Marc frowned. "Don't females have the same educational rights as males in Zulheil?"
"Of course. My compulsory schooling was given to me, but after that...my father didn't believe in wasting college fees on a female who would simply be a pretty thing in her husband's home." She shrugged as if it hadn't mattered, though he knew it must've broken her heart.
"Why didn't you complain?"
"It would've shamed my entire clan. The Dazirah family is proud, but we're part of an even prouder clan. The clan is supposed to protect each member within it. To speak out would've been to say that they had failed in their duty."
"They did fail." His voice was hard. Protecting the vulnerable was the one thing he'd never compromise on.
"Yes, but they had many successes. Last year they sent several students, male and female, to learn advanced mechanical engineering in Britain. If I had spoken out, their honor would've fallen in a land where honor is everything." She gave him a smile full of maturity. "Those who gave the educational fund assistance would've sent their money elsewhere. Now, say to me that a single woman's unhappiness is worth destroying the dreams of many."
He could see her point. "Was there no one you could've asked for help?" How could someone so bright and beautiful, someone with such a gentle heart, have spent a lifetime alone?
Her smile was tight. "I wasn't popular at school or with my cousins once I was no longer a child. They didn't want me near their boyfriends and lovers. The only girls who might've been my friends were the beauties who had no interest in study, and I couldn't bear to pretend to be like them. So there was no one." She paused, as if debating whether to share something else.
When she spoke, what she said sent spikes of temper arcing through his body. "The boys wished to be friendly with me but even the smart ones could never just be content to be my friends. They all wanted more."
"Did they-?" he began, his eyes locked on hers.
She shook her head almost immediately. "I stopped building friendships with boys very young, before they were old enough to try and do more than steal a kiss.
So the boys liked me too much and the girls not at all." She was attempting to make a joke out of what must have been some very painful years.
He could imagine that lonely girl learning to become ice to survive the exclusions, the whispers behind her back. "There is someone now. You'll tell me everything."
"Yes, husband." Her voice was meek.
He frowned. "Are you laughing at me?"
"Only a little." Her eyes lit up.
It was an effort to keep his lips straight-she didn't need any encouragement. Pulling her head down, he kissed her. "So, princess, you want to know about your bayou brat?" he said, against those luscious lips that made him want to bite. Deciding there was no reason to resist, he gently nibbled on her lower lip.
"Why do you call yourself that?" she asked when he released her, her voice breathless.
"Because it's true. I grew up in the bayou, living in a shack that barely held together when the waters rose. My parents were both alcoholics who didn't give a damn about me, so long as they had enough money for booze."
"And if they didn't?"
He could still remember the blows, the pain and the darkness. "They amused themselves by knocking me around."
Hira made a sound of distress.
He soothed her with his hands and his voice. "It was okay. I could run pretty fast so I usually just hid out until they were drunk again."
Gentle feminine fingers traced a scar on his chest, so tender that the touch felt like the brush of a butterfly's wings. He should've been amused that she thought she might hurt him. Instead, his heart thundered as a hint of some powerful understanding hovered just over the edge of his horizon.
"You didn't get these because you were a fast runner. They hurt you badly." Her eyes dared him to explain the scars away. This woman he'd married wouldn't be soothed so easily when someone she cared for was hurt. It took him a moment to overcome his astonishment at the realization that both his wife's words and her careful touch arose from a belief that he was hers. He wanted to force her to tell him how strong Beauty's care was for her Beast of a husband, but restrained himself, unwilling to destroy the fragility of their new accord.
Instead he contented himself with answering her question, telling her something very few people knew. Her unhidden expression of care deserved to be rewarded with honesty. "Actually, I did get them for being a fast runner." He made a wry face. "When I was about seven, they were desperate for money. So they sold me."
Eight
Hira jerked up into a sitting position, holding the sheet to her breast. "People cannot be sold! Not in my country and not in yours."
He ran a hand up her arm, undone by her distress. "It wasn't so bad. You can imagine the kinds of things a depraved mind could do to a child."
She nodded, her face lined with worry. "I know." His protective instincts urged him to change that look, to take the pain away from her. "Well, nothing like that happened to me. The reason Muddy offered money for me was that I could run like the wind. Thieves need to be quick on their feet."
Her eyes were huge and round in the early morning light, "You were sold to a thief?"
"An old thief. He couldn't pick pockets himself anymore but he took me to New Orleans and trained me to do it. We preyed mainly on tourists who wandered off the beaten path in the French Quarter. I was with him for two years and most of these scars come from that work. Not all. Some are actually courtesy of my parents and Muddy's fists, but the really bad ones are from running the streets."
He ran his hand over one ragged line that ran diagonally from his left clavicle to the middle of his ribs on his right side. "I got slashed by a knife once when Muddy sent me into someone else's patch-territory," he explained, rubbing his hand along the white lines on his face.
"As for these, a gang took offence at my being in their territory, and I had a bottle broken across my face. Both times I got sliced up pretty bad but the wounds didn't require stitches, which is why the scars are so ugly. No surgeon to make them pretty."
She laid her hand over his, lips pressed tight. "They are not ugly. I have told you so."
He turned his palm up and captured her hand, something primitive in him appeased by her lack of resistance.
"Not exactly an honorable warrior's marks." His mouth twisted. "But I was a damn good thief."
Her hand squeezed his, her bones fine but strong in a very feminine way. "They are. How else could you have survived such a life without letting it destroy you, if you didn't have the soul of a warrior?"
He looked up into that intent, loyal face and found himself believing her. "You're far too innocent for the likes of me. But I'm keeping you." That primitive part of him rose to the surface, hotly possessive.
Her smile was pure sunshine, calming the primitive.
"You are welcome, husband mine. What happened after two years with the old thief?"
"I was in a really bad street fight. Muddy sent me somewhere he never should have-into drug territory. Anyway, I got opened up pretty bad." The memories were hazy because of the blood loss he'd suffered. "Muddy disappeared, never to be heard from again. I don't know if the drug lords got him or he just escaped when I was wheeled into intensive care. A couple of cops found me lying half-dead on the street."
"But you survived." Her fingers traced the fine white lines of scars across his abdomen.
"Yes. The doctors did a good job-those scars are the least visible."
"And yet there are so many. You were not just cut once." There was such anger in her eyes. "What happened after you recovered?"
"When the cops asked me how I'd ended up in the city, I lied and said I'd run away. So they returned me to my parents, instead of sending me to a foster home."