The Heart of a Queen (A Historical Romance)

Chapter 37

"Is there another reason your face sours when you think of him?" Brienna asked.

"There is," Llewellyn began. "Donnall fought next to your father in this most recent battle. I was there, pushing forward with a group of my own men, and the Connaught and Leinster soldiers had fallen behind. When I had a chance, I backtracked to see if I could lend my arms to your father, and I saw that some English soldiers had surrounded him and would have had his head had I not returned with my men. We fought them off, but he had already been gravely injured."

"Where was Donnall?" Brienna asked.

"My exact question, once the dust cleared," Llewellyn said warily. "He reappeared very quickly once the English started their retreat, and claimed his horse had shied and bolted."

"You doubt his explanation," Brienna didn't really have to ask; she hadn't even been there, and she doubted it.

"He'd been sly from the start. I felt he was skirting the fight from the outset, letting your father charge ahead while he hung back as if he were waiting for just such a thing to happen."

"Are you sure? If Ruarc had known that he would never have allowed Donnall to live."

"Your brother had a band of Scots bearing down on him and didn't see," Llewellyn said. "I'm only guessing, but I'd say that Donnall had Ruarc in mind, thinking that he'd have less opposition in overtaking Connaught with and untried youngest son at its helm, rather than your father."

"Why did you not tell me?" Brienna demanded, angry that something so important to the safety of her family had been kept from her.

"If you were going to marry him, I saw no reason to spoil your image of him," Llewellyn explained. He sighed. "Besides, what was done was done, and it's not my right to insert myself into the affairs of the clans."

"Not even when it's the right thing to do?"

"What's right is a delicate matter," Llewellyn said, talking down to her like he used to when she'd just arrived in Gwynedd. When he saw the hurt in her eyes, he amended his tone. "You know this," he appealed. "The preservation of a kingdom over the personal whims of its king."

"It must be nice to be able to maintain such an icy distance from everything all the time," Brienna accused, standing tall and staring boldly into his eyes. "But let me ask you this. Do you still think I should be married to him this morning?"

He didn't answer.

"Speak," she begged. "I must hear what you have to say before I can take any action myself."

Llewellyn put a heavy hand on her shoulder to accompany the counsel he was about to give. She had seen him do the same thing to the stable boy.

"This alliance between Leinster, Connaught and myself has been the result of many years of labor and meticulous diplomacy. Our future—the future of Wales and Ireland, not just of our own lands—hangs on it. Marry Donnall, and you'll have his ear. With your skills, I'm sure you'd be able to convince him to keep the promises of his father, and therefore keep the peace."

Brienna shook off his hand.

"Thank you for sharing the opinion of the King of Gwynedd," Brienna wailed, exasperated. "Now please, if you have any care for me at all, I would hear the opinion of Llewellyn."

She hadn't realized it, but in her heightened emotion, she had grasped a fistful of his shirt in her hand, and was hanging on it like he was her last hope of being saved from the fatal depths of a stormy sea. Her breath came in unruly gasps and she was shaking, staring up and searching him for some answer to her fate. Llewellyn's face was impassive, and his chest beneath her fist as still as stone. She had bent to his will on so many things, and he would not yield on this: the only thing that mattered.

She was about to give him up, but just then, she caught a flicker in his eyes, s glimmer of passion that was bursting to escape from his tight, regal control. She let go of his shirt and stood before him, allowing all of her own feeling show on her face the way she had once when she'd fallen to her knees in front of him, before learning the trick of hiding behind a mask.

"Tell me what you would have me do," she asked, and tried to communicate everything she felt for him in her voice.

Llewellyn swallowed hard, and she could see his defences melting away in the face of her naked emotion. "Don't marry him," he said.