sudden movement to Griffydd’s right caught his eye and he swiftly turned to see a young woman rising from a stool in the corner. She wore a pale brown, rough woolen gown of simple cut. It fell loosely from a curved, unembellished neckline to the floor, although a plain belt hung about her hips and made the full dress blouse. Long, red-gold hair of luxuriant thickness reached to her waist.
Then, with one long-fingered hand, she slowly brushed her amazing hair away from her elfin face and looked at him, her dark eyes large, and their expression one he had never seen before—half defiant pride, half yearning vulnerability.
And totally compelling. As she was.
In that moment, it was as if the breath had left his lungs and his heart had ceased to beat. Then his heart came to vibrant life, thudding with a rapid drumbeat that surely had to be audible.
The woman did not speak or move, but regarded him steadily, her lips parted as if she would speak.
He waited, not breathing, for her to utter a single word.
Then Diarmad shoved his unwelcome way past Griffydd and broke the spell. “Seona!” he barked.
The young woman stepped forward and rose up on her toes to press a light kiss of greeting upon Griffydd’s cheek, the sensation like the touch of a feather tip. She smelled of grass and sea air, a perfume of natural purity that pleased him far more than the costliest unguent from the farthest land in the East.
He had been kissed before, of course, but this gentle caress seemed to make his blood burn beyond anything even the most experienced and passionate of lovers had ever made him feel.
“This is Seona,” Diarmad announced beside him. “Seona, this is Sir Griffydd DeLanyea of Craig Fawr.”
As Griffydd bowed to her, a powerful surge of longing flowed through him and a wild thought sprang into his mind. Had Diarmad set her to wait here because she was to be Griffydd’s servant—and whatever else he wanted—while he was in this village?
Such things had happened before when Griffydd had traveled on his father’s business. Always he had refused the “hospitality,” recognizing it for a tactic intended to distract him.
This time, however…this time, he decided without hesitation, he would accept.
“I am happy to meet you, Seona,” he said, and with a gentleness that surprised even himself.
Then Griffydd DeLanyea did something even more unusual.
He smiled.
“Seona is my daughter,” Diarmad declared with a proud and happy grin.
Diarmad’s daughter? Griffydd’s eyes widened with disbelief. This delicate woman with the bewitching eyes and hair such as he had. never seen or imagined was the offspring of loud, brawny Diarmad MacMurdoch? He could more easily believe she was a faerie changeling.
Then he realized that wily old Diarmad was watching him closely, and Griffydd’s smile dissipated like mist in the valley when the sun rose.
Of course, Griffydd thought with more anger than he had felt in many a day. A canny devil like Diarmad would use any ploy in negotiations, including setting his lovely, intriguing daughter to bewitch a man.
He had to be bewitched. No woman had ever made him feel as she had, and on first sight, too.
He had heard that these Gall-Gaidheals were only partly Christian and the other part pagan still.
A shiver ran through Griffydd as he turned away, suddenly aware that his task here might be more difficult than he had assumed, and Diarmad far more clever than he had anticipated.
Seona stared after Griffydd DeLanyea as he strode toward the bench at the end of the hall to take his seat beside her father.
She had thought to find the Welsh nobleman a short, squat, dark man, for weren’t the Welsh all short and dark? Instead, she beheld a tall, gray-eyed warrior with doe-brown, shoulder-length hair that brushed broad, muscular shoulders. The complexion of his angular face was sun browned and his cheeks were ruddy from the sea breeze. His nose was remarkably straight, his jaw strong like the rest of him. He was well dressed in gleaming mail, black hauberk and a black cloak that swirled about his long legs when he moved.
Those things she had noted when he had first entered the hall and they had been surprising enough.
Then he had looked at her with his grave, gray eyes. What she had seen there had made her heart beat like the rapid movement of a bird’s wings and filled her with a strange thrill such as she had never felt before.
What had she seen there? Approval, certainly, and that was rare enough. Admiration, she thought. Perhaps even desire.
In all her life, no man had ever really looked at her as if he thought her worthy of his interest beyond asking for food or drink.
As their guest drew off his cloak and took his seat to her father’s right, the place of honor for a respected guest, she instantly recalled the sensation of the stubble of his cheek against her mouth, the sea-spray scent of his skin—and the yearning that had blossomed within her.
Most surprising of all, perhaps, was her sudden realization that if her father made his outrageous request of her again, here and now, she would eagerly agree.
Indeed, she more than half suspected if her father proposed a marriage with the Welshman, she would accept him on the spot.
Unfortunately, whatever expression had been in Griffydd DeLanyea’s eyes, it had died when he found out who she was.
Why?
Perhaps he kept his smiles for serving maids, who would be more procurable and appropriate bed companions than the daughter of his host.
Maybe he was playing a game. Perhaps her own astonishing desire had been too evident. He was a handsome man. He must be used to women’s admiration. It was not so incredible that he might think to toy with her, encouraging or dismissing her as whim or strategy suggested.
Her jaw clenched as she told herself that if Griffydd DeLanyea had been truly canny, like her father, he would not have altered a whit when he found out who she was. He would have done his utmost to win her to his side, and so take advantage of her loneliness and anger at her father…
He could not know about that, of course. He was no mind reader, to reach into the recesses of her heart and understand her feelings, no matter how he looked at her with those iron-gray eyes.
Which meant she must and would subdue this wild excitement coursing through her, this sudden burning desire for a man she had only just met.
Yet she could not prevent herself from imagining what might have happened between them if she had not been Diarmad’s daughter, but a maidservant.
Her body throbbed as her imagination envisioned—indeed, almost physically felt—being in his strong arms, his powerful hands and fingers caressing her body as he kissed her passionately.
The men of her father’s council began to take their places, interrupting her ridiculous flight of fancy. As her father introduced them to Griffydd DeLanyea one by one, the Welshman completely ignored her.
No matter. She was used to that, was she not?
“Seona!” her father barked, making her jump.
Griffydd DeLanyea had said her name softly, in a way she had never heard before. Gently. Like a caress.
She grabbed the carafe of wine on the table nearby and hurried forward as other women entered with food and ale for those who preferred that beverage. Around her, her father’s men spoke in low mutters and cast wary glances at their guest.
Not all of them welcomed an alliance with the Welsh, she knew. Some, like her father’s oldest comrade, Eodan, would not question his plans. Others, like the religious Iosag, would look for signs from God as to whom they should choose as allies.
Then