Read Online Memories of the Heart by Marylyle Rogers - Free Book Online

to her. “What was she like?”
    Completely unprepared for this abrupt inquisition, Lloyd came to a dead halt in the middle of a narrow path. Since near the day of Ceri’s birth, he had willingly accepted Mabyn’s request that he stand as guardian to Ceri. Yet in all those years he’d exchanged precious few words with the girl, and he was ill-equipped to discuss this sensitive subject with her.
    â€œYour mother, Gwynth—” Lloyd gruffly forced the words out even while making himself resume the steady pace of their progress down the route from Dyffryn in Llechu through Westbourne lands to the castle. “Gwynth was—” He compelled himself to start over in a tone utterly devoid of emotion. “As you already know, your Aunt Vevina’s twin sister.”
    Though Ceri calmly nodded she was surprised by Lloyd’s unexpected reaction to these simple questions on a issue she had, apparently wrongly, believed a safe one to raise.
    â€œAye,” Lloyd continued while struggling to hide the uneasiness clearly revealed by the bright color of a face only partially hidden by the short curls of his beard. “Gwynth and Vevina were so much alike that during childhood they took joy in tricking the unwary into thinking one was the other. Not even Mabyn, their own mother, could always tell them apart.”
    Ceri gently smiled, pleased with this new insight on the mother she had never known.
    â€œThen to know Vevina was to know my mother.” These words weren’t a question but rather the delighted welcome of implied fact.
    Though the girl trailed behind Lloyd with a step seemingly lightened by misconception, his still burning face closed into a hard mask. He was unwilling for Ceri to see the anguish her query had roused … a distress further deepened by the sad fact that her assumption was so very, very wrong.
    Lloyd remained silent, allowing Ceri to linger in a cheerful fantasy. What else could he do? No good purpose could be accomplished by selfishly and uselessly burdening her with the whole unhappy truth. However, the decision not to speak did nothing to prevent his own thoughts from wandering again through caverns in his mind where unpleasant memories dwelled.
    Vevina and he had been betrothed when, decades past the young Princess Angwen of Llechu was sent to wed with William, Earl of Westbourne. Their princess had requested Vevina’s company on the journey into Norman lands but had also promised to promptly send her friend home to Wales once the marriage was performed.
    Angwen hadn’t kept her word. Instead she had begged Vevina to remain in the castle until her first child was born during the depths of winter. With the arrival of spring’s warm days following that son and heir’s birth, Lloyd had traveled to Westbourne and begged Vevina to return home with him for their own wedding rites. Unfortunately from his point of view, Angwen was already awaiting the birth of a second child. Terrified of childbirth without a friend at her side, their princess, now Lady of Westbourne, had again pleaded with the soft-hearted Vevina to stay and support her through the frightening event.
    The ensuing heated quarrel had cast a dark blight across the bright future they’d planned. Lloyd stormed back to Llechu swearing he’d never again seek Vevina’s company. His beloved had also closed the door on their relationship and neither had reopened it even after Angwen’s second pregnancy ended with a stillborn daughter. During the decades since Vevina had rarely visited her Welsh home, then only for brief periods of time and never in the past twelve years.
    While her inexplicably brooding guide strode relentlessly forward, Ceri accepted the fact that he meant to say no more. She wasn’t surprised. Lloyd rarely spoke without purpose and yet she trusted him more than anyone else save Gran Mab. He had given her unwavering support all her life.
    Smiling