Taliesan’s tardiness for the evening repast provided him with an excuse to gently urge his mother and their lady guests to retire from the high table once finished with meals nearly done when he arrived. After they withdrew to either the solar or bedchambers above he was free to release the many lower born impatiently seated below, unable to rise and be about their duties so long as nobles lingered. Then as they scattered to take up tasks undone, Tal was left to eat in relative peace while awaiting the opportunity to seek an important meeting best won without three noblewomen to observe.
From his vantage point at the center of the dais, Tal watched as houseserfs scurried over the hall, retreating with heavy loads of empty mugs and platters of meat-stripped bones. Others disassembled trestle tables, leaning plank surfaces against stone walls and braced them with crossed trestles while benches were lined up in front.
Tal at last found the one he was searching for when a pair of silver-green eyes met his gaze unflinching. He motioned for Ceri to approach the dais where he sat, intending to issue an order once she was near enough to hear.
“Fetch the mulled wine normally delivered to the solar and bring it to my bedchamber.” Tal knew that this command would put fresh sprigs on the gossip vine but felt there was little choice. He had no desire to see Ceridwen suffer the consequences of un-pruned rumors but there were questions that must be answered. Answers that could only be sought in private.
Very much aware of curious houseserfs laboring nearby to clear the great hall, a rosy hue bloomed on Ceri’s pale ivory cheeks while she again nibbled her lower lip to berry-brightness. She couldn’t refuse the earl’s command. Nor, truth be known, did she honestly wish to do so. Obedience might bring a shame to her, the one her aunt had warned her to evade but …
As Ceri turned to comply, her attention was caught by a sight which had become familiar since her arrival at Westbourne. She’d often caught the same young boy who had burst into the cottage in Llechu peeking at her although, as now, he always slipped away without meeting her eyes directly.
Bolstering her resolve to see the commanded deed done, Ceri forced her attention back to the next step to be taken. Obeying wasn’t so easy as simply fetching the requested wine. Nothing left the kitchens without permission given leastways by the steward, and more likely the seneschal. No servant dare take so much as a sip of ale and far less a flagon of the valuable wine without their approval. Thus, before Ceri could fulfill Lord Tal’s request, she must descend to the kitchens and relay his order to someone in a position to sanction her compliance.
In the vast chamber constantly heated by cooking fires Godfrey watched the nervous newcomer from Wales moving toward him. Ceri had been in the castle for only a brief time yet he’d seen enough to judge her a worthy servant—pleasant, anxious to perform tasks well, and ever willing to help another. By these observations Godfrey was quick to note her uneasiness as she approached.
“Ceri—” Godfrey began, raising his voice enough to be heard over the kitchen’s persistent din. “What sends you to me?”
“Lord Taliesan ordered me to bring to his bedchamber the mulled wine usually served him in the solar.” Ceri steadily met the seneschal’s probing gaze, refusing to feel ashamed when she was guiltless.
“Go to Biddy at the small hearth.” Despite misgivings about the possible repercussions of Ceri’s task, Godfrey chose not to question the girl on a decision of their lord’s which neither of them had the right to question.
“Tell Biddy—” While holding his staff in one hand, Godfrey motioned toward one among the kitchen’s numerous fireplaces built into the depth of stone walls where an older woman nightly prepared the lord’s expected beverage. “It is by my wish that you deliver this evening’s mulled wine.”
Appreciation warmed Ceri’s eyes as she gazed at the elderly man granting this boon. She was grateful that he had both eased her task and pried no further.
* * *
“She’s a witch.” Angwen’s succinct words destroyed the solar’s brittle silence as effectively as icicles falling to shatter against stone.
“Who?” Despite the sticky sweetness of her voice, Blanche’s single-word question was a demand for the answer even though near certain she already knew. While earlier bringing to the solar a small piece of half-complete needlework which Blanche had requested be fetched, Mary had mentioned Lord Tal’s command that the young Welsh servant deliver wine to his bedchamber.
“Who is this witch?” Blanche repeated with less honey and more steel in her tone.
“Ceridwen.” Angwen’s cold answer was as brusque as her accusation had been.
“Surely that can’t be true—” Edith meekly ventured in defense of the only person who had shown honest concern for her within these cold walls. Her tentative support for the Welshwoman was immediately refuted.
“Ceridwen is her grandmother’s acolyte.” Angwen flatly stated. “And her Gran Mab is most undeniably a witch.”
While an already worried Edith looked confused, Blanche was clearly intrigued. Although Blanche had hastened to Westbourne with the intention of diverting Taliesan’s interest from the proposed child-bride from Farleith, she had quickly recognized in Ceridwen a much greater threat to her plans.
Blanche meant to secure a new husband and with him a position for the future more certain than the one stolen from her at the death of her first spouse. Aye, a new husband more powerful and infinitely more handsome—along with the added prize of Taliesan’s position as an earl. Blanche refused to waste effort in acknowledging her previous attempt and failure to win him.
“The people of Llechu rightly fear Mabyn’s powers.” Angwen slowly began explaining to her two lady guests the basis for her condemnation of the Welsh newcomer. “Unfortunately, though I was their princess, I failed to do the same.
“As a foolish bride I went to Mabyn with a silly plea for some spell or potion to hold my groom enthralled, leastways until I’d provided him with heirs. The old witch granted my request. Yet, with the mysterious seeds provided to see it fulfilled she cautioned me that there would be a price to be paid. I gave little heed to that warning—to my endless grief.”
Before she could stifle the urge, Edith crossed herself against this example of a dark magic sprung from fearsome and surely ungodly powers. Blanche merely arched her brows in silent demand for more.
“I paid a price most dear.” Angwen’s lips curled upward but with cold pain rather than warm humor. “That price was the life of my firstborn son.”
Edith instinctively reached out to comfort the obvious pain of her hostess who, having begun, inexorably continued to the end.
“Then, once the seeds were completely gone, my Lord William—” Angwen paused to swallow hard. “My husband died, too.”
Though too proud to sob in open grief, Angwen couldn’t prevent a silent but steady fall of tears.
“’Struth, the Welshwoman is plainly a witch.” Blanche promptly nodded a head of golden curls so very different from Ceri’s black locks.
“A young witch and dangerous,” Angwen solemnly agreed, directly meeting the speaker’s azure gaze with needless volumes left unspoken.
“You must immediately send Ceridwen back to the Welsh wilds,” Blanche boldly suggested. “What, in the first instance, led you to permit the exchange of her position there for one in your castle?”
“It is not so simple as that,” Angwen wryly stated. “As a Welshwoman, Ceridwen is not a serf, bound to the land. Rather she is freeborn and able to travel where and when she chooses.”
Blanche frowned. “Surely whether serf or free-born none among the common class has the right to intrude on your home without your leave?”
Angwen couldn’t stifle the cynical smile earned by this amazing statement from the woman who had done just that herself. Still she responded, “There are reasons why Ceridwen was permitted to remain and work in Castle Westboune.”
Blanche slowly shook her head, hoping that those reasons had nothing to do with Taliesan’s obvious fascination with the young witch.
“The danger—” Blanche solemnly spoke an obvious warning aloud. “Will linger so long as Ceridwen remains in the castle.”
* * *
In the kitchens once the requested liquid filled the same valuable flagon of glass and gold that Ceri had carried to the solar her first night in Westbourne, it was carefully placed on a serving platter and put into her hands. The silence surrounding these actions was sufficient to warn Ceri of the overclose attention paid by too many observers.
As Ceri began the upward climb she found the stairwell’s dark solitude welcome for the escape from prying eyes that it provided. Still, by the time she reached the corridor bisecting the highest level, her hands were trembling under the conflicting emotions of apprehension and anticipation.
Lord Tal must have had a purpose for insisting on this meeting, but what? With that unanswerable question foremost in her thoughts, Ceri came to a halt outside his door only to realize that she’d no hand free to knock on its oaken planks. She soon discovered that the echo of her footsteps had been announcement enough of her arrival for the door swung wide.
Closely confronted with the powerful form of the stunning man filling the open portal, Ceri’s heart pounded erratically while she struggled not to falter under the golden potency of his gaze.
Tal slowly smiled at the flustered beauty whose winsome face was framed by a dark wreath of escaped curls. But, realizing that an unsteady hold put the ruby-hued liquid and valuable flagon in danger, he reached out to take the platter into his own firm hold.
“Come, share the wine with me.” Not waiting for the agreement no servant could fail to give, Tal stepped to one side of the door and candlelight from within glowed over black hair as he nodded for her to precede him into the chamber. Once Ceri had moved past, Tal nudged the door closed before carrying his burden to the table in a few long strides.
“Sit,” Tal quietly ordered the nervous damsel hovering next to a table-side chair. Hoping to ease her tension with humor, his mouth tilted into a wry smile while he teased, “You’ve my oath that no tender damsel has ever suffered from my bite.”
Ceri’s face instantly flamed while her gaze dropped to the seat where she awkwardly settled. But though he likely thought her embarrassment a product of maidenly virtue, its true cause was the memory of his firm mouth nibbling her flesh with thrilling intimacy—a memory he didn’t share. The latter fact left her even more self-conscious.
As he had the night of Ulrich’s assault, Tal poured mulled wine into two of the delicate vessels ever waiting atop a nearby chest. He placed one in front of Ceri and took the chair across from her still holding the other in his hand.
“I am aware that this meeting puts you in an uncomfortable position and for that I heartily apologize.” Tal gazed directly into Ceri’s mysterious eyes and felt an ogre for taking advantage of the tender angel. “But this afternoon my squire, Master Thomas, reported a past event that needs to be investigated.”
Like a vulnerable creature in the wild catching the scent of a dangerous predator, Ceri’s chin lifted while her eyes warily narrowed. What, she wondered, could the boy who watched her so intently possibly have to say that would disturb his lord?
“Thomas tells me that when he arrived in Dyffryn with the party sent from here to bring me home, you were in the cottage with me.” Tal closely watched for betraying signals of untruth on a piquant face surely too open to hide lies.
Pulse racing, Ceri blinked rapidly against the unpleasant recognition of this unforeseen stumble-hole waiting to trip her amidst the quest for a full measure of happiness.
“Thomas swears you were there but disappeared, simply vanished before the cart and others accompanying it arrived. Can you tell me if you were there? And if you were, why?”
Battling a dark and penetrating gaze with the silver intensity of her own, Ceri replied. “As I told you when last we shared mulled wine, in Dyffryn I live with my Gran Mab. She tutored me in the ways of herbal healing.”
Ceri paused until Tal nodded. “When you were injured and brought to her for mending, I was deputized to linger near, cool your brow through the delirium, and fetch my grandmother were conditions to worsen.”
A slow smile returned to Tal’s lips, and he gently reached out to calm dainty fingers nervously rubbing the stem of her goblet. “My delirium was apparently more serious than I realized because I have no memory of your attentions. Pray forgive the harshness of my demand for an explanation?”
Ceri nodded immediately but her gaze dropped to the hand holding her fingers and she spoke no further on the matter. What more could be said when to fully explain would be to reveal her grandmother’s spell … and its passionate results? Because she knew herself sadly inadequate to hide a lie, she counted herself fortunate that the words already spoken were completely true and thus no guilt could be exposed in her expression.
Again feeling an ogre for having attacked prey so vulnerable, Tal leaned across the table’s width to brush gentle kisses over pale cheeks until they were warmed by a rose-tinted blush.
Glancing up, Ceri was instantly overwhelmed by Tal’s mesmerizing powers. She felt herself relentlessly swept into the black depths of eyes wherein brewed a passionate storm while golden bolts of lightning flashed warnings of dangers unheeded.
With gentle hands Tal smoothed back the few tendrils of black hair sweetly framing Ceri’s heart-shaped face after escaping the tight confines a single braid coiled atop her head.
Purposefully rejecting the inner voice calling for caution, Ceri welcomed her lord’s caresses. Lifting her mouth to his, she brushed its soft curves temptingly across his firm lips while refusing to acknowledge the uncomfortable truth that she was certain to later rue her actions.
Powerful arms swept the tender damsel from her seat and although Ceri could never later have said how it came to be, she found herself laying across hard thighs as Tal took control of the kiss she had initiated. The kiss became long, slow, hard, and devastating. It caught Ceri in a dizzying maelstrom of fiery pleasures and left her desperately clinging to broad shoulders as its firm and steady center.
Even while deepening the kiss, Tal knew it was wrong. He had summoned the vulnerable damsel to his bedchamber but not to insist that she yield to his undeniable rights as her lord, the way so many of his peers would do without thought.
Tal pulled away, striving for control to halt dangerous temptations here without yielding to greater wrongs—but he fell prey to an irresistible urge to gaze downward.
Ceri’s dark head was tilted back. Her misty eyes had gone a deep forest hue drowsy with desire while her berry-bright lips were moist and softly swollen. Tal’s chest rose and fell in rough, uneven breaths. He couldn’t stop—at least not yet.
While Tal’s lips returned to claim the sweet nectar of Ceri’s mouth, with one hand at her nape he held her steady for their potent exchange. His other hand set to work removing pins that freed her plait and then moved to loosen its heavy rope and thread his fingers through the ebony silk.
Ceri moaned and twisted about to align herself more fully against this source of impossible delights.
It was a wordless demand sufficient for Tal to answer by cradling Ceri in the security of his embrace while rising to carry to his bed this sweet delight plainly unaware of her intimate danger. Another pang of guilt struck but Tal was far, far too lost in his own hungry need to heed the warning fairly screamed.
Although feeling herself lowered to a most comfortable surface, Ceri was too lost in pleasures to waste attention on changing surroundings.
As Tal’s mouth left Ceri’s to trail fire across her cheeks, she arched her head back. This action laid the white satin of Ceri’s elegant throat vulnerable to a mouth that promptly followed its path, leaving her dazed by the sparks of delight erupting wherever he touched.
When impeded by a tie fastening the front laces holding this enticing angel’s gown closed, Tal nuzzled the dip below while beginning to loosen the unwelcome barrier. Once able to even slightly tug cloth edges apart, his mouth dipped to the quivering tops of breasts he ached to see, yearned to touch.
Ceri’s fingers instinctively twined into the cool, dark strands of his hair, urging this source of hot pleasures nearer still.
Lips nuzzling lower, Tal continued impatiently tugging at restraining cords, anxious to free her bounty to the searing hunger of his gaze and ravishment of lips hovering a whisper above.
Successful at last with a task delayed by haste-tangled fingers, Tal spread wide the simple green gown’s neckline and lowered his hungry mouth. Ceri was overcome by the shocking sensation of melting fire rushing through her veins and writhed against the master of her desire in helpless response.
Lost to honorable intent, Tal’s strong arms pulled Ceri’s pliant body tight to the long length of his form. While he buried his face in the tender curve between her shoulder and throat, Ceri exalted in his strength. She willingly yielded to urgent hands sweeping from nape to the base of her spine, where they molded her hips against the hard muscles of his thighs.
Anxious to be rid of the only impediment to the sweet fulfillment of urgent needs, Tal shoved the offending cloth of her gown aside before completely stripping it from her body. When her luscious form lay bare to his burning gaze a soft whimper slipped from her tight throat, earning a satisfied smile from the man intoxicated by the sound.
Still Tal held back, purposely driving Ceri deeper into the vortex of fiery hunger at his command. He mercilessly teased her senses with shocking pleasures until she arched against him, striving to bring the source of such delicious torment even nearer.
With a deep growl Tal pulled away but only far enough and long enough to divest himself of clothing with a haste all unheeding of care or cost.
Ceri watched with desire-hazed eyes to marvel as the superbly masculine image of the nude man was revealed—powerful enough to steal her breath. She immediately lifted her arms and Tal surrendered to honeyed temptation by pulling her into the hungry cradle of his arms.
Dark eyes closed he savored the feel of soft flesh melded to the hard contours of his body while Ceri clung to his strong back. Overwhelmed anew by blazing sensations, Ceri’s mind ceased all rational thought. As his hand slid down her satin back and turned her hips full against his, she shifted restlessly, wanting to be closer, wanting something more.
Ceri’s enticing, inciting motions drove Tal beyond any hope of restraint. Rising above, resting on his forearms, he gazed down into eyes gone near to black with her wanting of him as slowly he joined their bodies in the most intimate of embraces.
Shaking with a depth of desire previously unknown, Ceri pressed even closer as he began to rhythmically rock them ever deeper into the firestorm. She followed his hard, sharp movements into a burning well of pleasure near too deep to be borne and toward a goal just beyond reach. Then, at last, a fierce explosion burst their sphere into a shower of incredible delights.
An endless time later while drifting through the warm, golden haze of the passionate explosion’s afterglow, Ceri nestled into Tal’s strong embrace as he gently dropped soft kisses on her forehead, eyes, and cheeks.
“You are the embodiment of my sweetest dreams,” Tal whispered into Ceri’s ear.
“As you are mine,” Ceri answered just as earnestly before shyly burying her face into the crook of his neck. “I would not wish to live in a world where you were not.” Recognizing her own words as the portal to something that needed to be said, she dared to add, “So I beg you to take great care.”
Tal pulled slightly back to gaze with surprise at this tender damsel cautioning a great warrior to safety. Beyond wry amusement with the broad scope of her words, they prodded uncomfortable suspicion to revived life. One Tal immediately attempted to smother. Ceri was surely too honest in all ways to be a part of foul deeds—leastwise he sincerely wanted to believe reality lay in his own assessment of her nature.
By the fact that the devastating man so near seemed to have become cold stone, Ceri knew that her warning had roused doubts. Yet, desperately wishing to ensure Tal’s continued health, she renewed her efforts by repeating advice first given in a Welsh cottage, an admonishment erased from his memory by the conclusion of a spell.
“While seeking to disarm and stifle foes, I pray you’ll look beyond your political enemies to also delve into the true characters of others much closer.” Ceri realized how implausible it was for a female servant to counsel her lord on this subject but she felt driven to do all possible no matter the personal cost.
“Consider those who wrongly blame you for the ills of their lives.” She gazed unwavering into dark eyes gone wary. “Those who count you responsible for deeds not done or nurse unjustified grudges.”
Tal immediately wondered if Ceri meant to warn him against her guardian. Was she not aware that Lloyd already resided in the dungeons below? That possibility was shattered by her next observation.
“Whoever else may be your enemy, you must know that it is not my lifelong friend, Lloyd.” Ceri earnestly pled for the Welshman. “I know him as well as I know myself and am certain he would no more take such steps against his own lord than would I.”
“Hah!” Tal tried to tame but couldn’t eradicate the scorn in his voice. “You suggest I look for those with grudges? Well, who better fits that description than the man you defend?”
“Lloyd?” Ceri numbly said. How could the Welshman seldom far from Llechu possibly be deemed to have a grudge against the Norman earl?
“Surely—” An ironic smile tilted Tal’s lips. “You are aware that Lloyd has never forgiven anyone at Castle Westbourne for what he views as the misdeed of stealing Vevina from his arms?”
Ceri was startled yet at the same time realized she had abruptly been given the answer to an important question. From the day of her arrival she’d uneasily wondered what more lay between the two than had been shared with her.
“You must know that they were once betrothed?” By her expression, an odd mix of lingering bewilderment and sudden comprehension, Tal wondered if she’d ever been told of this fact.
Painful confusion seemed to darken misty green eyes—but Tal was uncertain whether it was sincere or merely a skillful ruse. The adept tactician in Tal demanded the answer to an uncomfortable question. Had the sweet fires of their delicious interlude hidden a darker purpose? Still, despite unwelcome suspicions, Tal couldn’t stifle his fear that the angel’s tender soul had been bruised. And by his deep concern for Ceri’s happiness, Tal was forced to acknowledge another fact long evaded.
Although he would soon to be formally betrothed to the cold child from Farleith, Tal’s heart was dangerously near to melting in surrender beneath the heat of potent charms wielded by this Welshwoman—but was she witch or angel?
Was Ceri a dark enchantress fogging his normally clear perceptions with her wiles or had he taken advantage of a vulnerable angel by ordering her to his bedchamber? Tal hadn’t issued the command with immoral intentions and yet its effect had been the same. The news of which was certain to flower and spread rapidly over the castle’s gossip vines.