She traced the outline of the mark, and said quietly, ‘Someone burned you with a hot poker. Did your father do this to you?’
He went rigid, not wanting to speak of it. ‘Let the past remain buried, Rosamund.’
But she touched his face gently and pleaded, ‘Tell me what happened, Warrick.’
* * *
Warrick didn’t want to relive that part of his life, especially now. But he realised that he could voice a demand of his own in return. He rested his hands upon her waist. ‘If I tell you of this, then you must tell me about our daughter,’ he said quietly. ‘And what happened to you when you learned you were pregnant with her.’
His wife hesitated, studying him with indecision. ‘And if I do, will you forgive me for my silence?’
It was difficult to make a promise like this, when he knew not if he could. All he could say was, ‘I don’t know, Rosamund.’
While he waited for her to speak, she took a seat upon the bed. She took a quiet breath and began, ‘I told my father that I would wed Alan, and he promised to release you. After that, he took me home where the betrothal agreement was finished and signed. It felt as if I were living another woman’s life for the first month. I did as I was told and was obedient to my father. But every night, I wept for you.’
She traced the outline of his shoulder. ‘Then I started getting sick. It wasn’t like most women who are with child and are only sick in the mornings. I was violently ill for most of the day. My father caught me one night, and he knew what was happening.’ Her voice softened. ‘When he accused me of being with child, I was filled with such joy, because that meant Alan could never wed me. I believed that my father would send word to you, and we would be married, as I had dreamed. Instead, he forced me to wed Alan within a sennight.’
‘I came to your wedding,’ he reminded her. ‘And you never spoke to me. You obeyed your father’s orders without even trying to leave.’
She closed her eyes as if pushing back the memory. ‘He invited you to the wedding so he could use you to command me. He swore he would kill you where you stood if I refused to speak my vows.’
‘He would not have done such a thing,’ Warrick contradicted. Such would be considered murder in the eyes of the king and would demand justice.
Rosamund let out a breath of air. ‘He had enough coins to hire any number of mercenaries to wield a blade. And I do not doubt he would have kept his word. My father wanted to control me, to bend me to his will. And so he did.’
The enigmatic look returned to her face, as if she were still haunted by it. But there was also a thread of steel, her invisible determination not to be Harold’s pawn again.
She reached down to touch the scarred mark upon his backside. ‘Now tell me who did this to you and why. Then I will tell you of our daughter.’
Her light touch was soft, but he had never forgotten the searing pain of the red-hot poker. ‘I witnessed something I was not meant to see,’ he said. He rolled to his back and stared up at the ceiling. ‘My father remarried after the death of my mother, and his new wife, Analise, promised him another son. Edward never cared about a child, since he already had Rhys, Joan, and me. I was six years old, but I remember when Analise gave birth to a daughter.’ A chill iced through him as he remembered the fragile infant with reddened skin and dark blue eyes that stared at him. She had reminded him of a baby wren, newly emerged from a shell.
‘I was so proud to be a big brother, to have someone smaller than me. Mary cried a lot, and it seemed that she was always hungry. Analise did not have a wet nurse for her, and she told my father she would feed the babe herself. But I never saw her do so, and I thought she was starving the child.’
Which now, he believed was quite likely. Analise had never wanted a daughter and it was easiest to claim that the child was sickly.
‘I heard her screaming in her cradle one night, and I slipped into Analise’s bedchamber. She was not there, and I believed it was my task to protect my sister. I picked Mary up and held her, but she would not stop crying.’ He spoke the words, wishing he could blot out the memory of the wailing infant.
‘That night, I had brought her some warm goat’s milk. I dipped my finger in it, and put it to her lips. She drank it from my fingers, and only then did she stop crying.’ The coldness in his chest deepened, spreading throughout his body. ‘Analise caught me feeding my sister, and she was furious. She struck me and took the babe from my arms. Then she threw Mary to the floor and killed her.’ The raw memory haunted him still, and even Rosamund’s words of comfort would not diminish the grief.
‘I know now that she was trying to starve her daughter. Analise wanted only sons.’ He let out a sigh. ‘She told my father that I dropped the babe and killed my own sister.’
‘Dear God...’ Rosamund breathed. ‘And your father believed her?’
‘He did. I was punished for it when they branded me with the hot poker and sent me away. But before I left our lands, Analise warned me that if I ever dared to tell anyone about what I had seen, she would hurt Rhys. I stopped talking for a number of years, because I was afraid of her.’
Those years had been a blur of nightmares, and he had found it easy to obey her command. There was nothing at all to say—not when his own father refused to accept the truth. Warrick finished by saying, ‘My father believed Analise when she told him I was simple-minded and unworthy of being his son.’
‘I cannot believe he could not see her for what she truly was—a liar and a murderess.’ Rosamund held him tightly, and her embrace soothed the ache.
‘She died from a fall on horseback and broke her neck. Thank God, or else she might have found a way to hurt any other daughter she might have birthed.’
It was strange, but telling Rosamund what had happened had lightened the burden of the past. He drew his hand over her shift, down to her flat stomach. ‘It seems cruel to lose a second infant girl, one of my blood.’
She covered his hand with her own, letting it rest upon her womb. ‘I waited for a time to tell my husband about the babe, but he admitted last week that he knew I was with child when we wed. My father had told him, and Alan agreed to wed me, in spite of it. Or perhaps because of it.’ She laced her fingers with his. ‘I was surprised at how pleased Alan was, but I later understood it was because he believed he could not sire children. He told everyone of my pregnancy and was so very proud.’
Rosamund told him more, of the changes in her body and the time she first felt movement. ‘I was lying down in bed and I felt the barest touch, as if a tiny hand reached up to me.’ She smiled, but he heard the slight hitch of emotion in her voice. ‘It was so very precious, a part of you that remained within me. And as the months passed, Alan brought me gifts for the baby. A wooden rattle and silk for her clothing.’ She tightened her grip on his hand. ‘We became friends, and I could not be angry with him.
‘But a few weeks after Owen visited us, I lost the baby. I went into labour and delivered her stillborn. She was small enough to fit into my hand.’ Rosamund rested her face against his chest, and he could feel the hot tears spilling on to his skin. She wept for the loss of their daughter, and his own grief welled up inside him.
