Rowan's Lady (36 page)

“Twice?” Her voice became louder and more
venomous. “I’ve been married
three
times! Three bloody times and no’
one
kiss! No one stole a kiss from me as a wee lass! No one stole a kiss from
me as a maiden fer I was married at five and ten!” She waved her arms in the
air. “So there ye have it, Rowan! I have no’ fond memories of kisses to tell
ye!”

Rowan shook his head slowly, his mouth open but he
had no words. He couldn’t fathom it, none of it. Her ire, the fury flashing in
her eyes, her gritted teeth, told him she was in fact telling him the truth.
Still, it was hard to believe. A woman as bonny, nay as
beautiful,
as
the one standing before him had never been kissed?

“Arline, I be sorry, but I truly canna understand
it. I had no idea,” he paused trying to find the words to express his regret as
well as his shock. “I did no’ ken ye’d been married three times and I just
assumed ye’d been kissed a thousand times.” It’s what
he
would have done
were he her husband.

She pursed her lips together to keep from cursing.
She drew in a short breath and tried to shake the anger out through her
fingertips. “A thousand times?” Was the man daft? Had the stone floor his skull
hit just yester morn shaken all his good sense loose?

He took a moment to gather his thoughts before
speaking again. “I ken ye do no’ like to speak of personal things, but, please,
can ye explain it to me?”

Arline looked into his eyes. She saw nothing but
concern blended with curiosity and confusion. He hadn’t asked her to explain it
in order to torment her or to hurt her. His question was born of genuine
concern. She took a deep breath to calm her nerves before answering.

“I was five and ten when I married Carlich Lindsay.
He was old enough to be my great-grandsire,” she cleared away the walnut sized
lump in her throat that always came with his memory. “He was a verra good man.
He treated me more like a favorite granddaughter than a wife. We became verra
dear friends. He kissed me hand at our weddin’.” She felt her face growing warm
for it was extremely difficult to explain to anyone, least of all to the man
standing before her.

“He couldna,” she stumbled briefly over the word
and had to try twice before it would leave her mouth. “He couldna consummate
the marriage because of his age and he didna have any romantic feelin’s fer me.
But I loved him and he loved me just the same. He was a verra good man.”

She began to feel tired. She closed the lid to the
trunk and sat on it. Fidgeting with the sleeve of her dress she went on with
the rest of the sordid details of her marriages.

“I returned to Ireland after Carlich’s death. Me
da gave me a year of mournin’, and aye, I did mourn his loss.” He had been the
only man in her life to show her what unconditional love was, even if it were
paternal and not romantic or marital. “Me da arranged me second marriage a few
months after I came out of mournin’. He was a Frenchman, Lombard de Sotuhans,
from Gascony. We were married by proxy, and me da didna even tell me until
three days before I left for France. The only thing I knew of him was that he
was no’ nearly as old as Carlich. We traveled for over a month to reach his
home only to learn that he had died the week before. He had drowned. I met him
at his funeral.”

Marriage by proxy was not unheard of and although
Rowan had never had the displeasure of meeting Orthanach Fitzgerald in person,
he would not put such a tactic passed him. From what little he was able to
glean from Arline, her father was neither an amiable sort nor a giving one.

“I was no’ quite one and twenty then. I ken me da
wanted me to marry right away, but I held me ground. And rumors had begun to
spread that I was an unlucky wife. It mattered no’ what me circumstances were.”
Strangely enough, she began to feel better with telling the true story of her
life to someone. Telling it aloud made it seem less daunting, less unreal.

“And what of yer marriage to Garrick?” Rowan
asked. He remained near the doorway, leaning against the wall with his arms
crossed over his chest. The story of how she became married to Garrick and how
that marriage subsequently became annulled was in Rowan’s mind, the most
important.

She drew a deep breath in through her nostrils and
finally looked up at Rowan. “’Twas yet another arranged marriage.” The marriage
that for at least a few days had held the most promise and hope. Garrick had
ground her dreams into a fine powder that blew away on winds of despair.

“Lily mentioned yer sisters,” Rowan said. “That ye
only married Garrick because of them.”

“I only told her the story to gain her trust. If
she kent that I hadn’t married him willingly, then she’d feel safer with me,”
she explained. “But aye, ’tis true. Me da tried everythin’ to get me to agree
to marry Garrick. I had developed a verra sour taste toward marriage, ye ken. I
wanted only to leave Ireland, to take me sisters far away, somewhere safe. Me
da knew too well how I love me sisters. He threatened to take them away from
me, hide them some place where I could never find them or see them again. I
couldna let that happen.”

The tears she’d been holding back began to escape.
Frustrated, she wiped them away and took deep breaths. “I love me sisters, more
than anythin’. I ken what me da is capable of. ’Tisn’t like ye and Lily. He has
no fond feelin’s fer me, he doesna care if I am in a happy marriage or a
miserable one. I’m nothin’ more than chattel, to be bartered with, used. So I
married Garrick to keep me sisters safe.”

Though she didn’t say it out loud, he could hear
her speak the words he’d heard her say on more than one occasion.
Because it
was the right thing to do.
She would sacrifice her own happiness so that
her two sisters could be safe.

“And how did it come to be annulled, Arline?” He’d
been wanting to know the answer to that question for weeks.

She pushed herself to her feet and turned away
from him. She spoke to him over her shoulder. “Garrick had no desire to marry
me. He was pushed into it by his father. Ye see, Garrick was in love with a woman
named Ona but his da
hated
her because she was Scots. I think his da
thought if he married me, Garrick would come to love me. But that was no’ the
case.

“Garrick had a clause put into the marriage
contract. It said if I didn’t give birth or conceive a child with him after one
year, a month and a day, then he could have the marriage annulled.”

There it was, like a kick in the gut. She
was
as Thomas had feared, barren. He felt like crawling away now, to hide his pain
and anguish. He started to speak but Arline went on.

“Garrick made
certain
there’d be no
bairns.”

Rowan’s brow knitted, and he came away from the
wall. “What do ye mean, he made
certain
there’d be no bairns.”

“Our marriage was never…” she paused, embarrassed
and humiliated. “’Twas never made official. On our weddin’ day, he gave me a
verra chaste kiss on me cheek. And other than the beatins he gave me, he never
touched me. He never shared me bed.”

Good lord, she was a virgin! As pure as the day
she was born!
He wanted to shout, to dance about the room, to shout with
glee! She wasn’t barren, she was
pure! Untouched!

He stood mute all the while his insides were
dancing with joy at this revelation. He could ask for her hand. They could
build a life together.

He could not hide his glee as a grand smile formed
on his lips. He was just about to go to her, take her in his arms and kiss her,
when she turned to look at him.

There it was. His dashing smile and perfectly
white teeth. She’d been wrong. He found amusement in her pain, in her
humiliation. Her voice, along with that tiny last morsel of hope that she’d
clung to all these weeks, left her.

She felt hollow, unworthy, stupid and foolish. She
grabbed her cloak from the peg and swept by him before he could respond.

“Arline,” he called after her. “Wait!”

She stopped in the doorway and whirled around to
face him. She’d be damned if she’d let him torment her further. “Go to hell,
Rowan Graham.”

Had he been closer, she would have slapped the smile
from his face. Instead, she turned and ran from the room.

Arline pulled on her cloak as she raced down the
stairs. The children were playing at the bottom, waiting patiently for her.
Robert, Jenny, Lily, and seven other little ones, all happy and unaware of her
distress.

They squealed with delight as she swept passed
them in a hurry, thinking mayhap it was a game. Arline flung open the door, her
gaggle of children following happily on her heals. She paid them no mind as she
raced down the stairs and into the courtyard.

The cold air pricked at her wet cheeks and made
her lungs ache when she breathed in. Her feet sank into the frozen snow,
hitting her somewhere mid calf, but she did not care.

Her only thought was to get away. Away from this
keep and away from Rowan Graham and his blasted perfect smile. She could barely
hear the children as they called out, begging for her to slow down. Her heart
beat wildly against her chest as the blood ran cold through her veins.

The closer she drew to the inner wall of the keep,
the deeper the snow became. Soon, she was trudging through icy cold snow up to
her knees. Her anger and humiliation pushed her forward.

“Open the gate!” she called up to the men standing
guard on the wall. “Open the bloody gate!”

The two men looked befuddled by her order as they
peered down over the ledge at her. A quick glance in their direction told her
they would not heed her request.
Damned bloody men!

She could now hear Rowan’s voice shouting over the
din of the children. Arline glanced over her shoulder to see that he was chasing
after her, his movements slowed by the clamoring children and the snow.

Certain there had to be a door somewhere along the
wall, she veered left, determined to find a way out of this place. The further
east she went, the deeper the snow. The wind had carried it in, over the tall
walls where it built up inch by inch until it almost reached the top of the
wall. If she couldn’t find a door, she’d climb the mountain of snow and scale
the wall. Reason and good sense had fled the moment she saw Rowan smiling at
her in her dressing room. She didn’t care if she froze to death. She was
determined to get as far away from here as she could. Her heart could simply
stand no more.

As she struggled through and up the large bank of
snow, she knew she was being stupid by running away. Mayhap she truly didn’t
want to run far away, mayhap just away from Rowan for a time, to gather her
wits and pride.

The more she struggled the more she realized the
recklessness of her folly. Her hands began to ache, along with her feet and
legs. The snow clung to the hems of her skirts and to her cloak. Mayhap, this
wasn’t the best of ideas.

She stopped at the peak of the snow bank, her head
just an inch or two from the top of the wall. Freedom lay on the other side.
But freedom from what?

She turned around and saw the group of children.
They had stopped following and now stood huddled together watching her. One by
one they began to question if this was a grand game or if Lady Arline had lost
her mind.

Arline caught sight of Lily standing in the middle
of the group. Her heart paused a beat or two when she saw the look of fear on
the precious child’s face. She could not leave Lily, not like this, in such a
mad and immature fashion. What would the child learn from this? That when
things got to be too much to bear, you went running out, improperly dressed,
crying like a fool and risking your life?

Then she saw Rowan, trudging through the snow and
he looked furious. All sense of reason left her mind then. Quickly, she turned
around and reached up to the top of the wall, her fingers slipping once, then
twice.

“Arline!” Rowan called out, his voice echoing in
the still morning air, bouncing off the walls. “Stop!”

She decided it would serve him right for laughing
if she made it to the top of the wall then slipped and broke her neck. He could
blame no one but himself if she suffered some horrible injury. Would he laugh
then? Or would he live the rest of his life, riddled with guilt?

She let loose with a deep growl, tried once again
to grab the top of the wall. Success! It nearly made her wet herself!

She pulled up, with all her might, flung her
tired, heavy legs over the cold stone wall, her bare thighs screaming in
protest at the frigid air that whirled under her skirts and then again when her
bare skin touched the icy cold stones.

Moments later, she was on top of the wall, laying
flat, and looking down. Blessed be the saints! More snow was packed into a
large, deep drift on the opposite side. She had fallen farther than this down
the embankment all those many weeks ago.

Taking a deep breath she sat upright and jumped.

Fell was a more apt description. And as she
floated through the air, she heard Rowan and all of his men calling out after
her, begging her to stop.

She landed on her feet, fell to her knees, then
ended up planting her face in the snow. Muttering curses under her breath,
damning Rowan Graham to an eternity in hell, she pushed herself up, slowly.
Never, in all her days had she been so cold!

She wiped as much of the snow as she could from her
face and ran. She ran as fast as her numbingly cold legs and feet would carry
her. Ignoring the men who called out for her as well as the pounding in her
head, she half fell and half ran, like a crazed woman, to the outer curtain
wall.

The edges of the wall tapered the closer it got to
the loch. The snow had drifted over the top of it, nearest the shortest ends.
It was, she knew, a ludicrous decision she had made, but she was too overcome
with anger to give a damn.