Rowan watched his daughter leave the room before turning to face Arline. “Me daughter’s first kiss,” he said with a smile. “I dunnae if I should be proud of how well she handled herself or worried that the kisses are startin’ so young.”
Arline returned his smile, feeling much the same way as he did. “I think both feelin’s are appropriate.”
Rowan chuckled slightly and ran a hand across his face. “She’s a wee young, don’ ye think? Fer kisses?”
“I’m sure it was an innocent kiss, Rowan. I do no’ think young Robert will be askin’ fer her hand any time soon.” Her heart melted over Rowan’s concern for his daughter.
“I remember me first kiss,” he said with a smile. “I was a bit older, ye ken. I was nine and she was eight. Her name was Ella McElroy.” Arline could see the memory was a fond one for his smile said more than words could. There was a devilish twinkle in his eyes as he spoke of it.
“I told her I had somethin’ to show her, hidden behind the stables. It had taken me a week to work up the courage to kiss her. Och! ’Twas an innocent kiss, to be certain. I pecked her lips and then ran like the devil was chasin’ me!”
Arline could not resist laughing at the image he painted. She almost asked if he still ran after stealing kisses from unsuspecting young women, but thought better of it.
“When was yers?” he asked innocently.
“When was my what?” she answered, uncertain as to what he meant.
“Yer first kiss?”
She froze for a very long moment, her smile leaving rapidly. This was very uncomfortable and humiliating territory. Looking away, she answered in short, clipped words. “I’m sure I do no’ remember.”
Not knowing her circumstances or much of her life, he neither believed her nor realized it was an uncomfortable topic. “Och! Everyone remembers their first kiss, lass!”
She ignored him, left him standing in the middle of her bedchamber as she returned to her dressing room. Her face was hot, burning with mortification and she did not want to explain anything to him.
Rowan came to stand in the doorway between her sleeping chamber and dressing room. “Lass, there be nothin’ to be embarrassed over. Not everyone’s first kiss was as romantic as mine.” He was smiling, trying his best to add some levity to the moment. He hadn’t meant to embarrass her, but his curiosity had been piqued.
She was a woman full grown, married twice, and yet she had blushed like a young maiden when he asked the question. Lady Arline was a bold, brave woman, yet this topic seemed to unsettle her.
Arline stood with her back to him, pretending to sort through her trunk in search of something. Her chest hurt, her eyes stung as an empty feeling draped over her.
Rowan began to wonder why she refused to discuss something as simple as a first kiss. He studied her closely, saw her shoulders fall as if weighted down by some unseen force. Although he could not see her face, he sensed she was despondent, but why?
Mayhap her first kiss was not a kind one? Mayhap it had been a horrible experience, one that had scarred her, left her feeling sad and ashamed. Suddenly he felt like an oaf, an uncaring idiot for having pushed the subject and causing her pain. “Arline,” he said softly. “I be terribly sorry if I hurt yer feelin’s. I didna realize that mayhap yer first kiss is not one ye wish to remember. I be sorry, lass.”
She could have left it alone then, let him believe whatever he wished. But the pity in his voice irritated her, like sand caught between her toes. It ground and aggravated and sent her over the edge of reason.
Arline spun around to look at him. “Me first kiss? Do ye truly want to ken the truth, Rowan?”
He started to speak, but was at a loss. Her eyes burned with more than anger. They were filled with hurt, pain, and something he could not quite identify. He decided it best to remain silent for now.
“The truth of the matter is this Rowan. Standing before ye is a woman full-grown, a woman of almost five and twenty and she’s never been kissed.” She threw the words at him like rocks, for the sole purpose of hurting him, even though in truth, the last thing she ever wanted to do was hurt him. But threw them she did for she was tired of being alone with her pain and sorrow and longing.
He looked at her as though she had just sprouted an extra set of arms. “But ye’ve been married, lass! Twice! How can ye be married twice and no’ be kissed?” He couldn’t imagine being married to her and not kissing her at least a hundred times a day.
“Twice?” Her voice became louder and more venomous. “I’ve been married three times! Three bloody times and no’ one kiss! No one stole a kiss from me as a wee lass! No one stole a kiss from me as a maiden fer I was married at five and ten!” She waved her arms in the air. “So there ye have it, Rowan! I have no’ fond memories of kisses to tell ye!”
Rowan shook his head slowly, his mouth open but he had no words. He couldn’t fathom it, none of it. Her ire, the fury flashing in her eyes, her gritted teeth, told him she was in fact telling him the truth. Still, it was hard to believe. A woman as bonny, nay as beautiful, as the one standing before him had never been kissed?
“Arline, I be sorry, but I truly canna understand it. I had no idea,” he paused trying to find the words to express his regret as well as his shock. “I did no’ ken ye’d been married three times and I just assumed ye’d been kissed a thousand times.” It’s what he would have done were he her husband.
She pursed her lips together to keep from cursing. She drew in a short breath and tried to shake the anger out through her fingertips. “A thousand times?” Was the man daft? Had the stone floor his skull hit just yester morn shaken all his good sense loose?
He took a moment to gather his thoughts before speaking again. “I ken ye do no’ like to speak of personal things, but, please, can ye explain it to me?”
Arline looked into his eyes. She saw nothing but concern blended with curiosity and confusion. He hadn’t asked her to explain it in order to torment her or to hurt her. His question was born of genuine concern. She took a deep breath to calm her nerves before answering.
“I was five and ten when I married Carlich Lindsay. He was old enough to be my great-grandsire,” she cleared away the walnut sized lump in her throat that always came with his memory. “He was a verra good man. He treated me more like a favorite granddaughter than a wife. We became verra dear friends. He kissed me hand at our weddin’.” She felt her face growing warm for it was extremely difficult to explain to anyone, least of all to the man standing before her.
“He couldna,” she stumbled briefly over the word and had to try twice before it would leave her mouth. “He couldna consummate the marriage because of his age and he didna have any romantic feelin’s fer me. But I loved him and he loved me just the same. He was a verra good man.”
She began to feel tired. She closed the lid to the trunk and sat on it. Fidgeting with the sleeve of her dress she went on with the rest of the sordid details of her marriages.
“I returned to Ireland after Carlich’s death. Me da gave me a year of mournin’, and aye, I did mourn his loss.” He had been the only man in her life to show her what unconditional love was, even if it were paternal and not romantic or marital. “Me da arranged me second marriage a few months after I came out of mournin’. He was a Frenchman, Lombard de Sotuhans, from Gascony. We were married by proxy, and me da didna even tell me until three days before I left for France. The only thing I knew of him was that he was no’ nearly as old as Carlich. We traveled for over a month to reach his home only to learn that he had died the week before. He had drowned. I met him at his funeral.”
Marriage by proxy was not unheard of and although Rowan had never had the displeasure of meeting Orthanach Fitzgerald in person, he would not put such a tactic passed him. From what little he was able to glean from Arline, her father was neither an amiable sort nor a giving one.
“I was no’ quite one and twenty then. I ken me da wanted me to marry right away, but I held me ground. And rumors had
begun to spread that I was an unlucky wife. It mattered no’ what me circumstances were.” Strangely enough, she began to feel better with telling the true story of her life to someone. Telling it aloud made it seem less daunting, less unreal.
“And what of yer marriage to Garrick?” Rowan asked. He remained near the doorway, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest. The story of how she became married to Garrick and how that marriage subsequently became annulled was in Rowan’s mind, the most important.
She drew a deep breath in through her nostrils and finally looked up at Rowan. “’Twas yet another arranged marriage.” The marriage that for at least a few days had held the most promise and hope. Garrick had ground her dreams into a fine powder that blew away on winds of despair.
“Lily mentioned yer sisters,” Rowan said. “That ye only married Garrick because of them.”
“I only told her the story to gain her trust. If she kent that I hadn’t married him willingly, then she’d feel safer with me,” she explained. “But aye, ’tis true. Me da tried everythin’ to get me to agree to marry Garrick. I had developed a verra sour taste toward marriage, ye ken. I wanted only to leave Ireland, to take me sisters far away, somewhere safe. Me da knew too well how I love me sisters. He threatened to take them away from me, hide them some place where I could never find them or see them again. I couldna let that happen.”
The tears she’d been holding back began to escape. Frustrated, she wiped them away and took deep breaths. “I love me sisters, more than anythin’. I ken what me da is capable of. ’Tisn’t like ye and Lily. He has no fond feelin’s fer me, he doesna care if I am in a happy marriage or a miserable one. I’m nothin’ more than chattel, to be bartered with, used. So I married Garrick to keep me sisters safe.”
Though she didn’t say it out loud, he could hear her speak the words he’d heard her say on more than one occasion. Because it was the right thing to do. She would sacrifice her own happiness so that her two sisters could be safe.
“And how did it come to be annulled, Arline?” He’d been wanting to know the answer to that question for weeks.
She pushed herself to her feet and turned away from him. She spoke to him over her shoulder. “Garrick had no desire to marry me. He was pushed into it by his father. Ye see, Garrick was in love with a woman named Ona but his da hated her because she was Scots. I think his da thought if he married me, Garrick would come to love me. But that was no’ the case.
“Garrick had a clause put into the marriage contract. It said if I didn’t give birth or conceive a child with him after one year, a month and a day, then he could have the marriage annulled.”
There it was, like a kick in the gut. She was as Thomas had feared, barren. He felt like crawling away now, to hide his pain and anguish. He started to speak but Arline went on.
“Garrick made certain there’d be no bairns.”
Rowan’s brow knitted, and he came away from the wall. “What do ye mean, he made certain there’d be no bairns.”
“Our marriage was never…” she paused, embarrassed and humiliated. “’Twas never made official. On our weddin’ day, he gave me a verra chaste kiss on me cheek. And other than the beatins he gave me, he never touched me. He never shared me bed.”
Good lord, she was a virgin! As pure as the day she was born! He wanted to shout, to dance about the room, to shout with glee! She wasn’t barren, she was pure! Untouched!
He stood mute all the while his insides were dancing with joy at this revelation. He could ask for her hand. They could build a life together.
He could not hide his glee as a grand smile formed on his lips. He was just about to go to her, take her in his arms and kiss her, when she turned to look at him.
There it was. His dashing smile and perfectly white teeth. She’d been wrong. He found amusement in her pain, in her humiliation. Her voice, along with that tiny last morsel of hope that she’d clung to all these weeks, left her.
She felt hollow, unworthy, stupid and foolish. She grabbed her cloak from the peg and swept by him before he could respond.
“Arline,” he called after her. “Wait!”
She stopped in the doorway and whirled around to face him. She’d be damned if she’d let him torment her further. “Go to hell, Rowan Graham.”
Had he been closer, she would have slapped the smile from his face. Instead, she turned and ran from the room.
Twenty-Three
Arline pulled on her cloak as she raced down the stairs. The children were playing at the bottom, waiting patiently for her. Robert, Jenny, Lily, and seven other little ones, all happy and unaware of her distress.
They squealed with delight as she swept passed them in a hurry, thinking mayhap it was a game. Arline flung open the door, her gaggle of children following happily on her heals. She paid them no mind as she raced down the stairs and into the courtyard.
The cold air pricked at her wet cheeks and made her lungs ache when she breathed in. Her feet sank into the frozen snow, hitting her somewhere mid calf, but she did not care.
Her only thought was to get away. Away from this keep and away from Rowan Graham and his blasted perfect smile. She could barely hear the children as they called out, begging for her to slow down. Her heart beat wildly against her chest as the blood ran cold through her veins.
The closer she drew to the inner wall of the keep, the deeper the snow became. Soon, she was trudging through icy cold snow up to her knees. Her anger and humiliation pushed her forward.
“Open the gate!” she called up to the men standing guard on the wall. “Open the bloody gate!”
The two men looked befuddled by her order as they peered down over the ledge at her. A quick glance in their direction told her they would not heed her request. Damned bloody men!
She could now hear Rowan’s voice shouting over the din of the children. Arline glanced over her shoulder to see that he was chasing after her, his movements slowed by the clamoring children and the snow.
Certain there had to be a door somewhere along the wall, she veered left, determined to find a way out of this place. The further east she went, the deeper the snow. The wind had carried it in, over the tall walls where it built up inch by inch until it almost reached the top of the wall. If she couldn’t find a door, she’d climb the mountain of snow and scale the wall. Reason and good sense had fled the moment she saw Rowan smiling at her in her dressing room. She didn’t care if she froze to death. She was determined to get as far away from here as she could. Her heart could simply stand no more.
As she struggled through and up the large bank of snow, she knew she was being stupid by running away. Mayhap she truly didn’t want to run far away, mayhap just away from Rowan for a time, to gather her wits and pride.
The more she struggled the more she realized the recklessness of her folly. Her hands began to ache, along with her feet and legs. The snow clung to the hems of her skirts and to her cloak. Mayhap, this wasn’t the best of ideas.
She stopped at the peak of the snow bank, her head just an inch or two from the top of the wall. Freedom lay on the other side. But freedom from what?
She turned around and saw the group of children. They had stopped following and now stood huddled together watching her. One by one they began to question if this was a grand game or if Lady Arline had lost her mind.
Arline caught sight of Lily standing in the middle of the group. Her heart paused a beat or two when she saw the look of fear on the precious child’s face. She could not leave Lily, not like this, in such a mad and immature fashion. What would the child learn from this? That when things got to be too much to bear, you went running out, improperly dressed, crying like a fool and risking your life?
Then she saw Rowan, trudging through the snow and he looked furious. All sense of reason left her mind then. Quickly, she turned around and reached up to the top of the wall, her fingers slipping once, then twice.
“Arline!” Rowan called out, his voice echoing in the still
morning air, bouncing off the walls. “Stop!”
She decided it would serve him right for laughing if she made it to the top of the wall then slipped and broke her neck. He could blame no one but himself if she suffered some horrible injury. Would he laugh then? Or would he live the rest of his life, riddled with guilt?
She let loose with a deep growl, tried once again to grab the top of the wall. Success! It nearly made her wet herself!
She pulled up, with all her might, flung her tired, heavy legs over the cold stone wall, her bare thighs screaming in protest at the frigid air that whirled under her skirts and then again when her bare skin touched the icy cold stones.
Moments later, she was on top of the wall, laying flat, and looking down. Blessed be the saints! More snow was packed into a large, deep drift on the opposite side. She had fallen farther than this down the embankment all those many weeks ago.
Taking a deep breath she sat upright and jumped.
Fell was a more apt description. And as she floated through the air, she heard Rowan and all of his men calling out after her, begging her to stop.
She landed on her feet, fell to her knees, then ended up planting her face in the snow. Muttering curses under her breath, damning Rowan Graham to an eternity in hell, she pushed herself up, slowly. Never, in all her days had she been so cold!
She wiped as much of the snow as she could from her face and ran. She ran as fast as her numbingly cold legs and feet would carry her. Ignoring the men who called out for her as well as the pounding in her head, she half fell and half ran, like a crazed woman, to the outer curtain wall.
The edges of the wall tapered the closer it got to the loch. The snow had drifted over the top of it, nearest the shortest ends. It was, she knew, a ludicrous decision she had made, but she was too overcome with anger to give a damn.
She fell again not far from the outer wall. The men continued to shout, but her heart was pounding too loudly to hear them clearly. She was tiring, far too quickly. Her arms and legs felt as though they were chained to large boulders. And the more she struggled against the snow the heavier they became.
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