"You...," she gasped, patting her chest to restart her heart. "How did you get in here?"
He came to a halt, a respectful distance away. "Forgive me for startling you. But when your father told me you were feeling ill, I knew it was not the truth."
"You didn't answer my question."
"What question?"
"How did you get in here?"
His blue eyes twinkled and he gestured at the door. Derica, calming somewhat after her initial fright, slowly shook her head. "That door was locked. I bolted it myself."
"I did not say I came through the door."
"But you pointed to it."
"I did not. I merely pointed to the obvious."
She was becoming irritated. "The obvious door? You're not making any sense."
He remained cool, almost amused. "Does it matter how I got in? I would say that you should be more concerned as to why I am here."
Derica was still looking over at the door, almost hidden in the darkness. There was a lancet window near it, the oilcloth partially peeled back. It took her a moment to realize that the window was what Garren had meant. Her eyes widened.
"Do you mean to tell me that you came in through the window?" she was astonished. "I am four stories up. How in God's name did you climb up the side of the keep?"
He smiled faintly. "I came to apologize if I said something to upset you when we met on the battlements. Whatever it was, I did not mean to. I sensed that you were perturbed when you left, and then when you did not appear at sup, I knew I must have offended you."
She eyed him. "Are you always so evasive?"
"What do you mean?"
"I want to know how you came in through the window, and you want to discuss some silly conversation we had on the battlements."
"It wasn't a silly conversation at all, I assure you. It was the first true conversation you and I have had, and I suppose I conducted it badly."
Derica cocked an eyebrow. She was coming to suspect he was not going to tell her how he came in through the window. But she was off-guard at his appearance and had no desire to continue a conversation with him.
"My father will throw you in the vault if he finds you in here," she said. "You'd better leave the way you came so no one will see you."
Garren stood there, watching the light reflect off her features. He also knew it was dangerous for him to be here, but for the duration of sup he had been seized with the determination to see her. A small seed of confusion was glowing somewhere in his mind, something that he suspected at some point would make it difficult for him to keep his mind on his mission unless he kept it in check. Maybe if he could talk to her, to find out just how spoiled and petty she was, he could learn to dislike her. He needed to find a reason to dislike her in order to maintain his focus.
He took a couple of slow steps, moving towards the other chair in the chamber and being very careful not to appear threatening.
"You have no interest in me, my lady," he commented quietly.
"I beg your pardon?"
He took the chair, lowering his big body. "I said, you have no interest in me. This marriage is as much a duty to you as it is to me."
He was a safe enough distance away and Derica was feeling more composed, enough so that she found herself responding to him.
"Unless a young woman is intended for the convent, it is expected she would wed," she replied. "I have no desire to become a nun or an old maid."
"But you were disturbed by my observation that one of marriage's primary purposes is to produce heirs."
Derica shrugged, toying with the ends of her hair. "Sometimes the truth is disturbing."
"It is. But why should the production of a child disturb you? All women want children, do they not?"
"My mother died giving birth to me."
"I see," Garren understood. "Then childbirth frightens you."
Derica looked up at him, feeling an odd warmth coarse through her as their eyes met. "Not particularly," she tried to sound uncaring. "It is a fact of life. One cannot avoid it."
Garren sensed she was putting up a front but he let it go. "Many, many women survive it," he said. "True enough that some die, but the same pertains to any risks you take in life. Some live, and some die, but it is better to have taken the chance than to have had no chance to take."
For the first time since they met, he drew a smile from her, however reluctant. It was a beautiful gesture. "You speak like someone who has taken many chances, and has perhaps regretted the ones he never had."
He met her smile, feeling the same warmth that she was feeling. "I think that can be said for all of us, not just me," he said. "But there are things I wish I could have done, and things I wish I hadn't done."