Tanon squeezed her eyes shut. Dear God, it was. And where in blazes was this Ystrad Towi? In Deheubarth, no doubt, which could have been at the other end of the world as far as she was concerned. If she had to marry for something other than love, then Roger was the best choice for her. His castle in Blackburn was only a day’s ride away from Avarloch.
“What about Roger?” Tanon asked the king softly.
“What about him?” Gareth said. Tanon angled her head to look at him. And then wished she hadn’t. The Gareth she remembered was gone. In his place stood a man whose arresting stare demanded her full attention.
Silently defying him, she dipped her gaze away from his. “Lord deCourtenay will take offense to having our vow of marriage broken just a few short weeks before our wedding. Perhaps it would be more prudent to wait—”
“Something tells me he’ll get over you quickly enough.”
Tanon snapped her eyes up at Gareth. “That was an extremely unkind thing to say.”
He didn’t look repentant. In fact, his gaze on her darkened.
“Forgive me,” he said, his mocking tone a stark contradiction to his apology. “I thought you would be relieved to find yourself free of him.”
“In exchange for living in Wales?” Tanon expelled a tight little snort.
Gareth pushed himself off the window and took a step toward her. A tinge of fear quickened her pulse as he came closer, his expression warrior hard. “How can you hold contempt for a country you have never even seen?”
“I don’t need to see it to know it is a country fraught with war,” she said, keeping her voice steady, her challenge soft. She hadn’t meant to insult him, but she wasn’t about to back down from the anger flashing across his eyes. “I know that it’s a country divided by kingdoms and kings, one whose own nephew couldn’t be trusted, and had to be banished.”
Tanon’s father moved toward her with a look that warned Gareth to move away. But Gareth had one more thing to say.
“Tanon.” The familiar tenderness in his voice drew her eyes to his. “You speak as if you are my enemy.”
“Gareth,” William interjected, his tone signaling that he’d heard enough, but Gareth had already swung away from her on his way back to the window.
“He’s right.” Tanon stopped the king before he said anything else. Gareth turned back to her, but she lowered her gaze. “I’ll do what’s required of me.”
What was requiredof her
Hell, that wasn’t the response he had been hoping for. Gareth set his hips back against the window. He didn’t know what he expected, but it wasn’t this. He understood that his appearance at Winchester had been a shock to the king, and to the Risandes as well. He’d even concede that Tanon had a right to be a little reluctant about marrying him, but the way she had just accepted her fate, as if she was about to be bound to a horned demon from her worst nightmares, pricked him in the heart. He was a fool to have thought she would rejoice at seeing him again. Why should she? They had spent one summer together. She hadn’t recognized him earlier. She probably didn’t even remember him. But he remembered her. The girl who had stood apart from the rest. The one whose complete lack of guile made him smile, at the risk of being thrashed by his brothers. She was direct and inquisitive, thriving on herownhappiness—he glanced at the king and her family—not everyone else’s. He’d thought of her often, imagining the girl he’d left had grown into a spirited beauty. He’d returned to find a Norman lady, refined and obedient. He attributed her prejudiced opinion ofCymruto being brought up in Norman courts. Heaven only knew what she’d been taught about his people. She was probably scared out of her wits by him, and yet she’d just agreed to marry him without quarrel or complaint. It had angered him to hear her concern over deCourtenay, but she’d told him that they had only been betrothed for a short time and she didn’t care for him. She’d acceptedthatfate, it would seem, without complaint as well.
There was barely a trace of the winsome abandon he’d once found so irresistible in her glade-green eyes. Her face hadn’t changed, though. Looking at her still seized his breath. He recalled the way she had stared up at him earlier in quiet fascination, the silent gasp that parted her lips when he kissed her hand, as if no man had ever done the like before. He had been tempted to lean down and cover that sweet coral mouth with his own.
“Now, what are we to do about deCourtenay?” William thought out loud, jarring Gareth’s concentration away from Tanon’s lips. “Tanon’s right. He might take offense and ask to fight for her hand.”
“Then allow them to fight,” Duke Brand suggested, grazing Gareth with a cool look. “I’d like an opportunity to see if the prince has the skills required to protect my daughter.”
Gareth took up the challenge with a respectful bow. “The tourney begins tomorrow. Allow me to prove my skill against deCourtenay there. If I win, your daughter will return toCymruwith me, as my wife, without doubt that I will do all that is necessary to secure her safety, just as I do for my people. If I lose, I will wish her happiness with”—a withering smirk touched his lips—“her doting husband and bid her farewell.”
William eyed the Welsh prince narrowly. “I will allow it.” He sighed with the weight of decisions he already regretted having to make.
“You may leave us now.” The king waved his hand in Gareth’s direction. “See my steward, Rupert, for chambers for you and your men while you’re here.”
Tanon stood up and tugged on Gareth’s wrist after he bowed and turned to leave. Suspicion creased her brow. She dragged her lower lip between her teeth, drawing Gareth’s gaze back to her mouth. “I thought I was vital to the peace of your country. Why would you risk the lives you claim are in danger by returning without me?”
Gareth stared into the shifting facets of her eyes, feeling his pulse quake. God help him, she still made his chest feel like he’d been kicked in it. “I risk nothing, my lady.” His voice was a honeyed murmur while he lifted the edge of his mouth in a confident half grin. “I will not lose.”
Tanon watched himleave. Somehow, his back was just as masculine as the front. Everything about him was sensual. He had no doubt in the outcome. He intended to win. Her heart rebelled at the idea of living in Wales, but her blood rushed through her veins. Gareth’s bold smiles lured a part of her that craved excitement. The kind that had been denied her by her noble upbringing. His gaze stirred feelings that made her want to run into the safe, uninterested arms of Roger deCourtenay, sealing the fate for which she’d prepared herself. But a buried part of her was curious to find out if the champion of her youth had become as dangerous as he looked.
“Tanon.” The voice of her king drew her attention back to her family. “I would not ask this of you if it were not so vital to so many.”
Tanon nodded. She had been raised as a child to obey her king. She had always been protected by the gentlest of men and she would always do her best to please them, especially when a request was fraught with such need.
Swallowing back her own emotions, she met William’s tender gaze. “Whatever the outcome, I will not disappoint you.”
*