Chapter 19
Bran woke the following morning to an empty bed. The place beside him was cool under his palm. Some time had evidently passed since Marin had risen and departed.
Daylight streamed in through the windows. He had slept far later than intended.
He dragged himself from bed, refreshed himself with the remaining water in the ewer and pulled on a pair of gray hose and a dark doublet. He'd been about to stride from the room when he caught sight of the rumpled bed and the brilliant white of their sheets.
Her missing maidenhead niggled at the back of his mind again.
He growled in frustration and pulled the sleeve of his doublet and shirt upward.
With his forearm over the bed, he dug the tip of his blade into the inside of his elbow and squeezed out a couple drops of blood.
The deep red droplets hit the sheets exactly where he’d aimed.
He patted the mess about with his fingertips, smearing it in a way he assumed would happen naturally through the act of intercourse.
When he finished, he took care to use the crumpled linen he'd cleaned her with to remove the blood from his hands, further securing his intentional proof. It would not do to have anyone question her maidenhead.
He glanced once more at his handiwork, pulled the sleeve of his shirt and doublet down and quit the room to find his wife. Bixby sat in the hallway and leapt at Bran's arrival.
“Have ye seen yer mistress?” Bran asked the cat.
Bixby blinked up at him. The little blighter probably wouldn't tell Bran even if he did know.
Bran gave him a pat on the head anyway and proceeded to the places he was most likely to find her.
In the kitchen, he discovered Nan setting about the first meal of the day with clear instructions already delivered by Marin.
Next, he went on the battlements where Sir Richard had the castle soldiers already scurrying about to fulfill her orders.
Finally, he made his way to the solar and found her discussing the schedule with a thin, brown-haired woman.
He nodded to them both upon entering, walking closer when Marin waved him over. “Bran, this is our chatelaine, Rohesia.”
The woman had a long, narrow mouth that stretched longer still with her smile. She bobbed a quick curtsey. “Will that be all, my lady?” she asked of Marin.
Marin smiled. “Aye, thank you, Rohesia.”
Ah, yes, the woman who refused to even discuss cleaning and laundry with him when he first took Werrick Castle. Still, he nodded in greeting as she departed and closed the door behind her.
Marin’s hair had been plaited into long braids and wound atop her head where a glittering gold caul secured them into place. Having her hair up exposed her long, graceful neck and he found himself aching to press his mouth to her perfumed skin. To hear her cry out once more at his touch.
“Marin.” Her name came out in something of a groan.
She swallowed and turned her gaze to him. “Good morrow, Bran.”
“Ye were up early.” He closed the distance between them and ran a hand lightly down the side of her pale blue cotehardie.
The silk was cool and slick, and his hand glided over her waist and the swell of her hips, easily skimming over her curves.
He deemed she ought to wear silk every day for the sheer purpose of him running his hands over her.
She stepped back slightly. Away from his caress. “There is always much to do.”
He didn't reach for her again, but he couldn't tamp down the frustration at her obvious rejection of his advances. He thought the night before had burned away her hesitation.
“I believe much of the responsibility of the household ought to be mine, aye?” He gave her the half-grin most ladies went silly over.
Marin frowned. “Do you seek to take my position as well as my castle?”
“I seek to be yer husband, woman.” He said it firmly, in a tone he hoped brokered no argument. “Ye canna take all this on yer own.”
“I have for years. I do not intend to stop now.” She spoke lightly, but he knew there was a greater depth to her words.
“Marin,” he said her name again, this time more gently. “I dinna seek to take anything from ye—”
“But you have.” She shook her head as tears burned in her eyes. “You took my castle and my people and my father’s fortune.”
“Did ye no’ enjoy last night?” He braced himself for her answer and combed through his memory of the night before. He only remembered their pleasure.
Marin’s cheeks went pink. “Aye, but it doesn’t change what I must now face. I have given you everything, even my maidenhead. Please do not also take my tasks from me. I beg of you.”
“Ye dinna have a maidenhead,” he said slowly.
She stared at him and her mouth fell open before closing and falling open soundlessly once more. “Of course, I had my maidenhead.”
“There was no blood.”
Her brow furrowed and she glanced around the room as if she might find an explanation floating in the air. “I don't…understand…”
“Mayhap when ye were taken?”
Her gaze flicked to him. “What?”
“When ye were taken, mayhap ye dinna understand what happened…” he trailed off at the incredulous expression on her face.
“I think I would know.” Splotches of pink showed on her neck and the bit of her chest that was visible.
“But if ye dinna, if ye were too young. How old were ye when it happened? Was it the Grahams?”
“I wasn't taken,” she shot at him.
“Yer sisters said—”
“I know what they said.” Marin drew in a deep breath and slowly let it out. “They're only repeating what I told them, as well as my father, and anyone else who needed answers.”
He shook his head. “If ye werena taken, what happened?”
The confident squaring of her shoulders wilted, and she turned her face away, a clear indication she did not want to look at him. Or did not want him looking at her. “I wasn't taken. I ran away.”
Marin had never spoken the truth aloud. Her new husband was the last person she would have expected to tell. Shame burned her face and kept her eyes averted.
“Ye ran away?” His tone was slow with disbelief. “Ye, who do everything for yer sisters, yer people, yer home.”
She folded her arms over her chest, a flimsy shield to staunch the agony thrumming in her heart. Her gaze slipped up to his face and she found him watching her with guarded curiosity. He stood too close to her, and his very presence seemed as if he were trying to press for the truth.
She looked away again, not only to keep her embarrassment from being so painfully transparent, but also to avoid remembering the lurid details of the night before.
In truth, leaving that morning had only partly been due to the tasks needing to be seen to.
The castle knew well enough its own functions and each person responsible was aware of their routine.
Most had not been expecting to see her about that morning.
The larger part of her leaving had been sheer cowardice, to avoid facing the awkward discomfort of waking up curled in his naked arms, her body so intimately pressed to his own, their deeds laid bare in the light of a new day.
There had been wonder between them the night before, a heart-pounding magic that robbed her of thought and modesty.
But now, with their clothes on, going about their daily lives, when only hours before a part of his body had been buried within her most intimate place.
Only hours before he had licked his fingers after… he had…
He leveled his gaze with hers. Sunlight streamed in through the thick glass window and made the dark irises of his eyes glow a warm brown with small flecks of black in them. She hadn't noticed those before.
“Will ye tell me why ye ran away?” he asked earnestly.
She folded her arms over her chest. “Do you believe me that I was truly a maiden when you had me last night?”
He studied her for long enough for her to assume the answer might be no. “In truth, I dinna care if ye were a maiden or no’. But I want to know if someone hurt ye. And I want to know why ye felt ye needed to run from yer own home.”
With the crook of his finger, he lifted her face higher and he gazed down at her with such consideration, she thought he meant to kiss her. Her traitorous body hummed to life with anticipation and sent whorls of hot, sensual memories flitting about in her mind.
“You want the truth,” she surmised. He nodded.
She hesitated and his hand gently swept down her neck, making her skin tingle.
“I'm yer husband, Marin,” he said in a seductive tone. “Ye know my past. Isna it fair for me to know yers?”
“I ran because…” She winced. Thinking the words was hard enough; speaking them was like tearing her heart from her chest and baring for him to see. “I ran because it was too much.”
His callused palm cradled her jaw and the gentle sweep of his thumb whispered over her skin, too near her mouth. “What was?” he said encouragingly.
“My mother died when Leila was born.” It was too easy to remember the weight of mourning as it settled over Werrick Castle and shrouded all their hearts.
The laughter and joy had ceased, though in truth it had already been much muted through the months that her mother’s stomach swelled with life.
“There had been an attack on the castle before we had a curtain wall. They broke through our defenses. No one was safe.”
Bran lowered his hand from her face. “The Grahams.”
“Aye,” she replied. No doubt everyone on both sides of the border remembered the Grahams and how they had wreaked such havoc and horrors on Werrick Castle.
“My father tried to protect us, but he was knocked aside. We thought he was dead.” She shook her head at the memory, wishing to clear the image of her father laying still and bleeding.
“My mother charged at the man who meant to kill us all. She did save us, but at a terrible cost to herself.”
Bran’s jaw tensed and he flicked his gaze away in angry understanding. Marin shuddered at the memory of finding her mother on the floor, her gown ripped, sobbing, not wanting to live. It had been Marin who helped her to her feet, who got her to Isla for healing.
“We discovered she was with child.” Marin glanced to the closed door of the solar. This was nothing she wanted Leila to hear, especially not when the girl was so loved and cared for now. For surely that was what truly mattered, was it not?
“Mother was despondent. She didn’t eat enough or sleep enough.” Marin spoke gently despite the closed door, ensuring their conversation remained fully private. “She was a ghost of her former self. Despite my efforts, I knew she would not be strong enough to survive the birth. And she did not.”
Bran put his hands on Marin’s shoulders in an oddly comforting act, as if he sought to help her continue standing upright. “That was Leila.”
Marin nodded.
“Her father…?”
Marin cringed at the question he didn't need to complete. “She is our sister and that's the only thing we’ve ever cared about.”
“Yer da?”
The image of her father's weathered face with his gray-white hair and summer-sky-blue eyes welled in her heart. “He loves her perhaps more than any of us, and we've never faulted him for it,” she answered. “She’s the center of our world, our mother’s last gift to us. Any doubt we might have harbored has only produced a fiercer affection for her.”
“Then why did ye run?” He asked the question gently, as though he worried that he might frighten her.
“Everyone needed me.” The memory squeezed around her chest like a vice.
“When my mother died, everyone looked to me.
I cared for Leila and for my sisters, trying as best I could to aid them through their bitter loss and heartache.
Mother's loss was difficult on my father as well. It was as though the Northern Star had burnt out and he did not know which direction to walk without it. Without her.”
“Then there was ye.”
“Then there was me.” She drew in a deep breath, but the pressure around her chest seemed to grow tighter.
The way it had that day. “I was too busy to accept my own grief.” She gave a mirthless chuckle.
“I didn't know the battlements or strategy or how to handle the soldiers. Without my father, we would not have protection, nor would we have the funds necessary to stay fed and safe. I tried to rouse him, but he would not rally. And I felt so…so helpless.” Her voice caught and she drew a deep breath to calm herself.
“Everyone needed me all the time and I had nothing left to give.”
She had to stop for a moment to keep from letting the dismal emotion swelling inside her consume her.
Bran leaned over her and pressed a kiss to her brow.
It was so surprising a gesture, so loving, it took her aback.
No one had given her their undivided attention like this.
Aye, the servants did for their tasks, the men for their orders, even her sisters for advice.
But no one had listened to her heart. Not like this.
With his focus and his concern, he sprinkled seeds of trust into her heart.
And she knew then, she could tell him the truth.