In Debt To The Enemy Lord

The cold reality of daytime should prove that to her. She was kept a prisoner here no matter what Ffion said. She doubted the lord kept her here because Brynmor was her home. If he knew she was from Brynmor, all he had to do was inform Sir Robert and ask for a boon. Teague was Marcher Lord and consequently had power over Brynmor. He also had power over her.

She rested her head upon her knees and stared out the window. If she was counting the days correctly, she had been here over a sennight. It was long enough for either someone to rescue her, or to think her dead.

She could endure whatever the Traitor expected of her, but there were people who needed her at Brynmor. Melun, who had raised her like a father, was losing his sight and depended upon her to care for the birds. The falconer had probably already been punished for losing a goshawk. And fragile, gentle Alinore needed protection from her father, Lord Urien of Brynmor, and his spitting rages.

Feeling trapped and restless, Anwen fisted the rich green gown they’d given her. She was as unused to this inactivity as she was to long gowns, but it was easy to spot the man responsible for her imprisonment. For days she’d been watching Teague. His tall frame, dark hair and movements were now as familiar to her as a hawk’s flight.

He was training his men in hand-to-hand in the lists. A circle of men surrounded both Teague and a red-haired man. Both of them were crouched, their arms stretched and angled in front of them. Even in the cold heavy mist, they were similarly garbed—bare, except for loose braies that bunched at the waist and fell above the knee.

But it was Teague she watched. On him, the braies didn’t look so much like they were worn as much as they hugged a tight waist that supported a wide defined chest, broad shoulders and arms and legs rigid with muscle.

He was often hardly clothed, yet each time she saw it, it was as if his body presented some new facet for her to watch. He held a savage beauty, like a peregrine’s wings arching back only to pound the air in a fluid rhythm.

His eyes never left his opponent and his arms remained steady, but she saw the almost imperceptive movement of his great thigh muscles when he launched. With one arm sweeping around his opponent’s neck, he forced him to the ground.

Then each of them stood. Teague gave a satisfied grin as the man re-entered the crowd.

Anwen’s breath caught in her chest. It was a strange breathlessness that had occurred to her more than once in the days she watched him. His face did not hold the perfect symmetrical beauty of his brother’s; his features were masculine, hardened, and his cheeks, brow and jaw looked as if they were fragments of Gwalchdu’s stone. One did not call him beautiful as one does not call a cliff that jaggedly slashes downward to crashing waves beautiful, but both held a magnificence that could not be denied. And when he smiled, his eyes flashing victory, Teague was truly magnificent.

Even having won, he did not rest, but pointed to another man, who entered the circle. Teague pushed his long dark locks over his shoulders before crouching in the almost ritualistic stance. It would continue for hours until Teague was satisfied and it seemed he was never satisfied.

He pushed his men as she had seen no man train before. Teague would not call a halt until muscles visibly shook from strain, and sweat built upon sweat and dirt upon dirt. There were times he would get hurt, by a misstep, or a flawed arc to a sword, but never did she see him lose.

Through it all, he still held the air of a leader. Day after day, soldiers and servants came to him. He either directed or simply listened, but she would never see or hear a complaint or an argument against his direction. It seemed everyone obeyed Gwalchdu’s lord out of respect and admiration.

For many days she had watched the Traitor, yet in all this time of trying to find a weakness so she could escape she had found only one. What she knew of Teague now conflicted greatly with her earlier knowledge. His arrogance and power were there, and a few servants crossed themselves on his approach as if warding him away, but he was also a fair leader and generous caregiver. No, Teague of Gwalchdu wasn’t only the Traitor, yet that facet would always exist.

She had seen the consequences of him siding with the English for Brynmor and even now, he kept her a prisoner. For those facts alone, she could not trust him.

* * *

It was hours later when Greta and Edith barged in carrying full water buckets. More servants followed with a large hip tub and more buckets.

‘The kind Sister thought you could use a bath.’ Edith set the buckets near the tub.

There were more important things for Anwen than a bath, but the steam from the buckets was intoxicating. ‘Thank you. But you shouldn’t be cross with Sister Ffion if she wanted me to have one.’

‘Oh, I’m not cross with Her Mightiness about the bath.’ Edith helped Greta pour the water into the tub after the other servants discreetly left. ‘I’m cross because she had to decide when. I knew I shouldn’t have asked for one days ago.’ Edith gestured with her arms. ‘Why don’t you come here then and let me help with your clothing?’

Anwen, who had never been mothered a day in her life, couldn’t get used to the coddling, yet she bent as Edith stripped her clothes and bandages.

When the bandages were gone, Anwen did something she had wanted to do for days.

She approached the tub, leaned over and without touching the smooth water, she scrutinised her reflection. She saw, as she expected, a stranger.

The woman looking back at her was gaunt, with cheekbones pronounced. Her hair fell lank around her down-tilted face, but it was the left side of her face that caused her to gasp.

Ffion was right—despite the stitches and poultice, the wound would scar. The raised jaggedness covered her entire left temple, but it wasn’t so wide, or it would have affected her eyesight. Tentatively, she placed the tips of her fingers over the wound.

She could almost imagine it didn’t exist. But it did and would for ever. Quickly standing, she immersed herself into the bath, causing waves to crash against the surface.

The steaming scent of lavender and sage immediately surrounded her and she rested her head against the back of the tub to simply enjoy it. Which she did, for about two drips of a candle; then Edith was there to assist.

‘You can’t rest now. Why, what if you go to sleep before we can get you clean? Help me here, Greta, get her up a bit, I’ve got to get to that hair and I can’t do it proper and not affect the healing, as well.’

Anwen’s thoughts of a lovely leisurely bath were dashed long before Edith began work on her back and arms. The woman cleaned her with a determination paralleling her speech. The only grace was that it was quickly finished.

Edith beamed and Greta swiftly cleaned around the tub. ‘You look like an angel now.’

She grimaced. ‘Thank you, but only if the angel had tripped and ripped the left side of her face.’

‘Give it time,’ the older woman said.

Greta patted Edith’s arm before she poured another bucket of hot water into the tub.

‘Oh, yes,’ Edith said. ‘Greta thinks we should leave you in peace for a bit now.’

Greta, with a wad of dirty cloths under one arm, grabbed Edith with the other.

‘We’ll be back, child,’ Edith warned, walking as fast as she could with Greta dragging her. ‘Don’t go tiring yourself, just when you’re on the mend.’

‘I won’t move a muscle.’ Anwen smiled.

* * *

Knowing Edith and Greta would be back, Anwen didn’t open her eyes when she heard the door open.

‘Can you talk?’

Teague stood a few steps from her tub. He came straight from the lists and still wore nothing but braies. His wide torso was textured by scars, bruises and the line of black hair that ran down his abdomen. His bare chest gleamed and sweat ran in rivulets following the curves of his rigid muscles and dampening his waistband. Blood showed bright from cuts on his arms. His stance was one of a conqueror; his arms folded across his chest, feet apart.

She felt her heart thumping harder inside her as she took in the smells of sweat, heat and maleness. His black gaze held hers just as steadily, just as transfixed, then he slowly lowered his eyes...to her breasts not quite covered by the water.

Gasping, she stood and quickly turned to grab a cloth. The movement cost her. Swaying, grabbing the side of the tub for support, she wrapped the material around her. He didn’t offer to help, didn’t move at all, but she heard his sharp inhalation.

When the dizziness faded, a slow anger built inside her. For days he’d visited her when she was too sick to defend herself, then he ignored and imprisoned her. Now he didn’t show her courtesy for her modesty. When she turned to face him, she’d lost a handle on her caution.

‘Yes, I can talk and I ask, can you not see? Because if you could, you would know I wish for privacy. Leave.’ Outraged, Anwen wanted to point to the door, but the saturated cloth needed both her hands.

His expression hardened. ‘You are commanding me to leave?’

‘Yes, now. This is not right. This is rude.’

‘Rude.’ He regarded the room. ‘You sleep in my bed, you have worn my clothes and now I am rude?’

‘You want my thanks for your type of hospitality? You, who take advantage of me and keep me prisoner?’

He needed to leave. Now. The longer Teague stared at her, she could feel her precarious position. She could see the light in his eyes, that he, too, recognised her predicament.

‘Take advantage of whom, I wonder.’ He tilted his head. ‘From my position, it could be you taking advantage of me.’

The air changed with his words. Making a slow perusal of her wet hair and her bare shoulders, he took a step closer. If he continued to close the distance between them, she could do nothing to stop him. The moment she stepped out of the tub, she’d only expose more of herself. She was stuck. Ire, frustration and something close to rage ran up her spine. She hated men who prayed on those who were weaker.

‘How could I take advantage of you? When it is you who have afforded me no courtesy, made me well, but allowed me no freedom, you who have provided food for me, but not the open air?’

He tilted his head. ‘Are you that innocent? I wonder. When I first saw you in the forest with your hair swinging and your paltry chemise giving me glimpses of your skin underneath, I couldn’t take my eyes from you.’

He took another step so that his feet almost touched the tub. ‘Then you were so sick, I thought you dead,’ he continued. ‘Ffion and my servants took care of your body, but still I watched, unable to leave you. I watched you, Anwen.’

She could not speak, could not breathe, her anger changing into something else. So she hadn’t been dreaming or mistaken.

‘It was you at night,’ she whispered, when she knew she should accuse him instead. How could it have been this man, this traitor, who comforted her?

‘Yes, it was me at night, my hand you held, my touch you sought when the pain was bad. While you recovered, I knew I could no longer simply watch you. So I stayed away.’

His eyes roved over her body until she blushed with heat. Until she was acutely aware of the cooling water, the brush of cold air in the room.

When he spoke next, his voice was like velvet. ‘You asked whether I can see your present state of undress. Oh, yes, I can see. I can see that although you cover yourself, in my mind you are still laid bare to me.’

Anwen’s blood turned to ice, then to flame; her skin prickled and flushed. The Traitor had comforted her, imprisoned her and now he was doing something else. Something that affected her body more than her anger, more than his care and capture.

His eyes gleamed black mercury as he continued, ‘You clamp your hands to your breasts, thinking that cloth covers you, but instead it outlines. Your breasts are like perfect globes waiting to be touched, silky wet from the water beading on them, just right for the heat of a man’s mouth. My mouth.’

She had no weapons against these words of his. None at all. Her anger had disappeared, only to be replaced by something hotter, more liquid. She could fight his care and escape his capture, but she couldn’t fight her own body’s response to this.

His eyes returned to hers and he seemed to war with himself before he asked roughly, ‘How can you take advantage of me, you ask?’ The sensuousness of his voice was gone, anger surrounded him and when his eyes locked with hers, she could only see cold stone. ‘That is what I intend to find out. Dress yourself and meet me in the Hall. I will have words with you.’

The door closed, but it took several more moments before she could react; her entire body was trembling. She didn’t want to know if it was from her anger, embarrassment, or the heat of his words, so she got out of the tub and briskly dried herself.

Why had she challenged him? It wasn’t as though she would ever win any battle with him. He was a man who commanded, not one to take commands. She was not usually so foolish.

What battle was it she wanted to win? She grabbed her clean clothes off the chair. It certainly wasn’t the one he had challenged her to. His crude words shook her. She was not so innocent she didn’t know what he was speaking of.

Yet, he hadn’t touched her. He had obviously used the words as retribution to her commanding he leave. He’d meant to embarrass her, but the words only humiliated her at first. Then other images came unwittingly: the images of his mouth on her breasts, his dark hair caressing her skin.

Perhaps these images would not have been so real if she had not remembered his touch so acutely. Yet he had touched her, at night, when there was no one but him. She had taken comfort in his hand, concentrated on the gentleness and strength through her pain. Now she remembered how his calloused thumb had slowly rubbed circles in her inner palm and wrist. The fact she could so easily imagine his touch elsewhere should anger her, frighten her...but she could summon neither emotion. They were destroyed by his words.

She needed to escape.

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