Page 278 of The Daughters of Avalon
The young man’s golden brows lifted. “Not at all, m’lady. I can see why Lord Blackwood is so smitten.” He inclined his head toward Marcella. “In fact, were my heart not already taken, I might be obliged to offer it to you.”
He winked at her again, but Rhiannon’s smile faded, thinking about Cael. “Not so smitten he would abandon my mother,” she groused.
Jack sighed then, sounding weary.
How old was he? she wondered yet again. If he had been thirteen when he first knew her sisters, he must be no morethan seventeen or eighteen—younger than the nineteen she’d first presumed. Comparatively, Marcella was easily ten years his senior, with a decade’s worth of life and knowledge that would naturally leave the poor lad wanting.
What a jumble this was: Rhiannon loved Cael but couldn’t have him. He claimed to love her, as well, but not enough to abandon her mother. Marcella loved Cael, Rhiannon suspected, and yet here she was left in the cold. And so, too, was Jack, because he coveted a woman who was well out of his league and whose heart belonged to another.
“Your mother is… quite… the force,” he said. “In truth, she frightens me out of my wits. I see you do resemble her, Rhiannon… so, then… I must presume that while there may be something of her in you… there may also be something of you in her.”
“Aye,” agreed Rhiannon. “’Tis precisely this I fear.”
“Perhaps… so does she,” he suggested, hitching his chin once more at Marcella’s back. “And yet, she must know as I know, that Lord Blackwood would never have summoned aid for you, if there was so little in you to be loved. Therefore, at least for now, you must content yourself to know that your husband is not precisely the man you believe him to be, and that is a good thing.”
Rhiannon nodded.
“Neither isshe,” he added, though if Rhiannon hoped he would say more, Marcella turned to cast him a withering glance, and he shut his gob and spoke no more.
There wasa lot to be considered, and yet, after a while, one grew weary of self-rumination. Hours later, Rhiannon was still pettish and growing peckish besides.
Now that the initial danger appeared to be over, her stomach grumbled in complaint, and, even after having appeased it with a small stick of smoked beef, she longed for more. Not having been privy to Cael’s plans, she hadn’t touched her supper last night.
At any rate, how could anyone eat seated next to that despicable creature?
Reaching back into her saddlebag for whatever morsel could be found, she fished out a small sack of filberts, her favorite nuts. No doubt this was Cael’s doing. In fact, she had the feeling that half the reason he’d ever deigned to serve her all these years was because he’d enjoyed seeing the brightening of her countenance when he brought her special treats.
And she, of course, incensed by her eternal confinement, had resolved to deprive him even of that.
No matter, there were times she couldn’t hide her joy, and betimes, when caught off guard, her spirits brightened, and she’d lifted her gaze to find him smiling too.
She popped a filbert into her mouth, considering the man’s endless patience, his bigger-than-life presence. She missed his devilish smile and his glinting eyes.
Would she truly never see him again?
There had been no sign of hounds since leaving Brecknock Forest. Wales was long in their wake, and the only sounds of pursuit came from their coursers as, one after another, they trampled over heavy bracken, snapping twigs and disturbing dew-dampened leaves—that, along with the occasional thwack of an errant bough.
“God’s blood,” complained Jack, as another branch whipped back to slap him on the cheek, courtesy of Marcella. Evidently, she was still nursing her pique and Rhiannon munched on nutsand held her tongue, taking perverse joy in Jack’s indignation. Annoyed, he called out to the paladin in a deceptively amiable tone, “Thanks forla colée,mon patron—the second one you’ve dealt me today.”
“Be vigilant,” Marcella demanded, unfazed. “Else you will find yourself with acoup de grâce, and it will not be dealt by my own hand.”
Unappeased by her response, Jack argued, “Aye… well, wouldn’t it be wiser to travel by night, when these stupid birds will be roosting?”
“Nay,” she snapped, and then explained. “’Tis not the ravens I worry over, Jaques. They cannot follow our scent like the hounds. Coming into these woods will necessitate coming within proximity of our bows, and Morwen will not risk her precious birds. Rather, she’ll use Blackwood’s hounds to follow the scent and the birds to search hill and dale. This is why we washed Rhiannon’s tunic with a masking philter.”
Taking his blade to another wayward limb, “Jaques” muttered crossly beneath his breath, his mood a bit less affable now than it had been earlier in the day.
Rhiannon couldn’t help herself; she smirked.
By now they were all exhausted, after having traveled most of the night and day without rest, and soon—very, very soon—they would be forced to abandon the woods.
“Theycansmell,” Jack argued. “I’ve watched them sniff out carrion with my own eyes.”
“Not very well,” Marcella persisted. “In order to smell yourmerde, they would have to shove their black beaks up your adorable little arse. And besides,grâce à Dieu,you are not rotting nor are you bloody.”
“Not yet,” he persisted. “But I may soon be if you keep flinging thorny limbs in my face!”
“There are no thorns on these branches, Jaques,” she said placidly. “You complain like an old woman, my friend.”
