Silence fell between them, not a single noise to break the deafening dearth of words. Olwyn tried to see her life without him, and it was an empty place, devoid of meaning. And then she attempted to envision herself as Aidan’s lady, and failed miserably.
“I cannot change who I am to suit you better,” he continued, his voice hard and matter-of-fact. “And I cannot forget that the only time you’d ever seemed completely comfortable with me was when you’d been secretly planning to leave.”
He looked her over from forehead to feet, his deep blue eyes brooding and sad. “I’ve loved you more than any woman. I wanted to marry you, to make a family with you. I saw my whole life before us, and every moment had you in it. But when you left, Olwyn, I knew that I was all alone in that life I was building for us.”
Loved. He spoke of his feelings as if they were gone.
“More of your silences,” he observed softly, and his eyes grew sadder still. “Once again, I open my heart and show you what’s inside, and ’tis greeted with nothingness.”
Olwyn clung to what Emeline had said, her words all but a promise. She forced herself to speak. “I stayed,” Olwyn whispered. “I believed, I trusted.” She swallowed hard against the lump in her throat. “I loved.”
“This isn’t make-believe, Olwyn, or some story I’m whispering in your ear,” he said impatiently. “I thought we’d made that sort of thing come true, but then reality had its way with us, aye? The reality is that we’re two real people who are well suited in some ways but not well matched where it really matters, and we both need to just accept that. We can’t, much as it seems so very, very seductive, spend our entire lives wrapped up alone in the darkness.”
No more silence.
“I want you, Lóchrann,” she choked out. “I love you, with all my heart, and I never would have left if I hadn’t thought it absolutely necessary. As to our future, I can only promise that it’s what I want. I want you. I know I want you, and if I can have you, I’m certain I can learn the rest.”
He arched a brow. “Can you?”
Olwyn floundered. She really didn’t know what was involved with the promise she was making. And she didn’t care for his tone, either, rich as it was with doubt.
“I’m bright,” she said stiffly. Her pride had been stung, and it chased down the worst of her fears and filled her with a bit of indignation. “I’m also rather resourceful and quite strong and clever. I’m certain I could learn whatever I needed to know, if someone were to teach me.” She raised her brow, matching his doubtful expression with challenge in her own. “I’m at least as intelligent as Mira Kimball. Whatever she knows, I can learn.”
“Is that so?”
She thought she saw a glimmer of humor return to those deep sapphire eyes that she loved so well, and a drop of hope returned, as welcomed as water in her desert of doubt. Perhaps all was not lost.
“Aye,” Olwyn said, and then thinking of how Emeline and Camille spoke, corrected herself. “I mean, yes. Yes, my lord. Most definitely.”
“Will you fight for me, Olwyn? Will you fight for us?”
“I will.”
“Start now.”
Her feelings were clear enough, but her words were trapped in a jumble in her throat, indefinable emotions she wasn’t sure she could properly express.
She had to try.
“I love you,” she professed softly. “I love you in ways I don’t understand, with feelings that make no sense, and with a force I cannot control. It’s bigger than me, this love. Bolder than me, better than me.” A tear wobbled in the corner of her eye, and finally fell. Her words were a pale description of the way she felt. Her hands became fists of frustration, and Olwyn whispered, “I love you as I breathe, as I sleep, as I live. I love you because I don’t know how else to go through this life. And whether you’ll have me again or you’ll let me go, I’ll love you until the day I die.”
Aidan sighed, pulled out a chair, and fell into it. His long legs sprawled out before him, and he leaned his head in his hand. “I’m tired, Olwyn. Do you know I don’t sleep well at all without you in my bed?”
The dam broke and hope flowed into her heart. Olwyn unclenched her fists and gave him a little smile. “No?”
“No. I just lie there, staring at the ceiling, wondering what’s wrong with me.”
“Have you tried warm milk, Lóchrann?”
The corners of his mouth twitched. “Aye.”
“No good?”
“No. Not good at all.”
Olwyn made a sympathetic noise in her throat. “I’ve heard of herbal tonics. Perhaps you could try some of those?”
“I’ve had them all. Nothing. I stay awake until my eyes feel like they’re going to bleed.”
“Bleeding eyes. How awful.”
“Aye. Not for the faint of heart, I assure you.”
“I should say not.” Olwyn tilted her head and lifted her shoulders. “So it appears I’m your only solution.”
“Aye.” Aidan brought his eyes up to meet hers, and in them she saw her future. “Only you. I suppose I’ll have to keep you here with me, if I’m to get any rest at all.” He beckoned her over. “Come here, witch.”
Olwyn crossed the room quickly and he pulled her onto his lap. Aidan’s arms wrapped around her, his embrace hard and strong, safe and warm. She leaned against his chest and heard his heartbeat. It was, she decided, the sound of her own pulse. Without him, there was no life for her.
Beneath her, he shifted, reached into his pocket, and withdrew the ring she’d left on his table. It caught the sunlight and turned to silver fire. “This time, you’ll leave it on, aye?”
Olwyn held out her hand and he slid the ring onto her finger. “I will.”
“’Tis perfect on you. A perfect fit, just like you for me.” His hand smoothed her hair and then traveled down her back, stroking her beneath the fine fabric. “You look beautiful, Olwyn. You look like a lady.”
Olwyn sighed and closed her eyes. “It’s just as well I look the part, if I’m to spend a lifetime learning it.”
“Aye, and I’m certain it’ll take you bit to learn what’s expected of you.” Aidan’s hands were now on her hips. “I’ll begin with your first lesson: a lady always takes her husband to bed after breakfast.”
“Does she?” Olwyn smiled as she nuzzled his neck. He smelled of fresh air, clean laundry, and the faintest hint of fire smoke and incense. “That doesn’t seem very ladylike to me.”
“’Tis, I assure you.” Aidan’s hands began easing her gown upward, stroking along the insides of her legs as he raised her hem. “Your second lesson: a lady always disrobes in broad daylight, as a lady understands her lord’s need to see her beauty on full display.”
Heat curled through her blood, and desire dampened her loins at the prospect. “You’re certain that’s not indecent?”
“Quite.”
Aidan paused.
“My lord?” Olwyn breathed, pressing kisses along the curve of his ear.
“Guarding paradise with a sword?”
Olwyn glanced down and saw he referred to the dagger.
“Yes.” She laughed then, and resumed kissing his earlobe. She could feel him beneath her bottom, hard and throbbing with wanting. “There are large snakes seeking entrance.”
His laughter rumbled in his chest, low and deep and as smooth as his whiskey. His hands were well above the dagger now, and doing most interesting things right at the hottest, wettest part of her. “Indeed, Eve. There most certainly are.”
Aidan’s gaze swept over Olwyn as she lay before him, completely nude, her skin still flushed with pleasure. “You are, without a doubt, the world’s most beautiful, blushing bride.”
She smiled with contentment and stretched like a cat, her lithe body gleaming in the afternoon light. Their clothes were strewn from the door to the bed, and his body hummed with drowsy, sated post-coital bliss.
A long time ago when he’d been young and had his heart broken over his first flame, his
mother had given wise advice: never, she’d told him, did he want someone who didn’t want him back.
He held his warm and willing wife in his arms, and thought that truer words had never been spoken. Olwyn was with him because she wanted to be, and the rest would sort itself out.
Aidan’s thoughts returned to the odd man who’d sought him out by the mews. He kissed Olwyn on top of her head and held her close. There was no room for anything but truth between them, and he didn’t want to start their life together with a secret lurking in his pocket. “Olwyn?”
“Hmm?” She tilted her head back so she could look up into his face. Those arresting gray eyes were uncanny and incredibly beautiful. He wondered briefly how she could stir him so, for even with the trouble on his mind and his body aching for sleep, he felt himself growing hard and hot for her again.
Aidan forcibly turned his mind to more pressing matters. “I have something I need to tell you about, but I’m not sure this is the time.”
“Is it bad news?”
“I don’t think so, but are you tired, love? Would you rather I wait until after you’ve slept?”
“You have to tell me. Now that you’ve said as much, I’ll not be able to think about anything else.”
“Right.” Aidan kissed her forehead and then the tip of her nose. “Just a minute.” He got out of bed, found his coat tossed over a chair, and rummaged through the pockets. He found the paper and returned to the bed, only to find Olwyn sitting up with the blankets clutched to her chest. She looked poleaxed again, her eyes wide and scared. “Don’t worry. It’s nothing horrid.”
“Just tell me what it is.”
“Early this morning, your father’s assistant, Drystan, sought me out whilst I was at the mews.”
“He did?” Olwyn’s lips curled in disgust. “What did he want?”
“To sell me information.”
“About what?” Her brow furrowed. “Drystan never did much in our household besides assist my father and try to drink himself to death. What sort of information could he possibly think was valuable?”
“Well, there’s this.” Aidan held out his hand and showed her his medallion. It was scratched and the gems had been pried from it, but Aidan knew that much could be repaired. “He was afraid that I’d figure out that he had this, so he sold it to me. Wasn’t that kind of him?”
“He’s a prince, that Drystan,” Olwyn said dryly.
“Aye.” Aidan’s belly did a little flip, and he hoped he was doing the right thing. “And then he wanted to talk about your mother.”
Her face drained, and became very, very white. “What did he say about her?”
“She didn’t leave you, Olwyn,” he said as gently as he could manage. She deserved to know that she’d been loved and wanted. She deserved the very best.
He reached out and touched the streak of white that ran through her hair like lightning tearing through a midnight sky. Her mother’s legacy, and the perfect summation of Olwyn herself, darkness streaked with light, a mark that identified her as different, unusual, and striking.
“She did leave. I woke one morning and she was gone.”
“Aye, because your father made her go. He’d found out that she’d been planning to run off with you, and in turn, he’d had Drystan drive her off in the night and leave her. Apparently, your father threatened to hurt you if she tried to come back for you.” He didn’t tell her that Rhys had sworn he would murder Olwyn in her sleep. According to Drystan, Rhys had put the fear of her daughter’s life in Talfryn.
Aidan handed Olwyn the paper that he’d purchased with a few cases of whiskey, a wagon and horse, and a sack of coins. A fortune for a piece of paper, but what Drystan hadn’t known was Aidan would have paid anything for the letter he held. “Your mother wrote this to you, and begged Drystan to give it to you in secret.”
Olwyn stared at the paper, her eyes wide. She was so still and quiet that Aidan began to fear he’d gone about telling her in the wrong way.
“Olwyn? Are you all right?”
“Bastard,” she breathed.
“Aye,” Aidan answered her grimly. “The both of them.”
“I shall never mourn him,” she said with a quiet fierceness. “Burn his unshriven corpse if it isn’t already buried, and if it is, take me to his grave so I can spit on it.”
“Olwyn.”
“I hate him. I’m glad he’s dead, because if he were not, I’d be a murderer within the space of time it would take me to find him. I’d bury my dagger in the cavity of his chest, precisely where his heart was missing.”
“Olwyn.”
“And Drystan. I’ll hunt him down, slice his testicles off, and feed them to him. That rat. He knew all those years what had become of my mother, and he kept it from me. I’ll kill him. I’ll cut his throat and spit in his neck.”
“Olwyn.”
She brought her eyes up to his, the clear gray of them piercing and primordial. And Aidan decided then and there that his wife was most definitely not a woman to cross lightly.
“Olwyn,” he said again, this time with a nudge at her slim hand as it clutched the paper he’d purchased for a small ransom. “Hate them as you like, and you’ll get no argument from me, aye? But don’t you think the marauding bloodshed and violence can wait long enough for you to read the letter?”
She looked down on the paper as if she were terrified of what it could contain. His chest ached as he took in her expression, hope and fear combined. He prayed the letter eased her heartache. The girl who’d spent her life feeling abandoned deserved to know the truth.
“Have you read it?” she asked in a hushed voice.
“It’s written in Welsh.”
She brought her eyes back up to his, and he watched them fill with tears.
“I thought she didn’t want me any more.” Olwyn tried to take a deep breath, but it caught in her chest and became a sob.
He prayed that the words Talfryn had written ten years before brought Olwyn some comfort, a soothing nostrum to her feelings of rejection.
Olwyn held the folded paper so tightly her fingertips were white.
Aidan cupped Olwyn’s face in his hands, smoothing away her tears with his thumbs. He leaned forward and kissed her until she stopped weeping. He would drink her tears, kiss her wounds, and protect her forever. Pulling back, he looked into her beautiful eyes, magnified with tears and fringed with long, spiky wet black lashes.
Only moments before she’d been thirsty for blood, and now she wept the fearful tears of a deserted young girl who had desperately missed her mother. It was like Olwyn herself, he realized, very, very complicated, and yet also really quite simple.
The woman, such a strange, uniquely fierce and tender creature, had completely bewitched him.
He put his hand on hers. “Do you trust me?”
“Absolutely,” she whispered.
“Then read it, love. Whatever it says, and whatever comes, we’ll face the truth together.” He loved her so much it almost hurt, his heart full and tight as a drum. “That’s marriage, aye?”
Olwyn took a deep breath, steadied by his words and his love. His hands on her were big and wide and strong. He made her feel treasured and protected. He made her feel safe.
Safe enough to face whatever came, just as he said.
Olwyn looked at the paper that ten years ago, had been held by her mother. It was thin and torn, stained and burned on the edge, a scrap of a page that looked as though it’d been ripped from the back of a book.
She glanced up quickly to Aidan, who waited patiently, and then took another deep, steadying breath and carefully unfolded the letter.
My darling daughter,
it began, and Olwyn began to cry, reading through the magnified, fractured vision caused by her tears.
I pray you get this letter. Know this—there’s not a thing of this earth I want more than to take you with me. I think of you waking and finding me gone, and my heart breaks. I love you, Olwyn. Nothing can change that, n
ot your father, or this hated distance he’ll put between us. I will ache for you for the rest of my life.
You’re old enough to remember our stories. Think on them, Olwyn. They were never just fairy tales.
My precious daughter. I love you forever.
—Mama
Olwyn rocked to and fro, her arms wrapped around her middle. Aidan held her as she wept, great wracking sobs and heaving gasps for air.
Olwyn remembered Talfryn’s hands stroking her face as she fell asleep, the fables whispered in the darkness, and her mother’s warm weight on the side of her bed. Those moments had been the happiest, safest times of Olwyn’s childhood.
When she finally calmed, she looked up in to Aidan’s face, saw his concern. And even as tears still fell freely, she smiled for him, wide and happy.
“She wanted me,” Olwyn said simply. It meant the world.
“Of course she did,” he answered her. The look in his eyes shifted from concern to curiosity. “You said she left when you were only three and ten?”
“Yes. It was winter, just after my birthday.”
“That was only ten years ago, Olwyn.”
She glanced from the letter to her husband, understanding his meaning.
He grinned. “You know, love, this will be one of those times when you’ll see that wealth isn’t just for buying gowns and grand homes. I’ll put every last resource I’ve got into finding your mother. I promise you this—wherever she is, we’ll find her.”
Olwyn recalled the winter that her mother had been taken away, realizing then and there that no matter what came to pass, the history of that event had been rewritten. No longer would she think of it as the winter that Talfryn left her, but the awful time that her mother was taken away.
That winter had been bitterly cold, and if Drystan was telling the truth, he’d driven her far enough away that Talfryn could not easily return. He’d left her alone and penniless.
“What if she didn’t survive?” Olwyn asked softly.
“If she’s even half as resourceful as her daughter, I’m certain she did.”
Stealing Midnight Page 38