Chapter Three #3
The circumstances were coming clear. Dyce had been right – Isabeth really was alone.
That didn’t make things easier for Ronan, to be sure, but the more he spoke to her, the more he realized that he wasn’t entirely reluctant to take on the duty of her care.
She was polite, witty, and well-spoken and he liked that.
He smiled weakly.
“Nay, my sister, you are never alone,” he said.
“You told Dyce that I am like a brother to you, thanks to him, so I am pleased to assume that role since you do not have a brother. But in doing so, I will make you a pledge – I will never lie to you and I will never do anything that I do not completely believe is in your best interest. Do you trust me?”
Isabeth nodded solemnly. “Dyce did,” she said. “I do, too.”
Ronan smiled faintly. “Good,” he said. “Now, as your brother, I would ask that you please let us take Dyce away so that he may be prepared to return to Ravenscar. And you must eat and rest. We must take care of Dyce’s son.”
Isabeth hesitated a moment, instinctively putting her hand on her barely-rounded belly as she turned to Dyce one last time.
She knew that Ronan was right so she nodded briefly, once, and Ronan immediately went to the tent flap, motioning to the soldiers and the three priests who had come from St. John the Evangelist’s parish.
Ronan went back into the tent to Isabeth, helping her to stand and moving her out of the way as the soldiers and priests went about their business.
Ronan couldn’t help but notice that Isabeth stood stiffly as her husband’s body was removed from the tent.
When he was finally gone, the tent seemed so oddly empty.
Deathly still.
“Is he really gone?” Isabeth murmured. “As quick as the blink of an eye… is he truly gone?”
Ronan nodded slowly. “Aye, my lady.”
“I shall never see him again.”
“Nay, my lady.”
Isabeth lowered herself back onto the chair she’d been sitting on all day, plunking down as if the strength in her body had suddenly left her. For a moment, she simply looked dazed.
“While he was here, I could look at him and see him and not feel as if I were alone,” she said. “But now… now, I am alone.”
Ronan could feel her despair – the confusion, the loss. Being a compassionate man, something he’d inherited from both sides of his family, he simply couldn’t leave her like this.
He had to offer what comfort he could.
“I do not know if this will help, my lady, but I will relay something to you,” he said quietly.
“My grandparents were married for over six decades and when my grandfather passed away about fifteen years ago, we were all devastated. William de Wolfe had lived a very long and very healthy life and his passing had been unexpected. He passed away in his sleep and my grandmother remained with him, in bed, for most of the day before we were able to remove him, but strangely enough, my grandmother wasn’t in hysterics.
She was very composed. She even washed my grandfather’s body and helped dress him before he was put in his crypt, all the while tending him carefully.
When my father tried to convince her to leave him so that she could rest, my grandmother refused.
She told my father that this was what she had always been meant to do, that the marriage of two people does not end when one of them dies.
When my grandfather died, it was still her duty to take care of him.
When we tried to comfort her, she was the one who comforted us. ”
By this time, Isabeth was listening intently. “She sounds like a remarkable woman.”
Ronan nodded swiftly. “She was,” he said.
“The point I was trying to make was that she said death does not end true love. She said that, to her, it was only as if my grandfather had stepped into the next room. Or mayhap he’d gone on a battle march, which he’d done many a time.
That was how she viewed his death – that their separation was only temporary.
He wasn’t truly gone. Dyce isn’t truly gone, my lady.
Mayhap he’s only stepped into the next room if it helps you to think that. ”
As Ronan watched, Isabeth’s luminous eyes filled with tears that eventually spilled over. She closed her eyes tightly, looking away as more tears coursed down her cheeks.
“Thank you,” she said softly. “That is a good way of putting the situation. You are very kind to take the time to do so.”
She continued to weep softly and Ronan watched her lowered head, thinking that she was such a gentle and pathetic creature.
He knew Dyce would be frantic with worry, wanting to take care of her, to shield her, things he’d been doing since the day they married and before.
Now, Isabeth was going to have to face her life without the man who had always been there for her.
Ironic, he thought. My wife probably wouldn’t shed a tear were I to die.
That thought sent him out of the tent.
Ronan was out in the encampment before he realized he’d even moved. He came to an unsteady halt, forcing himself to focus, to think about why he’d just run away from a pregnant woman he’d sworn to protect. He’d just bolted like a fool. And then, it occurred to him.
Jealousy.
He was jealous.
Dyce, his dear friend, a man he was mourning, had a woman that Ronan could only dream of.
While Dyce had married a sweet and compassionate woman, and Ronan knew that because, over the years of their friendship, Dyce had only spoken of his wife and their wedded bliss, Ronan was married to a woman who treated him with apathy and discourtesy.
Marian ran amok and took whomever she pleased as a lover while Isabeth was true and faithful, mourning her husband as he should be mourned.
As Ronan himself would never be mourned.
God, what a mess his life was.
Slowly, he turned back towards the de Brito encampment. It really wasn’t that far away. Men were milling about, leaning over a cooking fire, and the tent where Isabeth was remained still and dimly lit. Ronan just stood there and stared at it, feeling stupid and confused.
But dutiful.
Always dutiful.
He retraced his steps back to the tent.
By the time he got there, a soldier sent by Titus appeared bearing boiled beef and vegetables. Ronan indicated for the soldier to give the food to Lady de Brito, which he did, while Ronan remained outside of the tent, unwilling to go inside and see that lovely, grieving woman.
The one who made him feel so envious.
He just couldn’t shake that feeling.