The Conqueror

The smile faded. “I am not most women,” she murmured.

He watched the strange quiet descend on her, and had a sudden image of the weight of her burden over the past year. Alone, in the middle of a war, governing a vast estate with too little money and too much need. In their interviews of the household, everyone had a praiseful word to say of the lady, words given more force by the affection clinging to them.

“Have you ever seen my flowers?”

He looked up. A smile nudged at the faint dimple beside her mouth. Her flowers? He shook his head.

She smiled wider and it felt like the room expanded, like the breeze blew fresher through the shutters. “As I said, I like some of the chores I do.”

Comprehension dawned. “Your flowers.”

She nodded happily. Her black curls bobbed over her shoulders.

“Well then,” he mused, looking at the small fingers held in his grasp. He stroked each between two of his own, feeling the slender, fragile bone within, delicately arching into his. “You must keep on doing the things you like. The rest, we’ll find others to manage.”

Her expansive face suddenly closed up again. When she pulled on her hand this time, he released her. She walked to the window and pushed the shutters open. The night was inky black and windy. A scent of rain was in the air.

“We so desperately need rain,” she murmured, as if they were in idle chat about the weather. “I can’t stop doing any of them,” she went on, in the same neutral tone. “The fields still need to be ploughed, even when the men have staged a war. When my Welsh stewards run off or die, I must find someone to take their place, even when there is no one.”

“Powys,” he murmured, the sudden recollection shocking in its clarity. He could almost smell the leather of their damp saddles as they rode over the wild Welsh hills, almost hear his father complaining of the problem of keeping stewards alive in the Welsh marcher lands. Such a swift, clear memory.

She seemed to not have heard him. She was running her hand over the silken tapestry hanging beside the window. “When men and boys die in battle, their women are left to tend those fields, which leaves the castle short-staffed, and weeds know nothing of wars, laundry nothing of defeat.” Her voice had grown hard and swift and bitter, and she turned her back to him. “They just need to be taken care of.”

By me. Alone.

The words fairly thrust themselves into the suddenly quiet between them, but she did not speak them, and he did not ask. The silence grew longer.

A feeling of kinship swept through him. He felt his heart shift, which he definitely did not want. Dominance, lordship, lust: these things were known and acceptable. Affection and understanding: they were distinctly unwelcome.

So why was he walking across the room to stand at her curving back? And bending his head by her ear to speak in a gentle murmur?

“You need not take care of it all alone anymore, my lady.” He began unlacing the silk wrap that coiled her hair in a thick rope down her back. He combed his fingers through the unbound tresses, his callouses catching. Her breathing quickened ever so slightly, so he bent nearer her ear and murmured, “You’ve a husband now, who can help with whatever needs to be taken care of.”

“The laundry?”

He heard the catch in her voice, and decided this was why he’d crossed the room. To make her resistance crumble, to weaken her will. To get her into his bed, a willing, wanton partner as she’d been an autumn ago. She turned her head the slightest bit. Her words were incredulous. “You’ll help with the laundry?”

“I will, if ’tis needed in some way.” He pressed his lips to the nape of her neck. Her breath trembled out in a rush. “Although I cannot believe there isn’t someone other than my self to plunge linens into that foul-smelling concoction that bubbles and burps in vast cauldrons.”

Her body leaned backwards into him, just the slightest bit. “’Tis indeed a most wretched reek, my lord,” she admitted, a s

mile in her voice. “And they are ever-large tubs.”

“Did I ever tell you?” he mused, inhaling the faint scent of rose clinging to her hair. “I once was in Scotland when a small pony found its unfortunate way into such a vat.” He could feel her listening; her cheek was almost pressed against his jaw, her hair tickled his nose as she inched her head towards his voice ever so slightly.

“And?”

“Gone. Never to be seen again.” His ran his hands down the outside of her arms. “He was a fat little pony too. Utterly vanished.” He clucked his tongue.

She chuckled, faint and girlish. Her head notched up another inch. “And what about the weeds?”

“Well, now,” he murmured. “Let’s not lose our heads, Guinevere. I thought you said you liked doing that.”

She laughed freely this time, a very fine sound. “And so, what now?” She turned around to face him, so his hands now rested in the curve of her spine. “I’ve lost my head, Griffyn, and you’re scared of the laundry.”

He smiled. “We’ll have to find a way through. You can tend your roses and mix the cauldrons.”

She laughed again. “And you can rescue the ponies and help me find a seneschal for the Everoot town of Ipsile-upon-Tyne. I’ll have to tell you about it.”