The Heart of a Queen (A Historical Romance)

Chapter 14

Brienna, Isobel, and Geoffrey turned to see Llewellyn, who had just come in from the courtyard. He wore a sheepskin, which he threw off as he sauntered across the room to them.

"I love a bit of dancing," he said.

"It's too late, you've missed it," Isobel insisted, looking at her brother with a mixture of trepidation and glee.

"No, I haven't," Llewellyn said. He pulled Isobel up by the waist and took the lute from her hand. "You there, boy," he called to a kitchen boy who was passing with a barrel-full of peat for the fire and tossed him the instrument. "Stir up a ruckus for us," Llewellyn ordered.

The boy dropped the peat barrel in order to catch the lute, then hesitantly began to play the instrument as if it were a common fiddle. Isobel tsk-ed but joined hands with her brother and began to dance in a manner more lively than before.

Brienna watched them, struck by this playful, even joyful, side of Llewellyn that she had never seen. His smiling face looking down on his sister grew young, for once free of the weight of responsibility that usually pressed his brow into a frown and his mouth into a firm line. The burden of tending a kingdom and everything within it was not easy to escape from, she realized; Llewellyn's moments of escape were in even shorter supply than hers were.

Geoffrey offered her his hand and Brienna took it, and suddenly they were spinning a circle around the floor, the riotous music reminding her of home, of dancing with her father and brothers around a fire, and of happier times.

Then, recovering from a spin, Brienna realized that the men had switched places, and she was looking up at Llewellyn as he pulled her in and led her in a galloping arc.

She was hesitant to hold onto him, but since doing otherwise meant she would lose her balance and go flying across the room, she allowed her hand to squeeze his tight, her other arm to wind over his shoulders and press against his strong neck. She could feel his hair tickle the soft flesh at the inside of her wrist. Their thighs bumped into each other as she struggled to keep in step with him.

Her lips parted and she could feel the blood rushing to her cheeks as she grew hot from the jaunty pace he was keeping. From somewhere behind her and off to the side, she heard Isobel laugh, the first time she'd ever done so in Brienna's presence, and the sound made her relax, the tension of the past several weeks leaving her, more than she knew she'd held while she navigated this strange place which no longer seemed strange to her.

She gave herself over to the frivolity of the moment and before she knew it she was laughing herself, losing her breath, and resting her head against Llewellyn's chest in order to catch it in between tunes. Perhaps these are now my happier times, she thought.

Then, the great hall doors burst open and the music stopped as dozens of soldiers barged in the room, hungry for supper. She leaned back and met Llewellyn's eyes. For just an instant, she thought she saw something warm, welcoming, and familiar. All too quickly, though, his face resumed the air of indifference with which he usually viewed her, and she let him go, recovering herself. It was hardly fitting for her, a daughter of Connaught betrothed to a Leinster prince, to be swooning in the arms of a Welsh king.

She turned to Isobel so she wouldn't have to watch Llewellyn's back as he left the room, Geoffrey following after him. Isobel was bent over adjusting her stockings, dress hiked up in order to do so.

To Brienna, at times Isobel seemed not to care about what was appropriate and what not; for instance now, revealing all of her calf to the eyes of a roomful of roughened soldiers only a few feet away. Brienna tried not to blush for her, instead scowling at the men who dared to look over until they turned their eyes away.

Isobel, oblivious to the standoff occurring in her virtue's defence, straightened and patted Brienna on the arm.

"Not bad," she said. "But you can't dance like that in court. We'll return to the proper lessons tomorrow."

Brienna stifled an agonized moan.