“It is not without irony that love makes us better men at the same time.”
“I dinna love her.”
He said the words without thinking, but he didn’t believe them himself. Why was he so conflicted otherwise?
“Oh, but you are well on your way. I’ve seen the change in you when she is near. You won’t realize it until it hits you hard, like a stone striking your head. And then you will do anything and everything for that person. You’d move the world for a look, a smile, a kiss.”
James rolled his eyes skyward. Shabib meant well, but the man was shockingly emotional for a hardened warrior.
“Don’t dismiss it. Don’t you think that if I could destroy the world to have my heart back, I’d do it without thought?”
James did know, that much was certain. Shabib’s religion forbade drink, and for the most part, the man was devout. Except for one night in France when Shabib’s depression was palatable, a sickly sad taste that he could only drown with sour red wine, James found him deep in his cups. The typically stoic Shabib, his tongue loosened by drink, confessed every grisly detail of his wife and daughter’s murder by the Spaniards after being accused of improper behavior and shut out of their village. Trampled by Spanish horses, unaided by any of his people, and left for dead in the hot sun. For nothing more than an untrue rumor of illicit behavior that Shabib couldn’t return in time to rectify.
Shabib had seen red. He had grabbed a torch off the wall and set fire to the houses in his town before taking his sword to any Spaniard he met on the road. After a particularly violent fight that left the skin of his cheek ragged and dripping and the rest of him barely alive in a ditch, Shabib had found a surgeon to stitch up his face and left his cursed home, and those he now despised, in his past.
His hood often covered the scar, but it couldn’t cover the scars of his heart. Only rarely did he bring up his wife, as he did now, and James allowed his brain to absorb Shabib’s counsel.
The lanky Moor smacked James’s back and gestured toward the stairs.
“Since you are not yet ready to declare your love for the lass, let us break your fast. You can show your adoration for her later. Though you will have to come up with a better fabrication for the king, who might think you are rejecting the bountiful gift he’s granted to you.”
James gave Shabib a knowing, side-long look as they descended the stairs and elbowed him in the ribs.
His companion spoke an undeniable truth. Tosia was a bountiful gift indeed.
Tosia had just finishedlacing up her worn, everyday kirtle when the door to James’s chambers (nay, our chambers, nay mine) creaked open.
“Good day, dear sister,” Tavish greeted as he stepped inside. His brows were high on his forehead, his eyes bright. “How do ye fare this day?”
Tosia’s cheeks inflamed, and she averted her eyes. She knew the real question he was asking.
Had James adhered to his vow to not hurt her?
Had he been gentle?
Tosia swallowed her embarrassment and gave her brother a tight smile. What point did it serve to be coy? Everyone in the keep knew what had transpired between her and James the night before. And if he hadn’t been gentle? What recourse did they have if her new husband was as violent with his wife as he was with his enemies? None.
But James hadn’t been violent. Her mind still whirled in confusion over her wedding night. Other than the brief pain of taking her maidenhood, James was the most gentle man she could imagine. He had made sure her body was quaking and as ready for him as it could be, and when he did enter her, he was slow, easing into her gently, and his words of love and passion were a steady chant in her ears. She had been his religion, his church, and he had worshiped her body and praised her, lavished adoration upon her as though she were more holy than the Madonna herself.
How could a man burdened with a reputation as a violent beast, one with no care for agency, treat her like fine glass, almost as if she could command the man himself — if she were so bold to do so.
“He was verra gentle,” she said noncommittally as she averted her gaze and gripped her skirts. This was amostunpleasant conversation with her brother.
Tavish cleared his throat. “Weel, that is an auspicious beginning then. Are ye growing to know him as ye wanted to? Ye believe the king as done well by ye?”
He sounded like a hopefully young lad, doe-eyed and eager to serve his laird and his king. Tosia’s eyes misted over at the sight of this laddie in a man’s body. She moved close to him and ruffled his auburn waves. Time spent outside in the intermittent summer sun had added golden locks to his hair, and he seemed almost brighter for having come to Auchinleck.
At least one of us is, she thought with irrational bitterness. Why was she so inflexible against the prospect of finding a measure of joy in this new path of her life?
“Aye,” she told him, unsure of the truth of her words. She gave Tavish another tight smile. “We will make the best of it.”
If Tavish doubted her, he didn’t show it. His cherubic grin tugged at her heart, and in that moment, she made a decision.
She vowed to give her marriage to the Black Douglas, and their service to the king, an honest chance. Not necessarily for herself, but for her hopeful and excited brother.
“Go now,” she waved him toward the door. “I must finish dressing, and I’m certain that Sir James has a list of chores for ye this more. He rose with the sun.”
Tavish dipped his head and swirled toward the door. Before he disappeared, he looked back over his shoulder at her.
