Ivo’s voice was bleak, as though he stood on the brink of an abyss. His chest ached, and even the feel of Briar in his arms could not stanch the agony of his memories.
Get it over with. Say it, and then you will know if she loves you enough to stay...
“He had found a man who was rich and powerful, someone whose suitability no one could object to on those grounds. Indeed, it was a good match for Matilda. But this rich and powerful man was brutal. He was a man who knew only how to kill and had lost the ability to love, if he had ever known it. Matilda was too young and gentle to deal with a man like that, and she begged him to change his mind. But Miles was now the head of the family, and he insisted. She fought him with tears and pleadings, but he stood firm. He probably enjoyed that.”
Briar had gone still in dread, and yet still she hoped the outcome of his story would be different. He heard it in her voice when she asked, “Could you not have stopped this marriage, Ivo?”
“I tried. We ran away. We got several leagues before Miles caught us and took us home. He ordered his men to hold me and he beat me until I was unconscious, and while I was helpless, he forced Matilda to marry her brutal husband. He told me, when I woke and she was gone, that he had threatened her with my death if she did not comply. So he used our love against each other.”
“She sent me messages,” he went on, absently stroking Briar’s long hair. “She said it was not so bad. But I heard from others that her husband treated her like an animal, worse, for he believed his animals to be of some use and so he kept them in good health. Matilda was nothing to him, once he had her. He saw her gentleness as weakness and tried to beat it out of her. When she could stand it no more, she ran away and came home, seeking sanctuary.”
“Thank God...”
“Miles wouldn’t allow it. He was angry, and he sent word to her husband to come and fetch her. Matilda was frantic. She begged me to help her. And I tried, Briar. I tried. I made plans for her to go into hiding, and I had horses ready. But her husband came too soon. When we heard him at the gate, I saw the look in Miles’s eyes and I knew if we fought he would kill one of us. I told Matilda she should give herself up. I thought, as long as we lived, I could save her. But she screamed that I had forsaken her, and ran and locked herself in her bedchamber and refused to come out.”
Ivo’s gaze blurred, and he had to swallow the lump in his throat to continue. After all these years, the anguish, the guilt, were as fresh as ever.
“Miles laughed and said that would not save her. So then I fought with him, Briar. I did my best. But there were too many of them. Miles always had his loyal followers—the dregs of the district, those willing to do anything for coin. He laughed again when they held me, so I could see when Matilda’s husband came for her. Miles set him onto her, urging him to do his worst. He didn’t need any urging, he was like a maddened bull. He smashed at the door with his fists and his sword, roaring, while Matilda screamed out her terror. When he finally broke down the door, he was so full of rage and bloodlust, that he couldn’t stop. He killed her in front of us.”
“Oh, Ivo, oh, Ivo,” Briar whispered brokenly into the warm skin of his throat. Her hands clung to him, but he didn’t take comfort from that. She would soon be pushing him away.
“Miles explained it to me, when I could listen again. It was simply bad luck, he said. A husband had a right to take his wife home, and if Matilda had not refused, then she would be alive now. So, he told me, it was her fault, really. And mine, for making her believe I could save her when... when I could not. When I was just too weak to help my only sister. And she had seen it, at the end, and hated me for it.”
Briar wiped her eyes and shook her head.
“If I’d been able to get her away sooner, perhaps I could have saved her,” Ivo whispered, speaking the words that had been with him for so many years. “If only I hadn’t forsaken her at the end, if I hadn’t told her to go with her brute of a husband. She looked at me in such a way, with such betrayal in her eyes. And I did betray her. I know it now, but at the time I thought only of saving her life. But now I know that there are worse things than dying.”
Her eyes flew to his. He saw the very moment the doubt appeared in them. As he turned away, Ivo felt as if his heart had quietly broken in two.
“I am not fit to be a brother or a husband or anything else. Think twice before you promise to wed me, for though I might swear to protect you, I cannot know what I will do when it comes to the point. Miles might come and I might fail you. Fail you, as I failed Matilda.”
Her step behind him, her hand on his arm. “Ivo,” she whispered, her voice shaking with tears. “Ivo, you will not fail me. You have never failed me. I trust you with my life, just as Matilda did. It was neither your fault nor hers that such a tragedy happened. How can you blame yourself for it?”
“Nay!” he said, and his voice broke with emotion. “She is dead because of me.”
“She would not blame you—”
“You do not know the rest, lady. Let me tell you the rest,” he blurted out, bitterness curdling inside him. “After I had left my home, Miles squandered all he had, and was forced to hire out his knightly services for money. One day I arrived to take my place with a baron hiring men, and found my brother also there.
“He begged me to forgive him. He said he wanted the past forgotten. He said his heart was sore because of what had happened to Matilda. And I believed him.”
“You wanted to believe him, Ivo,” she said quietly, her fingers stroking his sleeve. He could feel her trying to see his face, but he turned it into the shadows.
“It was all a lie,” he went on bleakly. “He just wanted to destroy the only thing of value I had left. He tricked me, and lost me my knighthood. He lied, and I believed him. I betrayed Matilda all over again.” His voice rose and broke.
“He lied, Ivo. Aye, he lied.”
“I should never have believed him...”
“You cannot help your nature.” She slipped her cool fingers under his chin and gently but firmly turned his face toward hers. The tears were hot on his cheeks, and he tried to pull away, but she would not allow it. She gazed up at him, compassionately, lovingly, understandingly. Ivo went very still.
“Ivo, you think the best of people. You want to believe in them. You wanted to believe that Miles had changed, because you are yourself a good man. Evil is as foreign to you as cowardice. It defeated you because you could not comprehend it. Oh my love, Matilda came to you because of who you were, who you are. Do not condemn yourself and her because a single moment of fear made her say things that were untrue.”
She stretched up and kissed his lips, her own so gentle.
“You are a good man, Ivo, and that is the reason that Miles hates you. Because you are good, and people love you, and they will never love him.”
Suddenly the strength went out of him. He sagged, and she caught him in her arms, steadying him. Ivo gave a ragged sigh and dropped his head to her breast, and she wrapped him close, rocking him gently as if he were a child.
