He could see confusion and apprehension in those large sapphire eyes. But no fear. Reese scowled. No fear? he thought. Men greater than she have trembled before my wrath.
She parted her lips and they moved. It was a moment before he realized she was speaking. “You are my husband,” she said simply.
Husband. The word sent tremors of horror and anger up his spine. He tossed her arm aside and whirled, moving for the door.
“Wait!” Her voice sounded desperate.
He halted, straightening his shoulders.
“I-- Have I done something to displease you?” she asked.
Reese whirled on her, his fists clenched tight, his eyes wide in absolute disbelief. “Displease me?” he echoed, hotly. “Yes! You married me!” With that, he stormed from the room, leaving her completely alone.
He didn’t care if she fled the castle. He didn’t care if he never saw her again. This entire marriage was a farce. He didn’t care for the woman. He didn’t love her. And he had vowed long ago he would not marry unless he loved the girl.
His father had married his mother for her lands; not an uncommon union , but one empty of affection or devotion... or love. His father had married for fields of wheat, rolling hills, and cattle pastures. There had been no love between his parents. And Reese had seen the terrible consequences of that.
All his life he heard pieces of the servants’ gossip, whisperings of his mother’s infidelity. He hadn’t believed it. Didn’t want to believe it. Any of it.
But when he was eight years old he witnessed something that forever left a scar on his heart.
He had been walking through the castle’s halls when he saw his mother in a dark alcove, laughing quietly. He heard the whispering of a man’s low voice coming from the darkness and assumed it was his father. He started to run toward them, to tell them about the grand adventure he had exploring the guards’ barracks, but then stopped abruptly as he saw his mother step from the alcove. She adjusted her dress, her hand resting casually on the chest of a man, a man who was not his father.
Reese’s jaw and fists clenched at the bitter memory. The pain had long since receded, but the anger was still fresh in his mind. After that, stories circulated throughout the castle of her liaison with a baron. Rumor had it there had been a wandering gypsy amongst her numerous lovers as well.
He had been too ashamed to mention any of this to his father. But his father eventually discovered his mother’s treachery. Reese had been eleven years old when he had awoken to shouts and screams. He had raced from his room to find his mother, half-dressed, standing in the middle of the hallway. His father faced another man, a man clad only in leggings, their laces untied. Reese shook his head, remembering the disgust in his father’s eyes as he turned to look at his wife. Then, his father turned his back on her and challenged the man to a duel. Reese remembered feeling a surge of pride for his father as he confronted the bastard who had bedded his wife under his very nose.
But his pride was very short-lived. His father died the next day on the field of honor. An honorless man.
Their mother had tried to raise Reese and his sister, Nicole, but she was not very good at it. Reese wanted nothing to do with her anyway, and he and Nicole ended up looking after each other. Their mother died in childbirth eight months after their father’s death, leaving them a brother to raise as well as themselves.
At the age of twelve, Reese had become lord of the castle.
He had planned to take his time and find a woman he could love, a woman who could love him, a woman he was destined to marry. Not this.
As he stormed down the hallway, servants paused in their tasks to glance in his direction and shake their heads. Reese greeted their sympathetic looks with a guttural growl. He paused only long enough to snarl at one of the servants, “Have James sent to me.”
He entered his den, slamming the door shut on prying eyes. He prowled the room for a moment, thinking of his sister. He slapped his palms on the ledge of the window, looking out over the darkening skies toward Lord Cullen’s lands. So help Cullen if Nicole was not returned safely. He would storm Cullen’s castle himself and find his sister.
Reese shook his head in disgust. Forced into marriage.
A loveless marriage. The thought made him sick. But he would not risk the life of his sister. Not for all the threats on the earth. Cullen had repeatedly petitioned him to marry his daughter, Jayce. After three refusals, Reese had put the matter out of his mind. A mistake he realized only too late.
Nicole vanished from the castle grounds a few days after his final refusal.
A missive arrived shortly after Nicole’s disappearance, announcing that Lord Cullen would have Reese marry his daughter, or the health of Nicole would be at stake.