Aislin of Arianrhod (Land of Alainnshire) (36 page)

“Yes, it’s true. It must be true.” Shaking uncontrollably, Tristan sank like a stone into one of the soft chairs in Colven’s room.

“Very well. Prince Bryce thought you had a right to know,” said Roderic.

I’m going to be the father...
Tristan dropped his face into his hands. ...o
f a half-human child.

“Do you love her?” asked Devin. The sharp tone in Devin’s voice made Tristan feel like he was answering to her father.

“
Of course,
I do. More than you know. There just doesn’t seem to be a way forward for us.”

“There is always a way forward, Tristan. There is no doubt that it will be difficult for both of you, but it would be a travesty to let your child grow up without knowing its father or its people. Is that what you want?” asked Colven.

“Of course not!” Tristan was up and pacing around the room, running both hands through his hair. “You
know
what happened with Duff. She’s not safe here! And I’m not wanted there. This is never going to work!”

“You descend from an exalted and unbroken line of chieftains beginning with Verschal the Traveler. If this baby is a boy, he will be the next chieftain of the Sylvan. This is not something you can take lightly,” Colven said.

“Take lightly? Do you think I am taking this
ligh
tly? A human woman is carrying my child, Colven. The baby will be half elf, half human. Have you thought about that? If the baby
is
a boy, will he even be able to take his place as chieftain of the Sylvan? You
know
as well as I do what everyone is going to say!” Tristan stammered. “I won’t subject Aislin to that.”

“The Sacred Scrolls say only that it must be a male child directly conceived from the loins of the current chieftain. There is nothing that says the boy must be a full-blooded elf,” replied Colven.

Tristan laughed uproariously at this, and only stopped when he saw Colven’s scowl. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do, Colven, but you know better than that. Council will burn Oakenbourne to the ground before they will let a half-human man sit as chieftain.”

Colven was generally imperturbable. He was slow to anger, if he angered at all. Given this, Tristan was shocked when the old elf grabbed him by the arm and spun him around, his eyes as sharp as the blades of a dagger.

“Maybe you should have thought about that before you convinced her to lay with you, eh? If you’ll remember, I wanted you to let the princess go with her courier, but you fought to keep her. You were completely enamored of her; there was no reasoning with you. And now that she’s with child, I hear you say ‘
it’s never going to work’
!” Colven was red-faced, shouting up at Tristan. “You broke every protocol we had to keep her at Oakenbourne with you. You were prepared to forfeit your own life to heal her. What has changed? By the blood of your father, Tristan, I will not let you abandon her or this child. She’s a dear, sweet thing, and you have a responsibility to her. I will go to Arianrhod and bring her here myself if I have to!”

If you love her, find a way to make it work
. Starr’s voice echoed in Tristan’s head. He dropped back into the chair, forcing the heels of his hands into his eyes.

“I will never love anyone more than I love that woman,” Tristan said, trying and failing to keep the emotion from his voice. “But I am so damned
afraid
. For her. For me. For the child.”

“I wouldn’t think much of you if you
weren’t
afraid.” Colven’s hands were warm on his shoulders. “But you have your father’s blood in your veins. You have never let your fear keep you from doing what you know is right. To my knowledge, there has never been a human and elf pairing in the entire history of the Sylvan. I know it will be an issue for some, but I find it rather exciting. She is a worthy mate for you, my boy. Go and claim her.”

“Maybe she won’t even want me now,” Tristan said miserably.

Roderic cleared his throat and stepped forward. “Prince Bryce, as the future King of Arianrhod, has respectively requested that you meet with him. He has some proposals I think you’ll find... interesting. If you don’t mind, we could stay the night here, and you and Colven could accompany us back to Arianrhod.”

“I think that’s a wise idea. You must hear what Prince Bryce has to say. And you must find out what’s in Aislin’s heart,” Colven said.

Chapter Forty Two

“I
CAN’T BELIEVE I’M HUNGRY AGAIN,” Aislin muttered to herself. Eating for two was exhausting! If she kept this up, she wouldn’t be able to fit through the door.

Hoping Cook still had a few things left over from lunch, Aislin slipped on her shoes and headed down the stairs to the kitchen.

She was half way down the stone stairs when her mother appeared at the bottom and looked up at her. Aislin lifted her eyes briefly and quickly looked away. She attempted to brush by Emara at the bottom, but her mother reached out and gently grabbed her upper arm.

Startled, Aislin glanced at the well-manicured hand gripping her arm, and then up at her mother. Golden eyes very much like her own searched her face, with a look that was both pleading and hopeful. Haughty arrogance from her mother was the norm. This look...well,
this
look unnerved Aislin altogether.

There was a vulnerability there, a profound sadness. As she held her mother’s gaze, Aislin saw things moving in her eyes.
You don’t know me at all. I am not as I appear. Please let me tell you.

Emara’s voice broke the spell. “Aislin....”

“Mother.” Aislin was shaking from head to toe.

“I know you’re furious with me, but I was hoping to talk to you,” Emara said.

Furious doesn’t even begin to describe it, Mother.

“About what?”

“Not here. May I come up to your rooms?”

Aislin had known it was coming. Emara had been giving her sidelong glances for several days.

The temptation to shut her mother out was strong, but Aislin was burning with curiosity. Emara so rarely made an effort to talk with her, that she knew this must be something extraordinary. And Aislin had a few questions of her own that needed answered.

“Go on up. I’ll be right there,” Aislin said shortly.

Emara sat on the chaise, wringing her hands together, and nervously avoiding eye contact with her daughter.
How very odd
, thought Aislin. Her normally cool, self-possessed mother looked as though she were about to come unhinged.

“You had something you wanted to talk to me about?” asked Aislin.

Her mother started several times, stammered and stopped, and finally said, “Has Gwen said anything to you about Jariath? Or our time spent in the dungeon?”

Aislin sat down beside her mother and regarded her with suspicion. “No. But now as I think on it, Jariath had some pretty interesting things to say about you and his father.”

Emara sighed. “I was afraid of that.”

“It’s not true, is it? It couldn’t possibly be true.”

“What did he tell you?”

“That you and Boru had been lovers before you married Daddy.”

Emara’s eyes flashed anger. “That’s not true! Of course it’s not true!”

“I didn’t think so...”

“But there
is
something I need to tell you.”

Her mother’s tone chilled her. “What is it?”

“I don’t even know where to begin,” Emara said hesitantly. “As you know, your father and I were an arranged marriage. We were betrothed when I was fifteen years old in 1640. Hal’s father had just died, and he’d taken the throne of Arianrhod. He was looking for a wife, and my father negotiated my engagement to him. We’d never met, and being so young, I was quite frightened. But I knew my duty as a princess of Wyndham, and I accepted my fate.”

“When I finally met your father, I quickly fell in love with him. He was so funny, charming, very handsome. He calmed any fears I had, and before long, he’d also fallen in love with me. I knew things were going to be fine. Our marriage was scheduled to take place in Arianrhod on June 16, 1642. I’d never been happier.”

“But you weren’t married until 1644,” Aislin said slowly.

“That’s right.” Her mother hesitated, fidgeted with a fingernail. Aislin furrowed her brow as she watched her mother’s face. She’d thought her mother was capable of only one emotion— contemptuous disdain— but now, as she watched, she saw other things. Fear and loathing.

“In September of 1641, I accompanied my family to a horse market in the village of Wyndham. Boru of Morrigan was there, and I caught his eye, though I didn’t see
him
. He was evidently quite taken with me. When he found out I was betrothed to Hal, he decided he would just take me for himself.”

“Take you? Just
take
you...?” Aislin couldn’t finish. It was just too horrific to think about.

Emara nodded, her eyes glistening. “My family had thrown a Winter Solstice Ball in December of 1641, and we were all having a wonderful time. We were busy planning the wedding, and everyone was happy. Your father was there. We danced every dance. I stepped out for a moment to get some air, and Boru and his men kidnapped me. They made no sound when they took me, and it was at least a half hour before anyone realized I was missing. By that time, we were well on our way to Morrigan.”

Aislin was sure her heart had stopped beating. The pain was so intense on her mother’s face that she felt it too. All those years her mother had listened to her rant about Jariath and his proposals, and she‘d never said a word about any of this.

“Boru was a monster. I knew in my heart what he was going to do, but he didn’t even wait until he had me back in Morrigan to do it. He stopped along the way, threw me down in the snow and raped me in front of his men.”

A vise of pain crushed Aislin’s chest. She reached out and pulled her mother into her arms as Emara began to sob. There were no words of comfort.

“He kept me locked in a room that was just off of his bedroom and abused me every day for the next five months. At first, I prayed your father would find me, and when that didn’t happen, I prayed to die. Finally, I looked up one day, and there stood your father in the window of my room. I don’t know how he found me, but we rappelled down the side of the castle in Morrigan and he carried me off to safety—the proverbial knight in shining armor.” Emara smiled a little.

“Why didn’t you tell...?”

“There’s more, and I don’t want you to hate me for this, or think badly of your father.”

Aislin felt sick. Could this story get any worse?

“When your father finally rescued me, I was three months pregnant with Boru’s child.”

“
What
?” Aislin gasped in horror. “Did Boru know?”

“I don’t think so. I hid from him as much as I could, but I only really started to show after your father rescued me.”

“What did Daddy say?”

“I had been with another man, even if it wasn’t willingly, and I told him he didn’t have to keep his obligation to marry me. But he loved me and wanted to marry me anyway. The child I carried created a problem for both of our families. I stayed hidden away in the manor house here until I gave birth to her.”

“
Her
? You had a
girl
?”

“On November 19, 1642, in my room down the hall, I gave birth to a little girl. I was extremely distraught. I didn’t want her. She was a reminder of Boru’s brutality, and I wanted her gone.”

“Your father saw how upset I was, and offered...to do away with her...as soon as she was born. He had his sword ready...please don’t think badly of him, Aislin. He was going to do it for me...”

“But he didn’t, did he? He was the one who always made sure the crippled foals found homes. Daddy would never have killed a baby,” Aislin said, eyes wide, wondering if she’d known her father at all.

Emara shook her head. “No. She was beautiful and perfect, and neither of us could bear to put her to death. She was completely innocent of her father’s cruelty. We decided she should be given a chance to live.”

The untamed child that Aislin had been went very still inside her. She knew the answer to the next question would shift her life under her even before it left her lips.

“What did you do with her?”

“As soon as I was able to travel, we bundled her up and rode just over the border into Morrigan. We pinned a note to her blanket giving her birth date and left her on the doorstep of a very large farmhouse. Your father knocked on the door, and we both hid behind a barn on the property. We watched as an older couple took her in.”

“You mean... I may have a sister? Do you know what happened to her?”

“No. We came home, and your father and I were married. Then I gave birth to Fionn. We tried to put the past behind us, and we were successful for awhile. I lost two sons, as you know, and then...I gave birth to you.”

Aislin sat back and looked at her mother. Her life had always been a puzzle to her, and the pieces were now dropping into place with dizzying speed.

“Your birth brought everything back to me, Aislin, more vividly than when it happened. The rapes, the abuse...I couldn’t deal with having another girl. I wanted so much to love you. You were beautiful. You were born out of the love your father and I shared, but I just couldn’t look at you. I handed you off to a wet nurse, and went a little insane. Your father had no idea what to do with me.”

“So it was
never
about me. It was nothing
I
had done,” Aislin whispered.

“I’ve never been fair to you, my love. You have been the most amazing daughter, more than I could have ever hoped for, but I just couldn’t bring myself to get close to you. I pray you can forgive me.”

“Why didn’t you tell me? It couldn’t have been easy for you to listen to me complain about Jariath’s proposals, knowing what his father did to you. And you never said one word.”