"Will you not come to the forest? They are mourning. They need you - their lord's guidance..."
Cedric peered across the moonlit solar, annoyed. He had left the hall in an urgent bid to find peace but still they plagued him.
"Leave me be."
But his taciturn tone, rather than deter the unwelcome guest like it would most, brought her forward until she stood before him, looking down at his slumped form in the handsomely carved chair.
"You needed time and space on our journey back to Haverton after -- after what happened. But I cannot hold my tongue any longer -- if I am to become your baroness-"
Cedric rose abruptly, looking down at the fair-haired woman with mild disgust. "Yes,
if.
But I have not the stomach to talk of your ambitions tonight, lady, so I suggest you remove yourself from my presence. I'll not ask again."
"It's that girl, isn't it? That murderer's slut of a sister - what sway has she over you!? For I do not for a moment believe the mutterings that arose during our journey here of her being your mate, my lord! Not for a moment. She is a human, she is weak - a nothing-"
"Then why do you question it? You are hysterical, Mariah. It doesn't suit you."
At his cold indifference to the subject, the woman calmed slightly. She watched him silently for a moment, watched as her lord walked towards the arrow slit in the wall and peered out into the dark night, having already dismissed her from thought.
While he had never given a firm answer, it had been decided in their infancy that they would wed for it was highly unlikely the two of them would ever find their mates -- such a thing being rare for their kind. Mariah was no fool with illusions that he loved or had ever loved her. She had shared his bed but so had many others. But she knew he had desired her and that lately, he had started to consider the fact of heirs and the prudency of marrying to set an example for his people.
But there was still that nagging thought that prevented her from giving into good sense and leaving him be as he had curtly ordered, especially considering the strong smell of ale on his breath which in itself was forbidding for he was not one to stupidly imbibe like most, a lesson he had learned not to follow from his late father.
"Why were we there, in Marston?"
"You know the way of roams, Mariah," Cedric's tone was suddenly weary.
Yes, she knew that they led to a random, often fruitless, path. There had been nothing in those parts but the baron's neglected keep. Still, were it not for Marston, Blaine would be alive. And that must cut at Cedric sorely for he was nothing like his cruel, unfeeling father in that he would not simply move on from the tragedy that had befallen them. He would blame himself, torture himself...indeed, it looked like he had already started.
And the girl had started to loose favour with him if his treatment of her over the past few days was anything to go by. Perhaps he would start to blame her, too. Certainly, if Mariah had anything to do with it. Which she would.
And with those bolstering thoughts in mind, she left him drowning in his misery.
*
The courtyard was empty, surprising Rowena, who had expected to find both the people who had been so abruptly dismissed from the hall and the beasts of Cedric's kind, her imagination conjuring up a wild and violent scene. Perhaps it had been the excitement and rush of the moment but it had seemed as though there had been hordes of people before vying for Edwin's blood. But the courtyard was still and quiet.
The sound of approaching feet brought her back to herself but she didn't turn and face her companion. Instead, she took off determinedly once more, striding through the moonlit courtyard.
"Rowena, wait -- please! You will not find him alone-"
"I do not require your concern --
my lady
," Rowena threw over her shoulder, for she had known, somehow, that she would follow.
"You should not have left without the baron's approval," came the quiet reproof.
"If-" Cedric. She had almost said Cedric. But the woman before her watched her expectantly still, her almost-slip going unnoticed. "If the baron wished for me to stay he would surely have stopped me."
"Yes, perhaps..." but Lady Margaret looked uncertain still, troubled. "We must talk, Rowena. Please...there is so much I would say to you. Never-" she paused as Rowena finally turned, "Never had I dreamed to see you again."
"You seem one inclined to high drama, madam, for I have resided all my life in the same place you left me, less than two sennights ride from here," Rowena replied bitterly, "It would not have been such a trying task to reacquaint yourself with the child you abandoned to the father who loathes her very existence."
A pleading hand settled on her shoulder, but Rowena jerked away, closing off her heart. She had considered the woman dead. Of course, the talk at the keep had been that her father had sent her away during Rowena's youth after tiring of her but it had been idle gossip, nothing more. But she couldn't deny the strange path that had led to this reunion with her mother, the sheer impossibility of it and what it meant -- her mother, as Cedric's aunt, would surely be the same -- half woman, half wolf. She could not yet accept the woman before her. It was still too fresh. She would dwell on it later when there wasn't so much to fret over.
"I had my reasons, Rowena -- reasons that I hope that you will allow me to explain: even my own family have been in ignorance of your existence and yes, there will be explaining to be done on that end too. But it can wait. When your father exiled me, I had no one to turn to -- I could not return with you here because the old baron was cruel and he would not have tolerated a half-bred child-" she paused abruptly, seemingly aghast at her own words but she ploughed on. "We -we would have perished alone, you and I. As much as I wanted you, I couldn't be so selfish. I left you at Marston because there was no other option to ensure your safety and, believe it or not, your father was not always the unfeeling-"
"Indeed, madam, I cannot believe. I cannot conceive of how you could become whore to such a foul man!"
Rowena, sensing but uncaring she'd gone too far, would have welcomed the pain of a stinging slap.
But the older woman was better at steeling her emotions, for she continued,
"Yes -- he was married, though his wife had since fled to a convent -- and there was many a strumpet before me -- and during -- warming his bed. So, yes, I did play the whore! And despite everything, I cannot regret that for I would not have had you! Oh, I was proud and reckless, that is why I did it! Your father caught sight of me at some tourney and begged the baron -- my sister's husband -- for my hand for my parent's perished long ago and it was to him the decision fell. Of course the baron denied him. Insulted him, even, for he loathed his kind. The baron later betrothed me to a man, one of our kind of course -- a Norseman. He was old, cripplingly so, and I was foolish with ideals of romantic love and excitement and did not wish to be parted from my sister by such a great distance. Your father married, his wife bore him Edwin, and on the day I was to start my journey abroad, I ran away to the only person I knew outside of Haverton, for we women were not often allowed to mingle with those not of our kind. I went to Marston, to your father...I didn't love him. I merely loved the idea of him. And he soon changed from the gallant man I recalled..."
"What of when the baron died? Could you not have come for me then?" Rowena lifted tearful eyes to her, shamed at her weakness.
"I tried," Lady Margaret said with quiet fierceness, her own eyes appearing glazed in the moonlight. "But he guarded you meanly. I feared to anger him and kept well away -- in truth, I did not realise until it was too late quite how sorely he had treated you. Although the new baron is a fair man, the people here have old ideals over unions between your father's kind and my own."
Rowena turned away, feeling sick, her gut clenching at the memory of Cedric's raw surprise at her maternity, as the implications of what had been revealed finally began to settle now that she had a moment to think clearly - for if the woman before her was her mother and Cedric her nephew it would be a sin against God and the laws of the kingdom for there to be any relation between the two of them, their relationship falling with the last degree of the four consanguinities: first cousins. But they had already sinned. From the moment he had first laid desirous eyes on her and she had returned his lust, they had sinned.
Quickly, Rowena searched the older woman's face, desperate that she should not discover the extent of their relations. She felt unclean, ashamed. From what Lady Margaret -- for she refused to think of her as mother -- had seen so far, Cedric has treated her cruelly and with not a hint of his former attention when he had been intent on pursuing her.
