Rowan's Lady Read online

  Not for him precisely, but for all that could have been.

  “So we will pretend then, m’laird, to be married for the next year, only to satisfy the marriage agreement?” she asked him through gritted teeth.

  For the first time she saw him smile. The curve of his lips did nothing to ease her fears or worry.

  “Yer no’ nearly as daft as I’ve been told,” he said. “I’m glad ye see it then, lass. One year, one month and one day and this marriage will be annulled.”

  Arline wondered what her father would think of this and immediately decided that she did not care. In a year’s time she would be of an age where she would no longer be forced to marry any man. Ever.

  If Laird Blackthorn did not want her, then so be it. She would play along with this farce in order to gain the freedom she had been denied her entire life. She could travel the world, come and go as she pleased and she’d never be forced to answer to anyone but her own heart.

  Although the thought of freedom brought a tingling sensation that spread throughout her body, her heart felt empty. Void. And she felt severely lacking.

  It was enough to break a weaker woman’s heart. But Lady Arline refused to be weak. There wasn’t a man in all this world worthy of her heart, let alone one worthy of breaking it.

  He turned to face her again. “I’ll no hear any complainin’ from ye. Ye’ll do as I say, when I say it. Ye’ll stay in yer room unless I give ye permission to leave,” he began listing his rules, ticking them off one by one. “Do no’ ever question me or any decision I make fer ye’ll suffer fer it, that I promise.”

  He came to stand before her again. This time, he lowered his face only inches from hers. It took every ounce of courage she had to look him in the eye.

  “Lady Arline, ye will heed me warnin’. Ye do as I say, and ye may just get out of this marriage alive.”

  He quit her chamber then, without so much as a by your leave. His warning hung the air, long after he left, like damp, heavy fog. Though a fire burned in the fireplace, the air still felt chilled, cold, filled with his inescapable warning.

  Now she knew the secret that lay hidden in his dark eyes: sheer unadulterated hatred. And all of it reserved for her.

  With her arms and hands still trembling, she walked to her closet, found the trunk that held her writing materials, her embroidery, and art supplies. On shaking knees, she rummaged through until she found a piece of charcoal she used for sketching.

  Quietly, she closed the lid and scooted across the wood floor to the back of the closet. She drew a short line on the wall. One day down. With a heavy sense of dread, she slid the trunk across the floor to hide the mark that had begun her countdown to freedom.

  Taking in steady breaths she hoped would calm her nerves, she left the closet and climbed into her bed, drawing the covers up to her chin. A hundred blankets would not be enough to quell the chill she felt.

  Earlier, before speaking with her husband, she had been worried over things that now seemed mundane by comparison. Less than an hour ago, she had been nervously pacing her room, hopeful that she would be able to please her husband and begin to build a future with him.

  She cursed under her breath; angry with her heart for allowing even a glimmer of hope for the life she so desperately wanted. A husband who would care about her feelings, a husband she could admire and respect. She wanted children. Lots of children. Arline longed for a home filled with love, laughter, bairns …peace.

  She would survive the next year. She would not let Laird Blackthorn of Ayrshire win.

  Two

  The cursed dreams were always the same, varying only in intensity and their ability to completely unsettle Lady Arline’s nerves. She hated these dreams filled with a faceless man on horseback who was coming to rescue her, to whisk her away from Laird Blackthorn.

  Though she could never see his face, something in her heart told her he was a fine looking man. The dream would not allow her to see him clearly. It was like trying to hold fog in the palm of your hand. You mayhap could feel the damp, wet air, but you could not hold on to it.

  The faceless hero of her dreams would soothe away her fears with tender kisses and the touch of his gentle hands. He would mend her, put her back to rights, and give her a life filled with love, laughter, and hope.

  That was how she felt in the deep, dark of night, in those traitorous dreams.

  During the day, however, when she had better control of her faculties, she thought differently. She knew that in reality, no such man existed.

  Four and twenty years of age, her hopes of a happy life had been repeatedly quashed, with the multiple failed marriages her father had arranged. No longer did she yearn for that happy life, filled with a husband’s love and too many bairns to count. Concluding that such dreams led to nothing but heartache, she decided that once her marriage to Blackthorn was annulled, she would be in charge of her own destiny. No longer would she be subjected to her father’s consistently bad matchmaking choices. World travel seemed to be the smartest way to keep her heart safe.

  Once she was away from Blackthorn, she would demand that her father hand over her funds -- money that was rightfully hers, left to her by her first husband -- money her father had been waiting to get his fat greedy fingers on for years. With it, she would take her sisters, Morralyn and Geraldine away. They would book safe passage and travel the world. They would meet all sorts of new and interesting people and live out the rest of their days in blissful solitude. Most importantly, she would live it without the aid of a husband. She would protect her heart from any further disappointment. She would do her best to keep her sisters from the miserable existence that came with ill-suited husbands.

  Arline had constructed an invisible shield around her heart with a promise that soon she would be in charge of her own life and future. She would allow no one access to it. Hopes, dreams, those things led to nothing but heartache and regret. She would live the rest of her life without any expectations. She would simply live.

  This night, as she dreamt again of the faceless hero, somewhere in the recesses of the dream, was the sound of a child crying. As the crying grew louder the foggy image of her faceless hero faded.

  Half asleep, her thoughts muddled, lingering somewhere between a sweet dream and reality, she pulled her blanket more tightly around her chin and tried to fall back to sleep. In the daylight hours, she would never admit to anyone, not even herself, that she did have a strong desire for a tall, handsome husband who would woo her with a bright smile and tender kisses. She fought to pull the image of the man back into the forefront of her mind and to shoo the crying child away. But the stubborn child continued to cry, the sound of it growing louder and sounding quite close.

  The plaintive wail floated into her room again. Shaking away the fog, she sat up in her bed and rubbed away the sleep with her fingertips. She sat still and strained her ears to listen. Mayhap it was the wind she heard and not a child’s cry.

  An ominous sensation prickled across her skin as the sound again floated in on the dark night air. The cries grew louder and sounded as though they were coming from the fireplace.

  Flinging her legs over the edge of her bed, she tucked her bare feet into her slippers as she pulled her robe from the end of her bed. Slipping her arms into the sleeves, she tip-toed across the floor to stand beside the fireplace.

  As the low embers burned and crackled, the sound floated in once again.

  She had not been dreaming. It was a child’s cry that she heard. But whose? There were no children living inside the walls of the keep. Anyone with children lived in little cottages scattered here and there.

  Whoever this child was or belonged to, he or she was not at all happy. The wailing continued to float into her room, along with the low grumbling of male voices.

  Arline had lived in the keep for a little over a year. She knew the sounds were coming from the grand gathering room just one floor below her bedchamber. Night after night she had lain awake listening to the
raucous, drunken revelry that took place in that room. A room she was no longer allowed to enter due to her husband’s severe dislike of her.

  Instinct told her the child was terrified. Curiosity grew and swelled along with the child’s cries. The men’s grumbling grew worse, angrier.

  Good sense dictated she should stay put, stay out of her husband’s line of vision as well as his wrath. It cautioned her that whatever was going on below stairs was none of her business. She had but two weeks left to survive the farce called her marriage. Two weeks. Fourteen days. Survive fourteen more days and ye’ll be free.

  But the child’s shrieks grew louder. The grumbles were turning into shouts and bellowing. The angrier the child grew, the angrier the men grew.

  Something was very much wrong below stairs. As the moments ticked by, caution and the desire to survive fell to the wayside. Though Lady Arline had never been blessed with a child of her own, something instinctively maternal kicked in. It tugged at her conscience, her heart, urging her forward.

  Before she realized it, she had left her room and was quietly stepping down the stairs toward the grand gathering room.

  Her heart nearly stopped at the scene before her.

  A great commotion was taking place. Garrick and at least ten of his men were standing in the middle of the gathering room. One of them, whose name she didn’t know for they’d never been formally introduced, stood near the fireplace holding a red-faced cherub of a child!

  Long auburn ringlets tumbled over the child’s shoulders. The poor thing wore nothing but a nightdress. No shoes, no robe, no cloak. Lady Arline’s earlier assessment that the child sounded angry had been correct. Her little face was red with fury, her hands balled into fists as she wailed and screamed at her captor.

  “Stop that screamin’!” Garrick shouted toward the child. “I swear, I’ll beat ye senseless if ye do no’ stop!”

  Arline knew it was not a threat, but a promise. Her husband was nothing if not honest.

  Without thinking, Arline flew down the last few steps, raced into the gathering room and grabbed the child from the man’s arms. He responded with mouth agape before his expression changed to one of relief.

  Arline bounced the child in her arms as she whispered soothing words into her ears.

  “Wheesht, babe, wheesht,” Arline said as she pressed the child close to her breast.

  Some time had passed as Arline became oblivious to the men surrounding her. She continued to offer soft, soothing words. It wasn’t until the child began to calm that Arline became aware that all eyes in the room were on her.

  When her eyes fell to Laird Blackthorn, she knew she had made a terrible mistake. He was beyond angry. He looked positively livid.

  It was no longer a matter of surviving the next two weeks. It was now a matter of surviving what remained of the night.

  “I’m sorry, me laird,” she whispered as she continued to pat the child’s back. “She sounded so distressed. I wanted nothing but to help calm her before she drove any of you to madness.”

  As soon as the last words left her mouth, she realized she may have not phrased them correctly. Her husband’s jaw worked back and forth, and she could see the vein in his neck throb. Two weeks had turned to two hours, but now, she wondered if it weren’t but a matter of moments she had left to walk the earth alive.

  The babe thrust her thumb into her mouth and hiccuped. Arline felt the child begin to relax in her arms and decided that she had made the right decision. Even if it meant angering her husband to the point of murder, she could not allow an innocent child to be harmed.

  When Laird Blackthorn next spoke, his words were clipped and teeming with fury. “Give the child to Torren. Now.”

  Every fiber of her being screamed for her to do as her husband demanded. Her heart, however, begged to comfort and calm the bairn. She hesitated a moment too long.

  Laird Blackthorn was before her in three fast strides. Without a word, he yanked the child from Arline’s arms and thrust her into Torren’s. The child began to cry out again, her little arms outstretched toward Arline.

  “I warned ye before, do no’ defy me. Ever.” Blackthorn spoke through gritted teeth as he grabbed Lady Arline’s by her forearms.

  She gasped with surprise the moment he took hold of her arms. His fingers dug in to her flesh, squeezing tightly before giving her a good shake before tossing her to the floor.

  “I’m sorry, me laird!” Arline squeaked out. “I meant only to comfort the babe.”

  “I do no’ give a damn what ye meant to do. Ye go back to yer room and ye stay there!” he ground out as he angrily threw her to the floor.

  The child cried louder, inconsolable, and afraid. Her cries were too much for Arline’s heart to bear.

  “Please, me laird,” Arline begged. “Let me help, let me help ye with the bairn!”

  Laird Blackthorn loomed over Arline. In one swift motion, he bent at the waist and gave her a harsh, heavy slap to her face with the back of his hand.

  Arline fell backward as blood filled her mouth. The shock of being hit overwhelmed her. She was stunned, too stunned to cry. No one had ever hit her before. Not even her father, cruel as he was, had ever laid an angry hand on her.

  Blackthorn hauled her to her feet by her arms. “That was the last time ye beg me fer anythin’, including yer life.”

  As Garrick angrily shoved her away, two of his men caught her, each grabbing an arm. With a quick nod from Blackthorn, the two men dragged Arline away. As they hauled her up the stairs to her room, she didn’t know which hurt worse; her broken and bleeding mouth, her arms where the men grabbed her, or her heart as she listened to the wailing babe she was forced to leave with her furious husband.

  Arline had been unceremoniously and quite rudely tossed into her room. As much as she wanted to cry out and curse the ground her husband and his men walked on, she did not possess such boldness or bravery. Instead, she poured cold water from a pitcher into her washbasin. Her hands trembled so much that she had a difficult time holding the washcloth. After several attempts, she took a few deep breaths and somehow managed to clean the blood from her face.

  A little more than a year had passed since she’d arrived at Blackthorn Castle. Her hatred for her husband had grown with each day that had gone by. But these last four months had been the worst of her life. After the events that took place below stairs, Arline doubted a word had been created yet that would describe the absolute and intense hatred she now felt for Garrick Blackthorn.

  After washing her face she started to pace in front of her fireplace. Tiny beads of sweat clung to her upper lip, her stomach felt as hard as stone, her nerves a jumbled mess as she waited for her husband’s punishment to be meted out. Without a doubt, she knew she had signed her own death warrant the moment she took the babe into her arms. Garrick would kill her for her transgression, for defying him in front of his men.

  While she knew her death was imminent, she worried more over the babe than for her own wellbeing.

  Garrick would not be swift in killing Arline. Nay, he would make sure that she suffered first. Horrible. Painful. Brutal. Laird Blackthorn had made that promise on more than one occasion over the past year. There was nothing in their history together that would prove otherwise.

  The image of the terrified little girl pulled and twisted Arline’s stomach into knots. Such a beautiful little cherub with auburn curls and big blue eyes, or she could have been had she not been crying and frightened.

  She knew not to whom the babe belonged and decided it didn’t matter. Chances were the child had been taken from her parents to be held for ransom. Garrick Blackthorn was just that kind of man. One who would take a child from the loving bosom of its family for a bag of coins.

  Prior to her father-in-law’s death four months ago, Arline’s stay had been comfortable albeit boring. She had been allowed to visit the chapel every morning and to take walks around the keep. At night, she would sit next to her husband at the evening meal, p
retending to enjoy herself and married life.

  Richard Blackthorn’s death had changed all of that.

  Now, she was kept secluded in her room, with the door oftentimes barred from the outside. She was no longer allowed her daily visit to the chapel, nor could she walk freely about the keep. Her meals, if one could call them that, were brought to her room. Her lady’s maid, Margaret, had been reassigned to work elsewhere in the keep.

  Arline was fully alone every hour of the day save for when her meals were brought to her or when maids came with clean linens. They rarely spoke to her save for a yes m’lady or no m’lady. Arline supposed they were as terrified of Garrick Blackthorn as she was.

  To help stave off insanity from her solitude, she read the books she had brought with her from Ireland. When she wasn’t reading, she worked on her embroidery, her sewing or her painting, though she was far better with her stitches than her brush strokes.

  She wrote letters to her two sisters, Morralyn and Geraldine. Letters that she could not send per Garrick’s decree that she have no contact with anyone outside the keep.

  It mattered not to Arline that her sisters were the illegitimate castoffs of her father, she loved them all the same. Each had a different mother but they all had one thing in common: a father who cared very little for any of them.

  Her mind wandered hither and yon as she paced and chewed on her thumbnail. She could hear her father’s voice in the back of her mind, chastising her for her own stupidity. Ye couldn’t keep yer mouth shut, lass. Ye just had to step in. Ye only had two weeks left!

  A cold shiver fell over her skin as she thought of her father. Arline didn’t believe it was his actual intention to be mean or cruel. It was simply how he was. The man was blunt, to the point, and always went straight to the heart of any matter. Arline supposed that if her mother still lived, she would have had her to go to in times of trouble and doubt. As it was, her mother had died when Arline was seven, left to be raised by a man who made no qualms about how easier his life would have been had Arline been born a lad instead of a lass.