Read Dragonblade Trilogy - 03 - The Savage Curtain for Free Online Page A

face. “You said… you said we must con… consumm….”
    “Consummate the marriage,” he finished
for her when she couldn’t seem to spit the word out. “We will. But not right
now.”
    She broke out in fresh tears. “I
do not know anything about the marriage bed,” she lamented. “The only thing I
know is from that warm summer day those years ago when that soldier… he did
unspeakable things ….”
    She couldn’t finish and Stephen
lay there in the darkness, thinking that perhaps he had been wrong in not
believing her tale. There truly hadn’t been any reason for her to lie to him
unless she had been else compromised and did not want him to know it. Perhaps
she was promiscuous and that was why her father sent her to Jedburgh. He simply
didn’t know her well enough to believe what she told him.  He was reluctant to
admit that he was afraid to believe.
    “Hush, my lady,” he repeated,
tightening his grip around her. “Go to sleep. Things will seem better in the
morning.”
    Her sobs remained strong, as they
do when all defenses are down and exhaustion causes a lack of self-control.
Stephen’s surprising show of kindness undid her.  She was not used to anyone
being particularly kind to her.  Joselyn was running amuck at the mouth and
there was no way to stop it.
    “But that was not the worst
part,” she wept. “There was the baby….”
    Stephen felt as if he had been
hit in the chest; her words that effect on him and he lifted his head to look
at her.
    “What baby?” he demanded.
    Her hands were on her face as he
rolled her onto her back.  She was weeping incoherently and he pulled her hands
away from her face. “What baby?” he demanded again, less harshly.
    Joselyn gazed up at him with her
pale blue eyes and wet, dark lashes. Her face was sopping with tears but her
sobs died somewhat as she stared at him. She didn’t know why she was telling
him all of this, only that she couldn’t seem to stop herself.
    “My… my baby,” she hiccupped. “I
delivered a son three days after my twelfth birthday.  I know you said that you
did not believe me, but if you wanted proof of what the English soldier did to
me, the physic told me that the birth tore me asunder. There are scars
everywhere.”
    Stephen just stared at her,
trying not to feel horrified on behalf of the woman. Still, it was an appalling
tale.  She told it with honesty; he could see it in her eyes as she spoke
frankly of something no young maiden should have to speak of.  The compassion
seeping into his veins began to flow more strongly.
    “Where is the child?” he asked,
his voice exceptionally gentle.
    She wiped at her eyes. “My father
took both the child and me to Jedburgh,” she said softly. “I named him Cade
Alexander, after my father and his father. The nuns cared for him and I was
only allowed limited contact.  He is eleven years old now, a strapping lad with
dark hair the last I saw.”
    Stephen sat back, staring at her
with mounting disbelief. “He has been with you at Jedburgh all these years?”
    “Until he was seven years of
age.  Then the nuns sent him to foster at Ettrick Castle.”
    “Does he know you are his
mother?”
    She shook her head. “He does not.
He was told that he was orphaned.” She sat up slowly, sitting next to the man
who was staring so openly at her.  He didn’t seem disgusted, or judgmental, and
that gave her courage. “From time to time, the nuns bring me news that he is
well.  When he has completed his training, my father has agreed to return him
home.  Perhaps… perhaps then I will tell him that I am his mother.”
    Stephen’s cornflower blue eyes
were dull with the tragedy of her tale. “And what if he asks of his father?
What will you tell him?”
    She looked as if she was going to
start crying again but she fought it. “It was not his fault that he was the
result of a violent, ugly act,” she murmured. “I am not sure what I will tell
him, but it will not be the