Chapter Seven #2
Stephen was so enraged, so sickened, that it was all he could focus on.
He was in battle mode but now confronting perhaps the most important thing he had ever faced.
In battle, he at least had the ability to protect himself with armor and shield.
But with Joselyn, his heart was naked, his soul vulnerable, and he was having a difficult time.
There was no defense. After what Bowen had told him, he could think of nothing else.
“It does not matter,” he growled. “Is it true?”
Joselyn opened her mouth. But she could not speak and the tears came. “Let me go.”
He shook her, hard. “Not until you tell me the truth,” he seethed. “The rape by the soldier in Carlisle was not the first time a man had touched you, was it?” his voice was a growl. “There had been other times before that one, weren’t there? Weren’t there?”
She broke down, weeping. Before Stephen could force her to reply, old Mereld rushed forward with the fire poker in her hand. She slapped at Stephen’s armored arm, trying to force the man to release Joselyn. When he didn’t budge, she whacked him again.
“’Tis not her fault!” the old woman smacked his shoulder. “She had no choice! Her father forced her to!”
Stephen looked at the old woman, unable to speak for the revelations that were coming forth.
Tilda rushed up, hovering nervously, also prepared to defend Joselyn against her enraged husband.
Two old women against a massive knight was hardly a fight but they were prepared to defend their young lady to the death.
There were truths to be known that, being servants, should not have come from their lips.
But it was clear that Joselyn’s life was at stake and they could remain silent no longer.
The young woman had been through enough and now, when she had finally found happiness, old horrors were intent to ruin it.
“Alexander Seton knew her value at a young age,” Tilda was almost weeping as she spoke.
“He had a gambling sickness and when he could not pay his debts, he would use Jo-Jo as security. Some men would use her to work off the debt with labor while others would simply keep her as a guest for a time. But there were a few who… they would….”
By this time, Stephen had let Joselyn go. He faced the old women with more emotion than he had ever displayed in life. It was unrestrained, unbridled and spilling out all over the place.
“What would they do?” he demanded hoarsely.
Tilda twisted her hands anxiously. “She was young and beautiful, m’lord,” the woman’s tears broke through. “She developed a womanly body at a young age. They would take her to sport.”
Because Tilda was crying, Mereld began to weep also.
“She had no choice,” the old woman wept.
“Jo-Jo would run away and her mother would hide her, but Alexander would always find her and return her to the men to whom he owed the debts. Sometimes he would beat her for her insolence. It was finally Lady Julia who sent Jo-Jo to Jedburgh so she could be free of her father. Then she married off Lady Margaret by the time she was nine years of age so her father could not use her in the same way he used Lady Joselyn. Why do you think Lady Julia went mad? She had a husband who was a soulless devil.”
Stephen just stared at them. His blue eyes were filled with shock.
An eternity of silence followed, punctuated by the distant sounds of battle.
But Stephen remained frozen as if unable to move, unable to accept what he had been told.
When he finally closed his eyes to ward off the horror of Joselyn’s life, tears rolled down his cheeks.
Slowly, he turned to his wife. She had collapsed on the floor, huddled against the wall and wept as if her heart were broken. He went to her, woodenly, his posture indicative of his exhaustion and emotional level. He crouched wearily next to her, gazing at her lowered head.
“Joselyn,” he murmured hoarsely. “Look at me.”
She sobbed harder, pressing her face into the wall. “Nay,” she cried, holding out a hand as if to ward him off. “Go away and leave me.”
He grabbed the hand, yanking her off the floor and into his arms. She fought him for a half second before succumbing to his powerful embrace. He held her tightly, his face in her hair. Her sobs undid him and tears fell from his eyes faster than he imagined possible.
“I will never leave you, ever,” he whispered. “Why did you not tell me the truth?”
She sobbed her anguish. “How would you have accepted it?” she asked, almost angrily.
“The night we met was bitter enough. How would you have accepted the truth? That you were forced into a marriage with a woman whose father abused her and used her to pay his gambling debts? But I had to tell you something. You would have found out quickly enough that I was not virgin, so I told you of the rape. It was not a lie.”
He rocked her gently, knowing she was correct to a certain extent.
He would not have accepted the truth well the night they met.
He was dazed with the revelations but it did not change what he felt for her.
If anything, it deepened his sense of compassion and connection with the woman.
He could not believe how horribly she had been mistreated yet had still managed to maintain her fight, her sense of humor and her dignity.
She was, in every sense, an amazing woman.
At the moment, he felt extremely fortunate to have her.
He sighed faintly, wiping his tears from his face. “Then the soldier from Carlisle truly raped you.”
She nodded. “He did,” she whispered. “I did not know until afterwards that he had my father’s permission.”
“And the child?”
“He was a result of the rape. My mother committed me to Jedburgh so my father could no longer use me. She did it out of desperation.”
“How… how many other times were you taken advantage of before Carlisle’s soldier?”
“My father used me twice. The first time, I was nine years old.”
Stephen grunted with the horror of it, closing his eyes tightly at the thought.
The thought of his sweet, vulnerable wife being abused by faceless, nameless men made him physically ill.
The nausea had returned full force. Joselyn abruptly pulled her face from the crook of his neck and looked at him, her pale blue eyes wide with grief and horror.
“I do not blame you for your disgust,” she murmured.
“It disgusts me also, more than you can imagine. I wept the night you consummated the marriage because all I have ever known is the brutality and pain of coupling. I did not know it was meant to be a sweet and intimate act, and even if you walk from this room and never touch me again, I will always revere you for showing me that such tenderness existed. You have been the one ray of sunshine in a life that has known little and for that, I thank you.”
He held her face in his two hands, gazing into her lovely features. There was no disgust in his heart, only adoration. He rubbed her cheeks with his thumbs.
“Then the man to punish is not the soldier from Carlisle but your father,” he murmured. “You have always defended him most staunchly.”
She was not sure how to respond. “Good or bad, he is my father,” she offered with a shrug. “He always felt great remorse for what he did, but his sickness was stronger than his loyalty to me.”
“What he did to you was evil.”
“I know,” she whispered. “But it was finished eleven years ago. I try not to think of it. With time, the fear and resentment for my father has faded. I had not seen him for almost eleven years until he recalled me from Jedburgh last year. And then when I saw him again, it was as if he were a different man. He was changed.”
“How?”
She shook her head. “I do not know, exactly. It was as if he had grown beyond his sicknesses. He had been kind and respectful since I have returned home. For the first time in my life, I felt safe with him.”
Stephen drew in a long, steadying breath as his anger began to shift from Bowen to Alexander Seton. “Be that as it may, it is well and good that the man is away from Berwick,” he said, “for surely he would be in mortal danger right now. The man will pay for what he did to you, mark my words.”
Joselyn was calming as she listened to his words and watched his expression.
She timidly touched his chin, his square jaw.
“I am sorry I did not tell you all of it,” she murmured.
“I was afraid to at first but increasingly afraid as we grew to know each other. You are like no man I have ever known, Stephen. I did not want to lose whatever warmth was growing between us. It means everything to me.”
“And to me,” he responded softly, relishing the feel of her gentle hands on his face. “But I will ask you now and let this be the end of it; is there any other humiliation I should know of? Anything else you have been afraid to tell me?”
She looked rather sad. “Isn’t what you’ve been told quite enough?”
He smiled weakly, leaning forward to kiss her gently. “More than enough.”
Her eyes began welling again. “Do you forgive me, then?”
“There is nothing to forgive. I understand why you did not tell me at the first. But let that be the end of any secrets between us.”
“I promise.” She suddenly threw her arms around his neck, holding him fast. It was a powerful, impulsive gesture. “Oh, Stephen, I do love you.”
He heard her words like an arrow into his heart.
They embedded themselves, held fast, never to be let go.
He had only known the woman two days but within that time, he felt closer to her than he had ever felt to anyone in his life.
Gone was the sense of self-protection. His emotions were flowing freely for her and he could not stop them.
He squeezed her so tightly that he heard her grunt as all of the air was forced from her lungs.
“And I love you also,” he whispered so only she could hear him. “I will love you until I die.”