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"Rosa Damacena," he said knowledgeably. "I love their fragrance."

"You know the Rose of Damascus?" Wynne was surprised.

"There are beautiful gardens at Raven's Rock, dearling, and they eagerly await your gentle and clever touch," Madoc told her. "They have been somewhat neglected since my mother's death two years ago. You would have liked my mother. Nesta is very much like her."

"Nesta tells me that you have a brother too," Wynne said.

A shadow passed over Madoc's face. "Brys of Cai. Aye, but we are not close. I regret it, of course, but Brys has a restless and troubled spirit. He could be dangerous if I would let him, but I will not. You grow sweet herbs in your garden, I see," Madoc noted, deftly changing the subject. It was obviously one upon which he chose not to dwell.

Curious, but respectful of his wishes in the matter, Wynne plucked a piece of lavender and, crushing it between her fingers, put it beneath his nose. "My lavender is a special one I have bred as one might breed a cow. I think it more fragrant than other lavenders, and I shall bring seeds with me to Raven's Rock to plant."

He sniffed appreciatively, and then taking her fingers, kissed them. "Sweet," he said.

Her heartbeat quickened momentarily. "The lavender or my hand?" she said. "You seem to have a penchant for fingers, my lord," and though her look was grave, her green eyes twinkled.

Releasing her hand, he said, "You are a puzzle to me, Wynne of Gwernach. I am not certain how to behave with you lest I frighten you or offend you by my actions. One moment you're as prickly as a sea urchin, the next as shy as a doe. Yet I cannot help myself and I act on instinct alone with you. What else am I to do?"

"What is it you want of me, my lord?" Wynne asked him bluntly. "It is more, I sense, than just my hand in marriage."

"For now, dearling, I would simply have your love," Madoc answered, evading her cleverly, for the truth was too potent a brew for her to drink at this moment in time.

"I do not know if I can give you love, my lord. I love my bother, and Mair, and my grandmother. I think I may even harbor a small tender emotion for Caitlin and Dilys. I loved my parents, and I love Einion, who has watched over me since I was an infant. I even have an affection for a large raven I call old Dhu, but what I feel for these good souls is not what you would have me feel for you, I sense. Having never felt that particular elusive emotion, Madoc of Powys, I do not even know if I am capable of it. Besides, is that emotion we call love real?

"It seems a dangerous thing to me to entrust one's heart and being to another. Circumstances change as life passes, and what was certainty yesterday may not be tomorrow. To love, I think, means you must have certitude and faith in another. You must rely totally upon them. I do not know if I dare allow myself the luxury of what you call love."

"You tell me you have never loved a man, dearling, and yet you speak as a woman of experience who has been deeply hurt by another," he replied.

"Do I?" Wynne look genuinely surprised. "How strange," she told him, "yet I have told you the truth, and I have felt this way from my earliest years."

"Perhaps in another time and place," he said casually, "you gained this sad knowledge that has lingered on to plague you in this time and this place."

She nodded slowly. "Perhaps," she agreed.

Madoc found it interesting that she did not discount his words, and he wondered if she understood the theory of reincarnation. It was a wisdom as old as time itself; understood and believed by their Celtic ancestors, and once even taught by the Christian faith. It was a simple doctrine, and the sacrifice of the Christ had made it even clearer to those who believed.

The immortal soul, a gift from the Creator, would be reborn again and again in human form as it struggled to purify itself. The human soul, like an uncut gemstone in its earliest stage, constantly working to cut and polish itself to perfection that one day it might move on to the next plane of spiritual existence. The Church had ceased teaching reincarnation many centuries before. The early mass of the faithful were simple people who misunderstood the doctrine. For them reincarnation was an excuse to indulge their vices with the reassurance that they would return to repent those sins in another life. As this was not the purpose intended, the Church simply ceased the teaching of higher spiritual attainment; but the knowledge constituted an integral part of many other faiths.

Madoc was a Celt in his heart and soul. He knew that Wynne's reluctance to wed stemmed from another life. It certainly had not come from anything that she encountered in this time and place, but he knew from where it did come. It was a problem that she must work out for herself. He could do nothing to help her. He could love her and he could reassure her. Perhaps in time she would be content. Or perhaps she would remember. Though he welcomed that possibility, he also feared it.

"When your sisters are wed," he told her, "we will return to Raven's Rock. There we will come to know one another. Mayhap you will even learn to love me. Come Beltaine next I will take you for my wife, Wynne of Gwernach."

"Will you learn to love me, Madoc?" she asked him.

"I think I already do, dearling. Do not forget that I have known you since your infancy."

"How is that possible, my lord? I but became cognizant of you three months ago! Are you a flatterer then?"

"In time," he promised her, "you will know everything, Wynne, but much of it you will have to learn for yourself. I shall only tell you part, and then only when the moment is right."

She laughed. "You speak in riddles, my lord of Powys, but at least you are not pompous or dull."

Madoc plucked a late-blooming damask rose from its hedge and tucked it in Wynne's thick, dark braid. "Am I so transparent then, dearling, that you see through me?" he teased her, smiling.

"I am not sure I see the real you at all, my lord," she replied wisely.

He chuckled. "It is an advantage I shall savor for now, my dearling, for it is not an advantage a man is able to keep on longer acquaintance with the lady of his heart."

Wynne burst out laughing. "Why, my lord, I would almost feel pity for you, did I not know better."

"I shall have no mercy from you, lady, I can see that," he said.

"None," she cheerfully agreed, surprised that she was beginning to like this man.

Caitlin and Dilys did not appear at the evening meal, sending word that they needed their beauty rest before the exhausting festivities of their wedding.

"I should understand better," muttered Enid, "had they accepted any responsibility for the preparations involved in these weddings, but they have not. They have spent hours soaking themselves in the oak tub and creaming themselves until they must surely be as slippery as eels."

"Come, Grandmother," Dewi said, his blue eyes twinkling devilishly, "would you really want Caitlin and Dilys helping you? We have all been far better off without them. I for one am grateful for their absence."

"Dewi!" Wynne chided him. "What will the prince and the lady Nesta think of you that you show such lack of filial love for your sisters?"

"There are some siblings," Nesta said quietly, "who are not easy, nay, they are impossible to love. We cannot love a relation simply because he or she is a relation, I fear."

"You see!" Dewi crowed. "The lady Nesta understands even if you do not, Wynne."

"What I see is that the lady Nesta has better manners than the lord of Gwernach, brother. She puts you at your ease, but you make us all uncomfortable."

Dewi quickly understood his elder and, with a blush, he said, "Your pardon, my lord and my ladies."