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dismounted. Silence reigned as they tended to their horses and built a fire. It was not until they had filled their bellies with Maigrat’s bread and cheese that Gisele sensed Nigel had had enough of silence. She looked up from the fire she had been staring into to catch him moving closer to her. He smiled faintly and held out the wineskin.
    â€œI think ’tis time ye told me the truth,” he said quietly as she drank.
    â€œWhich truth? Mine, or the one so many others choose to believe?” She grimaced and took another drink of wine as she heard the bitterness in her voice.
    â€œJust tell me what ye see as the truth. I believe I have the wit to judge for myself.”
    â€œI wed Lord DeVeau nearly a year and a half ago. Oh, I protested the marriage in every way I could, but none would heed me or help me. He was of good family, a powerful family with a heavy purse. Such an honored knight could not be as evil as the rumors said he was.”
    â€œBut ye believed the rumors.”
    â€œThere were too many rumors, too many stories of his evil, for them all to be lies.”
    â€œSo, ye were forced to the altar.”
    She had barely begun her tale and yet he could already see the pain it caused her. Nigel was tempted to tell her it did not matter, that she did not have to continue, but he bit back the words. He had to know what he was involved in. It would be hard enough to keep her safe until they reached Scotland. It would only be more difficult if he did not know why she was running, and from whom.
    â€œI was. On my wedding night I realized that the rumors were true.” She expelled a short, unsteady laugh. “The rumors had not even begun to reveal the beast that was my husband. I again turned to my family, but they shrugged aside my pleas and stories as the fancies of a new bride. My only salvation came in the fact that my husband soon grew bored with me. Oh, he still insisted on bedding his wife, on making me the kind of wife he thought he needed, but the times he sought me out grew less and less very quickly. I was to be the breeder of his heirs. Aside from that, if I kept quiet and out of his sight he paid little heed to me. There were other women to pursue.”
    Nigel found himself wishing that DeVeau was still alive so that he might kill him. She made no clear accusations, talked of how she was treated in subtleties, but he knew all too well the brutality she must have endured. The lingering horror of it could still be heard in her soft, trembling voice. He put his arm around her shoulders and felt her tense, but when she did not pull away he continued to hold her.
    â€œMy marriage fell into a pattern. He would beat me, bed me, and then leave me be for a while so long as I did not intrude. Becoming a shadow was difficult for me.”
    â€œAye, I can imagine. Ye arenae the sort of woman who wishes to be so meek.”
    â€œHe made me want it. I continued to try to gain the help of my family and to believe I was starting to get them to listen to me. I fear I did not help my cause by occasionally wishing the man dead, even saying that if someone did not free me of this torment soon I would free myself.”
    Gisele felt Nigel’s arm tighten around her shoulders and fought the fear rising up within her, the fear she had learned in DeVeau’s hands. Nigel was merely offering an innocent comfort. Lurking right beside the fear was a sense of safety, of comfort, and she struggled to grasp that and push the blind fear away. It did feel good to be held gently by such a strong, handsome man, and she refused to let DeVeau steal her ability to enjoy that.
    â€œDid no one seek proof of what ye said? Look at your bruises?”
    â€œI was too ashamed to show them much proof.”
    â€œYe had naught to be ashamed of.”
    â€œMayhap. I was not a sweet child, and had grown into a woman cursed with a quick and often sharp tongue. I believe they thought I was finally getting