He was pale with bewilderment and anger. “That is a horrible thing to say.”
Cathlina wouldn’t back down. The tears were falling with a vengeance. “I was a comfort and companion to you when you were just a smithy,” she sobbed. “You loved me and found me charming, and all was well. But now that you are a soldier again, you no longer have need of me. I wish you were just a smithy again, Mathias. I hate the selfish warrior who loves battle more than he loves me.”
He stared at her, astonished. She couldn’t have done more damage than if she had stabbed him through the heart. Perhaps that physical pain would have been preferable to the emotional pain he was feeling at the moment.
“You once told me that you did not care if I was a smithy, a dishonored knight, or the bloody King of England,” he said softly. “All you cared about was that we were man and wife.”
She jabbed a finger at him. “I said that all I cared about was that we were together,” she said. “Mathias, when you take me back to England, we will not be together. You will achieve your knightly redemption without me by your side. Is this really what you intended all along?”
Mathias sincerely didn’t know what to say to her. He didn’t want to admit that some of her words made some sense. He didn’t want to acknowledge it.
“I love you, Cathlina,” he said hoarsely, looking lost and defeated. “I am so sorry you feel this way, but it is not the truth. I swear to God, it is not the truth.”
She wept painfully, turning her back on him. “Take me home, Mathias,” she wept bitterly. “Take me home and then return to Scotland. But when your battles are over and your glory is restored, do not come for me. I do not want you to. I will never be the thing you love most in this world; your vocation and your world as a knight will. I will always come second.”
Mathias could hardly breathe for the pain in his heart. In fact, he put a hand over his chest as if to hold in the anguish. He simply couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“What can I do to prove to you that you are the most important thing to me?” he begged softly. “Tell me what to do and I will do it.”
Cathlina wiped at her face, clearing room for the new tears that were falling. She shook her head. “You will not do it.”
“You cannot know that unless you tell me what it is.”
She sniffled. “Do not go back to Scotland,” she said. “Come back with me to Brampton and resume your life as a smithy. Forget you were ever a knight and let us live simply and without violence. Let us go back to those first days of our acquaintance when the world was so new and bright, and there were no battles to interfere in our world. I want it to be like that, always.”
He sighed heavily and hung his head, mulling over her statement. “Is that what it will take?”
“Aye.”
“You are asking me to leave my father and brother and friend behind, men who are depending on me to do what I said I would. They are depending on me to fight with them.”
“I am depending on you to be my husband.”
“I cannot do both?”
“You can if you take me back to Scotland with you so we are not separated.”
“I will not put you in danger.”
“Then you have a choice. Give up de Beaumont’s wars and return with me, or go fight for the Scots and forget you ever had a wife.”
Mathias found himself weak with emotion, with the overwhelming stress of what she was saying. She was giving him no choice at all. He couldn’t understand why she didn’t see that.
“Before I took my wedding vows with you, I took another oath,” he muttered, feeling despondent even as he said it. “I took an oath of the code of chivalry. I became a knight long before I ever became a husband. You are asking me to choose between you and a timeless code of honor that has become the very fabric of my being. As much as I love you, and I love you more than any man has ever loved a woman, I have an honor within me that cannot be undone, not even by you. I will not leave my father and brother and friend in Scotland, fighting a war that I dragged them into. You know why I had to do this. I thought you understood a knight’s heart,myheart, but I see that I was mistaken. All you can see is what you want to see and demand that I prove my love to you as if my word and actions are not good enough. I find that uncommonly selfish and petty. Tomorrow, I will take you back to Carlisle Castle and I will return to Scotland to do what I said I would do. When it is over, make no mistake that I will return for my wife, and we will be together until the end of my life. If you want to hate me for doing as I must, then I cannot stop you. I am sorry it has come to this.”
With that, he turned and went inside the cottage, leaving the door open so she could follow. Cathlina, however, didn’t follow. She stood there, staring at the spot she had last seen him standing, wondering how the situation had turned so terrible.
She loved Mathias. She loved him with all of her heart and deep down she knew he loved her too. She understood the chivalric code, but she also understood her own wants. Her husband with her, safely, and not off fighting Scots who threw their axes into men’s chests. It was a reality she couldn’t accept and at the pinnacle of it was her terror that Mathias would never make it back to her. She was terrified that she was going to lose him.
Breaking down into painful sobs, Cathlina collapsed right there on the river bank with Midgy frolicking several yards away.
When Mathias came out of the cottage an hour later to look for her, he found her sleeping the sleep of the dead on the cold river bank. Sweeping her into his arms, he hugged her tightly as he took her back to the cottage. When they slept, it was in each other’s arms.
*
She could feelhis hot breath on her neck.
It was early morning as the sun strained to break free of the horizon, sending pillars of golden light through the window, filling the tiny cottage with illumination. Cathlina and Mathias were burrowed down deep in the little bed, smothered by covers in their warm and wonderful world. Cathlina could feel Mathias’ massive body wrapped around her, his naked hip next to her hand. Feeling him, smelling him, brought about warm and passionate feelings. Half-asleep, Cathlina stroked his hip with her hand, wriggling her bum back against him.
