Page 6 of Insurrection (Guard of Six #2)

CHAPTER FIVE

T hey’d come back.

More little hands were reaching under the fence, grabbing for the blackberries, and Madelaina turned the dog loose on them. Arthur ran at those hands, barking and nipping at fingers, and the boys those fingers belonged to started to run. All except one boy, because Arthur had one entire finger in his mouth and wasn’t letting go.

The child howled.

“I told you I was going to send the dog after you,” Madelaina said, peering over the top of the fence. “Now he shall eat you for supper.”

“Nay!” the boy cried. “I need my hand! Please!”

Madelaina really didn’t intend for Arthur to eat the boy’s hand. And he wasn’t even drawing blood as he bit because the dog thought it was a game. He was playing. He didn’t have a mean bone in his body. Quickly, she called the dog off, opened the gate, and watched the dark beast charge out after the boys, thinking this was all great fun. He ran about ten feet when one of the boys picked up a rock and threw it at him, which dampened Arthur’s fun when it made contact with his skull.

As Arthur came to a confused stop, Madelaina grinned and stepped back into her garden. She assumed the dog would return to her, as he always did. Arthur was, if nothing else, a needy creature. As she bent over the pilfered blackberry vine, noticing that the boys had torn a branch off in their haste, she heard someone out in the alleyway.

“Arglwyddes,” a man said. “Gallwn i ddefnyddio eich cymorth.”

Lady, I could use your assistance.

Puzzled, Madelaina came out of the garden again, looking in the opposite direction that the boys had run. A man stood about twenty feet away, swathed in a dirty cloak and traditional Welsh clothing, as Arthur humped the man’s leg furiously.

“Arthur!” she shrieked, rushing over to her naughty dog. “Stop that at once! Go home. Go! ”

Panting, but obedient, Arthur scooted back home, encouraged by a swat to his backside from his mistress. When the dog disappeared into the yard, Madelaina turned to the man, mortified by her dog’s behavior.

“My apologies,” she said. “He really is a good dog. Did he ruin your clothing? If he did, you must let me fix the damage.”

The man was smiling at her in a way that made her heart leap. Truthfully, she’d never seen such a handsome man. His dark hair was short, surprisingly neat. His eyes were dark, and his face… Well, it was perfect. Perfectly formed. Perfect lips, a perfect jaw, and when he flashed his teeth, those were perfect also. He was also quite big, with impossibly broad shoulders and equally enormous arms. When he lifted his hand to brush off the cloak, she could see that his hands were enormous, too.

She’d never seen anything like him.

“No harm done,” he said, shaking off the cloak where the dog had latched on. “But he is rather… friendly.”

Madelaina wasn’t finished being mortified. She also wasn’t finished being astonished by this beautiful man lurking in her alley. But she shook off her surprise, focusing on his words.

“He is excellent at protecting the garden and shop from inside,” she said. “He barks a great deal. But once confronted, he becomes everyone’s best friend. I swear he would let an outlaw take everything we own and stand by, wagging his tail.”

The man laughed softly. “That is a good companion,” he said. “Do not punish him for his good nature. That is rare.”

She shrugged. “I suppose,” she said, but her gaze lingered on him. Somehow, she didn’t want this conversation to end so soon, so she quickly sought something to say. “Are you traveling through the village?”

He nodded. “I am,” he said. “I am going home.”

“Where is home?”

He pointed off to the south. “On the coast,” he said. “But you clearly live here.”

He was subtly changing the subject away from him, but Madelaina didn’t notice. “I do,” she said, gesturing to her garden and the building beyond. “My father is the apothecary.”

The man looked over at the lush garden and the stone building beyond. “Now that elaborate garden makes sense,” he said. “No wonder those lads were determined to get to it.”

She snorted. “They try to steal blackberries under the gate,” she said. “Truthfully, they’re not bad children. Just hungry. And curious.”

“Do you let them have the berries?”

“Sometimes,” she said.

“And you also save men from your passionate dog,” he said, watching her smile. “You are a very busy woman. May I have your name to properly thank you for your assistance?”

“I am Madelaina,” she said. “My father is The Bryn. If you spend any time in this village, you will hear that name.”

His eyes lingered on her. “The Bryn,” he repeated. “A curious name. Is that the name he was given at birth?”

She shook her head. “Nay,” she said. “But it is the name he is called by.”

He nodded in understanding, but didn’t reply. He was simply looking at her garden, at the cottage it was attached to that was perhaps the largest cottage in this section of the village. He didn’t seem to sense that she was staring at him, though he should have. She couldn’t seem to look at anything but him.

“And your name, traveler?”

Now, he was finally realizing that she was interested in him. Kent pondered her question, but only for a moment. He’d had no real intention to do anything more than blend in with the population and pose as a Welshman, simply as an observer. But Madelaina’s question opened a door, and he thought that he might be able to move about easier, and gain more information, if he made a connection with the daughter of the village apothecary. Someone who would know nearly everything about the village around her. He hated to use her like that, but he couldn’t pass up this opportunity.

It was a chance he was willing to take.

“Trevyn,” he said after a moment. “D’Einen is the family.”

She cocked her head. “That does not sound Welsh.”

He grinned. “It is,” he said. “Somewhere back in the bloodlines, a Norman married one of my ancestors and the family took the name. But I promise that we are more Welsh than you are.”

That was true. Trevyn d’Einen was the name of his paternal great-grandfather, a full-blooded Welshman from the family who had once owned and occupied Nether Castle. His paternal grandfather had married that man’s daughter and that was how the castle had become an English property. It was still an English property because his father was English and his mother was also English, from the prestigious le Mon family of Cilgerran Castle. But Kent wanted Madelaina to think he was all Welsh. Thanks to his fluency in the Welsh language, he sounded like it.

He could only hope Madelaina did, too.

“Are you traveling home, then?” she asked. “Most people who travel through our valley are heading deeper into Wales.”

Her questions were giving him ideas, and he began to think quickly on how he could turn this conversation to his advantage. “I was hoping to,” he said. “Truthfully, mayhap you can help me.”

She nodded. “If I can,” she said. “How may I be of help?”

Kent gestured to the enormous castle on the hill. “The Welsh no longer occupy the castle, so I’ve heard.”

Madelaina’s gaze moved to the shadowed bastion in the distance. “Nay,” she said quietly. “The English live there now.”

“What happened?”

She shrugged. “A battle of some kind,” she said. “A big English army came and sacked the castle. Then more English came just today.”

Kent grunted, pretending to be distressed. “That is what I have heard,” he said. “I was hoping I had heard wrong.”

“You did not,” she said. “Why do you ask?”

He sighed sharply. “Because I have information for the Welsh that were there,” he said. “Ivor ap Yestin and his men. Do you know where they’ve gone?”

She shook her head, but she was pointing off to the north. “They left under cover of darkness,” she said. “I heard the men in town say that they’d gone north, into the mountains, to Pentwyn Castle. You must know where it is if you are part of Ivor’s teulu.”

Teulu. That meant family, or group of men, and that was exactly what Kent wanted her to think. That he was part of Ivor’s group. He knew enough about Ivor that he could keep up a reasonable facade and not be questioned unless someone from his actual group of warriors was around and could refute his story.

That was an important point.

“Have they all retreated?” he asked, looking around. “When I came into the village, I did not see anyone I recognized. Does that mean they are all gone?”

Madelaina nodded. “I’ve not seen anyone that I know in the village,” she said. “It is surely not safe, which means you are not safe if you remain here.”

“Why? Have the English been to town yet?”

“Nay, but I am certain they will be,” she said. “You should leave immediately.”

Kent pretended to consider her suggestion. “I think I would be more use if I remained for a few days to see what the Saesneg are doing,” he said, using the Welsh word for the English. “I can report that back to Ivor. He will want to know.”

Madelaina’s focus moved to the north once more. “You must not wait too long,” she said. “The snows will come in a couple of months.”

“I am aware.”

“Do you need a place to stay whilst you are gathering information?”

He looked at her, perhaps with some curiosity that she would propose such a thing. “Are you a woman sympathetic to the Welsh princes and their causes?”

She shrugged. “I am a Welshwoman who loves her people and her land,” she said. “I am not sure what Ivor did to incur the English wrath, but I would be willing to believe it was possibly nothing at all. The English like to show us how strong they think they are.”

He was careful in his reply. “How well do you know Ivor and his men?”

Madelaina averted her gaze. “They came into the village often,” she said. “They purchased things from my father and my father gave them advice.”

“Did he?”

“Aye,” she said. “The Bryn is a Welsh prince with deep ties to this land. He is very respected. He was always glad to confer with an Elfael son and share wisdom.”

Elfael. Kent knew all of that. Henry had discussed it with him. During the course of his education, he’d learned about the Welsh kingdoms because of the location of his family’s properties, so he knew about the country of his paternal ancestors and he was aware of how Elfael played into the history. Truthfully, he didn’t recall remembering that Ivor was from those bloodlines until Henry had mentioned it, but upon reflection, he seemed to remember his father speaking about those at The Narth being Welsh princes. Evidently, that was something Madelaina knew something about as well. So far, she was turning out to be a wealth of information.

But he didn’t want her to get suspicious if he asked too many questions.

“Then mayhap I will pay a call on your father sometime, as a friend of Ivor’s,” he said. “As for you, I thank you for the conversation and for removing that amorous dog from my leg. It has been an honor to meet you, Madelaina.”

Madelaina smiled, a flush coming to her cheeks. “And you,” she said. “I do not recall ever seeing you around here before, but I shall remember your name. You are welcome anytime. Arthur will welcome you, too.”

“Arthur?”

“The dog.”

She had a mischievous gleam to her eye when she said it, and he snorted, shaking a finger at her as if she’d said something naughty. Which she had. With a lingering glance at her, he finally turned and headed off into the village as Madelaina watched him go.

What he didn’t see was the smile on her face.

What she didn’t see was his.