than to tear down.”
Rhys laughed. “So you concede to me. You give up, and without any show of opposition.” He paused. “I expected better from you.”
Instead of anger at his taunt, however, Osborn reacted with a long look, as if taking Rhys’s measure. “Enjoy your victory, son. While it lasts.” Then he turned on his heel and headed back to the donjon.
Rhys stared at him, reluctantly impressed. The aging knight bore himself well, even if he was wrong. He gestured for the guards to follow Osborn. To Odo he said, “Go to the office. I would review your books.” But as the steward scurried to do his bidding, Rhys’s eyes followed Osborn.
He knew something. He must. Otherwise he could not be so complacent. But what could it be? And why was he not more concerned about Isolde?
Rhys looked around and spied her pacing before the hearth, casting damning looks in his direction. Above her a wolf tapestry hung, the immense beast surrounded by roses. That would be the first thing to go. He started abruptly toward her and she ceased her pacing. Linus sat on a stool, calmly watching with Gandy beside him. But for once Gandy kept quiet. When Rhys drew near, however, Isolde snatched up a poker from the hearth and held it before her like a weapon.
“What kind of man sends people away from their homes!” she cried in agitation.
“What kind of man steals other people’s homes?” he countered.
. “If you allude to my father, he stole from no one! He has built a new village that welcomes everyone, and a fortress that protects Welsh and English alike.” “We did not need any of it!” He ripped the poker from her hands and flung it across the hall. Startled, a hound scrambled up from its nap and began to bark. A cat leaped onto one of the trestle tables, its back arched, its tail thick with fright.
Isolde felt like the cat did when Rhys stopped not an arm’s length from her. Terrified. Furious. She was prepared to fight him, but she really wanted to flee.
“That hanging.” He pointed above her head. “Rip it down. Burn it. Then make me another with a dragon on it. That’s the emblem of Wales,” he added caustically. “In case no one has ever told you.”
“I know as much of Wales as you do,” she swore, forgetting to be cautious. “Probably more.”
“Probably more.” He laughed. “If you are so well versed in the history and lore of our noble land as you say, then I can trust you to do a creditable job of it.”
“A tapestry takes a long while to create. You will be gone from here before I am barely begun,” she taunted.
“Paint the dragon, then. And while you are at it, paint another in the master’s chamber. Above the bed.”
The sharp reply she intended died at the mention of the
master’s chamber and the bed. It didn’t help matters that his eyes burned with hot knowledge of what had occurred in that very bed. Had it only been last night?
“In the master’s chamber,” he continued. “I would have you paint a dragon besting a wolf.”
“You will never best my father,” she vowed.
He grinned. “’Tis not your father that painting will serve to remind me of.”
Color flooded her face and her cheeks stung with it. Her chest hurt, her heart pounded so fiercely. “I … I will paint no such thing,” she stammered.
“Ah, but you will, Isolde.” He advanced on her, still grinning triumphantly, and she fell back. “The dragon above; the wolf prostrate below it.”
“Does the dragon breathe fire?” Gandy piped up.
In utter relief Isolde turned to him. Anything to avoid Rhys’s devouring gaze. “That’s just a legend.”
“Dragons are just legend,” Rhys said.
“But the ship, that is real,” Linus reminded them.
Isolde could have kissed the gentle-mannered giant. And Gandy, too. In their own way they seemed set on distracting Rhys.
Rhys just glared at his two friends. “’Tis tiring enough when Tillo acts the part of my conscience,” he said, a warning tone in his voice. “I have no need for either of you to assume that role.”
Chastened, they fell silent. But they did not depart, and Isolde took what comfort she could from that. To be alone with Rhys was her greatest fear. Yet it seemed he meant to isolate her if this ship did indeed come to take the English residents away.
She girded herself for further battle with him. “That you have any conscience at all comes as a complete surprise to me,” she stated. “If you seek to rid yourself of those who oppose you, I should be the first to board that ship.”
“You had your chance to leave this morning. Remember?” He touched her chin with one finger.
She jerked away. “I stayed to ensure Osborn’s safety. Had I known you already planned to send him away—”
“You are staying.”
“Why?” she cried.
He caught her by the arms and leaned down so that his face was level with hers. “Because I want you to.”
“But why?” The question was out before she could prevent it. Then, “No.” She shook her head, not wanting him to answer.
He straightened and she felt his hands tighten. He pulled her closer, just an imperceptible distance. But the danger level increased tenfold. “Paint the wall in my chamber, Isolde. Begin now,” he ordered. Then he let her go and gestured toward the stair. “Fetch your paints and brushes, and go.”
She went.
She didn’t do it to obey him, she told herself, but rather to escape. Once hidden by the curve of the stairwell, though, she stopped and chided herself for such a foolish reaction. She pressed back against the solid stone wall, breathing hard. It was hopeless! She could never escape him. Not now. He meant to send everyone who was dear to her away, and while part of her rejoiced for their safety, another part of her feared for herself. What would she do now?
What would he do to her?
A little sob caught in her throat, but she beat it back.
She could not afford the luxury of weeping, she berated herself. She must remain in control of herself, for there was nothing else here she could control.
Except the painting.
She pushed away from the wall and forced herself to consider the possibilities. She looked up the stairs, then down. No matter which direction she chose, she was trapped. Likewise she was his prisoner whether she opposed him or did as he bade her.

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