Healer's Touch (21 page)

“No, I...” She swallowed. He’d arranged privacy for them, so he knew perfectly well what she was after. “I’d like to see your bedroom.”

“Then I’ll show you.”

Marius’s bedroom was the only room in the villa she hadn’t yet seen. It was much as she’d expected: a utilitarian space, neat and tidy, lacking in pretension. His furnishings included two chests, a table and chairs, and a bed in the center of the room, the mere presence of which caused her cheeks to flush. The pieces appeared to be a matched set, carved from the same red-brown wood and upholstered in blue. While they lacked showy damask, silk, or gold accents, their quality was evident in the artistic swoop of their lines and the heaviness of the wood.

Marius followed her gaze to the furnishings. “My father made those.”

She looked up in surprise. “Your father?” Given Marius’s wealth, she’d thought his father would be military, or a business owner, or an imperial official; not somebody who worked with his hands.

“I was thinking we should talk a little,” said Marius. “Before we take things much further.”

“Talk,” she repeated, uncertain about this.

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me. And much I’d like to know about you.”

She nodded. What could she safely tell him? Now that she was officially divorced, she saw no reason she couldn’t share with him most of her history with Jauld, if Marius wanted to hear that awful story. But the crimes she’d committed in order to emigrate to Kjall—stealing the store’s money and her son, running away in violation of half a dozen laws—those were acts that shamed her. Could this wealthy Kjallan who’d always had family sheltering and protecting him understand the desperation that had driven her here?

“I come from a noble family,” said Marius. “But I wasn’t raised in one. My mother, as a young woman, was promised to a legatus in an arranged marriage. She didn’t want to marry him, so she fled Riat and eloped with my father, a craftsman named Anton.”

Isolda ran her hand along the curve of a chair arm. “His work is exquisite.”

Marius nodded. “He’s meticulous. On some of the jobs he had when I was growing up, the people who hired him would complain that he was slow. But that was only because he cared enough to do things right.”

Isolda felt a twinge of jealousy. Her father, too, had been a conscientious, meticulous man, and she had always admired him. But she hadn’t seen him, or her mother, since her marriage to Jauld. In Sardos it was customary for fathers to make a clean cut from their daughters when they married so that there would be no conflict between the husband and his father-in-law. Marius’s father, it seemed, had remained part of his adult son’s life. “He must love you very much.”

Marius sat on the bed. “He and my mother live in Riat now. They’re across town, so I just have to saddle up Gambler when I want to see them.”

Isolda’s throat tightened. What a luxury that must be, to see one’s parents whenever one desired. Even if she had a horse to saddle up and cross town with, she had nobody to visit. Her family was just herself and Rory now.

“Will you sit with me?” asked Marius.

She was feeling shy despite having come here with the express aim of sleeping with him. Nonetheless, she crossed the room and sat by his side, sinking into the goosefeathers.

Marius slipped an arm around her. “After my mother eloped, she concealed everything that might give away her identity. She dressed humbly and adopted the local accent. Despite her efforts at blending in, she was discovered by my uncle. He left her where she was, with my father, but took away her firstborn daughter—”

“Wait, why would he leave her and take the daughter?”

“He was concerned about heirs and preserving the bloodline for future generations. Because my parents were afraid to have more children after that, I didn’t come along for another ten years. They let me believe I was the eldest—my missing sister, a decade my senior, was never mentioned. My parents had gone deeper into hiding by then, living in obscure rural towns. My father was originally an upholsterer, but he feared his profession might identify him, so he worked as a carpenter instead. When we were discovered again, this time by my cousin, I was twenty-two years old and a journeyman apothecary. Until that moment, I’d had no idea my family was anything out of the ordinary.”

“Did you ever find your missing sister?”

“Oh, yes,” said Marius. “I see her once in a while, but she lives far away.”

Now that Isolda had heard Marius’s story, she better understood his duality: his humble nature and preference for peasant clothes and simple foods, paired with exceptional wealth and the influence of a powerful benefactor. He was an intriguing man, but his life story made it all too clear that he could never marry her. If Marius’s family had been upset when his mother had married a Kjallan commoner, Isolda could only imagine the pyrotechnics that would ensue if Marius married a Sardossian refugee.

However, that was nothing she hadn’t assumed already. “This benefactor you’ve spoken of—he must be part of your mother’s family.”

“He’s my cousin,” said Marius. “The one who found us.”

“I take it he would not approve of my being with you.”

“It’s none of his business.”

As involved as this cousin was in Marius’s life—going to all that trouble to find his missing family members—she had a feeling he would
make
it his business, especially if her relationship with Marius became serious. She’d have to make sure it didn’t become serious. In freewheeling cities like Riat, it was acceptable, even expected, for single men and women to have affairs before marriage. If her relationship with Marius was nothing more than a casual affair, the cousin should have no reason for concern.

Marius took her hand and clasped her fingers. His touch, innocent as it was, tingled against her flesh. “I should have told you about my family a long time ago. I’m sure you must have wondered about my clothes and the fact that I prefer parsnip soup to broiled swan.”

“I did mistake you for a servant at first, when I saw you in your tunic and breeches,” said Isolda. “That was four years ago, when I woke up in your guest room. But within minutes I’d learned otherwise. After that I didn’t think twice about what you wore or what you ate, other than to be curious about your habits—but only because you fascinated me, and I wanted to know everything about you.”

“I’ve always felt comfortable around you, and I think it’s because I never felt judged,” said Marius. “I sensed that you wanted to know me as I was rather than wanting me to be someone different.”

“Why would anyone want you to be different?”

He gave a self-deprecating laugh. “Lots of reasons.”

His family must have expectations of him that he was unable or unwilling to fulfill. It was natural enough, now that she thought about it. The wealthy side of his family would have possessed one set of scruples and ideals, and the poor side of his family another set, and he’d been raised with the latter. “I understand that your family situation is complicated. And I sympathize with not being able to meet someone’s expectations, because that was my life story in Sardos. But...I tell you this honestly, Marius. I have never known a better man than you, and it would never occur to me to judge you based on something as silly as what you eat or what you wear.”

Marius wrapped an arm around her and hugged her. “I think that’s the nicest thing anyone has said to me.”

“It’s the truth.”

“Will you tell me more about what you just mentioned—your experiences in Sardos?”

She swallowed. “The story’s involved, like yours, but not nearly so happy. Are you certain you want to hear it?”

“Absolutely certain.”

“My father was an apothecary,” she began.

“Ah,” said Marius. “I thought that might be the case when I first met you.”

“I’m the third of three sisters, and I’m...well, I’m the plain one.”

“Never say that about yourself, because it’s not true.” He kissed her on the lips.

Isolda flushed. She was starting to believe that Marius genuinely found her attractive despite her lack of traditional beauty. He had his choice of women, and he’d chosen her. He was not like Jauld, buying a wife he wasn’t attracted to because he couldn’t afford a prettier one. Marius was with her because he wanted her, not because he had no better alternatives.

She continued her story. “My parents believed I would never marry, so they prepared me to act as my father’s assistant in the apothecary shop. He taught me the names of the herbs, how to measure them, how to dry and store them, how to haggle with suppliers for good prices.”

“Now I understand why you’re so good at running the surgery,” said Marius.

“But then someone arrived with a marriage offer,” she said. “A shopkeeper named Jauld, who’d seen me in the apothecary. We married, and I had a look at the general store he owned. The building was in disrepair, and sales were poor, but the location was promising. I cleaned it up and found better suppliers—”

“Like what you did for me,” said Marius.

“Not at all,” said Isolda. “Before I turned up at your door, you already ran a clean, high-quality surgery. You had a problem with patients not paying. But in the case of Jauld’s store, I replaced almost everything. I built it practically from the ground up, and through my efforts, we became wealthy. Not like your family, perhaps, but comfortable enough for some luxuries.”

Marius’s hand stroked her forearm. “I hope he was grateful.”

Isolda sighed. “He was not. His friends mocked him for having a plain wife, and I think my success with the store didn’t mean much to him, for all that he enjoyed the extra money. I didn’t know it when I married him, and it wouldn’t have mattered since I didn’t have a choice, but Jauld was a shallow sort of man. He wanted nothing in the world but for his friends to envy him. And they did! His friends envied him because he had a wife and they didn’t. That was why they abused me—they wanted to take him down a notch. Jauld was such a fool that he took their mockery to heart.”

“The simpleton,” growled Marius.

“Our marriage had always been fragile—I tried to love him, but it was hard. His friends’ insults embarrassed Jauld and destroyed what little connection we had. First he stopped being kind. Then he used the money I’d earned him to buy a second wife.”

Marius’s hand froze. “He
what
?”

Isolda’s throat went thick, and her eyes swam. At least one person other than herself was shocked by what Jauld had done. “Her name was Chari. She was younger and...and prettier—”

“He was a sapskull, Isolda, to be fooled by his friends’ ploys and, even more so, to fail to see your beauty.” Marius sighed. “I hope you will not think me crass and provincial for saying this, but I don’t believe in multiple marriages.”

“Nor do all Sardossians,” said Isolda. “Multiple marriage is not every family’s experience in my country. My father took only one wife. My experience with Jauld was my first in a two-wife household, and it was not a happy one. Perhaps Jauld imagined that Chari and I would be friends, but that didn’t happen. We might, perhaps, have reached an uneasy harmony if Jauld had treated us equally, but he favored Chari and allowed her to harass Rory and me. He ousted me from his bed and slept exclusively with her, while allotting me the role of household servant.”

Marius snorted. “No wonder you do not miss him. If he were not already dead, I would wring that simpleton’s neck.”

“Before Chari, the home I shared with Jauld had been a refuge from the pressures of the shop, a place where Rory and I could relax and be ourselves. But after Chari joined, there was no safe place for me anywhere. The two of us were locked into a grueling competition for Jauld’s affections, one I had no chance of winning. I didn’t even really
like
Jauld, and I don’t think Chari did either. Can you imagine? We were fighting over a man neither of us wanted.”

“Well, if he was all you had—”

“In all honesty, I’d have preferred nobody,” said Isolda. “But we
had
to compete for him. In Sardos, there can be only one heir within a family. The heir gets everything, and the other children get nothing. Boys who are not their father’s chosen heirs are called
makari
—in the Kjallan language,
strays
. Strays must make their own way in the world with no help from their parents. Usually they join the army or work as laborers. Most of them receive no education and never earn enough money to purchase a license to marry. They are dead ends, the throwaway children of Sardos. Rory was the eldest, and I wanted him to be the heir. But Chari had a son, too.”

“He chose Chari’s son over Rory?”

“He did. That’s why I had to leave.”

“Of course,” said Marius. “When Jauld died, Chari’s son must have inherited the store and all your assets, wiping out everything you’d worked for. Or were they killed in the war, too?”

“No, they still live,” said Isolda, hating that she was omitting the most relevant detail, that Jauld was still alive too.

“So you left. I’m glad we had this talk,” said Marius. “I see now why you’ve been so reluctant to talk about your time in Sardos. It sounds like it was a terrible time for you, and I won’t bring it up again unless you desire it.”

She nodded, wondering if she could tell him the rest of the story. He’d been understanding so far. Should she confess the truth about Jauld? That she had stolen from him and Chari in order to come here?

“I’m sorry to say that what happened to you isn’t unknown even here in Riat,” added Marius. “I’ve seen it happen many times. Our laws do not permit a man to take a second wife, so what men like Jauld do here is divorce the old wife so they can marry the new. I told you I don’t believe in multiple marriages. But in Kjall we have divorce instead, which is nearly as contemptible.”

Isolda felt a sudden chill. “You are opposed to divorce?”

“When you make a promise to love somebody, I think you should keep it,” said Marius. “In Osler, where I grew up, men never abandoned their wives. I have a low opinion of a husband who discards his wife the way he would a lame horse. My parents have been married for over thirty years.”