‘You think it is easy for me, with the father and brother that I have? All they have ever done is let me down and lie to me.’
‘And I am sorry if you think I am as bad as them.’ Jasper took her hand and squeezed it.
Rowenna stared down at his hand grasping hers, and felt her heart break a little. ‘Jasper, these last weeks, I thought you had come to care for me a little. I was happy, too. But now, your love feels like a prison. It should not be like that.’
‘You want your freedom? You want to be done with me?’
‘No. But you love too hard, as if you own me. And Jasper, you might have use of my body under the law, and I may seem as chattel to you, but you can never own another person.’
‘I thought you wanted what we just did in this bed.’
‘I did, for it is a great joy to lie with you, something I never expected from marriage. But if I wish to leave you tomorrow, then I will.’
‘So I am to live my life on a knife’s edge and hope I don’t wake up one day to find you gone.’
‘If you go on treating me like your possession, then I will be gone. I cannot live in a cage.’
He smiled, but it was tainted by sadness. ‘Now there is an idea. I can lock you in my dungeon and visit you whenever the urge takes me.’
‘Jasper!’
‘I am in jest, but as to the urge, it grips me now.’ He leaned in and pulled her mouth to his for a kiss. Rowenna’s resolve melted along with her loins. She could not resist kissing him back.
Jasper pulled away. ‘I suppose I must prove to you that my regard is real and not just lust. So I will not take you again until you ask me to. Are we agreed?’
It was not much, but it was a start. Though Rowenna was not sure she wanted Jasper to avoid her bed.
‘So tomorrow, are you coming home with me?’ he asked. ‘I won’t force you to.’
Rowenna looked around the sparse chamber. Fallstairs no longer felt like home, with its decay and air of desperation. Kransmuir was unwelcoming, as if the very stone wished to repel her, and Jasper’s family were a cursed bunch of miseries. But perhaps home was not stone walls but a feeling, a person to build a life with.
Jasper took hold of her by the shoulders. ‘I can change, if you can. I will let Bran go if it pleases you.’
‘I do not want you to, not yet. There are things I must say to my brother and answers I need. Jasper, if we are to trust one another, then there is something you should know, and afterwards, you might not want me to come home with you.’
Rowenna was at a crossroads in her life. Which way to turn and who to trust? Cecily had taken a chance on a man, and look where that had got her? But something made Rowenna take a deep breath and begin to tell Jasper just how deeply her family had dug a knife into him.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Rowenna hurried through the kitchen, grabbing some chicken, apples and cheese when the cook was not looking. Her wretched brother did not deserve her compassion, so the food was not kindness but a bribe. She needed Bran to tell her about Cecily because she was sure he knew something about her disappearance.
‘Rowenna, are you with child?’
Rowenna looked up to see Maeve standing before her, with arms crossed, watching. ‘Are you eating for two? Is that why you have to steal food from your own kitchen?’
‘Nothing of the sort. The weather is chilly and fires my appetite.’
Maeve looked at Rowenna’s belly as if to test her theory. ‘Well, if you are with child, then you’d best not hide it from my brother.’ She sauntered over, looking uncommonly well, with a rose to her cheeks, eyes bright and lively. ‘I am surprised to find you here,’ she continued. ‘I thought you ran away.’
Rowenna said nothing, hoping she would let her be.
‘Why did you come back?’ said Maeve.
‘Because I had no choice and nowhere to run.’
Maeve grabbed her arm. ‘Then you will understand, more than any of them, because you don’t want my brother any more than I want Carstairs.’
‘Maeve, it is not as simple as that.’
