“What is it?”
She sighed faintly, venturing back into the cobwebs of her memory. “When we first met, do ye recall me asking ye if there had been someone special before me?”
William thought on her question as he moved to the chair next to the window where she was sitting. He lowered himself onto it, wearily, as he tried to figure out what, exactly, she was speaking of.
“I seem to,” he said. “It was a long time ago, Jordan.”
“What do ye recall?”
He shrugged. “I’m not sure,” he said. “Is there a specific instance you are referring to?”
“We were in bed together.”
“That happened every day.”
“That is true,” she said. “But there was a moment when we spoke of the women before me. Ye told me ye only loved yer liege’s wife which, at the time, was me.”
He nodded slowly as the vague memory returned to him. “I remember,” he said. “You asked me of the women I’d had before you.”
“Go on.”
“What more would you have me say?”
She turned and looked at him, then. “Ye told me that there hadna been anyone before me,” she said. “That ye hadna given yer love tae anyone else but me. But clearly, that was not the truth.”
He sighed with great regret. “Itwasthe truth,” he said. “I swear to you upon my oath that it was. Jane… I did not want to marry her. She wanted to marry me.”
“But ye had a child with her, English.”
English.That was the nickname she’d called him since the day she’d met him, a term of endearment that was like music to his ears. But at the moment, all he could hear in it was her hurt and confusion and it tore at him like nothing he’d ever known before. He could hear in her voice that, somehow, he’d hurt her.
He felt like the most horrible man in the world.
“Jordan,” he said, trying to sound as if he weren’t pleading with her. “Do you want to know the truth? She seduced me and I let her. You knew I’d been with other women before I knew you. There is no crime in that, but I swear to you upon my father’s grave that I never loved any of them.”
“But ye offered for her hand.”
There was the pain in her tone again. It was like someone was taking a dagger and hacking his heart out. “Aye, I did,” he said. “Jane was a nice lass and I enjoyed her company, but I was not in love with her. She, however, was greatly in love with me and like any man, I was fed by flattery at that age. She loved me and I let her. After two weeks of a torrid romance, she wanted to marry me so I approached her father and asked for her hand because I felt it was the right thing to do. I’d just spent two weeks in the woman’s bed and I felt as if I’d sullied her for the man she would eventually marry. So, I did what I felt was right and asked for her hand and for no other reason than that, but her father denied me. It seemed that he didn’t want a simple knight for his daughter. I did not know she was with child or I would have…”
He stopped himself, unwilling to continue the subject to the logical conclusion because it was too painful and shameful for him to do so. To think of a life without Jordan was no life at all for him.
But Jordan knew. She knew exactly what he was going to say.
“If ye’d known, ye would have demanded a marriage,” she finished quietly. “’Tis the noble thing to do and ye’re a man of honor.”
He nodded weakly, lifting his head to look at her in the dim light. “Aye,” he murmured. “I would have done the honorable thing.”
Jordan gazed into his tormented eye, but she had enough torment of her own. The story of Jane de Percy was something William had never mentioned, not in all the years they’d been married, and the truth was that she was wounded. Wounded by William’s lack of transparency. She felt as if he’d kept something from her, something that perhaps didn’t matter at the time but now mattered a great deal.
William’s bastard was on their doorstep.
With a sigh, she looked away and gazed out of the window again.
“I canna fault ye a love affair before ye knew me,” she said after a moment. “But ye should have told me that ye’d come close tae marriage with another woman. I think it only fair.”
He grunted and hung his head. “Would it matter if I had?” he asked. “Would it have changed how you felt about me?”
Jordan shook her head. “Nay,” she said. “But at least I would have known that there was once someone else important tae ye. That ye were capable of giving yerself over tae another. In all the years we’ve been married, ye’ve made me feel like I was the one and only woman ye’ve ever given yerself tae. As if ye had no other affairs before me. Ye built a world of illusions around me, English. I dunna know why ye’d do that.”
