“At the moment? I assumed they are his heirs because he was wed before he married you.”
“He was and he remained married even as he took vows with me.” She could feel the heat of embarrassment color her cheeks and almost welcomed it for it chased away some of the chill lingering in her body. “No one kenned it, but he had married a girl in the village nearly six years before he married me. He did not annul that first marriage, which gave him the boys. Instead, he allowed all of us to believe Marie Anne was his mistress and had me train his boys. I kenned they were his sons, but I had thought they were his bastard children, ones he wished trained to a better life.”
Brian bit back the curses stinging his tongue. He could only guess at the depth of the humiliation she had suffered. It was all too easy to recall the anger and bitterness suffered by his father’s wives over the man’s unfaithfulness. For this woman to discover that she was a mistress and not the wife she had thought herself must have been a hard blow indeed.
Then he thought on how she treated the two boys his family now rushed to a safe haven. Brian had no doubts that she cared for them and they for her. It said a lot about the woman that she did not turn her anger or heartache onto the boys. Few women he had known would be so kind and loving toward the children of a man who had so cruelly betrayed them.
“Yet you still call yourself Lady Lucette?”
“To do otherwise would only shame both our families. I may be angry with Claud for his deception, but he is dead now, as is his wife. Murdered by his own brother, I believe. And his family? They may have nearly cost the boys their lives by refusing to heed my warnings, but they were grieving the loss of their eldest son and still reeling from learning how many lies he had told everyone. My family had naught to do with it all save to offer me what they all thought would be an excellent match. There is naught to gain in letting Claud’s lies be kenned save to shame all the ones who have done no real wrong.”
“Including you and those laddies.”
“Aye, including us. All I demanded of them was that, if they got the boys disinherited, that they gift them with the property held here and leave them with me. Then I left the problem of trying to sort out Claud’s deceptions to the Lucettes and brought the boys here. It was foolish of me to believe, even for a moment, that that would be enough to end the threat to them.”
“Your Claud was a coward.”
“Why do ye say that?”
“He didnae have the stomach to tell his kin the truth. He probably feared he would lose his place as the heir because he wed a woman he kenned his family wouldnae approve of. Instead of fighting for the marriage he wanted, fighting for his sons, he lied and dragged ye into his life of lies without a thought as to how it would affect you. And ye were right to bring those laddies here. They will get the protection they deserve now.”
That sounded very much like a vow but, before Arianna could respond to Sir Brian’s somewhat impassioned speech, he kicked his horse into a gallop. She hurried to get her own mount moving to keep up with him. It was not easy but she forced herself to ignore the exhaustion and pain battering at her body. She just prayed that it would not be too much longer before he claimed it safe enough to stop for a rest.
She fixed her mind on what he had said about her late husband, Claud, and had to agree. Claud had been a coward, too spineless to stand firm on what he wanted honestly and openly. He had also been selfish, thinking only of himself. It embarrassed her to think of how hard she had tried to make their marriage a good one before she had discovered Marie Anne, the woman she had thought was his mistress. Discovering that Marie Anne had actually been his true wife had made her feel, briefly, relieved that she had not indulged in many of her grand plans to seduce him away from his mistress.
Arianna just wished the sense of failure she still carried would ease. She had not failed for there had never been any chance for her to succeed. Claud was the one who had failed them all and was still failing them. Instead of being there to help protect his sons, it was the woman he had lied to and betrayed who was fighting to keep the boys alive. Arianna fixed her gaze on Sir Brian’s broad back and promised herself that she would win this fight. She also promised herself that she would never be so trusting and painfully naive again.
Chapter 3
“M’lady? M’lady! Wheesht, I didnae ken someone could sleep sitting up and with their eyes open.”