Chapter 20
The sun was setting, red peppering the groundthrough the leaves. Marcus held Sage in his arms, content and happy. Their bodies glistened from making love. Sated, exhausted, they lay on a blanket, gazing up at the stars.
“I feel a little guilty,” Sage professed.
“Guilty?” Marcus asked. “About what?”
“My sisters and I would practice our sword skills every day,” she mused. “I only used my sword twice this entire time. I feel like I should at least be sharpening it.”
Marcus’s chest rumbled with laughter. “You are very disciplined.”
“When my father wasn’t around, I used to sneak away from my sisters to review the alphabet. Or practice words. That was so much more important to me.”
“Why?” Marcus wondered. “Why is reading so important to you?”
Sage was silent, thinking for a long moment. Finally, she said, “When I was little, my father brought us to le Bezu. As we were going through the chateau, I saw a room with so many books, the stacks almost reached the ceiling. One book had fallen, and I picked it up. I’d never felt anything like it. The details and scrollwork that had been embossed on the cover were...beautiful. But even more beautiful was what was inside. The parchment pages were carefully inscribed with flourished letters. I discovered later that they were words and sentences and secrets.” She shifted to lounge on his chest and look into his eyes. “And if I could read, I held the key to finding out those secrets. No one in my family could read.”
He brushed a lock of hair from her forehead. “You don’t need to read to be special. You are so unique, unlike anyone I have ever met.”
She grinned in embarrassment. “I would have done anything to be unique in my family. Raven is so good with a sword. She barely needs to practice. And Willow. She is beautiful. She has this charisma that makes men fall at her feet.”
“Youare beautiful,” Marcus whispered.
Sage shook her head. “Not like Willow.”
“More than Willow.”
Sage narrowed her eyes. “You’ve never seen her.”
“I don’t have to see her because you are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known.”
She melted into his arms and rewarded him with a deep and powerful kiss.
When they separated, he asked, “It was Brother Nicolas’s room, wasn’t it?”
“What?”
“The room at le Bezu with all the books.”
Sage nodded. “Yes. He taught me the alphabet and a little bit more before we had to leave.”
“I remember seeing that room,” Marcus admitted. “He copied and translated books all day.”
Sage sat and picked up the book from the leaf-hewn ground.
He wondered if she would ask him to teach her to read. He knew it wouldn’t be long until she realized shecouldread. She already had the knowledge she needed to read. She just needed to sound the words out. He swiped a strand of her dark hair behind her ear. She didn’t need him to teach her. And perhaps that was the reason he hadn’t told her. She didn’t need him as much as he needed her. He was afraid that she would leave him. Just like Cassandra had cast him aside. But Sage wasn’t Cassandra.
“We should get to work decoding this book. In his honor,” Sage said.
Marcus grinned. She surprised him at every turn. He couldn’t resist her request. He followed her lead, and beneath the red light of the setting sun and the lengthening shadows, they began an attempt to decode the book. Marcus stood and walked to the saddlebags to retrieve the quill and ink. He returned and set them down beside her.
Sage pointed to one of the words in the book. “East. This one could be ‘east.’”
Marcus seated himself beside her and looked at the word.
“And if you fill it in…” She bent and wrote on the parchment. “This word is ‘road.’”
Marcus stared at it. It was as if a curtain had been pulled aside when they got the letters right. His heart hammered in his chest. She was right. It was “‘road.’”
