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Her eyes held a sadness that went far beyond her years. He felt his insides clench, hating himself for the pain he’d brought into her life. So much of that sadness had come from his hands.
Rowan exhaled a tentative breath and searched her gaze. A wind picked up, and he heard the air whistling through the castle’s crevices. He closed his eyes briefly—his wife’s body waited for him in that darkness, like she always did.
“She hid Mary in our wardrobe,” he said, seeing and feeling everything behind his eyes. The oak floorboards creaking below his boots. The sight of his wife’s blood staining the bedsheets and his own hands.
So much blood.
He was drowning in it.
“She’d stayed silent.”
“A blessing,” Blanchette said, her voice thin. He didn’t know what to make of it.
Bitter laughter spilled out of him, and he clenched his fingers several times as that mad anger ran anew. “I ran away and hid at Edrick’s home after that. Sent Mary to live as a ward of Castle Rochester… my wife’s uncle.”
“It was right of you to summon Mary here now. She should be with you, Rowan… especially after all this lost time. God… I’m… I’m so sorry.”
Blanchette shifted toward him, and Rowan felt some of the anger leave at the emotion he found in her eyes. Tears clouded her gaze, and when she spoke, her voice was a sweet whisper that reached every corner of his heart. “My father ordered her death?”
“As a punishment for refusing to stop another revolt. He commanded me to burn a village.”
She shook her head. “We are not so different. We share a pain like two sides of the same coin… a dawn that breaks into dusk across the same landscape. I remember seeing you at the feasts. Your wife, too, so often sitting with my father… I can hardly believe he was capable of such cruelty. They seemed rather amicable.”
Indeed they were. Rowan watched as she physically battled for the right words. “I can’t undo any of the injustice that my father committed. I can’t change our pasts. But I can be here for you now.”
Rowan stepped closer to her until they were almost touching. The firelight turned her blond curls a molten gold. He tentatively reached out and ran his fingers through those tresses, his heart beating against his ribs. She smelled like the kingswood flowers she so often picked… like sunshine and summer.
“You bring me such warmth, Blanchette,” he confessed, remembering his watchtower dream again. “One like I’ve never known.” He desired her, desired her like mad, but he yearned for her simple friendship most of all.
She must have read the longing in his stare. “Yes… I am here for you. And I won’t leave.” She leaned into his touch until his open palm cupped her cheek. He felt the raised scar beneath his fingers and gently traced its path… from her ear all the way to the corner of her parted lips. How he wished he could undo her pain and help her forget.
Rowan heard her sharp intake of breath. Their gazes came together in a powerful union. “I thought I was strong,” Rowan said, “but you showed me true strength. I could have never survived what you have. I’m so sorry for my role in your grief.”
Blanchette held her hand over his, cupping her palm against his fingers. His hands were twice her size and battle-beaten.
Her red lips turned up in a small, sad smile. “It was my father who played that role. I’m learning that every day, I think.”
* * *
His hand remained at her jaw, the smooth band of his thumb pad pressing against her scar. Her heart raced inside her chest until she could hardly hear through the blood rushing in her ears. She tipped her head back and glanced at Rowan. His eyes were above hers, and she found a smoldering desire there.
One her own body and soul echoed.
“I should hate you,” she whispered, her voice barely audible over the crackling hearth. “And a part of me still does.”
“Yes.” His voice came at her like rolling thunder. “And I admire you.” He bowed his head forward until his lips skimmed her hairline. “Although I shouldn’t,” he said, the heat of his words brushing against her skin. His lips ghosted across her forehead. She released a small sigh, and Rowan’s throaty chuckle followed. He took her hand in his, his long, callused fingers sweeping across her knuckles in a soothing, fiery touch. The signet ring gleamed, and its golden band drank in the fire’s light. Rowan held her hand and placed it over his chest. His heart raced beneath her palm, and Blanchette knew he was as nervous as she. It was remarkable, watching as the Black Wolf of Norland, this beast of a man, let his armor down and made himself vulnerable.
Low lights, cool and warm from moon and hearth, filtered through the shadows. His eyes found hers again. They studied her with a chilling focus. Her skin prickled as his gaze swept over her in a slow and lazy perusal. Then his head lowered again, and his lips were at her brow. Lower and lower, he shifted his lips, and Blanchette swore he could hear the frantic thumping of her heart.
“I hate you, Rowan Dietrich,” she whispered. Blood rushed through her ears, and she felt her eyelids grow heavy at the erotic sensation of Rowan’s arms encasing her, his lips mere inches from her own, the heat of his breath ghosting across her skin. The red wine scented his breath and deepened her desire. “I hate you.” Her legs weakened beneath her, but Rowan’s arms were there, solid and supportive, holding her body in place. He was her lifeline at that moment, and she couldn’t imagine him letting go. My anchor, she mused ironically. “I hate you.” She stepped nearer to him, closing the scant distance between their bodies. The shift caused her breasts to push against his lower chest. She inhaled his scent—sandalwood and wine—and felt herself let go. “I hate you.”
She surrendered to the moment, the horrors she’d come to know, the grief and loss, and that corner of her heart that still held room for hope. She exhaled a breath and pressed her cheek against his. His hands found their way into her hair. Nimble fingers ran through her curls in soothing, intoxicating strokes. She stood on the tips of her toes until her ear was almost level with his chest. The beat of his heart thundered there—a beautiful accompaniment to the melody of her sensual breathing.
She drifted between fear and strange, delirious peace. It was a dangerous place to be. A place she could get lost in.
“I cannot hate you anymore, Rowan Dietrich.”
In fact, I think I’m starting to love you, she thought as her body relaxed and heated all in the same breath. She was melting into him, and the lines she’d so carefully drawn in her mind blurred. She could no longer distinguish love from hate, sorrow from joy… and that notion scared her more than anything else.
