A Warrior's Passion. Margaret Moore

animosity.

      The vision of Seona in a passionate embrace with the dark-haired, stocky, morose Naoghas sent a cascade of emotions pouring through Griffydd, none of them good. Jealousy, anger, hatred—things he had not felt so strongly in his life.

      Then he remembered the beauteous Lisid, and her grateful smiles.

      He rubbed his forehead with frustrated dismay. Of course, the man was jealous of his wife—yet he had thought of Seona first. He must be going mad!

      Griffydd turned on his heel and in one long stride reached the stream. He yanked off his tunic and threw it to the ground, then knelt on the bank and splashed his face with the frigid water.

      It did nothing to cool the fires burning within him.

      He sat back on his haunches and stared unseeing across the stream at the rocky hill on the other side, willing himself to regain his self-control. To put Seona MacMurdoch out of his mind.

      It was a good thing Dylan wasn’t here, he reflected sourly. His foster brother always claimed Griffydd had a stone where his heart ought to be, and surely the only reason women went with him was because they surmised he was rock hard elsewhere, too.

      Griffydd, of course, never rose to the bait of Dylan’s teasing, nor did he reveal how much his foster brother’s words disturbed him. He had a heart, he knew—did he not love his parents, who were the finest people in England? Did he not love his home, his country, his siblings—aye, and Dylan, too? It was just not his way to proclaim his feelings to any and all who would listen.

      Nor did he get his women pregnant.

      Dylan thought that odd, until one of Griffydd’s lovers confided that Griffydd always withdrew. He found it incredulous that Griffydd would rob himself of that great delight. After all, what did it matter if the woman got with child? No shame to a Welshwoman or the child, and none to him, if he did his duty and provided for them.

      Dylan would never understand. Love was not a game or sport to Griffydd. A woman’s heart was not some kind of toy, and a child simply another possession. A woman’s love and the birth of a child brought with them duty and responsibility, as well as happiness.

      Griffydd shook his damp hair like a dog, as if he could rid his mind of his troubles like droplets of water.

      Vowing to keep his mind only on matters of business, and not on confusing, disturbing women, or their families and their friends, Griffydd drew on his tunic and marched grimly back to his quarters.

       Chapter Five

      Aghast, Seona stared at her father incredulously as she faced him in the empty hall.

      “Don’t look at me like I asked you to cut off a finger,” her father growled.

      “I will not take them!” she muttered through clenched teeth, glancing at the pile of clothing on the table beside him. “I did what you asked of me last night, but I will not go to Griffydd DeLanyea’s quarters again! It would not be seemly.”

      “You will if I order you to!” her father commanded.

      She took a deep breath and tried to restore some measure of calm. It was no good shouting at her father. He simply shouted back, and louder. The last thing she wanted was for anybody outside to hear what her father was proposing.

      “Girl, you will do as I say!” Diarmad ordered angrily, bringing his fist down on the table so hard it rattled. “They are my gifts and you have to show him how to don them properly.”

      “Surely a man of his age can dress himself without my help,” she retorted.

      “Not the brat! What if he does it wrong and it falls off? We don’t want him shamed!”

      “Oh, no, we cannot be having that!” she replied, her face flushed with righteous indignation. “Shame me by treating me as goods to be bartered, shove me at him like a breed sow, but don’t let him make a mistake with his clothes!”

      Her father suddenly reached out and grabbed her arm roughly. “Listen to me, Seona!” he hissed. “You’ll do as I say, or by God, you’ll regret it!”

      “What will you do?” she cried passionately, trying to wrest her arm from his tight grasp. “Hit me?”

      Her father’s brows lowered ominously, but she was too upset to care.

      “Is that what you did to my mother before she ran away?”

      “She ran off with another man, as you well know,” he growled. “She left you here with me, so you had better do what I say, or I’ll have you put in a convent to rot.”

      “Maybe I would prefer to rot there than exist here!”

      “Very well! That can be arranged—but until then, you will do as I command, and I want you to help that grim-faced Welshman don the brat.” With his free hand, Diarmad gathered up the clothing. “Come!”

      He marched toward the door, pulling her with him.

      “Wait!” she protested. “I’ll do what you ask, but don’t drag me through the village like a dog.”

      He halted and gave her a narrow-eyed glare as he let go and handed her the clothing. “It is time you saw sense.”

      As she went to the door, his next words sounded like a curse.

      “At least we know he’s not going to make improper advances. He cannot even bring himself to look at you.”

      

      Griffydd briskly rubbed his legs with a piece of rough linen, warming them. God’s wounds, that water had been cold!

      Since his unforeseen dash into the stream, a cool wind had arisen, blowing in across the harbor. As a result, this vast longhouse was scarcely much warmer than outside, especially when one was naked.

      It had seemed to take forever to get a fire lit in the hearth, and his shivering had not helped.

      He thought of all the times Sir Urien Fitzroy, said to be the finest trainer of fighting men in England and an old friend of his father’s, had insisted they continue their arms practice in the chilling rain or even snow. When Dylan had grumbled that Fitzroy was trying to kill them slowly, he had reminded them that battles were not always fought in fine weather, and that sometimes a man had to fend for himself if he got separated from his army, which meant traveling cold and wet and hungry.

      While Griffydd could appreciate the reasoning, he had hated every minute of Fitzroy’s lessons of endurance.

      As Griffydd reached for his breeches, he reflected that today he had done something better than fend for himself after losing his companions: he had saved a child’s life.