Love Me Forever (10 page)

Royce listened: he wanted to hear it all,
every word, every emotion, every hurt she had suffered. And he
wanted to make certain she would never suffer again.

“Arran was only interested in me because of
my brother being laird of our clan. With marriage to me he would
secure his importance and a keep to look after.”

She continued on in a rush, a need for her
to tell him and a need for her to admit the truth. “He had dreams
of the clan gaining power and he gaining status. I learned quickly
that I meant very little to him, and what he wanted most from me, I
failed to give him. He found constant fault with me and belittled
me, telling me how worthless I was. Of course, in front of everyone
else he was a loving husband.”

She took a much needed breath and realized
how she had gone on without thinking. “You do not wish to hear
this.”

“Aye, that I do,” he insisted, or he needed
to hear it as much as she needed to talk of it. He reached beneath
the blanket and gave her hand an encouraging squeeze.

“Sometimes I think you are a dream.”

“You are telling me that I am too good to be
true?” He winked at her with his good eye distorting his features
even more.

She smiled and slipped her hand from beneath
the blankets to lay a gentle hand to his cheek. “I think you so
very handsome.”

His heart thumped in his chest and his blood
raced, flushing his face, a most uncommon reaction for a
warrior.

“You are blind,” he said, laying his hand
over hers.

“Nay, for the first time in many years my
eyes are finally open and I see clearly. And it is clear to me that
you are handsome.”

He attempted to protest.

“Nay,” she said firmly, “you cannot order me
to feel differently about you.”

Feel.

She had said
feel.
Did she feel for
him? Or was it simply pity?

“Besides,” she continued, “you think me
beautiful and I think you handsome—that makes us a fine pair.”

Pair?

Did she think them a pair? A pair was a
match, two of a kind. A pair could not be separated.

“Beautiful and handsome it is,” he agreed,
pleased that she thought them a pair. ‘Tell me more of your
husband.”

Her frown returned. “He was more selfish
than I had thought. In his desire to gain status and wealth, he
attempted to hurt those I loved—my brother and his wife.

He escaped before he could be punished for
his crime.”

“His death?”

“My brother spared me the details, though my
husband’s ring was returned to me as proof of his demise. I chose
not to take it from my brother, and I care not how my husband met
his end. It is over and I am glad. When he escaped, he took me
prisoner, threatening to kill me so that my brother would not
follow.”

“Coward.” Royce almost spit the word out in
disgust

“My brother’s opinion as well. Arran soon
discarded me, for I was a nuisance and slowed him down. He shoved
me off the horse, dumping me on the road. He cared naught for my
fate, only his.”

“He shoved you off his horse?” Royce asked,
not believing he had heard her correctly.

She nodded. “My brother’s best friend,
Blair, found me and returned me safely to the keep and my brother’s
care. He then ordered that Arran be found at any cost.”

“Your brother did not go after him
himself?”

“His wife had barely given birth to their
son, his place was by her side, and besides, there was not a
clansman who did not wish to see my husband caught and
punished.”

“So your brother lacked no volunteers.”

“Nay, there were many,” she said with pride.
“Unfortunately Arran could not be found, so my brother placed
guards around me. The guards were only removed after my brother was
certain Arran was gone and no longer a threat.”

“Your brother takes good care of you.”

“My brother loves me.” She spoke with pride
of her clan and with love for her brother.

“And you him.”

“Aye, though he teased me often when I was
young, he never failed to be there for me when I needed him. And I
have tried to do the same for him. I realize now that if I had not
allowed my pride to interfere and had spoken to my brother of the
troubles in my marriage, he would have helped me.”

“What of fear?”

She stared at him for several silent
moments. “I do not remember when I began to fear Arran and did not
even realize that I did until it was too late. I made myself a
prisoner.”

“You escaped—that is all that matters.”

“I did escape,” she said with a sense of
pride.

“May I ask you what you failed to give him
that appeared to anger him?”

She turned her head away briefly before
returning her glance to him. “I could not give him children. I am
barren.”

“Barren because he told you that you
were?”

“I conceived no child the four years of our
marriage. I must be barren.”

“Perhaps, perhaps not.” He did not add his
thoughts, for they might upset her. He wished very much to prove
that she was not barren. He had no doubt his seed would flourish
within her and he had no doubt that she would find pleasure in
their coupling.

Intimacy with her had been on his mind much
of late, and it was becoming more and more of a challenge to remain
a gentleman.

“Have you any children?” she asked.

“Nay, I have no children.” He paused and
decided to add, “And no wife.”

She smiled before she could stop
herself.

His grin surfaced on purpose. “You are
pleased that I have no wife?”

She attempted a reasonable explanation. “I
would not want your wife upset over you tending me.”

“You are in need. I would expect my wife to
understand.”

“You would not be unfaithful to your wife.”
It was a statement of fact. Somehow she knew that a wife would mean
much to him. Nay, love would mean much to him.

“I intend to marry for love and love my wife
until the end of our days and beyond.”

His words touched her heart, for she had
felt the same when she had married. Her smile faded with the
thought of never finding such an enduring love.

He understood her concern and wished to ease
it “You will know love.”

Strange that he had not told her she would
love again, simply that she would love. “I had thought I had. I
made a foolish mistake. How do I know I will not make that mistake
again?”

He took her hand, his thumb softly stroking
her warm palm. “The mistake would be not to try.”

She stared at him, a tear tempting the
corner of her eye. “I do not want to feel that pain again.”

He locked his fingers with her slim ones.
“You would give up love because of the fear of pain?” He shook his
head as if he attempted to understand. “Yet I have watched you bear
pain with courage.”

He gave her words to think on and a
challenge to meet. “My body heals.”

“The heart also heals.”

“Does it?” Her fingers tightly gripped his.
“I have wondered—once a heart is broken, can it ever heal?”

“The heart can heal only if you allow it
to.”

Had she allowed her heart to heal or had she
protected her heart by not facing the truth? She decided to speak
of what was most worrisome to her. “I thought he loved me as much
as I loved him.”

He heard the pain in her voice and
encouraged her to release it. “You cannot blame yourself for loving
him more. We do not always love wisely.”

She sighed, her fingers remaining tightly
locked with his. “I wonder if I will ever love wisely.”

“It matters only that you love.”

She slowly shook her head. ‘To love is to
hurt.”

‘To love is to know the fullness of
life.”

“I knew no such fullness.”

He leaned down and kissed her cheek. “Then
you knew not love.”

“I was in love,” she protested.

“A young lassies’ innocent love.”

“Innocent, aye, but no more,” she said with
regret.

He wiped at the unshed tear that pooled in
the comer of her eye. “You are more innocent than you know.”

“My innocence has been taken from me. It is
long gone.”

“Nay, I do not agree. You are innocent.”
Before she could protest, he asked, “Have you ever been
kissed?”

“I was married.” She sounded as if his
question was nonsense.

“I do not think you have ever been kissed.”
He brought his lips close to hers. “Would you like to be kissed,
Brianna?”

A warm heat began to spread over her
quivering her flesh. She stared at him, a face that held its own
pain and lips that had not fully healed, and yet she wanted that
kiss more than anything she had ever wanted in her life. And he was
giving her a choice.

“Aye, Royce, I wished to be kissed.”

Royce lowered his lips to hers, and Brianna
stiffened.

He smiled, stroked the side of her face
gently, and whispered, “This will not hurt.”

She looked at him with concern, her body
relaxing as she brought her finger to tenderly touch his lip that
was still red and swollen, though not nearly as bad as it had been.
“It will hurt you.”

“It will be worth it.”

Her lips parted to speak, though words
escaped her, and he took advantage of the moment. He gently
captured her mouth with his.

She winced instead of him when she felt the
swell of his lip; she thought how it must pain him even with gentle
pressure. And then she began to sense the taste of him upon her own
lips, and she suddenly found herself thinking only of his kiss.

He was in no rush and took his time; kissing
the corners of her mouth, her upper lip, playfully nibbling at her
lower lip, and then once again settling his mouth over hers. This
time he eased his tongue between her sensitive lips and gently
introduced her to a kiss she had never known existed. It stole her
senses, raced her heart, and ignited her passion. A passion she had
never known she possessed.

Her sigh mixed with a moan when his lips
finally left hers. While she certainly experienced pleasure, there
was also regret that the kiss had ended much too soon.

She spoke truthfully to him. “I liked
that.”

“So did I.”

She knew she was being much too direct and
much too improper, but at the moment she did not care. “I do not
mind if you wish to do it again sometime.”

He was just as direct. “What if I wish to do
it often?”

She grinned. “I would look forward to every
moment.”

He laughed softly. “I love your
honesty.”

“I have no patience for deceit; I lived with
it far too long.”

“I am honest with you in all we have
discussed,” he assured her.

“I do not question your honesty.”

“Why? I am more a stranger to you than
not.”

She rested her hand on his arm. ‘Tell me
about yourself, and then you will no longer be a stranger.”

He was not ready to do that, and he doubted
she was ready to hear the truth. “There is nothing to tell. I am a
warrior. I fight for my clan and its honor.”

She stared at him for a brief moment. “Then
you are an honorable man and a trustworthy one.”

‘Trustworthy enough to kiss you again?”

Her eyes rounded with excitement. “Most
definitely.”

Her hands grasped his arms when he leaned
over her to share another kiss. They lingered in the kiss, lost in
a haze of tender passion, each wondering where this kiss would
finally take them.

It took them both into a restless slumber.
Where usually they slept with ease beside each other, this night
they both were uneasy.

Brianna wanted to draw closer to him. It was
an unrelenting ache and it startled her. She wanted so badly to
feel his body against hers. She sighed as quietly as she could so
not to disturb him. Her hands simply itched to touch him, and in
places she thought she would never want to touch a man again.
Instead she kept a distance from him. She thought it safer and much
more proper, though she wondered if her fears made the decision for
her.

She sighed again and turned away from him to
rest on her side.

He in turn turned on his side and faced her
back. He had given himself a sound silent thrashing since they had
gone to bed. He had been a fool for kissing her the many times he
had. Now he could think of nothing but touching her and kissing her
in far more intimate places.

He was a man who took pride in controlling
his emotions, his passions. But at the moment he felt like a young
lad who was eager to taste a woman for the first time. That would
not do. Not do at all. So he kept his thoughts neutral, fighting
the urge to reach out and draw her to him, touch her, kiss h e r .
. . and make love to her.

Damned, if he was not in trouble.

He moaned in frustration and turned his back
to her back.

The night continued on, and it was not until
they both fell into a deep slumber that they drifted into each
other’s arms and settled there for the night.

~ ~ ~

The weather turned frigid, and Royce added
extra logs to the fire. Still there was a chill to the cottage from
the incessant wind outside. It seemed to creep through the cracks
and crevices and slip past the fire’s warmth to torment the
flesh.

Brianna had been up and about that morning
with Royce’s help. She was steady on her feet and suffered only
minor pains and aches, though on occasion her lower back would
trouble her. Royce had told her that the bruise had been severe and
was continuing to heal. He insisted she not stand too long, for
prolonged periods on her feet caused her back great discomfort.

She was, however, becoming bored with her
confinement and lack of mobility. She simply wanted to do for
herself without asking permission from Royce. He continued to make
certain she did as he directed, and though she understood he did so
from concern, she wanted her freedom returned to her.