The Wild Hunt Read Free Page B

the glow from a cresset lamp.
    'Your fault,' he remarked, but easily, without accusation. 'I wanted you to come with me.'
    'I would have stuck out like a sore thumb among those Norman women and been as miserable as sin.'
    'Sin is never miserable,' Guyon remarked, thereby earning himself a playful slap. He caught her wrist and pulled her across him and they tussled for a moment, before he let her go and she drew back to study him. With his dark hair and eyes, he could easily have passed for one of the Cymru, although his height and breadth spoke of his Anglo-Norman descent.
    'I hear that you are with child,' he said, giving her a serious look now.
    Her gaze grew wary. 'What of it?'
    'Were you going to tell me?'
    Rhosyn bit her lip. 'Probably.' She avoided his eyes. 'My father and yours do too much business together to keep such a matter secret and Rhys and Eluned both chatter like jack-daws. You would have discovered sooner or later.'
    Guyon felt a pang at her intimation that had she been able to keep it from him, she would have done so. 'My sister seems to think that you will invoke Welsh law on the child's behalf.'
    Rhosyn stared at him.
    'In Welsh law the son of the handmaiden is equal to the son begotten on a legal spouse,' he clarified.
    She shook her head. 'Your sister is wrong.
    What good would it do on this side of the border where Norman custom reigns? It would be a hobble of broken straw indeed and I am not sure I would want a child of mine to dwell among saesnegs in a great stone tomb like this.' Her eyes roved the comfort of the room with disparagement.
    Guyon almost retorted that he was not sure he wanted a child of his to grow up running barefoot over the Welsh hill s or huckstering in wool for a living, but he curbed the words, knowing from bitter experience that they too were hobbles of broken straw.
    'Emma spoke from the viewpoint of a Norman lady,' he said instead. 'She imagines what she would do in your position, and that would be to fight tooth and nail to have that child accepted as my responsibility.' He reached to twine a tendril of her hair through his fingers. 'Also, I think she said it to put me in dread of ever doing the like again.
    She disapproves of what she sees as my casual fornications.'
    Rhosyn made a face, remembering Emma's frosty expression as her family arranged their pallets in the hall , and then her grimace became a smile as she imagined the lady Emma's response had she witnessed herself and Guyon a few moments ago.
    The lamp sputtered in its pool of fat and Guyon gently tugged the strand of hair. 'But our concern is not with Emma, but with you.' His gaze ranged over her body which was just beginning to show the changes of pregnancy.
    Rhosyn stared at the coverlet and chewed her lip. 'I try to learn by my mistakes,' he said gently. 'I will not try to hold you; nor, though it be my greatest desire, is it fitting that I should.'
    'Your bride, you mean?' she said without rancour.
    Guyon made a face. 'You know about that? Ach, how can you not when gossip travels so fast?
    Rhosyn cariad , you are well out of this coil. Take the road to Wales and in the name of God, do not look back.'
    'Guy?'
    He flashed her a grim look. 'Did you also hear that I am to wed into the house of Montgomery? It is by royal command and the girl's mother is an old family acquaintance. My refusal would put her in mortal danger from Robert de Belleme, the new Earl of Shrewsbury. If he can lock up his own wife in some dark oubliette and put out his own godson's eyes, what need to cavil at tossing his sister-in-law and niece over Ravenstow's battlements? It is about power, my love, and you are well out of it. When your father has finished his business in England, go home, keep to your own hearth and forget about venturing across the border unless you have a well -armed and determined escort. Robert de Belleme and his minions will turn the marches into hell for such men as your father.'
    Rhosyn shuddered, wanting to