Chapter Twenty-Three

Jasper stood before her, his face devilish in the half-light of a candle. He turned and locked the door, and Rowenna was trapped.

‘What are you doing here, Jasper?’ she said.

‘I have come to take you home. Did you think I would let you run?’

Rowenna was rendered speechless by his rage and said the first thing that came into her head. ‘You should not be riding around at night.’

‘Why not?’

How could she tell him about the Warden? ‘Because you have enemies.’

‘Aye, and it seems you are one of them.’

‘Jasper, that is not true.’

Rowenna pulled her cloak tightly around her, though it would be scant protection, if stone walls and a door were not. When his blood was up, nothing could stop Jasper, so she’d best stand up for herself.

‘Who let you in?’ she snapped.

‘That slattern of a servant came running when the dogs started barking.’

Jasper came to the side of the bed and loomed over her. ‘Now, is this any way to greet your husband?’ His words dripped with bitterness, and he casually took hold of a strand of her hair, running it through his fingers. ‘It seems you upset my sister,’ he said.

‘No more than she upset me.’

‘Glenna said that you struck her.’

‘Aye, and I would dearly like to strike her again, but I doubt I will have that pleasure.’

He frowned. ‘And why is that?’

‘Because I am never returning to Kransmuir. Surely, you did not expect me to crawl back with my tail between my legs and beg forgiveness.’ Rowenna leapt over to the other side of the bed and stood up.

Jasper’s jaw worked. ‘I came back to Kransmuir to find you gone, when I had ordered you to stay for my pleasure,’ he snarled.

‘I do not come and go by your leave, and your pleasure is no longer my concern.’

‘You are my wife,’ he hissed.

‘I am far from that.’

‘You belong to me.’

‘We are only handfasted until I prove myself fertile, and I have not. So I am not your possession in any way.’

He shook his head and rolled his eyes. ‘What was your plan, lass? Is this how far you were going to run – Fallstairs? You know me. I would go to the ends of the earth to find you, Rowenna. There is nowhere to hide.’

‘I am not staying at Fallstairs.’

‘Oh, so you were just going to ride off one day and disappear like your sister?’

Rowenna choked back tears at his cruelty. ‘I don’t know, but I could not bear to be at Kransmuir after you called me a lying bitch.’

‘I am sorry for that,’ said Jasper, looking down at his feet.

His muscular beauty was unbearable now that she had lost him. ‘You also said that you could not stand the sight of me. So why should I stay?’

Jasper’s face turned from anger to anguish, but his hands were in fists, so she was wary.

‘We are joined, Rowenna,’ he said quietly.

‘Only handfasted. If no bairn is coming, it is not binding.’

‘No bairn is coming yet,’ he said with awful intent. ‘And we are joined beyond the making of a bairn, and you know it. We want each other. Go on, stand there and deny it, and I will leave.’

Rowenna could not find her words. All she could do was stare at his stricken face as her heart threatened to choke her.

Suddenly, Jasper sprang across the bed towards her. Rowenna tried to run, but he had her cornered. He took hold of her gently enough. She could have wriggled free if she wanted, but when his mouth came down on hers, the strength left Rowenna’s legs, and she could only let Jasper kiss her over and over. Heat flooded her loins even as she tried to harden her heart. Let Jasper do what he would, for she would not succumb to wanting him ever again. He could have her body but never her heart.

Jasper threw her onto the bed and fell on top of her. Within moments, he had lifted her skirt and undid his braids, and then he plunged inside her, smoothly, groaning. Rowenna bit her lip. Curse it! Now that he was inside her, Jasper would feel her need.

‘You are wet for me, lass,’ he gasped into her hair. ‘You want this as much as me.’

‘No.’

‘Tell me to stop, then.’

But she could not. Jasper rocked inside her, kissing her neck and breasts in a frenzy, and Rowenna longed to cling to him. But she also wanted to tear at his flesh and hurt him, as he had hurt her. She turned her face away as her pleasure built so that Jasper would not see her release, made more violent and intense by her silence. He stiffened against her, holding her close, and gave a shuddering groan into her hair. After a few moments, he rolled off her. It was a bitter release for them both, almost painful.

‘You got what you wanted, so now you may leave,’ she said, holding back tears.

‘This was never what I wanted - this ghost of a woman in my bed.’ He sounded defeated.

A pulse of anger, more with herself than him, forced her to say, ‘You had a ghost of a woman in your bed before you dragged me into it, and her name was Brenna.’

Jasper turned to her so they were belly to belly and grabbed her face, staring into her eyes. ‘The fool I became over Brenna is long dead, and I will be no fool over you, Rowenna. Damn your eyes. I wish I could go back to the time before your treachery. For a while, you made me so happy.’

‘Then forgive me, as I have had to forgive you.’

‘Forgive me for what?’

‘You took me when I did not want to go with you. You lied about Bran. You forced me to marry you.’ She took his hand away from her face, and he let her.

‘Aye, and you had so many more appealing choices of husband, lass. I am the best you can hope for.’

‘I never sought a husband. I never wanted to be a man’s slave and plaything, but that is what I have become because of you. And you have probably lied about looking for Cecily.’

‘I did not. I have sent men out, but your sister is probably as devious as you. She has abandoned you, and you must accept that.’

‘I will not accept it any more than I will endure your scorn. No bairn is coming and ‘tis nought to you if I go. We can be free of each other.’

Jasper sat up, revealing his broad, pale back and the smooth contours of his muscles. His ribs rose and fell as he sighed. ‘Free! How can I be free of you when I love you, lass?’

His words swelled in the silence, looming in the dark chamber as neither spoke.

‘Jasper, you do not know what that means,’ she whispered.

He twisted around to look at her. ‘Do you know what you did, pretending to want me? You wounded my heart. Now it bleeds every time I see you, touch you, even just now, when I was inside you. Knowing that I am not wanted is killing me.’

Tears welled in Rowenna’s eyes and spilt down her cheeks. ‘Don’t you see? That is not true. I do want you, Jasper, but you will never believe me now. You just think I am a liar.’

‘I don’t care if you are,’ he growled. ‘Did I not just say that I loved you? I want you, Rowenna. I miss you when I ride out. I look forward to seeing you when I return.’

Coming from Jasper, that was quite an admission. But she was tired of men manhandling her - always taking, never giving.

‘Is this all we have, Jasper, a passion for each other but no trust or affection?’

‘I’ve a passion for you, alright. It grips me, night and day, like a sweet sickness. And do you really think I have no affection for you? Have we not been as one when we lay together?’

‘There was a time when I thought that.’

‘Then think on it again. Rowenna, I want to trust you, but I have been burned in the past. It is not easy for me.’

‘You think it is easy for me, with the father and brother that I have? All they have ever done is let me down and lie to me.’

‘And I am sorry if you think I am as bad as them.’ Jasper took her hand and squeezed it.

Rowenna stared down at his hand grasping hers, and felt her heart break a little. ‘Jasper, these last weeks, I thought you had come to care for me a little. I was happy, too. But now, your love feels like a prison. It should not be like that.’

‘You want your freedom? You want to be done with me?’

‘No. But you love too hard, as if you own me. And Jasper, you might have use of my body under the law, and I may seem as chattel to you, but you can never own another person.’

‘I thought you wanted what we just did in this bed.’

‘I did, for it is a great joy to lie with you, something I never expected from marriage. But if I wish to leave you tomorrow, then I will.’

‘So I am to live my life on a knife’s edge and hope I don’t wake up one day to find you gone.’

‘If you go on treating me like your possession, then I will be gone. I cannot live in a cage.’

He smiled, but it was tainted by sadness. ‘Now there is an idea. I can lock you in my dungeon and visit you whenever the urge takes me.’

‘Jasper!’

‘I am in jest, but as to the urge, it grips me now.’ He leaned in and pulled her mouth to his for a kiss. Rowenna’s resolve melted along with her loins. She could not resist kissing him back.

Jasper pulled away. ‘I suppose I must prove to you that my regard is real and not just lust. So I will not take you again until you ask me to. Are we agreed?’

It was not much, but it was a start. Though Rowenna was not sure she wanted Jasper to avoid her bed.

‘So tomorrow, are you coming home with me?’ he asked. ‘I won’t force you to.’

Rowenna looked around the sparse chamber. Fallstairs no longer felt like home, with its decay and air of desperation. Kransmuir was unwelcoming, as if the very stone wished to repel her, and Jasper’s family were a cursed bunch of miseries. But perhaps home was not stone walls but a feeling, a person to build a life with.

Jasper took hold of her by the shoulders. ‘I can change, if you can. I will let Bran go if it pleases you.’

‘I do not want you to, not yet. There are things I must say to my brother and answers I need. Jasper, if we are to trust one another, then there is something you should know, and afterwards, you might not want me to come home with you.’

Rowenna was at a crossroads in her life. Which way to turn and who to trust? Cecily had taken a chance on a man, and look where that had got her? But something made Rowenna take a deep breath and begin to tell Jasper just how deeply her family had dug a knife into him.