Chapter 21
A knock sounded on the chapel door, and Gwen sighed.
It would be one of the kitchen boys, delivering her dinner. She ought to go to the hall to eat; she wasn’t accustomed or inclined to be served like some idle guest. When she’d told the last boy so, he had let slip he was under orders to bring her food. “For the babe,” he’d said, embarrassed by such matters. She wasn’t certain who had ordered the meals, though she suspected Morien. She’d meant to go to the hall tonight—put a stop to the deliveries—but hadn’t been able to face the prospect of a crowd. Or one particular person in that crowd. Wearily, she rose from her chair and opened the door.
On the other side, snowflakes studding his winter cloak, stood her father.
“Ta!” She gaped at him. “What are you doing here?”
In answer, he pulled her into a tight embrace. The broad warmth of his chest melted her shock, and she wrapped her arms about him. After a moment, he set her away from him. “I’m here so you can explain yourself.”
Of course he was. How had she ever thought she might avoid this? “Come in.”
The chapel’s interior darkened as he filled its small doorway, then closed it behind him. “This is where you’ve been staying?”
“Yes.” He didn’t need to hear about her loft accommodations in the brothel.
“I don’t remember it being in use.”
“It wasn’t for a long time, I gather.”
“What changed?”
“Elain,” she said. “She and Palahmed cleaned it. Repaired the door and shutters. Made it comfortable.”
“Palahmed. The Saracen?”
“Yes.”
“Haven’t seen him in an age. Good fighter.” He took in the chamber, then sat on a stool. “Take a seat, Gwenhwyfar.”
Some small part of her bristled at the command, but a larger part found it comforting. “I’ve missed you,” she blurted.
He drew a great breath and gave her a hard look. “Missing you doesn’t adequately describe how my winter’s gone.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Why did you run?”
She fidgeted with her skirt before catching herself and stilling her fingers. “As I said in my letter, I wanted more,” she hedged.
He wasn’t having it. “You could have asked for it. Why did you run?”
Might as well tell him. None of it mattered anymore. “I was afraid you would marry me to Cai.”
“Cai?”
“I know now you wouldn’t have done; Bedwyr said so, at least. But you would have sent Elain away, wouldn’t you?”
He shrugged. “Most likely.”
“I couldn’t stand the thought of that.”
“Because she was a friend?”
“Because she was far more.”
He looked at her closely. “Are you telling me you were soft for Elain?”
“I’m telling you I love Elain.”
His nostrils flared. “What do you know of Elain?”
“I know you hired her for Bedwyr,” she said. “And I know why.”
Her father glanced away, his gaze skipping around the chamber. “Not my best use of logic, that bargain.”
It hadn’t been. He’d assumed Bedwyr could be content with anyone who possessed a cock. It was laughably ridiculous, and not only because Bed had already handed his heart to someone else.
Uthyr met her eyes again. “So, you love her.”
“I do.”
“And where does Elain stand on this?”
“She loves me. Or…she did.”
“Did?” He set a hand on his knee. “What did you do?”
Gwen reared back. “What do you mean, what did I do?”
Her father raised one wry eyebrow. “A man knows his children, Gwenhwyfar, and I know you’re willful and stubborn and blunt.”
The nerve! “I wonder how I came by those qualities,” she said, her voice rising. “And don’t try to shuffle it off on Aunt Morgawse—I never knew her.”
His eyes narrowed in challenge. “Let me guess what happened: you decided to run, so you compelled Elain to accompany you, then told Bedwyr you were for Rhys’s no matter his opinion on it, then made yourself at home and charmed Rhys and Caron, and then Palahmed, and got yourself this cozy little refurbished chapel, built of sturdier stuff than my own house. Is that the rough measure of it?”
Damn his stupidly thorough insight. Her hands had curled into her skirts again. She unclenched them with an effort. “I don’t believe I’ve managed to charm Caron.”
“Caron’s a tough nut to crack,” he said, his eyes glinting with humor.
She glared at him, unwilling to give him anything else.
He looked about the tidy space. “So why are you sitting here by yourself? What’s happened with Elain?”
“It’s a long tale.”
That brought his attention back to her. “I plan to stay at least as many days as I traveled. Start talking.”
So, she did. Barring a few salacious tidbits no daughter would want to share and no father would want to hear, she told him everything. By the time she finished, his jaw had dropped to a gratifying degree. He snapped it shut, and she wondered which part he would comment on first. That Elain was Ban’s heir. That she herself was with child. That she wasn’t entirely certain who had helped conceive that child.
What he said wasn’t about any of those things, and yet, about all of them.
“What do you want, Gwenhwyfar?”
It took her a moment to truly hear the question. “Not a husband,” she declared.
He met her steel with a face carved from granite. “When you proclaim what you don’t want, you sound whiny and weak. Tell me what you do want.”
“I want a wife.”
She’d done it. She’d asked for more, just as he’d said she could. But was it more than he was willing to allow?
He was the warlord for an agonizingly long moment, and then his demeanor shifted. Subtly, in the carriage of his shoulders, the angle of his head toward hers. When he spoke again, he was simply her father. “Not just any wife, I assume?”
She smiled.
He breathed deeply and straightened. He patted his knee.
“I’m too old to sit on your knee, Ta.”
“Not until I’m too old to hold you. Get over here.”
Rising, she crossed to him and sat, and he looped his arms loosely about her middle, just as when she’d been a girl. The creases around his eyes had deepened since then, and silver had begun to show in his hair and beard. She traced the white strands at his temple. “Did I cause these?”
“Every last one.”
“I didn’t mean to. I want to make you proud of me.”
“Ah, Gwen.” He took her hand in his and squeezed it. “You do. Very proud.”
“And angry?”
“Very, very angry.”
She smiled, and he did too, for a moment, before growing serious again.
“This thing you’ve demanded of Elain… you understand how difficult it would be?”
She nodded. “Her people knew her as someone else, or saw someone else when they looked at her. And now they haven’t seen her for years.” She looked about the chapel. “I’ve been sitting in here for days, and the only good it’s done is that I’ve begun to realize I may have asked the impossible of her. She was willing to give up everything for me. But that’s just it, Ta.” She met his eyes again. “I don’t want her to give up herself. I’m not worth that.”
“That’s her decision to make.”
“I know. But if I get to live who I am, why shouldn’t she?” She smoothed her fingers down the fur of his cloak. “You let Bedwyr go to be with Arthur, after all.”
“I did.”
“Because Mistress Britte asked you to?”
His gaze dropped away, and he pulled a breath. “For what it’s worth, I wouldn’t call that asking. But no. She only made me admit what I already knew: that Bedwyr would track him down whether I gave him leave or not. No man should be chained. And every man must make his own path.”
“And every woman.”
He regarded her again. “Everyone. I broke from my father’s expectations, as did my sister. Bedwyr’s made a start, and so have you.” He bounced his knee. “Are you finished with me then, daughter?”
She put her arms about his neck, not caring that she was a woman grown. His hair still bore the faint scent of the mountains. “Maybe you could help me with one more errand?”
His arms tightened around her, and his breath hitched with a soft cough.
It was all the reply she needed.