“Ah, your false husband’s true wife.”
Arianna nodded. “I have ignored how my thoughts kept turning to her. Feared it might be jealousy, but, nay, it isnae. It was rumored that she was the bastard get of some highborn lordling. I confess, I thought Marie Anne the one who started that rumor just to give herself some prestige, but now I begin to wonder. What if she was blood kin to someone verra highborn, mayhap verra powerful?”
“Someone who could make certain the marriage of Claud and Marie Anne stood firm.”
“Exactly. When I start wandering down that path I dinnae find so many answers but I do find more reasons for this hunt, e’en for the alliance between Amiel and the DeVeaux. Lord Ignace is no minor DeVeau lordling yet he also hunts the boys. At least the one I fear may be here isnae. There is something behind his presence here that I just cannae see, but ken ’tis important. If we could learn what that was then all our questions would be answered.”
“And that would be good but, in the end, it still doesnae matter.” Brian put his arm around her shoulders and tugged her close to his side.
“Nay, ye are right. In the end it doesnae matter at all. All that truly matters is that Michel and Adelar are nay hurt.” She rested her head against his shoulder and stared up at the night sky. “They deserve a life in which they are nay surrounded by scorn or in constant danger. It was why I was taking them home with me. I kenned that they could find that with my kin.”
“Ye will be able to give them that soon,” said Brian, hoping his reluctance to grant her wish to go home did not reveal itself in his voice.
Arianna forced herself not to wince. It hurt to hear him speak of sending her home once the threat from Amiel and the DeVeaux was gone. She had hoped he had begun to change his mind about that. Although she had little confidence in her judgments about people, especially considering what the man she had thought would make a good husband turned out to be, she had thought Brian showed a caring for her that went beyond that of just a satisfied lover. Now she was not so certain. If he did care for her as more than a woman who gave him pleasure, surely he would have begun to hint at some change in his original plan to send her home. She was not sure what else she could do to make him want to keep her.
“Did ye love him?” Brian nearly cursed as he heard himself ask the question, if only because he really did not wish to hear her talk about that thrice-cursed Claud.
“Love Claud? Nay, although I thought our marriage could become one of love.” She sighed and shook her head. “I was such a young, blind lass. Claud was handsome, charming, and always dressed so prettily. I thought he was treating me with great respect when he did nay more than gently kiss me from time to time. Now I see that what I thought was a gentlemon’s respect for a maid was really just distaste. He was doing what he had to, nay what he wanted to.”
“So when he courted ye he was weel spoken and ye thought ye could make a good marriage with him.”
“Aye. My kin tend to marry for love, ye ken. I wished to, too, but it was verra clear that many of my clan wanted there to be a marriage between Claud and me. They wanted to strengthen the old bonds between the two families. I could have refused for they ne’er would have forced me to do it, but I didnae. None of my kin who have a gift for seeing the truth of a mon were there at that time so I got no warnings to make me look closer at the mon I was to marry. I e’en saw it all as an adventure.
“It wasnae until we were wed and the marriage duly consummated that Claud began to shed his disguise. At first I tried verra hard to please him, thinking that he was but trying to turn me into a good wife. ’Twas the same with his parents. When they revealed their scorn, I tried harder to win their approval. I am nay quite certain when I ceased to try, when I began to think myself too full of faults to e’er be able to succeed in pleasing any of them.”
“Ye were nay full of faults.”
“Weel, I wouldnae be so vain as to say I had none.” She chuckled and patted his thigh, deeply touched by how angry her tale was making him. “Howbeit, I had begun to think that I was just a miserable failure, ne’er meant to be a wife any mon wanted, but I kenned that I was a verra good mother to Michel and Adelar. I kenned that deep in my heart and none could tell me different. I had also begun to think that I wasnae as bad at the running of the keep as they all implied for, if I was so abysmal a chatelaine, why did they keep giving me e’en more to do? It wasnae easy, either, for many of their people followed the lead of Claud and his family, treating me nay better than they would some unwanted guest.”
She quickly covered a yawn with her hand and cuddled closer to Brian. “When I was held by Amiel and he began to hit me, I kenned that I would ne’er have accepted such treatment from Claud, from anyone in that family. One strike and I would have left. In a strange way, I found that knowledge a comfort. I e’en wondered where that cursed spine of mine had been when accepting all those cruel words, all that utter disdain.”
“Ye were just a young lass.”
“True, but I think it was more than youth. What Claud and his kin did was, weel, insidious, subtle ...”
“Sneaky.”
“Aye. I obviously wasnae as sure of myself as I thought I was. Claud found that wee weakness and fed it until it grew strong enough to conquer me. A part of me truly believed that I was an utter failure as a wife and a woman as he so often claimed I was. Believing my kin didnae care, or didnae see what I suffered was wrong or a problem, I felt I had nowhere else to go, either. So, I stayed far, far longer than I e’er would have if Claud had just once hit me or slapped me or kicked me as Amiel did. And every day I was there Claud, his family, and e’en many of the people on their lands kept picking away at whatever pride, vanity, or confidence I had. Ye hear something said often enough and ye believe it. I should have seen what he was doing to me.”
“Love, ye were so young ...”
“Old enough to be a wife.”
“But still young and ye came from a loving family, aye?” She nodded and he continued, “Then why should ye have questioned anything the mon ye believed was your husband said to ye? And, as ye said, your family had seen naught wrong with the mon when he courted ye. As far as ye kenned, they also didnae think your complaints about what was happening to ye were even worth replying to.”
“I should have left when I thought he had a mistress.”
“Ye probably kenned that few would think that a good reason to leave your husband.”
“Aye, true enough, though I did think it verra strange that there was no outrage from my family when I wrote them about that. Of course, they didnae get that missive, did they? I ken that now.” She hastily covered her mouth as another yawn overtook her.
“Time to rest, love. We have a long day ahead of us on the morrow.”
Brian took her by the hand, stood up, and tugged her to her feet. She blushed faintly and disappeared into the shadows of the trees to tend to her personal needs. He spread out the blankets for the bed as he waited for her. It made him think of making love to her but he tamped down the desire rising inside him. She had endured the journey with far more ease than he had anticipated, but he knew she was exhausted and undoubtedly ached all over. Sleep was what she needed.
The moment she returned, he strode away to tend to his own needs. By the time he returned, Arianna was sound asleep. Brian doubted she had been prone for a moment or two before exhaustion had claimed her.
He sat down and removed his boots. There would be little sleep for him tonight. Brian trusted Sigimor’s men to keep Lucette and his men too busy to bother hunting for him and Arianna, but the memory of how badly she had been beaten by Lucette was still a stark, taunting scar on his mind. He could not leave her unguarded. There would be no sleep for him until he had her tucked safely behind the high walls of Scarglas.
