“My father feared the loss of his land and power. He wasn’t worried about me, only what I as his daughter could do for him. I shiver to think of who he might have married me to,” she said and actually shuddered at the frightening thought. She paled suddenly and gripped her husband’s hand. “What if that’s what he has done? What if he’s struck a bargain with another clan? What if he went off and wed me by proxy to someone?”
A sense of dread gripped Arran, but he remained calm outwardly. “We’re wed. There’s nothing he can do.”
“What if he wed me to someone before we wed? Would that invalidate our marriage?” she asked anxiously.
He held her hand tight and brought it to his lips to kiss. “No one will ever take you from me, this I promise you. Your father no doubt went to find a healer in hopes of helping him get well.”
Purity nodded, but silently asked herself, why her father hadn’t gone to Wren?
Arran saw that his words had done nothing to soothe his wife’s worries and they hadn’t tempered his own as well. He hadn’t given such a possibility thought. He’d like to assume it was unlikely, but with the man’s failing health could he have come to the conclusion that he had had no choice?
He wanted to kick himself for not sealing their vows right after they had taken them. He’d waited far too long. It should have been done by now, his seed already taken root.
A thought did strike him that might help. “I’ll send a missive to the monastery to make certain Brother Noble recorded our marriage.”
“Aye, we should see to it right away,” Purity agreed. “But who do we trust to take it? I would say Quiver but he gets too easily lost in the woods.”
“I trust Quiver to take a message to Royden. He’ll send someone that can be trusted. I’ll send Quiver in the morning.”
“And tonight we seal our vows,” she whispered, her arm wrapping around his as if she didn’t intend to let him go. So her question surprised him. “Are you sure this is what you want?”
His response surprised him as well. “You’re all I want.”
Purity heard much more. She heard that he loved her and she responded in kind. “I love you, too.”
Arran once again surprised himself by kissing her instead of telling her that he never said he loved her. He couldn’t bring himself to tell her that, to hurt her that way, or was it because it was true and he didn’t have the courage to believe it?
After food, drink, and much talk, Purity and Arran went for a walk through the village, Princess and King wandering off as soon as they got outside.
Purity made an effort of smiling and stopping to talk with some of the people. How did she expect them to accept her if she continued to allow them to think badly of her? And the one way she could change that was to let them get to know her—get to know the strong woman she had become.
She knew it helped to have Arran by her side, but that was all right. At least it was a start.
They were about to turn back to the keep when Freen approached.
“Sir,” Freen acknowledged Arran with a nod. “If you wish to speak with Wolf, you must come with me now or it will be a week or more before you can speak with him.”
Arran didn’t like leaving his wife when they had only arrived here today.
“Go,” Purity urged with a smile. “I will eagerly await your return.”
“He won’t return until morning, Mistress Purity,” Freen said.
The news had her holding on to her husband’s arm.
“I don’t have to go. It can wait,” Arran said, sensing his wife’s anxiousness and feeling it in the grip she had on his arm.
“No, this is important,” Purity said, shaking her head but not with much vigor. “You will go and find out what you can so you have some idea of what we face. I will be fine.”
Arran didn’t feel comfortable with leaving his wife. He didn’t know why since she should be safe now with having returned home. It was an unease he felt that was unfamiliar to him. He never experienced it before now, so he didn’t understand it.
“Go,” she urged again. “There is plenty here to keep me busy.
She might tell him to go but the way her arm remained clamped around his told a different story. Still, it was wise of him to go and talk with Wolf, to meet him and judge the man for himself, and to speak his piece.
“I’ll return as fast as I can,” he said.
“You’ll return safely to me, husband,” she ordered.
“Always,” he whispered and kissed her gently, not trusting himself beyond an innocent kiss.