Moonstone (14 page)

Rhiannon’s whimp
ers had quieted as the sun rose, and silence prevailed behind his door. William wanted to walk in, but he feared what he would find once he had.

“How long does this take?”
he asked. His tongue thick in his mouth.

Ronan scrubbed his
jaw with his hand. “Triona took days, but she wasna in the kind of pain Rhiannon is.”

Triona’s
two miscarriages hadn’t been forced though. Rhiannon would bleed to death soon, if she hadn’t already.

And
William would go insane without her.

The door opened
and Triona stepped out, Mora behind her. Triona had circles under her eyes. She brushed her hair off her face with the back of her hand.

William
stood, training his gaze on Mora, feeling powerless. It was just like when he was nine years old and his uncle told him his parents were dead. “My wife?” he asked.

“I need to speak with ye,
” Mora said.

Rhiannon
was dead.

She’d finally stopped fighting. Not that he really blamed her. A person only had so much to give. He’d wanted her to be strong enough to fight this last battle though. For him.

Ronan tucked his arm around Triona and they turned away, giving him space.

William
lifted his chin at Mora, refusing to break down until he could do it alone.

“Dinna look at me thusly,” Mora
said, her hands perched on her round hips. “Did ye think I would let your lady die as long as the Almighty granted me the ability to stop it?”

He let
the trapped air out of his lungs. “Then she lives?”

“
Aye. She is resting.”

William turned, ready to open the door and go to
her.

“Come back here.”

He flexed his fingers. “You may have delivered me, Mora, but I dinna take orders from you.”

Her eyes narrowed
, the skin around them crinkling. “Will ye let me tell you what your wife needs right now?”

“Aye,” he grunted
.

“You’re a new husband
, and there is no good way to go about this, so I will try and be easy on ye. She was . . . torn. A woman’s body is verra resilient, and she has healed, but I could tell that someone had taken her by force two months ago.”

William would have retched, had there been anything in his stomach.
“She didna want anyone to know,” he said.

Mora
touched his arm. “I am sorry. I will tell no one. She is lucky that she has you now.”

Not lucky enough. Maybe another man would have broken t
hrough her barriers by now.

“
Your lady is weak from blood loss,” Mora said. “But she will recover. Keep her in bed until she is steady on her feet again. I removed the stitch from her lip. It was ready enough. I will be back to check on her progress.” Mora readjusted the sack on her shoulder.

“Have someone take you home,” William said.

“I had planned on it.” Mora walked off, looking a wee bit stiff but, all in all, ageless. He had no idea how old she was.

William took
a moment to gather himself before he opened his chamber door. Rhiannon was alive. And she would recover. He’d spent the last night imagining what his vacant life would be like without her, and now everything had changed.

Rhiannon
was in his bed, her eyes closed. Alice was with her, brushing out her burgundy hair so that it rippled over fresh linens. She wore an ivory chemise, one shoulder exposed where it had slid down.

Alice slipped off the bed and set
Rhiannon’s silver hairbrush aside. “I do not know what to say.” Her throat sounded hoarse, and her eyes were puffy. “I never expected her to take such a risk.”

“’Tis not your fault, but you could have told me of her condition from the start.”

“I did not believe it was up to me to reveal. I thought I should leave it to her.” She frowned at Rhiannon. “Maybe I should have. I let her down.”

“
Maybe we all did.” William rubbed his face with his hands. “Go on. Get some rest.”

“Aye, my laird.” She curtsied, and then the door closed behind her.

He watched the easy rise and fall of Rhiannon’s chest, thanking God she was alive. Sitting next to her, he brushed her hair out of the way. Then he bent close, nuzzling her bare shoulder.

“I dinna know what
to think,
mo leannan
,” he said.

The idea of losing her had reverted him back to the heart of a weak child. It was
n’t easy to accept that kind of vulnerability in himself.

William almost pulled
up a chair, but it reminded him too much of sitting by her bedside at Geoffrey’s hall, and he couldn’t do it.  He was tired too. Dead tired. He stripped out of his clothes and settled down next to her, tucking his arm over her waist.

C
hapter Thirteen

As Rhiannon came to awareness, she smelled spice mixed with the tinge of male skin. She felt the familiar weight of William’s arm around her waist as she lay on her side, him behind her.

William’s
breathing deepened and his arm tightened momentarily. She noticed that his knuckles were scabbed over. And that his arm was bare.

“How are you?” he asked
, his voice rough with sleep.

Rhiannon felt her lower lip with the tip of her tongue.
She had no memory of the stitch being removed. “I do not know, I haven’t moved yet. What happened to your hand?”

He flexed his fingers. “I punched a wall.”

“Why?”

He leaned up on his elbow to look her in the face, then lifted his brows.

“Because of me?”

“Aye.” 
He pulled back. “I thought I was going to lose you.”

Her gaze wandered over the plains of his chest before
she looked away again. “How did the wall fair?”

“Better than I did.” He was silent for a moment
, laying on his back next to her. She was under the covers. He was on top. “Dinna risk yourself like that again.” 

“I did
not have any choice.”

“Aye, you did.
You could have told me.”

“
And then what? What would that have changed? I still would have had to do something. Otherwise your people would never trust me. They would question the legitimacy of your heir, because of his illegitimate brother.”

“Maybe I would
have raised the child as my own, then no one would have had to know.”

“There would be talk when
it came two months too early.”

“Let them think I compromised you
.”

Rhiannon looked over her shoulder
at him, meaning to focus only on his face, but her eyes wandered anyway. “You met me a fortnight ago,” she said, skimming the length of him.

“Who says?”

“Your men, who would know.”

“They will believe anything I tell them.”

And she knew they would. Rhiannon rested her head on the pillow, the sculpted eddies of her husband’s body now locked into her mind. Eventually, he would need her. She could only pray that it wasn’t as painful as the things she’d experienced in the hands of womanhood thus far.    

“You never
even gave me a chance,” he said. “You took a risk with your life, and you never even gave me a chance.”

His disappointment
bit.

“It was your child
too, you know.”

She
choked back tears. “I only wanted not to disappoint you.”

“
You have not . . .” William rolled out of bed. “Just no more secrets, please.”

“
I should go back to my room.”

“Nay
, stay here. That way I can keep an eye on you.” He came around the bed to face her.

She looked away.
“Alice can do that.”

“
Alice is hardly more than a child. I will take care of you myself.” 

“Am I to have no privacy at all?”

He let out a breath, then finally seemed to notice that he should probably dress, and turned away.

“I thought I’d lost you,”
he said. “’Twas brutal.”

“Far be it of me to inconvenience you.”

He pulled his shirt over his head. “’Twas far more than an inconvenience. I lost both my parents to a fever when I was nine. I have lost more friends than I dare count. I thought I’d lost Ronan once. I willna loose you. If I have to keep you locked in this chamber, then I will.”

Rhiannon felt like a prisoner again.
“Will it make you better than Geoffrey?”

“If I force, ’
tis only for your own good.”

Rhiannon press
ed her face into the pillow. He returned, buckling his plaid into place. The mattress gave as he sat. His fingers smoothed over her hair. She heard his intake of breath, as if he was about to say something. Then he moved away. “I will bring us some food.”

Rhiannon was glad when he left. He was acting like a bull pig.
A few minutes later there was a knock at the door and it opened a crack. Triona stuck her head in. “May I come in?”

“Aye.” Rhiannon wiped her eyes.

Triona pulled up a chair and sat, lifting her brows at Rhiannon. “How is he taking this?”

“I would rather not talk about it.”

“I think we should.”

“
Stubborn, the whole lot of you.”

Triona ignored her.
“I have known William all my life. I mean literally all my life.”

Rhiannon struggled to prop herself on one elbow. She stopped and breathed once she was there.

“Lightheaded?”

“Yes.”

“My first babe, Brian, took a toll on me. It has gotten easier since then.”

“How
do you stand it?”

“It gets easier.”

“I canna be a wife.” Rhiannon straightened her chemise so that it covered both of her shoulders. “’Tis too painful.”

Triona leaned forward with her elbows on her knees
, watching Rhiannon with a level gaze. “Childbirth hurts. I will give you that, but a husband’s affection should not. If anything, it should make it worth the risk of another labor.”

“
I am well aware of this
affection
you speak of.”

Triona’s green
eyes softened. “I am sorry. What happened to you was wrong.”

Rhiannon
shrugged.

“William is in love with you
.”

“I . . .”

Triona nodded. “He is behaving like a bull with an arrow in his backside because of it. Ronan behaved in much the same way. Still does, when the mood strikes him.”

“
I will only hurt him. He should have left me behind. I would have gotten away from Geoffrey somehow.” She lowered her voice. “Or I would have died trying.”

“And what a shame that would have been.”

Rhiannon’s gaze snapped to Triona.

“What William does with his free time is up to him. But from what I have observed over the last
several years, he’s been in the habit of avoiding women all together.”

“What do you mean
by
all together
?”

“It isn’t easy for a man like him. Most women want something from him. He needs a woman who would love him even if he were a poor man with naught but a stone hut and three sheep to his name.” Triona ran her hand over her braid, jingling the brass bells she had it tied off with.

“He will come to despise me for what I cannot be for him,” Rhiannon said.

“Or maybe, you will come to love him. ’
Tis your choice, but I think the latter would be more fulfilling.”

“
What if I cannot share my body?” Rhiannon curled her fingers around the bed sheet. She wanted so badly to be brave enough, but what if she never was?  

“Then you let Geoffrey win.
Why do you think he raped you?”

“Lust.”

“Why did he try to marry you afterwards?”

“So no one else could have me
, I suppose.”

“Aye. Dinna let him win.”

Rhiannon was speechless.

William came through the door with a tr
ay of food and a flagon, Rhiannon’s gaze training in on his tall, braw build.

“Think about it,” Triona said
. She stood and spoke to William in hushed tones before leaving the room. The door closed behind her and William frowned at it.

Rhiannon
groaned. “I cannot believe it.”

“Believe what?”

Rhiannon put the pillow over her face, speaking into it. “I forgot to have her help me to the chamber pot.” 

She heard
the sound of the bolt on the door sliding into place. What was he thinking? She pushed the pillow back far enough to look at him with one eye.

“Come,” he said.

He was addled.

William removed the pillow from her hands. Her broken arm was wrapped, but there was no sling. She was bedridden
and it would only make it hard for her to sleep.

“You
are not going to help me.”

“I am.”

“William,” she gritted. “I am still bleeding.”

He gave her a
look of resignation. “Then I can keep track of it.”

Too many years on the battlefield
had hardened him beyond reason. She wouldn’t be surprised if he’d held men down whilst they had limbs amputated. Or amputated them himself.

“But
you . . . we . . . are not, have not . . .” 

“
I am well aware that we have not.” He lifted one brow as he slipped his arms under her. Bringing his face close to hers, he gathered her into his chest. She became suddenly aware of the sound of their combined breaths, as well as the beating of her heart.

Her face flushed.
“William?”

He kissed her forehead.
“For once, just let me help you.”

* * *

“I cannot move
,” Rhiannon said, lying, dizzy and defeated on her stomach. A lock of hair was trapped between her broken arm and the pillow, pulling at her temple.

William carefully freed her hair.
“Aye, you can. You have to eat.” He slipped one arm between her rib cage and the mattress and moved her onto her back, propped against the pillows. She didn’t even try to stop him. What point was there now? The man had helped her use the champed pot for goodness sake!

He hand
ed her a goblet of wine and she sipped at it, humiliated. William set a wooden tray between them on the bed. After she took a few more swallows he removed the wine from her good hand and handed her an earthen bowl.

“Gruel?”

“Aye.” He passed her a spoon.

“I do not like gruel.”

“I was raised on it. Now eat.”

She
dished lukewarm porridge into her mouth while giving him dirty looks over her spoon. It might as well have been mud as far as her stomach was concerned. William broke apart a loaf of bread and handed her a piece. She set the bowl on her lap.

“
I know you’re frustrated with me right now,” he said. “But you misused something very important to me, and I canna just stand by and allow it.”

She frowned at her bread, set it aside, and picked up her wine instead. He caught her bowl before it tipped and spilled sticky oats and barley onto her lap.
 

“When will you understand?” he whispered.

Rhiannon shoved the goblet at him, then hugged her knees against her chest. “Why do men want to posses me? My father used to call me Psyche because of it.”

His eyes widened. “How many men did
your father have to defend you from, lassie?”

“They came around.” She looked away. “My brother ran them off.”

William took up his cup and drank all the wine in it, then he drank hers too. He set both goblets on the tray, and leaned back against the headboard. “You are verra beautiful.”

“I have not felt beautiful in a long time, at least not like I used to. I feel like an object.”

He was quiet, his brow drawn in thought. “There is more between lovers than physical pleasure.” He paused. “I should hope.”

His admission made her drop her guard. She could see how it would be hard for a man in a position of power. How would he know whether or not he could trust any woman deeply enough to lay himself
open for her?

“
I dinna know why Geoffrey did this to you,” he said. “But for me you are . . .”

Her heart hammered
in uneven beats, and all she saw were his gray eyes. “I am what?”
Tell me, please.

He looked away. “Never mind.”

She watched the side of his tight face and thought about what Triona had said. It made her wonder . . . “How long have you been chaste?”

“Rhiannon
,” he warned.

“Triona told me.”

“Of course she did.”

“
As your wife, do I not have the right to know?”