by Tualla, Kris
"The minute I start to believe you, you start lying to me again!" she shouted.
He wobbled his head side to side, his eyes intent on hers and darkening: I'm not lying!
She ran her obvious gaze all the way down and back up the spectacular specimen who towered over her, and gripped her wrist in self-defense. "I'm a woman, Brander, and I know what I see. You must have had ladies lining up for a chance with you since you were out of puberty. And even before!"
Brander loosened his grip on her wrist. When she pulled it away and shoved it down along her thigh, he understood her violence was stayed for the moment. He tipped her chin up and narrowed his eyes.
If they were, I wasn't looking for them. So I never saw them.
That was absurd and she didn't believe it for a minute. "Why not? I don't understand."
It was never my plan to marry.
Understanding fizzed through her and with it came soul-deep humiliation. Her knees felt weak and the weight of her cloak was smothering her. She had to get away from Brander and his discerning scrutiny. He always saw too much and right now she was bleeding regret.
"Oh. Well. Thank you for telling me." She turned to go, eager to find someplace safe to tourniquet her wounded pride and beaten heart.
He grabbed her arm. Surprise made her look back against her will.
Where are you going?
She shook her head and pushed her gaze to the ground. "You don't plan to marry. I understand."
He moved his hands to her shoulders and waited for her to lift her face to his. It was the slight tremble in his fingers that made her do so.
But I'm thinking about marrying you.
Regin wanted to hit him again, this time in a lower place on his body. "Thinking about? Thinking about?"
His offhand words were much worse than the business-like discussion with Jarl -- because she didn't love Jarl. Didn't any Hansen men believe in wooing their women? Or were they so accustomed to winning wives -- with their stunning good looks and overt virility -- that it wasn't a skill they needed to cultivate?
She hit him with words instead. "What makes you believe that I'm still willing?"
The verbal punch landed true. Brander winced: Are you?
"Why should I be?" she challenged.
Because I love you.
That punch took her breath. Her vision wavered as though she stepped into a watery painting. Every organ in her body clenched, prepared to leap for joy. All she had to do was say one simple word; a word that scrambled up her throat and sat on the back of her tongue, poised to spring.
She swallowed it instead.
Somewhere in her mind, common sense waved a banner. Objections lined up and reminded her of what Lord Olsen -- Brander -- knew. And the lies. So many lies. She wouldn't marry a man she couldn't trust. Not again.
"I love you, too," she said slowly. When a smile began to lift his cheeks, she held out a cautionary palm. "But..."
But?
She chose her words carefully; she needed to be very clear. "You know everything about my secrets and all of my shame. You know about my foolish husband and to what depths he sank. You know he dragged me into the mire with him. You know that I am reduced to begging for a husband."
Brander shrugged and spread his hands. He didn't understand.
"I have nothing left that is mine, even my pride."
I don't care.
"But I do! Don't you see?"
No.
She stepped back and pulled a deep breath. "You know everything about me. I know nothing about you."
That's not true.
"Yes, Brander. It is." Regin pressed her lips together.
She knew what she would ask of him, but she had no assurance that he would comply. Nonetheless, her resolve was tempered steel. He would meet her request, or she would marry Jarl. At least that relationship would begin with equal levels of ignorance.
Brander tucked a wisp of hair behind her ear. His finger wandered along her jaw and tilted her chin: What do you want to know?
"I want to know if I can trust you."
Yes. Yes.
"Show me."
How?
"Tell me you love me and ask me to marry you..."
I love--
"With your voice."
He looked stunned, horrified: What!
"I want you to use your voice and tell me you love me and ask me to marry you."
He gestured frantically, mouthing the words: I haven't spoken for eight years. And before that I was a child. I cannot speak. Do you know what you are asking?
"Now I do. And I believe it's fair." She backed away, terrified that she asked too much of him, but not willing to give in. She needed to believe him. She ached to trust him and the dull pain of it throbbed in her chest.
Brander's countenance looked like pale marble, grooved and mottled with anger. He reached into his pocket and held something out to her. It was silver and shone in the sunlight. Regin reached for it, disbelieving what she held.
It was the silver ring that Thorlak sold. The Viking ring that had passed through her family for centuries. The triangle stamp inside the band confirmed it.
"You found it..." she breathed.
He lifted her hand and slid the ring on her middle finger. It was too large so he folded her fingers inward to keep it from falling off. Then he kissed the back of her hand: Lemon soap.
His dark expression was as frigid as his fingers were warm.
She startled. "What?"
Your letters always smelled of lemon soap.
Then he turned and walked away from her without another word.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Regin stood, immobile. Tears blurred her vision and she wasn't familiar enough with the grounds of Hansen Hall to chance simply walking back into the manor. That, and she didn't want to have to explain her tears. Because they were plentiful and didn't show any sign of stopping.
She had ruined any possibility of marrying Brander. She had asked too much; demanded proof he could not conjure. Shock at her request turned his eyes an icy gray, like old snow. Anger sculpted his features and robbed him of color. It was as if she drained the very life out of him and all that stood before her was a brittle façade.
The tall, beautiful shell of a man whose hungry kisses set her on edge and whose knowing touch made her frantic walked away without a word. Without a denial. He simply didn't acknowledge her, as if she should know the line she drew was uncrossable.
A sob shuddered through her and she sank to her knees. Her arms wrapped around her waist. She yearned to run after him and beseech his forgiveness. To say she reconsidered and changed her mind and plead for him not to be angry.
But she knew that was impossible. Once the gauntlet was tossed, it could not be picked up. As pummeled as her pride was, if she retracted her request his would be beaten beyond survival. Brander was a dignified gentleman who fought every single day of his life for respect. Even his own father doubted him. He could never abide a wife who thought him incapable in any arena.
And yet she had no choice. In his hands, every mortifying facet of her days had been examined in the brittle light of reality. His fingers combed her life for truth and plucked it from the detritus that Thorlak left in his wake. And the truth he found was her undoing.
She could not marry that same man if he continued to hold her at arm's length when it came to his own pain. He had to pull her close or here was no hope for them. And if he couldn't do it, she would marry his brother, even if her heart ceased to feel in the wake of it. No other path remained open to her.
*****
Brander felt ready to explode and was certain sparks trailed behind him in the crisp morning air. Inside the manor he took the stairs three at a time and shoved Niels' door open so hard he felt the vibration when it hit the wall. Niels jumped. When he saw it was Brander he blew a paragraph of curse words.
Brander paced the room until Niels finished his startled tirade. Then his hands flew as the silent wor
ds spit from his lips: We are leaving!
"Leaving? Why?"
I will not stay here one more day. Pack and get ready.
Without further explanation, Brander stomped to his own chamber and slammed that door closed with a whoosh of wind. Without a trunk he needed to pack in saddle bags. He began to methodically divide the items he would take from the items he would abandon. And he sent a boot boy to the tanner to retrieve the saddlebags he bought from Jarl.
Damn the woman.
His hands shook with anger. How did she dare to ask such a thing of him? To use his voice? When he screamed at his father at the age of twenty-three, he managed to horrify everyone in the room.
Why did she ask this of him? Of all the people alive in Norway, she was the only one whose opinion of him mattered. And if he tried to meet her demand, he would only succeed in destroying that opinion. She would be disgusted by the rough and badly formed words he might manage. He didn't know if he could even form words she could understand.
Damn the woman.
The boot boy brought the saddlebags and Brander sent one to Niels' room. As he stuffed his clothing into his, he felt as though he was stuffing his life back into its own confines. He had allowed Lady Kildahl to seep into his life and her bulk overflowed his carefully arrayed boundaries. Now he was drowning in her. He had to push her back but it was like pushing water with his bare hands; she kept slipping through.
She said he knew everything about her, but she knew nothing about him. That wasn't true! He had told her so much -- more than he should have. More than anyone but Niels knew. Why wasn't that enough?
I have nothing left... even my pride, she said.
The memory of her words raged through his veins and heated his frame again. The irony might have made him laugh if she said it to someone else. But Lady Kildahl wanted to claim his pride and that wasn't funny to him at all. He jammed another shirt into his saddlebag.
Brander guarded his pride as if it was solid gold encrusted with diamonds -- and he had since he was a young boy. He had to. After he lost his hearing, it was all he had left.
The more time that passed since his second ear broke, the odder his attempts to speak from memory must have sounded. Other children laughed and mocked him. No matter how carefully he tried to create his words, they pretended they didn't understand. Say it again, they taunted. Then they collapsed in laughter when he did. He was cast out of their company, not welcome in their society.
Alone.
Adults stared at him peculiarly, their brows plowed with wavy furrows. Their eyes narrowed in puzzlement. Sometimes they covered their mouths as if to vicariously hold back the grating noise of his voice. He always tried again, pushing more air until his throat burned. After a sentence or two, they shook their heads in frustration and shushed him.
Then they regarded him with piteous looks. Those looks scalded new scars into his memory even now. They hurt him more than forcing sound ever could because they shamed him. So at eight years of age, Brander vowed never to speak again.
He held true to that infant's vow until he was a grown man of twenty-three and uncontainable fury at his father pushed his voice out of him. Raw and coarse as the words themselves, he screeched his objections at his father's unconscionable decision. At the injustice of judging him unworthy for a little circumstance like being deaf.
Not a bit of his outburst made a difference to his father. Jarl became the heir, and the last remnant of Brander's pride was held by only the slenderest of silk threads. But it was still there.
He thrust another shirt into the saddlebag.
Now the only woman he ever loved in his thirty-one years wanted to strip that pride from him. Wanted him to break his vow. Expected him to speak. Not with his hands, but with his voice. His voice! Impossible. What did she expect? That mellifluous tones would float from his lips and he would declare his love in iambic verse like some Shakespearean prince?
Reality warned that he would croak unintelligible syllables of questionable clarity. Rather than be wooed, she would be appalled. Her demand would cause her love to miscarry. She would never be able to love him again.
Damn the woman.
*****
Regin hadn't a tear left to cry. Bereft, she rose on stiff legs, numb from the encroaching cold beneath her, and staggered around the corner of the stable. She paused in the low slung but intense sunshine. The dark blue bowl of clear sky arched over her head and gave the courtyard a cheery look so at odds with the tragic conversation that carved the path of her coming life.
There was nothing left to do but prepare for her marriage to Jarl.
Regin crossed the courtyard. She watched her feet so as not to meet eyes with anyone who might discern her grief. Her boots crunched granite gravel and seagulls screeched overhead. Behind her a filly neighed and a stallion snorted in response. Grooms clucked and slapped the animals, calling out their commands. All normal sounds of a working estate; and sounds that Brander couldn't hear.
Stop it.
Regin pushed open the massive front door. The weight was jerked from her hands as a butler pulled it wider for her.
"Good morning, Baroness," he greeted her with a small bow.
"Where is Lord Jarl?" she asked.
"I believe he is in his study. Shall I have you announced?"
There was nothing to be gained by waiting. Regin squared her shoulders and handed him her cloak. "Yes, please."
As she climbed the stairs she realized she should have gone to her own chamber and smoothed her appearance. She wondered if her recent tears were obvious. She also wondered what she would say to Jarl.
"Lady Regin, this is a pleasant surprise," Jarl took her hands in his. His fingers were warm and strong. She looked up at his emerald green eyes, truly beautiful in color.
"Good day, Jarl," she murmured.
He led her to a chair. "What might I do for you?"
She gave him one of her most engaging smiles. "I wanted to spend a few minutes with you and get to know you a little more."
Jarl glanced over the papers on his desk as he rounded it to sit. "Oh. Well, yes of course."
"Have you time?" she asked, almost wishing he would say no.
"I do," he capped his inkpot.
Regin settled as comfortably as she could considering her freshly broken hopes and waited for him to attend her.
He lifted his gaze. "What would you like to discuss?"
For an instant Regin's mind was blank as the day's cloudless sky. Then, "You know well that I'm a widow. Why have you never married?"
A shadow darkened Jarl's expression and dimmed his eyes. "I became the heir," he said carefully.
Regin frowned, confused. "Was that such a burden that it precluded courting?"
He shrugged. "Not quite in the way you mean, I don't believe."
Something in his tone gave her a clue. "You might not have married, but you have loved."
"Yes." He allowed a wan smile.
"Who was she?" Regin whispered. She hoped to hear something that would help her understand the man to whom she would soon be linked.
Jarl drew a deep breath. "I am the second son. I never expected to be made our father's heir. I never had any indication that was a possibility."
"So you followed your heart, not a lineage."
He nodded. "Her father is the most successful tailor in Arendal. But they don't own land, and they aren't titled."
"So when you were made heir, what did you do?" Regin did a little figuring in her head. "Were you already twenty-one?"
"I was, just." His fingers disappeared into his hair. "I didn't tell her at first."
"Because it would break her heart."
"And mine."
Regin felt her cheeks grow tight with a blush. "Yes. Of course. Did she marry elsewhere, then?"
Jarl's expression radiated pain. "No."
"Never?"
Jarl shook his head. His eyes shifted away from hers and she knew he wasn't being entirely forthcoming. Sh
e gambled that she was right with her next statement.
"You continued to see her."
His gaze flicked up to hers but he didn't respond.
"How long?" she asked. His attention slid sideways and dragged Regin's composure with it. She struggled to sound calm, unconcerned. "Do you see her still?"
"She knows we are marrying tomorrow," he deflected.
Regin began to tremble. She stood on a precipice and would rather jump than be shoved unaware. "Do you plan to honor our vows?"
Jarl startled. "I - yes. Of course."
A sharp rapping on the study door nearly sent Regin to the ceiling. The door opened and Wyborn blustered into the room. She pulled a lungful of air and tried to slow her galloping heart, afraid it was running away from Jarl.
"What is it?" Jarl barked.
The steward bowed. "I'm sorry, sir, but I thought you would want to know..."
Jarl's glance bounced to Regin and back. "Know what?"
"It's Lord Brander."
Though it wasn't wise to display her interest in front of Jarl, Regin twisted in her seat to face Wyborn, unable not to.
"What now?" Jarl growled.
"He's gone, sir. He and his valet packed two horses and left Hansen Hall."
The walls of Jarl's study seemed to be simultaneously closing in on her and falling away. "When?" she squeaked, pulling Wyborn's consideration from Jarl to her.
"Within the last quarter hour, my lady."
Jarl stood and addressed the steward. "Are they coming back? Or am I rid of him?"
Wyborn seemed a bit embarrassed by that query, but Regin couldn't know why. "It's my understanding that your brother will not be returning, sir."
"Thank you, Wyborn." He gestured for the steward to leave and turned his concentration back to Regin. The study door clicked closed behind her.
Jarl banged both fists on his desktop, making the inkpot bounce. "That fucking bastard!"
Regin stilled and waited, absolutely certain that her silence was required.
"We didn't even know if he was alive! Do you realize that? He might have met some calamity and been killed the day after he stormed out of here and we had no way of knowing! He took only the barest necessities with him, and only Niels to watch out for him."