“I am nay Claud,” he said again as he handed her his wineskin and began to unpack more oatcakes, cold meat, and cheese. “I see now that he wanted to make ye question everything about yourself, lass. I would have thought ye kenned that by now, that ye would see that whate’er he said was just more lies.”
Her mouth full of cider, she just nodded. It was hard to meet his gaze, but she forced herself to do so. Arianna just wished the conversation were not so embarrassing. Losing oneself in the heat of a kiss while held in the arms of a very handsome man was one thing, talking about it was quite another. It was only now that she realized she knew very little about what went on between a man and a woman as Claud had done only what was necessary to get her with child. She knew there was so much more but not what that more was, despite the talks she had heard from the married ladies in her clan.
“There are two ways for a mon to grind a woman down beneath his boot. He can beat her with his fists or he can pick away at her with cruel words until she has no pride left and no will to stand against him. Ye need to accept that Claud used words to crush ye and accept that whate’er he told ye was wrong, was just used to make certain ye caused him no trouble. Weel, that and as a way to make ye shoulder the blame for his own mistakes.”
“I do ken that,” she whispered, for she had begun to question Claud’s cruelty to her from the moment she had discovered he was not truly her husband.
“If he didnae find pleasure in the bedding of ye, it was all his own fault. I can feel the passion in ye, Arianna. ’Tis sweet and hot. He caged it because he didnae want it. Ye have to free it. Ye have to cease thinking ye have some lack that will leave a mon cold. Believe me, cold is the verra last thing I feel when I have ye in my arms.”
“Tell me, how would it make ye feel if, when a woman rose from your bed, she made sure ye kenned that ye had failed to satisfy her desires? What if that woman was your wife and she told ye that every night?”
Brian did not even want to think about it, knowing it would eat at his soul if something like that ever happened. “It would burn its way into my heart and mind as it has yours. Only ye can push it away, toss it on the midden heap where it belongs. I would tell ye what else I would probably do but fear it would sound too much like I was just trying to get ye to do as I want.”
“And what would that be? What would ye do?”
“I would eventually find myself a woman and find out if the wrong was in me or in the one who claimed I failed her. And if the wrong was in me, then I would do what I could to fix it because I would ken that I had the passion in me, that I just needed to learn a few skills to share it with another. Now, eat. We need to rest and, I think, ye need to wrestle with a few ghosts.”
Arianna ate and settled down in her blankets without saying another word. Her mind was too busy with thoughts about what he had said to try and converse. She was also disappointed with herself. She did know what Claud had been doing with his constant insults and quiet cruelties, but she was having a lot of trouble shaking free of the power they had held over her. It had held her in its tight grip for far too long.
She could all too easily recall the heat of Brian’s kiss and the way his hand upon her breast had made her blood run hot. A part of her was demanding she allow herself a full tasting of the pleasure he promised her, while another part cringed from the possibility that he, too, would find her lacking.
Courage was what she needed. Arianna was determined to find that courage, the strength to banish the fear Claud had bred in her, and accept what Brian offered. She was a widow and could indulge herself without fear of much censure. By the time they stopped for the night again, she wanted to be ready to find out the truth. She wanted to prove all Claud had made her believe of herself as a woman was no more than another one of his lies.
Chapter 6
An inn. From the stupor of exhaustion she had fallen into, Arianna roused herself enough to smile. For almost two days she and Brian had done little more than ride, take a short rest, and ride some more. The inn was a little worn down but it looked like the finest castle to her. For at least one night she would be sleeping in a bed beneath a roof. Even better, she might be able to eat something besides rabbit.
“’Tis nay verra fine but ’tis clean and the food is good,” said Brian as he helped her down from her mount. “There is but one wee thing we need to agree on ere we go inside.”
“And what is that?” She frowned when he did not immediately answer, even looked a little nervous, and then guilt swept over her. “Oh. I fear ye will have to wait for my share of the cost until I can reach my family. All my coin went down with the ship. Do ye have enough coin e’en without me adding something?”
“Dinnae fret o’er the cost. I have enough. Nay, ’tis just that we will be getting only one room. That is what I needed to speak about.”
Brian hoped she would not think he was making them share a room so that he could get her into a bed and into his arms. He wanted to, no question about that, but he had to wait until she was ready to be there. His body was tied up in knots only she could untie, but he could wait until she was ready. He just prayed that would not take too long.
Arianna struggled to think clearly enough to understand exactly what he was saying. The man had revealed a desire for her but she did not believe he was a man who would trick or force any woman to share her favors with him. He could not know that she had decided it was time to cast aside her fears and let him show her what passion was. Something she would have done by now if they had stopped for more than the briefest of rests.
Perhaps, she thought, it was a matter of a lack of coin despite his claim that he had enough, but that did not make much sense, either. If he had so little coin he would not have even brought her to an inn. She rubbed a hand over her forehead, deciding that thinking about it was just confusing her, not gaining her one single answer. She needed to stop bouncing around on top of a horse and let her mind clear.
“Why are we getting only one room?” she asked.
“I dinnae think it would be safe for us to be separated. If the need to flee this place comes, we can do it more swiftly if we are together. There will be two pairs of ears to catch every sound, two sets of eyes to catch sight of any threat or, at least, to see a little more clearly. And there would be no time lost if trouble came, no need for one of us to try and warn the other.”
“Oh, of course.”
Arianna was not sure why she was worried about sharing a room at an inn with the man since she had been alone with him for six long days. She had already shared a cave with him, and slept close around a fire with him. And she had also decided to let the desire that flared between them have free rein, which would certainly be more easily done if they were sharing a room. Yet, strangely, the thought of sharing a room with him, a room with a bed, had her stomach tied up in knots. Suspecting that was Claud’s poison affecting her, she did her best to push aside that tension.
“But ... what will ye tell them?” she asked. “How will ye explain why the two of us need only one room?”
“I doubt we will be asked the why of it. Molly isnae one to ask many questions,” he replied as he took his pack of supplies from the back of the horse.
Before she could ask him how he could be so certain of that and ask just who Molly was, he grasped her by the hand and pulled her toward the scarred door of the inn. Arianna could think of many reasons why he was so sure the innkeepers would ask no questions and none of them pleased her very much. The one reason that troubled her the most was the possibility that he had brought other women to this inn and often enough that the innkeeper would feel he knew why she was at his side. The thought that she had decided to give herself to a man who frolicked all too often with women was not a comfortable one.
She was opening her mouth to actually ask him if this was some favorite trysting place when a very round woman with a large wart on her chin stepped in front of them just inside the door of the inn. Arianna was glad of the interruption. Asking Sir Brian about his trysting habits was not a good idea. It was truly none of her business where or how often he did his trysting, she told herself firmly. All she wanted of him was to show her that she could not only feel passion but make the man in her arms feel it, too. She was fairly sure it was all a man like him could offer her anyway. From what she recalled of the tales of the MacFingals, none of them understood the wordconstancy.
“Ye are a MacFingal,” the woman said in a surprisingly deep voice as she placed her big, work-worn hands on her ample hips. “Dinnae tell me which one,” she snapped when Sir Brian opened his mouth to tell her his name. “I am trying to learn who be who as ye seem to be coming round here more often.”
That did not sound good at all, Arianna thought. She had an image of Sir Brian wandering in and out of the inn with a long line of buxom, willing women. It was not something that should bother her. He was simply her protector and might yet become her lover, a man who was helping her get to her family and safety while showing her all about passion. But it did bother her. A lot. That was not good for it implied that she felt a lot more for him than gratitude or lust, saw him as far more than an honorable man and one of a clan that was helping to keep her and her boys alive until they could be safely placed under the protection of her family. She could not allow herself to become entangled with a man.
