One Burning Heart (Welsh Blades Book 4) by Elizabeth Kingston

Author:Elizabeth Kingston [Kingston, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-08-30T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

Will saw the change in Margaret at once when he returned with his mother’s husband. Lord Robert was an astonishingly genial man – astonishing only because he was so unlike Lady Eluned, and because the two were very clearly besotted with one another. Where Eluned caused most everyone in her wake to brace themselves, Lord Robert caused them to forget their worries, with an ease and warmth that all the king’s court envied.

But even his good cheer could not banish the tension in Margaret as they all sat at the high board and drank his excellent wine. She was pleasant and hospitable, but William saw the way she angled herself slightly away from Lady Eluned, how empty was her smile and how eagerly she left them to go to the chapel.

He watched his mother closely, but she gave nothing away. She rarely did. When he found himself alone with her, he considered probing in some subtle way to find what had happened between the women. Instead, he stumbled into corners of his mother’s territory he had never intended to go.

It began innocently enough, with her questioning Henry’s education.

“He has not asked to study with the bard?” she asked Will, and he knew it was no simple inquiry born of curiosity, no matter how bland was her tone.

“Nay, he is content with Master Edmund’s lessons.”

“The same wisdom and more could he gain from Gwenllian, did he humble himself to learn from his mother.” Eluned frowned just enough for faint lines to cut across her upper lip. “But he is of an age to scorn his parents now. It is why I thought him likely to wish to study with the bard, because the Welsh consider a boy is become a man at his age.”

When she had been lady of this place, the bard was a man who had served her own Welsh family, and was greatly esteemed. That man’s sons now served Ruardean, though they were rarely called upon. Will found little use for Welsh bards except when there were visitors to entertain.

“Will I send Henry to the Welshry, then, to hear their poetry? Or do you prefer I summon them here to the hall where they may sing in the evenings?”

Though her expression did not change, he felt her surprise.

“Nay, if you think there is no advantage in it for him, then to be sure there is none. It was but a notion.”

There was nothing to do with the Welsh that was merely a notion with his mother. But he let her say it, and let them both pretend he believed it. He told her of how they had gone into the Welsh villages, how Henry had ensured there was no miscommunication, how gladly he was greeted. “It pleased me to have him at my side,” he said to her.

She nodded, then murmured something about the faded hanging on the wall of the solar where they sat. He said perhaps he would replace it; she answered that it had been commissioned by his grandfather and might be repaired instead.

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