The Wild Hunt Read Free Page A

irritated at herself as she quietly left her children and her father to seek out the garderobe. Stupid to have been so easily caught, she who knew all her herbs and simples, or thought she knew because they had always worked before. Too late now, too dangerous, and not the season for the plants that would have cured her condition.
    She had been in two minds whether to make this trip to Hereford with her father, but had reasoned that it would be her last opportunity before the weather grew too difficult for travel.
    She needed to purchase linen for swaddling bands that she could stitch during the dark, hall -bound months of winter; and winter's threat was already upon them. The knife-bitter wind and the scudding snow squall s had caused them to curtail their journey early in the day and seek shelter under Lord Miles's roof.
    Guyon's arrival at dusk had been a surprise, and she was not sure if it was a welcome one.
    The news of his impending marriage had caused her no grief. She had always known the day would come, indeed, had held herself a little aloof with that knowledge in mind. He had a duty to take a wife of his own status and beget heirs, a wife who would have more in common with him than she ever would.
    Rhosyn's practical nature told her there was no point in building upon their tenuous relationship.
    For all his fluency in the Welsh tongue and his ability to adapt to Welsh ways, he was only one quarter of the Cymru and he was raised to be a marcher lord who would ride into Wales on the back of a warhorse to ravage the land if his King so commanded. He regarded the towering Norman border keeps as home and refuge, not as grey, enclosing prisons that hemmed in the soul.
    The latrine was cold and stank of its main function, and she did not linger. Instead of returning to the hall , however, Rhosyn made her way to the small wall chamber where Guyon usually lodged when he stayed here. His gazehound, Cadi, lay outside the entrance, her nose tucked into her tail, but rose with a joyous whine of greeting. Rhosyn paused to stroke the dog and make a fuss of her, before lifting the heavy curtain.
    Guyon had been sound asleep, but came immediately to his senses at the first soft clink of the curtain rings and the muffled whine of the dog.
    This was the keep where he had been born and raised, his welcome here guaranteed, but these days he was so conditioned to react to danger, and complete security was so seldom his, that he was out of bed and across the room in the space of a heartbeat. He lunged at the figure outlined in the glow from the corridor flare. The crown of his captive's head butted his chin, jarring his teeth together. He bit his tongue and tasted blood. A supple body writhed against his and he felt the swell of a woman's breast beneath his fingers.
    'It's me, Rhosyn!' she gasped indignantly, her French bearing the lilting accent of Wales. 'Have you lost your wits?'
    'More likely you have lost yours!' he retorted, but with amusement now that he was fully awake and enjoying the feel of her body against his own. 'It is a foolish thing to creep up on a man in the middle of the night, cariad . Oft-times I sleep with a naked sword at my side. I might have cut off your head!'
    'I have seen your naked sword frequently enough for it not to concern me,' Rhosyn replied with spurious innocence and pressed against him in the darkness. She tangled her fingers in his hair and stood on tiptoe to bite his ear and then whisper into it: 'But perhaps it would be safer to sheathe it, my lord.'
    Guyon laughed huskily. 'That sounds like a fine idea,' he said, before closing her mouth with a kiss, his fingers busy with the lacings of her gown.
    'Do you happen to know of a fitting scabbard?'
    Rhosyn stretched languidly like a cat and then relaxed, a contented half-smile curving her lips. 'I had forgotten what a pleasure it was,' she purred, had forgotten what a pleasure it was,' she purred, eyeing Guyon sidelong across the tossed coverlet in