Lady Thief - By Rizzo Rosko Page 0,66
Suddenly his back was to her. Her heart went out to him but she felt that he needed to speak without interruption.
“Nicholas suggested a way in which I might learn the ways of the bed. A woman by the name of Bertha, a prostitute Nicholas favored, would teach me, and in my young foolishness I accepted.”
He faced her again, the strain of retelling the story etched on his face. “Unfortunately she was also a favorite of Sir Ferdinand. A spiteful man. When he discovered I was paying for her services, he held the information over me until Alice died in childbirth. Bertha disappeared after and was never seen again.”
Marianne exhaled, hearing the unsaid accusation toward the man who might have been her husband. Cold fear sprang into her chest for what she had barely escaped. “Good lord.”
“Does it upset you, hearing this?”
It did, but she found his honesty exhilarating. “Nay, you may continue.”
He hesitated a moment, trying to find himself again. “Alice took her comfort in Robert, who convinced her that if I did indeed love her, I would not put her through such an ordeal. She confessed everything to me some weeks later, and in my weakness I could not reveal my own sins. But before Bertha disappeared I halted my appointments with her so that I might again be a faithful husband.”
Marianne’s love for him swelled, but her heart broke within the same moment. “You forgave her, but why not send Robert away? Punish him for his part in this?”
“I have punished him. Though you have likely not seen it, he is missing two fingers on his right hand.”
Marianne’s hand shot to her throat. If William found pleasure in the telling of what he was capable of doing to another man, it did not show on his face.
Now that she thought of it, she had seen Robert hiding his hand from her before. The first moment she saw him his arm was at such an angle that she could not see all of the fingers on his right hand.
“I thought your skills with a blade was poor?” She asked.
He nodded. “They are, but ‘twas not always the case, I once knew how to handle my weapons quite well. When Alice died, I foolishly ceased practicing, and there were no battles to be had anyway. I had not realized how poor I had become until just last year when I lifted a sword and found myself clumsy with it.”
“Any other man would have killed the servant who touched his wife.” Despite his now calm manner, she was surprised that he had not done so.
Again, William nodded. “As I explained, I felt some of the responsibility was my own. I sent Robert away, but he came to me a few years later, starving, during the winter months. I took pity on him and allowed him to return. Had I known Blaise would grow to look so much like him in more than just the color of his hair, I would have given Robert to Bryce.” He shook his head. “‘Tis far too late for that, now.”
Marianne went to him. She could bear the distance between them no longer. She took his larger hand into her smaller ones and kissed the knuckles there. Such a kind heart did not deserve this pain.
She did not wish to hear more about his love for another woman, a love that had nearly destroyed him, but a part of her did wish to know, to have him lift the burdens from his chest and be free. Marianne wanted to be the one to take his pain from him. “Alice died in childbirth?”
William nodded. “Yes, though not straight away, and while with child she never hinted that the baby might not be mine. After giving birth she held Blaise and saw the color of his hair.” He shook his head. “I could not deny them, I loved her and as far as I was concerned, he was my son.”
“And you told her this?”
“Aye.” He gave a hollow sort of laugh. “I could not even part with him so that he might become a page to another lord, but I did not wish for him to be influenced by Robert the way Alice had been. Bryce handled all of his training so that I would be near.”
Marianne lifted herself up and kissed him. She meant for it to only be a gentle thing to reassure him that, unlike Alice, she would never be swayed, that she would