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“Then ask me again,” she said, her voice quivering with emotion. “Properly, this time, so I can give you my answer.”

It was his turn to fall to his knees in front of her. Not to pleasure her—that would come, in time, he would make sure of it—but to ask her to finally give his life some meaning.

“Johanna, I love you. I’ve always loved you and always will. I’ve spent the last ten years wishing I were the man by your side, making you laugh by day and scream in pleasure at night, giving you the life you deserve, thinking of no one and nothing but you.” She would never know the truth of it. He felt as if he were only now waking up from a deep slumber. “So, will you please put an end to my suffering and marry me?”

And finally, to his delight, she smiled.

“Yes, Cadell, I will marry you.”

Cadell had never felt better, and little wonder. Earlier that morning, Johanna had given him the two most incredible gifts he could ever have imagined. First, indescribable pleasure, the likes of which he had never experienced. Then her hand in marriage. How could he feel anything other than ecstatic?

Dear Lord, the sensual, exquisite way she had pleasured him… Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined he would see the woman he loved do something as scandalous as to plead him to use her mouth—and then swallow his seed when he could not contain himself any longer.

Why the hell had he relented? He should have licked her instead of using her so. He knew he had not been rough but still, he had plunged again and again into the wet temptation she was offering and erupted with unprecedented force. This was something he had never dared do before, and it had been astonishing.

As if that were not enough, she had then confided her pain and accepted his offer of marriage, wrenched out of him in a moment of utter vulnerability. Really, what had he been thinking, asking her to marry him while her mouth was full of his throbbing shaft? At least, he’d had the presence of mind to speak in Welsh, thinking she would never know what he had said. Would he have renewed his offer if she had not asked him afterward what he had said? It had been obvious she had thought he’d issued lewd instructions. Perhaps he should have pretended that was what he’d done.

But he had not wanted to. He had not wanted to make it appear as if the intimate act had merely been a way to achieve the physical release he needed. It had been so much more than that—and she had known it, because he’d told her he loved her, in English this time, right before he’d emptied himself of all he had.

As skilled and wicked as her tongue had been, it had been telling her that he loved her and finally admitting out loud what he felt that had precipitated his release.

In any case, there was no use regretting what he had done now, he would not undo a single moment, and it had ended well. Johanna had agreed to marry him, making him the happiest man on earth.

The clattering sound of hooves on the drawbridge wrenched him out of his thoughts. A rider had entered the bailey.

Cadell frowned when he recognized the man atop the bay gelding. Tomos ap Geraint. What the hell was his neighbor doing here?

“Cadell,” Tomos said when he spotted him by the chapel. “I was told I would find you here.”

“Yes.”

His whereabouts were hardly a secret. When he had decided to stay to help Johanna, he had sent word back home that he could be found at Bryn Glas if need be, and this for the foreseeable future. But why did Tomos need to see him so urgently? The two of them rarely talked.

As he jumped down from the saddle, Tomos looked around and, as could have been predicted, his gaze fastened on the collapsed roof. It was, admittedly, hard to miss.

“I was wondering why you had suddenly fled to Bryn Glas and I can see now that it’s not for the comfort of the place, is it?”

A wink made it clear that he thought himself very clever. Damnation! Cadell gritted his teeth. Who else had guessed his infatuation with Joanna? But it was no longer an issue. After all, once they announced their wedding, everyone would know where things stood anyway.

“No, it was not,” he said with a smile. He didn’t mind people knowing he was in love with his wife-to-be. But Tomos’ next words revealed that the man had not, in fact, guessed the real reason for his presence here.

“Very sensible of you to choose an English wife,” he said, starting to talk in exaggerated, clipped English tones. “It will ensure your fortune and your safety, as much as it can be ensured, at least. You will have seen the pretty widow and thought to make yourself indispensable to her. And why not? A woman in her position would be easy prey.”

Ensure his safety. Easy prey.

Each loathsome word grated. Though he had told Siaspar he would do well to take an English wife, the previous year, Cadell hated to hear his marriage to Johanna being reduced to such a cold transaction. It was not the same. Unlike his brother, who’d had a domain and tenants to protect and had been free to choose any woman, he, Cadell, did not need an alliance with an English subject. And in his mind he had never really been free to marry anyone but Lady Johanna de Welles.

Tomos carried on before he could say anything.

“If you ever manage to get between her legs, you will not only get a comely bed partner, but also the domain you were hankering after, decrepit though it may be. A very sensible decision indeed.”

Cadell clenched his fists. Another comment like that and the man might well earn himself a punch in the face. He had better stop talking about Johanna and tell him why he had come.

“Out with it, why are you⁠—”

But before he could finish his sentence, Tomos’ gaze focused on a point past his shoulder and he pursed his lips, as if embarrassed. When Cadell turned his head he understood why. Johanna was in the door of the chapel, looking at the two men with wide eyes. Of course, if she had gone there to pray, she would have heard Tomos’ declaration—and drawn the inevitable but wrong conclusion.

Everything within him collapsed when she turned away in a flurry of silk.