The Heart of a Queen (A Historical Romance)

Chapter 40

Brienna hesitated. The last thing she wanted was to show her unclad body to Donnall.

"Get on with it," Donnall snapped. "You think I haven't seen a thousand unclothed women before? There's nothing special about you."

Heat rose in her cheeks, but not because she was embarrassed by his coarse words or because she was insulted. Rather she was devastated that this awful person would be the first man to see her naked form, the intimate parts of her that should only be shown to someone who loved her, who considered it a privilege. Donnall didn't even deserve to look at the soles of her feet.

His impatient fidgeting warned her that if she didn't do it herself soon, he would come over and strip her clothes off for her, so Brienna undid the ribbon that held up her shift, closing her eyes as she prepared to let it drop to the floor.

Just then, there was a knock on the door. A voice calling her name. Donnall's fist closed more tightly around the dagger he still held.

"That's Lasair," Brienna told him. The knock came again, more urgently. "You better let her in. If you don't, she'll get Ulf to knock it down."

The threat of the big Viking was enough to push Donnall to action, and he opened the door for Lasair.

"What are you doing here?" she exclaimed when she saw him, scandalized that the tradition of the bride and groom not seeing each other before the wedding was going unheeded.

"He only wanted to wish me well before the festivities begin and we barely have a moment alone," Brienna assured her. She nodded ever so slightly to Donnall, hoping to communicate to him that she would obey his warning, and not jeopardize the lives of Llewellyn or Ruarc.

"You'll have plenty of time alone starting tonight," Lasair chided Donnall, physically hurrying him out. He gave Brienna one last warning look before Lasair closed the door in his face.

Lasair, unaware that anything was awry, immediately began her customary stream of endless chatter and bustled around Brienna, undressing her and redressing her in wedding finery. Brienna accepted her attentions wordlessly, trying to come up with a way to save herself from marrying Donnall without her loved ones getting harmed in consequence. She drifted over to the chair and sat down heavily.

"Is anything wrong, daughter?" Lasair asked. She came over with a comb and began brushing out Brienna's shining black hair, separating it into locks that she then wove into a decorative braid.

"No," Brienna lied, but her eyes betrayed her; a tear strayed down her cheek and dropped into the collar of her gown. She rounded on Lasair suddenly and clasped the woman's hands in her own. "I know it is my duty to carry this through, and I will, but I wish you would indulge me in something."

"What?" Lasair asked, concerned.

"One day, after you have gone back to the village and married Madoc, come back to this castle and visit Isobel. You will dictate a letter, and she will write it out and send it to me."

"A letter?"

"Tell her what it is like to be in love, and to be joined forever to the one you love, and who loves you. Tell her of the joy you find in each other, the thrill of bearing children for the man you know was put on this earth for the sake of being with you. Tell her all of that, and she will write it down, and this piece of parchment will find me by my cold hearth in Leinster and hopefully keep me warm."

Immediately upon saying it, Brienna regretted letting her emotions get the best of her; Lasair looked scared, and since there was nothing she could do about what was to come, Brienna wished she hadn't worried her. She took the comb out of Lasair's hand and started brushing out the ends of her hair, unconsciously ruining all of Lasair's work.

Lasair bent and cupped Brienna's chin in her palm, looking at her very seriously.

"You were brought up with a strong sense of loyalty to your family and their wishes, and that is only right. I've always thought that, as a princess of Connaught, you have a heavy burden to carry, especially for a young girl." Brienna felt the fingers about her chin hold tighter. "I'm no sage, but I hope that you've come to respect that I have some wisdom to offer." Brienna nodded, and Lasair went on. "No royal would ever tell you this, and perhaps it's not my place to, but I can't stay silent anymore when I see so clearly that you are in pain. There is a higher duty, higher than the one owed to your family, or to the land, or the throne, and that is your duty to yourself. To stand up for what you believe in, what you know is true. Do that, and you have nothing to fear."

Lasair let her go, and Brienna leaned back in the chair as if blown by the force of Lasair's words. What she was saying went against everything Brienna had ever been taught, but it was as if, hearing them, a lost puzzle piece clicked into place, and she saw that she had been coming to the same conclusion herself for a long time—ever since she had first laid eyes on Llewellyn.

There was something wrong with putting one's duty to an intangible thing like a kingdom or a legacy over one's true self; if everyone did that, then what was the point? What were they fighting for, if the substance of their lives was being offered up to an ephemeral creation? What mattered was what happened when two people loved each other honestly and without reserve—she had felt it up in the tower with Llewellyn. That's what was worth fighting for.

Still, that didn't alleviate the worst of her situation—if she did anything to flummox Donnall before the wedding, he would have Llewellyn and her brother killed. She didn't doubt that he would do it, that the acuteness of his spite would overpower his own sense of self-preservation, for harming the king in his own castle would be fatal. She would marry Donnall, she thought, because in this case, saving her true love's life was what mattered. If it meant keeping Llewellyn alive, she knew she would do anything.