Finding Sovereignty: Book 2: Reidar & Kirsten (The Hansen Series - Martin & Dagny and Reidar & Kirsten)

by Kris Tualla

  When he broke away from her, she was breathing hard. Her lips were swollen and their deepened color blurred. She looked up, her turquoise eyes brimming, her hands fisted at his sides.

  “Tell me why I’m an obstacle, Reid,” she croaked past her tears.

  “Because you won’t admit that you love me,” he murmured.

  She closed her eyes and the poised drops spilled down her cheeks. “It doesn’t matter if I love you. I will not marry you.”

  Reid rested his forehead against hers. “I don’t understand, Kirsten.”

  “It’s not you, Reid.” She sniffed. “I won’t marry anyone.”

  The suspicion Reid had been silently carrying in his heart for several days sat up and took notice. “Tell me what happened to you,” he asked her for the second time.

  “No.” Her forehead rubbed against his.

  “Something did happen,” he prodded.

  “Please, I beg you, Reid. Leave me my dignity,” she pleaded.

  He pushed her back so he could look into her eyes. “How can you think so little of me?”

  She coughed her disbelief. “Of you? How is this about you?”

  He still held her arms. “You do love me. And if you do love me, you should trust me to be worthy of that love.”

  “You are worthy,” she declared. One hand swiped at the tears which streamed, unstopped.

  “Then tell me, Prinsesse,” he said softly.

  “If I tell you, then you won’t love me anymore.” She ran the back of her hand under her nose.

  Reid fished out his only handkerchief and wordlessly gave it to her.

  She wiped her nose. “And if you stopped loving me, I think I’d die.”

  “So you would rather send me away forever, with no explanation, and spend the rest of your lonely life knowing that one worthy man loved you but nothing came of it?” he exclaimed.

  “That’s better than ruining everything!” she cried.

  Frustrated, Reid gave her a little shake. “There is nothing you could say that would make me stop loving you. Trust me—I have imagined every possibility,” he argued.

  Her gaze narrowed angrily. “Trust me. There is indeed one which you haven’t considered.”

  Reid let go of her and sat back in his chair. He was getting nowhere in this skirmish. He needed to pull out his canon.

  “I don’t care if you are not a virgin,” he stated. “Neither am I. It doesn’t matter.”

  Kirsten’s eyes rounded. “How dare you!”

  “That’s it, isn’t it?” he shot again. “You are afraid your husband will find out on your wedding night that you succumbed to a rake during a youthful affair and you are ruined.”

  He saw the slap coming and braced for it. Even so his head jerked to the side. The princess had a fine, strong arm.

  “You have no idea what you are talking about!” she screamed.

  “Careful. The servants will hear you,” he warned.

  Kirsten’s regard leapt to the closed parlor door. The color drained from her cheeks enhancing the red rims around her eyes. She stood and stalked to the door, throwing it open and leaving the room.

  Reid followed. Kirsten paced in jerky circles without looking at him or saying a word, until the butler appeared with both of their cloaks and his hat. She put hers on, accepted her gloves, and hurried out the front door.

  Again, Reid followed, jamming his hat on his head and tossing his cloak around his shoulders as he did.

  Kirsten strode down the drive, keeping to the wheel ruts and out of the snow drifts. He noticed she had the wrong sort of slippers on and they would be ruined by the slush. He thought to pick her up and carry her but discarded that idea immediately. He didn’t wish to wrestle with her—and besides, she could afford another pair.

  “Are we walking into town?” he asked when he reached her side.

  “No,” she grunted.

  He peered up at the low-hanging clouds. “Enjoying the weather?”

  “Stop it,” she growled.

  “What are we attempting to accomplish, then?” he demanded.

  Kirsten halted. She looked back at the house, a good fifty yards away. “We are accomplishing uncompromised privacy.”

  Reid nodded. “Everyone can see us, but no one can hear us.”

  “Exactly.”

  “I’m listening when you are ready to speak, Kirsten. Take your time.” He settled in and waited.

  Her sobs intensified. He wanted to hold her but sensed her repelling tension. She soaked his handkerchief, but he didn’t have another one to offer.

  “Are your feet cold?” he asked finally.

  She looked down. She nodded mutely.

  He swooped her up, then, in one seamless motion. He backed away from the wet carriage tracks and lowered himself to the snowy ground, his right thigh burning with the extra weight. He sat on his cloak and fumbled for her slippers.

  “Don’t,” she rasped.

  “You’ll get frostbite,” he responded and pulled the ruined footwear off. With one hand he massaged her toes before he tucked her cloak around her feet, and then his cloak around them both. “That should help. I’ll carry you back to the house when we are finished.”

  His act of kindness set her off again.

  “I don’t deserve a man like you Reid,” she wailed. “And you deserve a much better woman than me.”

  He chucked a knuckle under her chin. “Will you let me decide for myself, for Guds skyld?”

  Kirsten shuddered. It was the sort of shiver caused by crying too hard. “I will tell you. But when you finally see my point, don’t feel obligated to start lying to me about how you feel.”

  Reid put up one bladed hand. “I promise I will never lie to you.”

  She bounced a little nod. “And you can never tell anyone. Ever. Even my parents don’t know.”

  Reid found that easy to understand. Single children carried the burden of both their parents’ dreams on their shoulders. Hiding perceived disappointments became second nature. “I promise.”

  Her lips quavered again. “I have never said any of this aloud.”

  “I’m warm and comfortable,” he assured her. “There is no rush.”

  Kirsten stared off in the distance. “My parents always wanted to send me to visit my mother’s family, but I kept putting it off. First, I needed to practice the language. Later, I wanted to complete my education.”

  She pulled an uneven sigh. “When the Declaration was signed, they gave me no choice. They wanted me safe, they said. Away from the fighting. I was gone within the month.”

  Reid shifted her weight and tightened his arms around her.

  “Obviously, everyone hoped I would find a suitable husband while I was there,” she continued. “And I wasn’t opposed—as long as he was willing to come to America. After being raised here I found the strictures of court too confining, and the attitude of the royal family too… elitist.”

  “My guess is that none of the men you met wanted to risk living in this raw and uncivilized land,” Reid offered.

  She allowed a sardonic huff. “No, they did not. Every proposal I was offered involved me remaining in Denmark and having my parents sail over for the wedding. I wasn’t to be allowed to leave court before the ceremony, lest I be somehow sullied in the process.”

  Kirsten’s shoulders began to shake anew. Her eyes squeezed closed and she pressed the handkerchief to her nose.

  “I turned them all down,” she moaned from under the cloth. “I only wanted to come home.”

  “And you did,” Reid said.

  Her head shook side to side. “Not until… it was too late.”

  A chill flowed through Reid’s veins, one that had nothing to do with his snowy throne. “Tell me.”

  “Two of my cousins didn’t care for having their proposals rejected. They saw me as a second-class option, after all, and felt they were doing me a favor…”

  Reid’s arms tightened again. His pulse surged.

  “One nigh
t, they trapped me in a room. They locked the door.”

  “Å min Gud,” Reid moaned.

  “They took turns with me, Reid. Not one man, but two.”

  Rage reddened Reid’s vision. “Kirsten…”

  “It hurt so much. I screamed as hard as I could but they stuffed a rag in my mouth.”

  Reid felt his own throat thicken with her grief.

  “They kept violating me, Reid. Cocks and hands, over and over. I think I fainted because one of them slapped me.”

  “How did you get away?” he whispered.

  “I didn’t. Don’t you understand? They kept at it for hours. When they finally tired of me, they shoved me out into the hallway and left me there.”

  Reid pulled his own shuddering sigh.

  “Somehow my maid found me and helped me to my room. I bled for three days. I—I couldn’t defecate for four. Pissing set my quim on fire.”

  “You don’t need to say more,” Reid offered.

  She shook her head determinedly, still staring at nothing. “Yes I do. You have to understand everything.”

  Reid clenched his jaw and tried not to commence his own enraged screaming.

  “I was seriously injured, Reid. I don’t know if I can ever have normal marital relations. Or if I even want to. And there is a chance I cannot bear children because of what they did to me.”

  “Were you examined by a doctor?” he croaked the obvious question.

  “No. Only by my maid. But she was experienced with women and birthing, and told me what damage she saw.” Kirsten’s breath came in spastic gasps. “We never told anyone. And as soon as I was able to walk I snuck away from the palace, boarded a ship, and sailed for America.”

  Reid rested his cheek against her hair. He began to rock her slowly, side to side. His heart broke for her.

  “I still love you,” he whispered.

  “And I love you,” she whispered back. “But now you see how impossible marriage is.”

  Reid wanted to argue with her, but in all honesty he didn’t know where to begin.

  He shouldn’t tell her that what happened to her didn’t matter, because it did. Just as much as his war experiences shaped him, this horrific attack shaped her.

  He couldn’t claim to be satisfied with a marriage that didn’t include normal bedroom activities because he ached to share that with her.

  And he wouldn’t lie and say children didn’t matter. Having sons of his own was one future goal he expected was still within his reach, no matter where he landed.

  Stunned to his core, all he could do was try to comfort her.

  “We can’t make that decision at this moment,” he mumbled. “We need some time.”

  Kirsten pushed herself away from him and reached for her ruined slippers. She struggled to put them on while he watched, silenced by the trauma she described. She climbed off his lap and began a wobbling, slipping course toward the house.

  Reid clambered to his feet and hurried to lift her out of the ice and snow. He carried her to the house, not looking at her, his mind reeling and disoriented.

  He set her down in front of her door and reached to unlatch it.

  “Kirsten,” he began.

  She pressed her fingers to his lips. “Nothing you can say will change my mind. Please don’t ever mention it again.”

  She stepped through the door and closed it, gently, in his face.

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  February 23, 1782

  Kirsten couldn’t stop crying. After she sent Reid away yesterday afternoon, she ran up to her bedchamber, latched the door, and sobbed.

  Saying the words aloud brought back every bit of the shock and pain which she had been so studiously shoving out of her consciousness for the past two-and-a-half years. When she closed her eyes she saw the leering, drunken gazes of her cousins, their trousers open and their cocks engorged. She felt the rope around her wrists cutting her skin, the linen handkerchief gagging her, and the light-headed desperation of trying to pull air through her nostrils as her chest heaved and her pulse raced with terror.

  It was a horrific nightmare played out while she was fully awake. Her muffled screams, ineffectual. Her bound limbs, immovable. Her fury at being abused, impotent.

  As she truly faced what happened to her for the first time, her body revolted. She shook uncontrollably. Her breath came in spastic gasps. Unstoppable tears burned her eyes. Grief at all she lost that night engulfed her, pulling her into a dark, hopeless void. She saw no way out.

  Ruined for marriage. Probably unable to bear children. All her intelligence, spark, and beauty wasted. And she was only twenty-four when her future was so violently and vindictively stolen from her.

  The only reason Kirsten was able to speak of the attack yesterday was because Reid held her so tightly when she did. Cocooned in her cloak and his, alone in the open air with no chance of anyone else hearing, his arms like ropes of steel binding her close. Protecting her. Keeping the world at bay.

  Fresh tears streamed from her eyes, their sting prompting yet another salty wash in the cycle holding her captive. Her head pounded and her throat burned.

  Curled in a ball on her bed she ached for those arms around her again. She would give up everything she owned in this world if that one thing could be possible. If Reid could lie beside her, hold her and stroke her hair, and tell her he loved her.

  One precious, impossible moment in time where her life wasn’t ruined.

  Kirsten finally rang for her maid sometime after dark last night. Willow bark for her throbbing head, eucalyptus for her stuffed nose, snow packs for her swollen and burning eyes. Oat porridge with honey for supper; food her stomach wouldn’t reject. Her hair brushed while she sat in her nightgown by the fire. No explanations expected or offered. She climbed under her blankets before her parents returned.

  Reid would probably say goodbye when he left this time. Make some conciliatory gesture. Say he would write to her.

  She would tell him not to.

  Maintaining a friendship between them had no point. Reid needed to move forward in his life. Find an appropriate wife. Because of the war, there was an over-abundance of single and widowed women in the country. If he chose well, he would have both land and sons. He had a future full of possibilities.

  Kirsten rose early, though she wasn’t certain she ever slept. The reflection in her mirror was rather disturbing. She rang for more willow bark tea and applied another round of snow packs to her puffy eyes.

  Too bad I don’t have tinted glasses.

  The prompted thought of Reid rested like a stone against her chest. At the least there was one last thing she could do for him. She needed to accomplish the task today; in the event the man on trial was set free, Reid would leave Philadelphia on the morrow.

  Snow made the swelling in her eyes recede a little. Powder helped disguise her reddened nose. The tea took the edge off her headache, though the core of her pain still remained.

  Even so, the mirror presented a faint resemblance to the woman who usually stared back at her. A shift had occurred, and Kirsten knew it. That woman was gone forever.

  She climbed into the carriage, angry to see the sun shining brightly on the snowy landscape. For the world to appear so cheery felt like a personal insult added to her multiple injuries. Though her physical ones had healed within a month of the abuse, the injuries to her soul left harsh and immutable scars.

  When the carriage stopped in front of the bank, Kirsten straightened her shoulders and stiffened her resolve. She dismounted with her driver’s help and strode toward the door.

  *****

  Reid paced the streets of Philadelphia, his exhalations of breath resembling a vigorous stallion. He tossed in his bed all last night, furiously plotting ways to extract painful revenge on Kirsten’s royal jackass cousins. Slow, torturous, and disfiguring revenge. Revenge which left them alive, yet physically unmanned.

  The way they left her.

  That’s not entirely true.

&nb
sp; Kirsten’s spirit remained. And her intelligence and her beauty. Other than the horrific and unconscionable way it was taken, Reid honestly didn’t care about her virginity.

  Thank you, God, that there was no child from those fucking bastards.

  Reid did care about the attack, however, and the resultant pain Kirsten lived with now. Between his escalating plans for retribution, he deeply ached with it. Sorrow filled his chest and spilled silent down his cheeks. She carried a frightful burden and had done so alone, too ashamed to share it.

  Until yesterday when she laid it on his shoulders.

  He wanted to pick it up and carry it for her; he just wasn’t certain the war had left him man enough to do so.

  Through the last nine years, almost every one of Reid’s hopes had dissipated. Not one of them died a heroic death, making a last stand for purchase. Instead they dimmed, like light at the end of a day, until night owned the sky. There was no real delineation. They simply disappeared.

  No occupation, other than soldiering.

  No home of his own. No wife or children.

  No way to support them even if he had them.

  How, then, could he accept Kirsten’s weighty situation? What valuable thing would he offer her in exchange for it? And what sort of marriage could they have if he did?

  Reid looked up and saw the river. He turned right and kept walking.

  In spite of her fears, Reid was fairly certain he could woo Kirsten to the marriage bed. Time, gentleness, and loving her in increments would most likely breach that wall. That wasn’t a concern to him.

  What about children?

  Yes. What about children.

  Reid always imagined that he would be a father. Passing on wisdom to his sons, outrageously spoiling his daughters, spending his old age surrounded by grandchildren—perhaps even great-grandchildren. At nearly thirty-two years of age now, the prospect of great-grandchildren was unlikely. And if he fathered a son who took as long at Reid had thus far to get around to the task, even grandchildren were not assured before he died.