like Lord Macsen, but medium tall for a Welshman, his lithe frame fleshed with hard, lean sinew. The eastern sun had tanned his face since last Enid had beheld it, and any suggestion of boyish roundness had been pared away by the years.
Topped by a vigorous tangle of nut-brown curls, it was a well-shaped face in every way. Agile brows arched above a pair of eyes that shimmered with lively charm. Beneath the straight sloping nose with its potent flared nostrils, poised a tempting pair of lips. They were neither too full nor too thin, but so ideal for kissing they made Enid’s own lips quiver just to look at them. Below that melting mouth jutted a resolute chin, softened by the disarming hint of a dimple. It was a face to break a woman’s heart.
How many more had he broken since hers?
Clutching the basin with a remorseless grip to keep her hands from trembling, Enid willed her voice not to catch in her throat as she spoke loud enough to be heard above the music.
“Well, well, Conwy ap Ifan, what are you doing in Powys? The last I heard you’d hired out as a mercenary to the Holy Land.”
His voice fell silent and he glanced up at her with a sudden questioning look. For a moment Enid’s unhealed heart wrenched in her bosom fearing he would not remember her.
Then his smile blazed forth. “Well, well yourself, Enid versch Blethyn. What are you doing in Powys? The last I heard, you were set to wed some princeling from Ynys Mon.”
Something about the set of his features or the tilt of his head sliced through Enid like an arrow loosed at close range from a powerful Welsh short bow.
Dear heaven! She must get Con ap Ifan away from Glyneira before Macsen and his party arrived.
Chapter Two
A pity he couldn’t linger here, Con found himself thinking as he cast an admiring eye over the cariad of his boyhood, since ripened into vivid, beguiling flower.
Enid’s sudden appearance and sharp questions had taken him by surprise. Yet in another way they hadn’t. Something about the child had put her mother firmly in his mind, though he’d scarcely been aware of it at the time. The sweet lilt of her young voice, perhaps, or some trick of her smile, for all else about the pair went by contraries.
The girl was fair and tall for her age and race, while her mother had the dark, fey delicacy of a true Welsh beauty. Full dark brows cast a bewitching contrast to her dainty elfin features. Her eyes were the dusky purple of black-thorn plums, and her hair—what Con could see of it and what he recalled—still black as a rook’s wing. Skin like apple blossoms and lips the rich intoxicating hue of Malmsey wine.
Indeed, a kind of besotted dizziness came over Con as he drank in her twilight loveliness.
A trill of laughter from the child startled him halfways sober again. “Mam, do you mean to wash our guest’s feet before the water gets cold?”
Enid gave a startled glance down at the ewer and basin in her hands as if they’d appeared there by magic.
“Aye.” She took a step toward Con, then hesitated. “If you wish it, that is. I only heard secondhand that you’d accepted the offer of water.”
“With pleasure.” Con set his harp aside and pried off his boots, wondering if he’d only imagined the shadow that had dimmed her features. Had she hoped he’d change his mind about accepting the water? “After a day’s brisk walk, your hospitality is most welcome. The young lady’s music has already lightened the weariness of my spirit. Such a jewel is a mighty credit to you and her tad.”
Enid had dropped to her knees on the rush-strewn floor, and begun to pour gently steaming water into the basin. At Con’s tribute to her daughter, her slender form tensed.
“Myfanwy, cariad, will you go check how Auntie Gaynor is coming with the last rinse of the wool? That’s a good girl.”
When the child had made a subdued exit, Enid explained, “My daughter does mighty credit to her father’s memory. She’s much like him in many ways.”
“I’m sorry.” Con chided himself less for the compliment gone awry than for the envious curiosity that flamed in him. By the tone of Enid’s answer, he might guess how much or how little she had loved Myfanwy’s father.
It should not matter to him…but it did.
“Was it very long ago you lost your husband?” At the last instant he managed to stop himself from adding the Welsh endearment, cariad.
“In the fall.” Enid pushed the basin toward him. Though her curt reply told him she didn’t want to dwell on the matter, it gave no real clue about her feelings for the man. “There was some trouble with the Normans, so Howell joined the muster of Macsen ap Gryffith. He took sore wounds in the fighting. They brought him home where he lingered until the first snow.”
Con eased his feet into the warm water as he digested this intriguing scrap of news about Macsen ap Gryffith. If the border chief had lost men in an autumn skirmish with the Normans of Salop, he might not need much nudging to retaliate in the spring.
“What brings you to the borders?” asked Enid, her head bent over the basin. “Did you grow tired of plying your sword for hire to the Normans?”
Her question caught Con like an unexpected thrust after a cunning feint. For a moment his glib tongue froze in his mouth. If he told her he’d come on a mission from the very people who’d killed her husband, she’d likely turf his backside out the gate, traditions of Welsh hospitality be damned.
“You might say I’m taking a rest from it.” No lie, that—not a bold-faced one, anyhow. “I mean to go back to the Holy Land, though.”
As Sir Conwy of Somewhere, riding at the head of an armed company of his own men. The dream sang a most agreeable melody in Con’s thoughts.
“In the meantime, barding lets me enjoy a bit of adventure without the danger. Mercenary or travelling bard, both make good jobs for a vagabond.”
“You’ve always had itchy heels, haven’t you, Con?” Enid mused aloud as she washed his feet. “I suppose you’ll be on your way from here tomorrow morning?”
The water was no more than tepid, but Enid’s touch set flames licking up Con’s legs to light a blaze in his loins. He could almost fancy it searing the itch of wanderlust from his flesh…but that was nonsense.
Though part of him longed to stay and visit, that tiny voice of caution urged Con to go while he still had a choice.
“Tomorrow.” He nodded. “Before Chester dogs arise, if the weather holds fair. I don’t want to wear out my welcome.”
A quivering tension seemed to ebb out of Enid as she dried his feet. For all her show of welcome, she clearly wanted to be rid of him. The realization vexed Con. He wasn’t used to women craving his absence.
Enid raised her face to him then, and Con struggled to draw breath. In the depths of her eyes shimmered a vision of the playful sprite he remembered from their childhood—so close and physically accessible, yet as far beyond the reach of an orphan plowboy as the beckoning stars.
“I’m surprised to see you whole and hale after all these years. I feared
