Elle had been trying so very hard to accept that which she could not change. To accept the defeat against the English, to accept that Brython was no longer hers, and to accept that, little more than an hour ago, she had married the Earl of Leominster, Curtis de Lohr. She had been trying very hard to accept all of these things, but the more the day passed and the more she watched Curtis with his father and brothers, and the other knights who were congratulating him, the more she felt her composure slipping away.
Dissolving.
Crumbling.
She had lost everything.
And now, Melusine was hounding her about a marriage she had no control over. Everyone seemed to be hounding her, pressuring her, and scolding her. She wasn’t used tosuch condemnation and harassment. At least, she viewed it as harassment when it wasn’t exactly that bad. Men telling her the course her life would take wasn’t harassment as much as it was simply the way of things. But the more she listened to Melusine hiss, the more her control slipped.
Until it just wasn’t there any longer.
She was in Christopher’s grand tent with the flap tied open. Men were coming and going and the wine was flowing freely. Soldiers were also gathering, at least those who weren’t working with the wounded or the captive Welsh, and imbibing the liquid in the barrels that the quartermasters had brought with them to battle. It wasn’t fine stuff, but it did the job. It could get a man drunk.
That was all Elle could see.
Careless drunks.
Unable to stomach the display of revelry any longer, she stood up. Melusine grabbed at her, wanting to know where she was going, and all Elle could do was tell the woman to leave her alone.
Just leave me alone!
With that, she fled de Lohr’s tent, out into the evening, which was becoming cold. It was a clear night, with the moon bright and cold overhead, illuminating Brython. Shadowed and broken against the backdrop of the moody Welsh hills, it looked dead, as dead as Elle felt.
All of it dead.
She had an aversion to it. She couldn’t look at it and see her broken dreams. Turning away from the hulk, she found herself facing England and the darkened fields in the distance. Behind her was Wales. Looking forward was England and all of the things she had to face now that she was married to an English earl. Brython was on a rise, and she ended up wandering downhill, still looking at England, feeling moredesolation than she could have ever imagined. Behind her, men were celebrating. Celebrating the death of everything that was important to her.
Her death.
Oh, God… Shewasdead.
There was a big, flat rock in front of her, one of many all over these hills. When she plopped down on the rock, grief overwhelmed her and the tears came. Tears for the loss, tears for the future. In little time, she was weeping hysterically, agonizing pain consuming her. She ended up lying on the rock, her tears mingling with the old, moss-riddled surface. Her rock, her Wales. She felt as if she was grieving not only the loss of her castle, but her very country.
The crying never ceased. The more she wept, the more she felt like weeping. It was a vicious circle. There was so much pain and regret bottled up that it had to come out somehow. It was coming out now, in buckets.
And then she saw it.
Boots.
Startled, she sat up and found herself looking at Curtis as he stood several feet away. The moment he saw that she had seen him, he put up his hands in a soothing gesture.
“I am sorry,” he said softly but quickly. “You ran out of the tent, and I followed you to make sure you did not come to harm. I did not mean to disturb you.”
Elle was prepared to blast him. She was quite certain he hadn’t followed her for her safety, but more to make sure she wouldn’t run away. But the moment she opened her mouth, more tears came. Angry, frightened, sorrowful tears.
“I could not stay in there any longer,” she sobbed. “They are drinking and celebrating my loss. The loss of everything I knew. They are not celebrating a marriage, but my defeat!”
He hung his head slightly, feeling some sorrow that she was so upset on a day that would have most young women ecstatic. “They are not celebrating your defeat,” he said, his voice quiet and calm. “They are celebrating a marriage and an alliance and nothing more.”
That wasn’t the answer she wanted to hear. “They are reveling in my downfall,” she wept. “Do you not understand? This is not a celebration for me. This is not a joyful moment. This is something I am forced to do because you have more weapons and more men than I do. I am your prisoner, and you have forced me to marry you.”
“You are not my prisoner,” he said. “You are my wife.”
“Wife?” she nearly shouted, bolting off the rock. “I do not even know you! You are a man who tried to kill me yesterday. In the days before that, you and your army were trying to defeat me. All I know is that you are Hereford’s son, and now you are my husband. A husband I never wanted!”
She was off on a crying jag, and she plopped on the rock again. Curtis blew out a long, heavy sigh before making his way, slowly, over to her rock. He sat down a few feet away from her as she sobbed. He watched her for a moment before gazing up into the sky, to the moon and the lovely night above.
He’d tried so hard with her, harder than he’d wanted to, harder than he should have. She was right—shewasa prisoner. She had been forced into this marriage, much as he had been. He truly thought he could make this a pleasant situation for the both of them, but he could see now that he’d been wrong. She didn’t want it to be pleasant. She didn’t want anything to do with it.
