The luxurious masculinity of the room was hypnotic. For a moment she could pretend there was no more pressing task than to relax, that no one wanted her to do anything, that she could stretch out on the bed and gaze at the ceiling and…what on earth was that?
A shelf had been bracketed to the wall. On it, flush with the wood, lay a pile of vellum and parchment manuscripts. Her head began to spin as she approached. She put out a finger and brus
hed it down the side of the bindings, then abruptly lifted one from its resting place.
Sitting on the bed with her feet tucked beneath her, she opened the massive volume of pages that was Historia Regum Britanniae. She recognised it; it was like the one at the abbey the de l’Amis patronised, where as a child she’d convinced the monks to at least tell her the tales, if not incur her father’s wrath by actually teaching her to read them herself.
She traced her fingers over the beautifully etched lines on the pages. The blues and reds and greens were so brilliant they still looked wet. She touched an illustration that ran along the margin of one page, a bemused-looking monk holding a stylus, drawing a line to insert a missing A in its proper place in one of the words. Such whimsy and talent. She smiled and carefully turned another page.
“What do you think?”
She jerked her head up. Griffyn stood in front of the brazier, warming his hands. She hadn’t heard him come in. He tossed her a casual glance before turning back to the flames. She got to her feet, book in hand.
“I think I am surprised,” she admitted.
“By Monmouth?”
“By you.” She indicated the shelves with a pointed finger.
He looked over his shoulder and smiled. “And what do you think of Geoffrey Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain?”
It was impossible not to return the grin. “I daresay I don’t know, but have heard ’tis pure invention.”
“Ah, but well for we Welsh, who came out of it with King Arthur.”
She peered at him curiously. “And where in your blood are you Welsh? ’Twas certainly not your father. ‘Sauvage’ is Norman through and through.”
He nodded. “My father was many things. He liked to be thought of as Norman to the bone, and he surely did not disdain the title and lands he had here in England. But ’twas my mother who was a Welsh princess.”
She lifted her brows and depressed the corners of her mouth briefly, playfully impressed. “What else is there?” she asked, nodding towards the shelves.
“The Ecclesiastical History of England and Normandy, Vitalis’s work, of course. And Bebe’s Lives of the Abbots,” he went on, warming his hands over the brazier thoughtfully. “Let’s see, there is the Gesta Pontificum Anglorum that Malmesbury wrote, which is more of an informal chronicle of the lives of the bishops than a full history. But ’tis sound. And useful.”
She stared with a dropped jaw. Warrior, aye, she knew that. Seductor, fine, she could struggle against that. But well-read nobleman with a library to rival that of an affluent monastery? What defence had she there? She sat back down on the bed, its plump mattress giving under her weight.
“What do you think of the others, Guinevere?” he prompted.
“I can’t read.” Her words poked out from her mouth like they were lashed on sticks: stiff, clipped.
“A situation we’ll see remedied, if you wish.”
“Papa did not think much of reading, as it were,” she informed him, eyeing her fingernails.
“But you did.”
“I still do.”
Griffyn watched her examine her fingertips so carefully, her slim shoulders rounded. It reminded him of that night a year ago, riding through the forest, when they’d shared a raging kiss, and after, she’d braced herself against a tree like an abandoned marionette, in all her brave, delicate beauty. Totally unexpected.
He set down the poker and crossed the room. Taking up her hand, he inspected the ragged nubs of her nails, the work-hardened edges of her slender fingers. “You’ve been working hard.”
“As have we all.” She tried to pull her hand away but he held tight. “’Tis nothing. Some of the chores I like.”
He shifted just his eyes up. “You like cleaning privies?”
That made her smile. It was brief, though, and he wanted more of it. “I don’t clean privies, actually,” she said. “You find it hard to believe, that I would enjoy the work?”
“For certes. Most high-born women wish to do as little of it as possible.”