satisfied their appetites. Would you have me violate the laws of hospitality to pacify your greed?'
'Are you not hungry, lady?' Madoc murmured softly so that only she might hear his words.
Wynne sent him a fierce, quelling look. 'Eat your fill, my lord, but do it quickly. I would not seem inhospitable, but since you have dared to set my life upside down, I would have an explanation of you, and quickly!'
He grinned engagingly at her, and pulling a piece of the nearest cottage loaf, buttered it lavishly, and slathered it with honey before popping it in his mouth. The tip of his tongue swirled swiftly about his lips, recapturing errant crumbs and several beads of clear gold honey as he chewed and swallowed the bread. Once again Wynne found herself growing briefly light-headed as she found herself staring at him, fascinated. She was unable to understand her behavior.
Dragging herself back to reality, she found him holding out a similarly prepared morsel to her, but when she accepted it, his fingers would not release her fingers even as she raised them to her mouth. Awkwardly Wynne pushed the bread between her lips, fearful of making a scene, yet conscious of her lips touching his skin. She tried to pull free from Madoc, but with a knowing smile that reached all the way to his blue eyes, he drew her hand to his own mouth and licked the honey from her fingers, sucking slowly upon each digit before releasing it.
Once again she was being consumed by a terrible heat that sought out every crevice of her body and burned with an unrelenting fire. She was aware of feelings sweeping over her she couldn't even comprehend, for she had never had them before. They were the only two people on the face of the earth.
'I like the taste of you,' Wynne heard him say low.
'Let go of my hand,' she heard herself reply in equally low tones, although where she had gotten the courage to defy him she did not know. He did not argue with her. Looking guiltily about, Wynne saw Rhys and her family eating busily, not the least conscious of what had just transpired between herself and Madoc. Indeed. What had transpired? She wasn't even certain herself, and, reaching for her goblet, swallowed her ale greedily, finding herself almost painfully thirsty.
Rhys of St. Bride's, having devoured his cereal, trencher and all, gobbled down four eggs and finished off a cottage loaf by himself. The house serfs refilled his goblet at least three times. Now belching appreciatively, he pushed himself slightly back from the high board and fixed his gaze on Madoc. 'I would respectfully request an explanation of you, my lord,' he said in softly placating tones. 'I seek the hand in marriage of Wynne of Gwernach. You claim to be her betrothed husband, yet she claims no knowledge of this fact. You will certainly understand my confusion.' His gaze benign, Rhys picked several crumbs off his black and gold brocade tunic front and then smiled as engagingly as he knew how at Madoc.
'Indeed, my lord, I should myself appreciate being enlightened as to how I became, without my consent, betrothed to a man I have never before in my life laid eyes upon,' Wynne said sharply. She was strangely irritated by this turn of events, even though the unexpected but timely arrival of this prince was obviously going to save her from a marriage with Rhys. Better a devil one knows than a devil one doesn't know. The thought popped uninvited into her head.
'You are not the priest who was here when Wynne was born,' Madoc began by addressing Father Drew. 'Where is he?'
'Long dead, my lord,' Father Drew said, 'may God assoil his good soul.'
'His name was Father David, was it not?' Madoc asked the priest. 'And he was a fat little man with a bald head, but for a small fringe of white hair about his pate, and the bluest eyes I have ever seen, which were particularly startling on one so old. He had a deep, booming voice that almost bounced off the walls of this hall, did he not? And a large pink mole the size of a pea upon his left cheekbone.'
'You have described my predecessor exactly!' Father Drew said excitedly. 'He was my cousin, and it was because I loved him so well I became a priest, that I might be like him.'
'When the lady Wynne was born,' Madoc continued, 'I came to Owain ap Llywelyn and asked for his child's hand in marriage. I was newly come into my inheritance then. My mother had been twice widowed and I did not feel I could marry until I had raised my sister, Nesta. I sought a maid of good family, but one who would not be ready for marriage for many years. It was Father David who drew up the betrothal agreement.' Madoc drew a tightly rolled parchment from beneath his tunic and handed it to Father Drew.
The priest carefully unrolled the document, smoothing it flat, and scanned it carefully. Finally he looked up at them and said, 'It is all in order, my lady, and the hand is that of Father David. I know it well.'
'But why was I not told of such an arrangement?' Wynne demanded.
Madoc smiled at her. 'You were not to be told for several reasons, lady. I wanted no child wife, but a girl grown who could oversee my house and bear my sons. I wanted a maid I might lovingly court, not one unwilling and perhaps in love with another. It was agreed that I should come to Gwernach the summer of your sixteenth year to woo you and hopefully to wed you. If you found another before then, you were to be told of this betrothal, but allowed the final choice in the matter. I only recently learned of your father's untimely death and, knowing that he had probably not informed you of this arrangement else you would have sent for me, I came to Gwernach to tell you myself.'
'And found yourself amidst a love triangle,' Enid said quietly.
'If it is Rhys of St. Bride's you love, lady, then I will step aside,' Madoc said. 'I would not have you unhappy.'
'You have showed us your copy of the betrothal agreement,' Rhys said a trifle sourly, and not quite willing yet to give up the rich plum that Wynne represented. 'Surely Owain ap Llywelyn also had a copy of this agreement. I would see it before I release my claim on this lady.' He could have almost bitten his tongue off even as the words poured forth from his mouth. Was he mad, Rhys wondered? He knew full well the reputation enjoyed by Madoc of Powys. The princes of Wenwynwyn were a race of sorcerers whose power it was said was a gift from the great Merlin. Rhys silently cursed himself for a fool. If Madoc took offense, and sorcerers were notoriously short-tempered it was said, his own race could end now when Madoc turned him into a beetle to be squashed beneath his foot!
Madoc, however, smiled as his eyes met the openly nervous ones of Rhys. The smile seemed to say, I understand and I will be merciful. 'An excellent idea,' the prince replied to Rhys's request. 'I know that Owain ap Llywelyn had a copy of the betrothal papers because I remember signing two copies.' He turned to Wynne. 'Tell me, lady, would you know where your father would have kept such a document?'
'He had a locked box in his bedchamber,' Wynne said slowly, 'which I removed after his death. I have the key, but I have not yet opened the box. He kept the estate records and copies of all his transactions regarding the sales of Gwernach's excess cattle and cheese. I have not had time to go through it all.'
'I'll get the box,' Dewi said eagerly. 'I know where it is!'
He raced off up the stairs before anyone might gainsay him and was quickly back, almost tottering beneath the weight of a carved oak box. Dewi set it upon the high board with a thump and looked to his eldest sister.
Reaching for a ring of keys that hung from her belt, Wynne found the one she sought and, inserting it in the lock of the box, opened it. She raised the lid even as Rhys tried to shove her aside.
'You do not know how to read,' he said. 'I will find the document.'
Angrily Wynne shoved him away. 'Indeed, my lord of St. Bride's, I most certainly do read! And I write a fine hand as well. How do you expect I have been able to keep the estate's accounts since my father's death?' She began to rifle through the papers carefully.
'You read, and write, and keep documents?' He almost moaned the words. This was a treasure of a woman he was losing. He could have profitably spent all his time at war with his weaker neighbors knowing that his wife, whose interests would of course be his own, was at St. Bride's overseeing everything. With Wynne as his mate he could have added considerably to his own holdings. The pain of that loss was almost too much.
Wynne's fingers quickly sifted through the parchments, and finally, at the bottom of the box, she found what she sought. Drawing it forth, she compared it to Madoc's copy and then, looking up at the assembled group, she said quietly, 'It is identical. My father did indeed betroth me to Madoc of Powys when I was but six weeks old. There can be no question now of a marriage between Rhys of St. Bride's and myself.'
