“And we’re expecting another.” Brand replied proudly.
“My mother had twelve children,” Gareth told him, finding it easier than he would have imagined a se’nnight ago to converse with a Norman warrior. Beside him, Tanon groaned. “My four sisters died at birth and all of my brothers, save Cedric, were lost in battle over the years.”
Tanon felt her heart lurch remembering the small army of boys when they’d visited Winchester. Almost all of them dead. She wondered if they had perished at the hands of Normans.
“All the more reason never to have children,” she murmured.
“Nonsense,” Rebecca scolded. “You shall have many little ones.”
Tanon kicked her nurse beneath the table, but then thought of a way to take Rebecca with her without Gareth’s refusal. “If I’m to have so many children, I will need my most beloved nurse with me to help bring them into the world.” She turned to Gareth. “Don’t you agree?”
He took a bite of his heron and shook his head. “There are dozens of women in my village who know how to deliver babes.”
Tanon’s nostrils flared softly. Heavens, but he riled her. She was being denied her mother. She would not be denied her dearest friend as well. “If you insist that I conceive your babes, then Rebecca will have to be there to deliver them, else I will refuse to have them.”
Gareth cut a side glance to Tanon’s father and smiled. Warning the man’s daughter that her refusal might make for a more interesting way of conceiving probably wasn’t the best course to take.
“Very well. Your nurse may come with us.”
Sitting at Rebecca’s right, Hereward closed his eyes and ground his teeth.
Gareth’s voice settled over Tanon like a downy blanket, but his heavy lashes only half concealed the reluctance that cooled his eyes.
“Thank you,” she whispered, knowing somehow that he just allowed her to win what could have become a heated battle. She smiled to show her appreciation and his gaze softened. So close, she could almost read the thoughts he tried to hide behind his stoic expression. He liked her. But he didn’t like being defied. According to her mother, no man did. And Garethwasa prince after all, arrogant to say the least. She would have to think about that later though. Right now, she had a more pressing matter to worry about. Like how to keep from melting all over the table if he continued to look at her the way he did.
When she began to turn away, he covered her fingers with his.
“Tanon.” He leaned in closer, addling her brains completely with his scent, and the deep huskiness of his voice meant only for her ears. “I find I’ve missed the way you look when you smile. I would like you to do it more often.”
He was arrogant, but her mouth went dry nonetheless, and her heart accelerated. She angled her head slightly to look at him and graced him with a smile that pulled a labored breath from his lungs.
How nice it was, Tanon decided while she returned her attention to her trencher, to have such an effect on a man.
Chapter Eight
Tanon bolted uprightin her bed. Today she was going to be bound to Gareth. Today, he was going to take her away from her family, away from Avarloch, and bring her to a land as untamed as he was. She was going to be his wife, expected to share his bed.
But neither the unhappiness of leaving her family nor the anxiety of being naked in a man’s bed was the cause of the panic rising in her chest now. It clutched at her lungs until it erupted into a gasp.
She liked Gareth. She always had, and when he returned he brought with him something she had lost through the years—her daydreams. Already she could feel the effects of other emotions stirring inside the place she kept them. She had inherited a store of passions, and they were being roused, evident in how quickly he could rile her temper. The idea of living in Wales frightened her, but she embraced her fear. It quickened her heart and made her feel alive. She craved life with every fiber of her being, but allowing herself to live it meant exposing her heart to the misery of a loveless marriage—or worse, a one-sided one.
Non, I will find a way to stop what he is doing to me.She swung her legs over the side of the bed. The panic made her body tremble. She had to marry him. There was no stopping that. But if he didn’t like her, if he stopped looking at her all the time and behaved a little more like Roger—well then, she’d stop liking him and everything would return to normal.
A knock sounded at the door.
“Come,” Tanon called, resolve squaring her shoulders and steadying her nerves. When she saw her aunt Gianelle and her two daughters, she smiled and opened her arms to receive them.
Katherine and Cassandra leaped onto her bed and commenced chattering non-stop.
“Aunt Brynna is retching again,” Katherine informed her with a sickly look of her own to emphasize.
“Are you going to be a princess?” the younger girl, six-year-old Casey asked, crawling into her lap, her locks of honey gold spilling over her petite shoulders.
Twelve-year-old Katherine tugged on Tanon’s shift. “Momma says you’re going away. Are you coming back?” Her large amber eyes solemnly awaiting Tanon’s answer.
Tanon couldn’t bear giving it to her. It would be difficult to re-enter England once she crossed into Wales. But not impossible, she thought, recalling Gareth’s guarantee to William that he had crossed the marches without bloodshed. She simply had to find a way to convince Gareth to bring her back for a visit, at least once a year.
What was it her mother had told her when she was preparing to marry Cedric? A woman, if she was clever, should never try to rule her husband. But a soft touch and the feminine wiles God gave her worked well at bending a man to her will.