Chapter Sixteen
They let their horsesamble along for a while.They were in no hurry.There was plenty of time to get to the town where Tomas and their carriage would be meeting them.
Tessa was lost in a reverie, but she seemed lighter, somehow, as if visiting the scene of the battle and planting her acorns and bluebells had lifted some weight off her shoulders.
“I’m sorry for crying all over you,” she said after a while.“But thank you for letting me.For some reason it has made me feel better—that and planting the acorns and bluebells.I didn’t really ever get to mourn Louis.I was married by then, and ...well,”— she grimaced—“I wasn’t allowed.It wasn’t appropriate.”
He gave her a sharp glance.“Not appropriate?To mourn your own brother.”
Looking straight ahead, she said in a peevish tone, “Must you do that, woman?The noise is bad enough, but tears make you look hellish ugly, demmit!I didn’t marry you to look ugly.”It was clearly a quote.
One of her damned husbands, he thought grimly.He didn’t even try to work out which.He despised them both.
“So I stopped.Bottled it up.”She glanced at him.“But all that’s in the past.With you, it’s different.”She was silent a moment then added, “I feel ...seen.”
“Seen?What do you mean?”
“Oh, just that both my husbands liked my looks, but not who I was.They preferred me to be like...like a doll.No opinions, no thoughts except ones related to them.And when they went out it was as if they had placed me on a shelf, to only be useful or even active unless they were present.”
“Their loss,” was all Marcus said, but underneath he was boiling at the thought that the lively and spirited little girl he’d once known had been treated like a doll.
“But today, when I was weeping for Louis and all those other poor boys and men killed in the battle, you didn’t seem to mind how it made me look.You just held me and let me cry as long as I wanted to.”
“Well of course I did.”She didn’t need to know how helpless it made him feel, not to be able to do anything except hold her as she wept.And give her a handkerchief.
“It was exactly what I needed.You didn’t reproach me or even hurry me.”She gave a little laugh and wiped away another couple of tears.“Sorry to be so melancholy.It’s all water under the bridge now.”
They rode on, rounded the curve of a small hill and saw below them a village.Barely deserving of the name, it was just a few scattered houses down a narrow dusty lane, off the road on which they were traveling.The village looked deserted, but the road looked cool and shady, lined with trees, and they could see the glint of water from a small stream.
“Oh look, a stream,” she said.“Could we go down there?Water the horses?”
“Of course.”
“Race you,” Tessa said and urged her horse forward.
Marcus let her lead at first, but he soon caught up.As he passed her, he heard her laugh, and his heart swelled.She really was feeling better after visiting the battlefield.As if a weight had been lifted.
By the time they were approaching the village, he was ahead by several lengths.A slight curve of the road into the village, and there was movement ahead.A toddler emerged from a tangle of weeds and stopped, right in the center of the narrow road.
Tessa saw the child at the same time as Marcus.She screamed a warning, but he was moving too quickly and was unable to stop in time.In desperation he urged his mount to leap over the little creature—who seemed frozen.To his relief the horse jumped.Wrenching his horse to a halt, he flung himself out of the saddle and raced back to check on the child, praying that it was unhurt.
Tessa, who had stopped in time, was crouched beside a ragged little toddler.Who made no sound.
“Is he all right?”he gasped.“I didn’t hit him, did I?”He could see no blood but that didn’t mean anything.“I tried not to hit him, but he just burst from the undergrowth, right in my horse’s path.”
