Page 11 of Triumph at Pemberley

“It is as good a theory as any.” If only he had known before he agreed to this! He did not like this much power in the hands of any Englishman. “He is going to have a difficult time adjusting to this. I grew up expecting the Bond, with my father telling me stories of what it was going to be like, and it was still a rough year or two afterwards.”

“Is there any way we can help him?”

Roderick hesitated. It was not in Gwynedd’s interest to make Jack any stronger, but decency required him to do what he could. “I will talk to him tomorrow. There are exercises he can do.”

Frederica tilted her head. “After you get a special license, and we meet with the solicitor and my father about the settlement,” she said pointedly. “Jack can wait a little. We should not give them any chance to change their minds about letting us wed.”

“Are not special licenses dreadfully expensive?” He could not afford the fees Frederica considered pocket change.

“I believe it is five pounds.”

“That is robbery! Do you know how many people could be fed with that amount of money?”

She shrugged. “It is a wager. Five pounds against the possibility of losing my dowry of fifty thousand if they change their minds.”

He sighed. “Why must the English make everything so complicated?” Today had already caused enough problems.

How would he explain to his father when he brought home a bride who was not only English, but tied into the English King’s Bond? Why did this have to happen now when they were so close to winning everything?

The first thing was to be certain. Carefully he asked, “Did you sense anything unusual when Jack’s bond awoke?”

She laughed softly. “Apart from being thrown half-way across the green? That was hard to miss.” She rubbed her hip ruefully.

“It was perhaps six feet,” he teased. “What about magic?”

“Let me see. There was a sudden surge in power – I have never felt anything so strong. It went through me, and for a moment I was connected to both of them, Jack and the land, too. What a strange sensation, being part of the earth, how busy it is and how it holds up the chapel and the castle! I suppose it is familiar to you, but I never had a land bond, so being sucked into Jack’s for a moment was astonishing.”

His heart sank. He had not been mistaken, then. Unless it truly had been only a brief connection. “So you could feel Windsor Castle, wherever it is?” He waved towards the south, a deliberate deception. Everyone with a land bond had an excellent sense of direction. Unlike Frederica, who could get lost on her own street.

She pointed unerringly to the west. “Right there. I had no idea how huge it was, or how much weight it pressed into the earth!”

There was no doubt. She had at least some residual of Jack’s bond. Had the same thing happened to his uncle who had been his Defender? Perhaps it was less noticeable, since his father’s brother already had a partial land bond to Gwynedd. But this was different.

He was about to marry a woman with part of a royal bond to Gwynedd’s great enemy. Her loyalty would already have been suspect because of her English blood, but this was worse.

Roderick knew his duty. He should break off the engagement and never see Frederica again. That was what he ought to do.

But it was too much. He could not give up Frederica. He had already changed himself so much for Gwynedd, learned to control his every emotion, and never complained of the cost.

This price was too high. He would have to hope she never realized the power she held.

“Remember,” Frederica warned Roderick just before they entered the solicitor's office. “My father will try to slip something into the settlement. The question is finding it and deciding if we can live with it.”

“Or to fight it?” he asked with a quirk of his lips.

“If we need to, yes, but he could decide to tie up the money until he dies. If we want it now, we may need to compromise.”

He took on his calculating look. “I can live with a great deal for thirty thousand pounds, even on top of the fifty thousand of your royal dowry. Can he stop you from marrying me?”

“No. I am of age. The worst he can do is to withhold it.” But knowing her devious father, she was not going to agree to whatever he wanted.

Mr. James, their new solicitor, was already waiting for them, as was her father. After the introductions, he donned his spectacles and raised the document in front of him. “The settlement offered by his lordship all seems to be in order, Mr. Glendower. The money settled on Lady Frederica is perhaps a little smaller than usual, but the provisions for the education of your children is generous.” His dry voice had just the slightest trace of condescension.

Frederica held out her hand. “May I see it?” When he complied, she began to scan it.

Her father, of course, raised his eyebrow with that detested expression of doubt. “Surely your husband-to-be knows how to read. English, that is.”

Frederica was in no mood for this. “You would like that, would you not, if he were illiterate? What a shame for you that he is well-educated and has even translated books into English! He has no reason to be familiar with English marriage settlements any more than you understand Welsh ones, and I will not permit you to take advantage of that.”