For Eternity
Prologue“Sabrina, Alexandra, I wish to speak with the two of you.” Heather looked at her two young daughters and dreaded having to tell them what she was about to. Although they were identical in looks, they couldn’t have been more different in dispositions. Alexandra, she knew, would react with little to no reaction at all. Sabrina, the one whom was more greatly affected, would stomp her foot in indignation and go on a tirade, a trait she inherited from her father…her late father, Heather amended.
The two girls looked at their mother expectantly and braced themselves for what they knew was about to come. Their father had been sick for some time, and it had been just a matter of time before he left this world. What they hadn’t considered, was who would take over their clan once their father had gone.
Heather took a deep breath and continued just looking at her girls. At the growing of their looks of confusion she took them into the drawing room. “Girls, please sit down…I have news of some import to tell you.”
“Father is dead,” Sabrina stated in a carefully measured tone.
“Yes,” their mother replied. “Yes, he died.”
“Why are you acting so funny, Mother,” Lexy asked their mother. She could sense when something was wrong, and something was terribly wrong.
“Sabrina, you are to be married,” Heather blurted before she had time to edit her words.
Sabrina looked at her mother for a moment and said, “Mother, I’m not getting married for quite some time, what are you talking about?”
“You are to be married in three days, Sabrina.”
“No, Dylan hasn’t even proposed marriage yet, why would I be getting married in three days?”
“You are not going to marry Dylan.”
Sabrina jumped from her seat and stalked towards her mother. “You can’t force me to marry any man that I don’t choose to, you just can’t. I’m going to marry Dylan, we love each other, and that’s it.”
“Sabrina,” her mother warned.
“Why is it always ‘Sabrina’? Why isn’t it, ‘Alexandra’? You can’t make me!”
“You are the eldest,” Heather said matter-of-factly.
“That’s not my fault, and it’s only by mere minutes. Mother, please don’t do this to me.”
“Darling, I have no more choice than you do. It was an order from your father before he left this world, it’s stated in his will, and that’s the end of it. He wanted you girls to be well provided for, and he needed someone to run this keep. We had no sons, and you well know that a lady can’t run a keep.”
“But I thought that Dylan,”
“Well you thought wrong,” her mother broke in. “Your father already chose his heir, and it’s not Dylan. You are to marry this laird, Sabrina, and he will provide for you and your sister.”
Sabrina, knowing she had lost, stormed from the room. Alexandra looked at her mother pityingly and got up to follow her sister.
“Brina, wait.”
Sabrina stopped her storming long enough for her sister to catch up. As soon as she had, the storming continued, with Lexy in close pursuit. “She can’t do this to me,” Sabrina declared once the two girls were safely ensconced in their bedchamber.
“I’m sorry, Brina,” Lexy offered. “I wish there was something that I could do.”
Just then a wonderfully marvelous idea popped itself into Sabrina’s head. “Maybe you can,” she said with a wicked grin. “Come here,” she ordered her younger sister, as she began telling of the deception that the two of them could pull off.
Three days later the beautiful bride took her place beside a groom she had never before laid eyes upon. She sent a quick prayer heavenward as she repeated her vows. She hoped that he would be a good man, a man who wouldn’t beat her, a man just like her father. A man who would appreciate, or at least understand, the deception that she and her sister had pulled off.
A few feet away, Sabrina stood, watching her sister marry a man that neither of them had ever met. She was eternally thankful that Lexy had done this for her, hopeful that her mother wouldn’t notice until it was too late, and prayerful that her sister was marrying a good man.Part One“Bloody hell, I didn’t want a wife,” Tristan roared as he threw his goblet towards the wall.
“It might not be so bad,” Nathan, Tristan’s brother, consoled. “She is lovely.”
“Get your mind out of my marriage bed,” Tristan warned with a glare.
Nathan laughed at his brother and handed him another goblet of wine. “Here, brother, drink. To your marriage!”
“I hope you die, slowly rotting in some man’s dungeon,” Tristan snarled. “Preferably mine.”
Nathan laughed harder at this, and clapped his brother on the back. “I do wish the Lady Sabrina luck in dealing with you, you are a most obnoxious creature when you put your mind to it.”
“How about we force you into a marriage and see how you fare?” Tristan suggested.
“No, thank you,” Nathan said as he smiled. “Forced marriages are for heirs, not the men second in line.”
“If you don’t cease your insufferable badgering, there will be no line.”
“More death threats, brother? You are getting rather dull in your married state, repeating yourself and all.” Nathan ducked the goblet that came spiraling towards his head. “I hope you don’t plan on treating Sabrina thusly, I doubt she would stay with you very long.”
“Just as I would have it,” Tristan yelled. He didn’t want to be married, and wondered how he found himself in such a state at the present time.
His father agreed to have his eldest son wed with one of the girls of a neighboring clan, since there was no heir and there was much fear of a bloody battle for the leadership if an heir wasn’t named by the current laird. Tristan had been that heir. He had no idea why, why not Nathan? Nathan had nothing coming to him, and looked forward to a life of warring otherwise. Tristan, on the other hand, had more keeps than he knew what to do with under his supervision. He considered giving their current home, Arria, to Nathan. Although Nathan wouldn’t admit as much, he wanted that keep very badly. Tristan had no real use for it specifically, and so decided that he would indulge his brother’s fantasies. He would bring his new family to Ayer. His new family.
Tristan cursed again as he remembered his new wife, who was probably awaiting his arrival, with great impatience, in their bedchamber. He cursed again, threw one last glare at his brother, and headed up the stairs.
“Don’t hurt her, Tristan.”
“Go to the devil, Nathan.”
Tristan smiled to himself as he thought of his brother finally settling down. Although Nathan liked to pretend that he had no use for females of any kind, Tristan knew he had a soft spot for them. When Nathan met the right one, it would be amusing to watch the battle that would be waged within him. Tristan suppressed his grin as he walked into his bedchamber and toward his bride.
Lexy knew that the moment had come. Her husband had come for her. Her husband. She couldn’t stop the chills that that particular thought brought. She held her breath, hoping that he would think her asleep and just leave her in peace.
“Sabrina,” Tristan called.
Lexy was faintly surprised for a moment, it was odd to hear her sister’s name when she was the one being spoken to.
“Sabrina, are you awake?”
Lexy resumed her comatose appearance.
“If you don’t answer me I will rip those covers that you are so tightly clutching right off of the bed.”
Lexy cursed her own stupidity and sat up, bringing the covers down below her chin. “Yes, my lord?”
“My name is Tristan,” he corrected her.
“All right then, yes, Tristan?”
“Come here,” he ordered her. She tentatively got out of the immense bed and crept towards him. He suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of protection in regards to her. She looked like a timid little child who was about to be beaten for some wrongdoing she had committed. He reached out and cupped her cheek with his hand. When she jumped backwards he looked at her oddly, “I’m not going to hurt you.”
Lexy, knowing her eyes must have been as large as saucers, quickly apologized. “I’m sorry, My lord,”
“Tristan.”
“Tristan. It’s just that…well…I’ve never been this close to a man before, and I don’t much care for it.”
Tristan laughed and sat on the bed with his head in his hands. His wedding night and it looked as if he would be spending it on a cold, hard floor. “I suppose it would just rip apart your maidenly virtues if I were to share the bed with you?” At her wide-eyed expression he resigned himself to the floor. “It will not always be like this,” he warned as he made himself a bed before the fire.
Lexy thanked the heavens for her temporary reprieve.Part TwoTristan didn’t get much sleep that night, and was grateful when it was time to get up and leave. He went over to the bed where his wife was sleeping soundly and gently shook her awake. “Sabrina,” he called softly, “wake up, it’s time to go.”
“Stop calling me that,” she groaned in her sleep as she turned over to get away from the noise that was waking her up.
“What else would I call you, if not your name?” he asked her in a confused tone.
Lexy was suddenly completely awake and realized what she had done. She was paralyzed with fear for a few moments, praying that he wouldn’t press her for an explanation.
“Enough with this dawdling,” he told her gruffly, “get up and get ready. I expect you downstairs in thirty minutes.”
Once he left the room, she jumped up and quickly got dressed and fixed her hair. Not long after, Sabrina walked in.
“Mother knows,” she said quietly.
Lexy whirled around in her chair. “She’s not going to tell him?”
“No,” Sabrina shook her head. “She said she knew last night, before the ceremony even started.”
“Why didn’t she stop us, then?”
Sabrina looked helpless. “I don’t know. She doesn’t even seem angry.” She let a small girlish giggle escape her lips before admitting, “Dylan is ready to bow down in worship of you.”
“Dylan is a good man, he’ll make you happy.”
“What about you, Lexy? Are you content?” serious concern showed itself plainly in Sabrina’s expression. The girls were each other’s best friend and they hated to see each other suffer.
“I’ve married a very wealthy man who will be able to provide for myself, and for you. He seems like a man who doesn’t abuse his wife, and I think he will handle our lands very well. Yes, I’m content.”
“Do you think you’ll grow to love him?” she asked quietly.
“I don’t know. What does love have to do with this anyway?” Lexy asked her sister impatiently.
Sabrina shrugged her shoulders and got up. “I don’t know. But he is terribly handsome,” she grinned. “So, how was last night?”
Lexy opened her mouth to speak, but was interrupted by a man clearing his throat at the door. She turned to see her husband, and her cheeks flamed a bright red, wondering how much he had heard, and praying that it wasn’t much.
“Your thirty minutes were up ten minutes ago,” he told her. “We need to leave immediately. Say your good-byes and let us be on our way.”
“That was odd,” Sabrina noted after Tristan had left.
“What is odd? That my brute of a husband is already spouting orders at me?” she laughed.
“No, that he could tell us apart so easily. We were standing side-by-side, yet his gaze never strayed from you.”Part ThreeTristan studied the girl sitting across from him in the carriage and wondered where her father had gotten such notions about her. Tristan had been led to believe that she was a wild outspoken girl who never was one to just sit back and let fate do as it willed with her. Yet, here she was, sitting calmly and quietly, watching her life as she knew it fade away with the countryside that was so familiar to her. He wondered why this bothered him so much when it had been his wish to have never married in the first place, least of all to an outspoken girl who would likely firmly place herself underfoot at all times. He was given a completely different person, one who seemed as if she would happily let herself get dumped on an estate somewhere and let him live the rest of his life far away from her. He was somewhat disappointed. At that, he decided to find the girl that her father had told him about, and vowed that he wouldn’t stop until he succeeded.
Without warning, the coach lurched to one side, and Lexy was thrown onto to Tristan. He steadied her, and sat her upright again in her seat, never letting his eyes stray from hers.
Lexy stared at Tristan as they drove along, wondering why his brow was furrowed with such deep thoughts. She wondered what was so important that he would ignore her for the better part of an hour. She sighed heavily and turned her head to look again, out the window. When the carriage lurched, she threw her arms out to brace herself, and suddenly found herself with Tristan’s arms around her. Her breathing stopped, and she looked into his eyes in shock. She had never been this close to any man, save her father, and she didn’t care for the butterflies that it put in her stomach. He helped her to get settled once again, and then turned back to his thoughts. She studied him, wondering what was going on in his head.
Tristan wondered if maybe he could mold her into the type of wife that he wanted. She seemed malleable enough, and if so, why pass up such a good opportunity? She was prettier than the average female, truth be told she was quite breathtaking with her red hair and emerald eyes. She was demure, but he saw a certain spark in her eyes when she had found herself in his arms. He wanted to nourish that spark and fan it into a blazing fire. He thought that, as well as being a good diversion, it would be fun to see what he could make out of this small little wife of his. Before he did anything, though, he had to test the waters, give her full reign of the house for a few days and see what, exactly, she was capable of.
He sat back and grinned in a self-satisfied way, studying her as if she were the next meal that was about to be laid out before him for the devouring.Part Four“This is Sabrina, my wife and your Lady,” Tristan announced to the group of servants gathered before him. “Everything she says is to be done quickly and efficiently, is that understood?” They all nodded somberly. “You are dismissed,” he told him, and they all went their own ways.
“I haven some work to attend to, you may go about your business,” he told her and turned to leave.
Lexy, thankful for the reprieve turned abruptly and started in the direction of her bedchamber.
“The kitchens are that way,” he informed her, and pointed in the opposite direction.
“Kitchens?” she repeated dumbly.
“Yes, I’d assume you would want to get this week’s menu started. I have no idea what cook is serving tonight, but I don’t trust him farther than I could throw him…and he is a very large man,” Tristan grinned.
“But you’re a large man too,” she said, trying to inch herself away from the kitchens without him noticing.
“Your flattery will get you nowhere, Darling,” he told her. “Now go to the kitchens and get the menu started. Millie will help you. You can’t miss her, she will be the one waving a wooden spoon and shrieking at the top of her lungs.”
Lexy’s eyes widened and Tristan laughed as he gently took her by the arm and led the way.
“Her bark is worse than her bite, don’t be afraid of her. Besides, she’s too afraid of me to hurt my new bride,” he winked at her and pushed her through the door and into what was, apparently, the kitchens.
“Millie?” Lexy quietly inquired of a lady who was holding a very dangerous looking wooden spoon.
Millie turned about, and gave Lexy a look that made her feel as if she were the servant, and not the other way around. “You must be the lady that his Lordship was speaking so much about before he left.”
“I’m his wife, yes,” Lexy admitted, as if it were something shameful.
“You don’t seem anything like a firebrand,” the older woman told Lexy.
“A firebrand? What would make you think that?”
“The letters your father wrote his Lordship about you said you were something of a hellion, a firebrand is what his Lordship called you.”
It hadn’t dawned on Lexy until now that Tristan would have any idea as to who or what she was until he had met her. She wondered what he must be thinking, now that he had dealt with her when her older sister was the one who had been described to him. She cursed herself a fool several times, before she realized that Millie was looking at her expectantly, as if she had been asked a question she hadn’t answered. “I’m sorry, what were you saying?”
Millie looked at her as if she had sprouted another head and launched into a speech of how things were usually done in the house and in the kitchens. Lexy, who couldn’t have possibly cared any less how things in a house were done, told Millie to continue doing things as they were done before.
Lexy didn’t realize it then, but she had just given every servant in the house permission to not listen to any of her commands. They saw that she would be easy to disobey without much fear of retribution. Any cooperation from them in the future was going to be a tough thing to gain indeed.
Lexy sniffed disdainfully at a large pot of something rather nasty and asked cook what it was he was cooking.
“A new recipe,” he informed her. “Boiled potatoes, carrots, rabbit, and chicken.”
She scrunched up her nose at him, “That doesn’t sound very good. Rabbit and chicken in the same dish? It’s unheard of!”
“Would her ladyship care to cook?” he asked her angrily.
“Of course not.”
“Then her ladyship can take herself from the kitchens and let me do as I please,” he gruffly told her before turning back to his creation.
Lexy, having been dismissed by the cook, did the only thing she could. She turned and left without another word.
Tristan watched as Lexy hurried, from the kitchens, upstairs to her room. He saw the look on her face and correctly assumed that things hadn’t gone well. He walked into the kitchens and overheard two kitchen maids talking about what a pushover the young girl was, and how they were glad that they would have full reign of the house, and even of the master eventually. Tristan, overcome with anger, came upon them quickly and grabbed their arms, none too gently and escorted them out of the house. “You two may go find employment elsewhere,” he told them coldly. “And do not expect a recommendation from me.” He slammed the door shut in their faces, and went back into the kitchens to see what else had been done. He found Millie and got a recount of the events as they had happened, including the run-in with cook.
Tristan immediately gathered the servants about him in the kitchens, where he knew his wife wouldn’t overhear. “It has been brought to my attention that you all believe my wife to be a very…soft lady who will not even attempt to keep you all in line. I am here to tell you right now that if whatever she requests isn’t done with the utmost speed and efficiency the person or persons at fault will be dismissed without a single question, is that understood?” They all nodded. “If I hear another harsh word about my wife, or my intentions of staying faithful to her,” a few faces blanched as he swept the crowd, especially the single young ladies, with a glare, “that person will also be dismissed, is that understood?” Again, everyone nodded. “And lastly, if I hear any complaint from her, no matter how small or insignificant, the person being complained about shall also be dismissed, is that understood?” The crowd nodded. “You are all dismissed,” he told them, and they began to file out. “Not you cook,” he announced. “You, I believe, owe my wife an apology.”
Cooks eyes narrowed, he was a very proud man and would never go so low as to apologize to someone who had insulted his culinary creativity, especially if that someone was a woman. “I will not apologize,” he stated.
“You will not have a job either,” Tristan informed him with a smile. “You have until tonight to make up your mind.” Tristan left the room and headed upstairs to see how his wife faired.
Lexy heard the soft knock on her door, and wiped the tears from her eyes as she opened it.
He gently cupped her chin in his hand and lifted her face. “What’s this, darling? Tears? What’s the matter?”
She jerked her head away and walked across the room from him, with her arms wrapped around her slender waist. “You don’t love me,” she accused him.
“I doubt you love me either,” he said with a smile. “However, I do believe that the two of us could at least be friends.”
“I have no reason to be here.”
“You’re my wife.”
“Not by choice,” she yelled.
He started to smile, this must be the girl her father had been talking about.
Lexy stared at him with wide-eyed shock, she couldn’t believe she had just yelled at him. Her first instinct was to apologize…only she wasn’t sorry. “I want to go home,” she told him.
“You are home.”
“You know what I mean, stop being cruel,” she ordered with a stomp of her foot.
“I’m not cruel, darling, I do wish you wouldn’t say that I was.”
“I’m not your ‘darling’,” she told him with a pout.
“But you are mine,” he said with a look of pure determination in his eyes.
She began to back away from him, not knowing what he was going to do, but knowing that she didn’t want him to do it. “Tristan, please,” she pleaded with him.
He sighed heavily and the look was gone. “I much prefer your yelling at me over your shrinking in fear.”
“You want me to yell at you?” she asked him stupidly.
Tristan realized the idiocy of what he’d told her. He hadn’t wanted her to cause him any problems, yet that was exactly what he was telling her to do. He wanted a quiet docile wife who did his bidding without a second thought. “Yes,” he told her, “I want you to yell at me until that little voice of yours goes hoarse.”Part FiveYelling was exactly what Lexy did for the next week. Having Tristan tell her that he wanted her to yell at him, was a sort of a boost in strength for her. She no longer had anyone to protect her, and she had to fend for herself. Tristan became a source of constant courage, his quiet presence being all she needed to gain that extra bit that allowed her to step outside of her comfort area and speak her mind freely. She also found that he was quickly becoming a close friend of hers. Someone to talk to when something was on her mind, someone who always supported whatever choices she made, whether it be what to have for dinner or whether or not to have someone reprimanded. Lexy blossomed into a whole new person under Tristan’s careful tending.
Millie also became a close friend of Lexy’s, as did cook. After he was forced to apologize, Lexy told him that he might try any recipe that he liked once, and she wouldn’t judge until she had tried it. The two formed an instant bond.
Tristan, much to his own disdain, found himself becoming jealous of the other people that his wife spent time with. He had helped her to become the woman he was told she had been, and saw no further use for her. He would sire himself an heir on her, and that would be the end of it, or so he told himself.
“What are you thinking?” Lexy asked him one night, as they sat in the study together, him staring at the wall into nothingness and her ignoring a book that lay open on her lap.
“Nothing,” he gruffly lied and pretended to begin sifting through the papers on his desk.
“Why won’t you tell me?” she pushed.
“There is nothing to tell,” he insisted rather dramatically.
“Tristan,”
“Sabrina,” he mocked.
She sighed heavily and went back to her book. Something made her want to admit her deceit right there to him. After all, she had to tell him eventually, and why not right now? What was the worst he could do? Send her packing? She realized, with a start, that the prospect of him sending her away hurt. She didn’t love him, by any means, but she had come to care for him, and had believe that he cared for her too…even if just a little. To find that he would simply get rid of her caused her to almost want to cry. She decided that telling him was something best put off for another day.
“What’s on your mind?” he asked her.
“Nothing,” she snapped. Her feeling of hurt quickly turned to one of anger.
“Yelling at me, darling?”
“How many times must I tell you that I am not, nor will I ever be, your ‘darling’?”
He laughed at her, knowing it would provoke her further, and feeling up to a good fight.
“How dare you laugh at me,” she screamed at him.
She continued on a tirade that, he figured, lasted a good ten minutes. Her voice carried through the keep, and drifted into the kitchens where Millie and cook heard their lady yelling. They looked at each other, and decided to make sure their Lady wasn’t being used badly by their Lord. They had grown rather protective of her, and wouldn’t stand for her being hurt. They both burst into the library to find Lexy, up on her toes, screaming at Tristan and waving her finger menacingly in his face. He was just watching her, his arms folded over his chest, with a stupid grin. When Lexy finally calmed Tristan pulled her into his arms.
“Oh, Sabrina, I just adore you,” he told her as he dropped his mouth to hers.
Millie and Cook left the room as quietly as they had come in, smiling to themselves that their lord had finally come to his senses about his wife.
Lexy’s anger immediately turned into something else the moment his lips touched hers. She clung to his arms and followed his lead in their kiss. Whatever he did to her, she attempted to do back to him.
Suddenly, Tristan ripped his mouth away. He was breathing heavily, and his eyes looked as dazed as hers. “I want you,” he told her. “Now.” Lexy nodded dumbly and let him pick her up and carry her to her room. He placed her on the bed and began to undo the buttons on the back of her dress.
Lexy immediately twisted away from him. “What are you doing?” she demanded.
He looked at her with a pained smile. “Sabrina, for once, I’m asking you to keep your opinions and thoughts to yourself, just let me do what I need to. You’ll be thanking me soon, no doubt,” he muttered under his breath.
He continued with the buttons until they were all unfastened and slowly slid the blue taffeta over her head. His sharp intake of breath was probably audible around the keep. Her body was as beautiful as her face. He then noticed that she had gone completely stiff, probably paralyzed with fear, he thought. He tried to kiss her again, but there was no response this time. He cursed to himself for going to quickly with her, and being so uncaring about it.
“Darling, please trust me. I will not hurt you,” he promised her again.
“I don’t like what you’re doing to me,” she whispered. “I feel funny.”
“I feel funny too,” he admitted while nibbling on her neck. “I want you to please relax for me, it will be easier for both of us if you do,” he told her. He didn’t give her a chance to answer, he covered her mouth with his. He went a considerable amount slower this time, and felt he would die by the time they were both fully unclothed. He dreaded this part, he didn’t want to hurt her. He went slowly, feeling her body tighten as he entered her. “It’s ok, Darling,” he promised through nibbling kisses.
“You’re hurting me,” she whimpered. “Please stop.”
Tristan was now at the point of no return. “I’m sorry for this, Darling,” said as he sucked in his breath and rammed deep into her.
She yelled in pain, and tried to push him off of her.
He tried to calm her, stroking her face and hair, and raining kisses over her forehead, mouth, and neck. “I’m so sorry,” he kept apologizing over and over again. She began to squirm underneath him, and it drove him over the edge.Part SixLexy woke up with Tristan still draped over her. She relived the previous night, and a shudder went through her. Her thighs felt sticky and she touched them tentatively with her hand. Her fingers came away smeared with blood. She gasped and fairly jumped from the bed. Tristan woke up and was at once alert.
“What’s wrong, what happened?”
Lexy stared at him with wide eyes. “I’m bleeding,” she told him as she held up her stained fingers.
“Damn it,” he muttered. He picked her up and sat her back down on the bed, neither of them caring or noticing that they were both still completely bereft of clothing. Tristan filled a basin, grabbed a cloth, and brought it over to the bed. He gently spread her knees, and she immediately snapped them back together. “I’m only going to wash you,” he promised.
“I can do it,” she told him haughtily.
“Just be quiet and listen, for once,” he commanded.
“I did just that last night, and you hurt me badly.”
He looked into her eyes and saw pain there, and not all of it was physical. He gently bathed her, and put the basin and cloth away. He lay back down on the bed and drew her into his arms. “Sabrina?”
“What?”
“It will never hurt like that again.”
“If you say so,” she told him sleepily.
“You had a barrier that I had to break through,” he told her as he drew her more closely against him. And so did you, he thought to himself. Luckily, they both made it though…relatively unscathed. “Sabrina…I love you.”
Lexy stopped making the circles that she hadn’t even realized she had started tracing on the back of his shoulder. She wanted to tell him that she loved him too, but something wasn’t right. “Tristan,” she began very slowly, “I have a confession to make.”
Tristan’s heart stopped beating. What on earth could she have to reveal to him?
“I’m not Sabrina,” she quietly stated.
“Yes you are,” he told her and laughed, thinking it was some sort of jest. He laid his head on the pillow and closed his eyes to try to fall back asleep.
Lexy sat up. “I’m her twin sister. You never married Sabrina, you married me. Alexandra.” She waited for his response, but he showed no sign of even hearing her. “Brina was so in love with my father’s captain, Dylan, that I couldn’t let her marry you. She never would have been happy. She would have withered here and I couldn’t stand for that when I could do something about it. She asked me to trade places with her, and I agreed. I had no one to love, and I doubt father would have sold Sabrina to a man who would treat her badly. Tristan, please don’t be angry with me, I did it for my sister.”
He stared at her with coldness in his eyes. How could he have admitted to loving such a deceitful creature. “So you offered yourself as the sacrificial lamb?”
“Don’t put it that way, Tristan, please,” she pleaded with him, while trying to get him to hold her again.
He pulled away from her. “Why didn’t you tell me immediately after the ceremony or in the weeks that we’ve been here?”
“I feared that you would have dumped me and demanded my sister at first…then I felt that I couldn’t deal with your anger and rejection if you were to find out.”
“What makes you think I would be any more forgiving now?”
She looked up at him with tears in her eyes. “I can’t pretend to be my sister forever, and when you told me you loved me…I wanted to hear my name attached to that, not Brina’s.”
“What makes you think I love you? I loved Sabrina, the girl that I married.”
“I am the girl you married,” she pleaded. “Just with a different name. It’s me, please, Tristan.”
“The girl I married wouldn’t have pulled off something so deceitful as this.”
“I did,” she argued, “and you did marry me.”
“Yes, and I’m beginning to wonder if I’ve made a terrible mistake.” He got up from the bed, and stormed from the room. Slamming the door adjoining their rooms closed behind him.
She heard the key grate in the lock, and felt the insane urge to cry. She knew she shouldn’t have told him.
Some time later, Tristan quietly walked into his wife’s room and felt a moment’s panic when she wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Then his eyes fell on her. Asleep against the door that joined their rooms. His mind replayed her pleadings for him to open the door and listen to her. She must have fallen asleep while waiting for him, he imagined. She was going to wait a very long time. He picked her up, and noted that her hair was still damp with her tears, and her cheeks were still somewhat flushed, hinting that she hadn’t fallen asleep too long ago. He looked at the clock on her mantelpiece. She had spent four hours begging and pleading with him to open the door. It took every ounce of strength he had to not give in. She sniffled in her sleep, and turned towards his body, cuddling against him and clinging to his jacket. He felt his resolve fading, and put her down on her bed before it got to a point that he would regret.
“Tristan?” she called softly.
That soft pleading voice was going to be his undoing if he didn’t leave immediately. “Go to sleep,” he ordered her.
She snuggled under the blankets and murmured “I love you,” before falling back into a deep sleep.
For a moment he considered forgiving her, taking her into his arms, and losing himself in her once again. But only for a moment. He turned and strode from the room, never even glancing back at the young bride he was leaving behind.Part Seven“I’m going to skin his lordship alive, when he comes back,” Millie stated with more than a touch of anger.
“And I will then cut him into little pieces and serve him in my next stew,” Cook volunteered.
The two watched Lexy stare out the window, down the long winding drive, waiting for her husband to come back, but knowing that he probably never would. She had done this every day for a week. Refusing all meals, and losing whatever she did manage to get down. Her days consisted of sleeping, staring, and crying. She had lost the first thing she had ever loved, and it hurt like hell.
Lexy ignored the presence of her two closest friends and continued staring out the window. It was getting colder outside and she wondered where Tristan had gone. She hoped that he wasn’t holed up at his hunting lodge, he would freeze to death. Not that he deserved any better, she told herself angrily. She sighed heavily and continued her vigil for the husband she knew was never going to come back. Her first choice had been the right one, and that was to keep silent about who she truly was. The servants still called her Sabrina, so she knew Tristan had told them nothing. They all seemed to treat with her more pity than respect lately, and it wasn’t something she appreciated. Even Millie and Cook couldn’t bring themselves to ask why Tristan had left her.
Tristan had left her.
The thought bit through her like a steel knife and she gave in to another fit of tears.
Nathan’s butler announced the arrival of his brother and Nathan had him immediately shown in. Nathan gasped at the change in Tristan. He was in terrible shape. His hair was disheveled, and he looked as if he had spent the last week too drunk to walk. Nathan assumed his thoughts were correct when Tristan tripped over his own feet while walking into the room. Nathan at once had his arm around his elder brother, and helped him to the couch.
“What the hell happened to you?” Nathan demanded.
“A wife,” was all Tristan said before passing out into a peaceful oblivion.
Several hours and a cold bath later, Tristan appeared in his brother’s library. “I suppose I should apologize for the way I treated you the last time we were together,” Tristan offered.
“Of course not,” Nathan told him, “we are brothers, we fight. Let’s forget it. Now, what is this about your wife giving you trouble?”
Tristan repeated the entire story of what had happened from the first day right down to when he ended up lying unconscious on Nathan’s couch. By the time he finished, he felt as though he had actually relived the entire thing once again. He wanted a brandy.
“You married the wrong sister?” Nathan asked in shock.
Tristan shook his head, “I married the right sister, she just had the wrong name.” At Nathan’s confused look, Tristan just shook his head again.
“What are you going to do?”
“What can I do? I abandoned my wife! I suppose I’ll take up residence in one of my other holdings, I haven’t been to any of them in a long while.”
“Why don’t you stay here?” Nathan suggested.
“You wouldn’t mind?”
“You are my favorite older brother,” Nathan said with a smug smile.
“I’m your only brother,” Tristan reminded him.
“All the more reason for you to be my favorite.” The two men laughed, and Nathan ordered for Tristan’s things to be brought in.
Lexy got up from her seat beside the window, and pulled the heavy drapes closed, she refused to waste any more time waiting for a husband who wouldn’t come back. With a new resolve, she rang for someone to come and help make preparations for visitors. She wanted to invite Sabrina over for a stay, and she knew that it would be helpful to have her sister around during this time. She was going to pick up the pieces of her life and begin living again…even if it killed her.Part Eight
“What’s going on up there?” Dylan demanded of cook.
“I would assume her ladyship is in a great amount of pain trying to deliver this baby,” he offered.
Another chilling scream ripped through the keep.
The doctor came hurrying down the stairs. “Where is this woman’s husband?”
“He is away on business,” Dylan lied.
“If he is within a day’s ride, I would have you go fetch him, because he may not have a wife to come home to.”
Dylan’s blood ran cold, and he turned without another word.
“Where are you going?” cook called.
“To find the bastard that married my baby sister-in-law.”
“He is at his brother’s house,” Cook yelled after him.
Lexy’s piercing scream came from upstairs once again, and Dylan increased his jog to an all-out run.
Sabrina knelt close to her sister, assuring her that everything would be all right. “What do you think it’s going to be? A boy or a girl?”
“I don’t care as long as it comes soon,” Lexy cried as she screamed through another contraction.
Lexy’s screams made Sabrina’s blood run cold, and she wished her mother had come along on this trip. Their mother would have known exactly what to do, Sabrina knew nothing other than how to comfort. She had no idea that childbearing was this hard.
“Tell me again about yours and Dylan’s wedding,” Lexy asked.
Sabrina took her sister’s hand and began recounting the days after Lexy had left the keep. “Dylan was so thankful,” she laughed. “I was afraid he would marry you out of gratefulness instead of me.”
“He loves you so much,” Lexy smiled weakly at her sister.
“Yes, well, that’s when the keep was set upon. I was so afraid for his life those few days. And then getting locked in the dungeon,” Sabrina shuddered. “It was not an experience that I would care to relive.”
Lexy tried to bite back another scream, but couldn’t keep it inside of her. “I feel like I’m going to die,” she groaned.
“Don’t say that,” Sabrina scolded her, a bit too harshly. “You’re going to be fine, and so is the baby.”
It was then that the doctor re-entered the room. “Sabrina, I think you should leave now.”
“No,” she stated firmly.
“Sabrina, if you don’t leave I will have someone escort you out.”
Sabrina, knowing full well that he would do just that, hugged her sister, kissed her sweat-soaked forehead, and left.
“Where is my husband?” She demanded once she had descended the stairs.
“He went after her Ladyship’s husband,” Cook informed her.Part NineDylan pulled up to a dark foreboding keep and demanded admittance. After saying who he was, the gate and portcullis were raised to let him in. He sped to the front door and began pounding like a madman.
“Who are you?” A somber looking man asked.
“Dylan, and I demand to see Tristan, this very second.”
“Dylan who? His Lordship isn’t here at the moment, and-”
“I don’t want your Lord, I want Tristan,” Dylan fired back.
“What is this all about?” Tristan demanded as he stepped into the foyer.
“This man is demanding to see you, he acts as if he knows you, claims his name is Dylan.”
“Dylan? I don’t know any Dylan, throw him out.”
“Lexy is dead.”
Tristan froze in his tracks. He forced his heart to continue beating, and his breathing to remain steady. He turned to Dylan. “This had better not be some sick joke.”
“She is giving birth to a baby, your baby, and the doctor did not believe she was going to make it. He told me to come and get you, to warn you that you might very possibly lose your wife and child.”
“The child cannot be mine, I left her merely eight months ago and I only took her once,” she is carrying a bastard, let the father comfort her in her last hour. He turned to start going up the stairs again, but was whirled around and punched square in the mouth.
“The only bastard here is you,” Dylan spat. “Lexy didn’t carry to term, not that you need any explanation. Her entire pregnancy was a hard one, one she insisted that we don’t come and get you for. Now I see why. My baby sister deserves ten times better than you.” Dylan turned and left the same way he had come, hoping that he could get back to the house before dark.
Sabrina was pacing the living room when Dylan came in. She rushed into his arms, and began sobbing hysterically. Dylan held her until she calmed down, and sat down on a chair with her in his lap. “She is going to be ok,” he assured her.
“What if she’s not? Oh Dylan, please let her be ok.”
“I went for Tristan,” he told her once her crying had turned the occasional sniffle.
“Where is he?”
Dylan began fingering a lock of her hair. “He cares for her still, I could see it in his eyes when I told him…well…I know that he cares.”
Sabrina pushed away from him. “What did you tell him?”
“Nothing,” he assured her as he pulled her head back down to his chest.
Suddenly a cry burst from upstairs, one that didn’t belong to Lexy. They two looked at each other and waited for someone to come downstairs and inform them what happened. After a few seconds that seemed to drag on for hours the doctor hurried down the stairs. “It’s a girl, and Alexandra is going to be fine.”
Sabrina jumped up in her happiness, and Dylan got up and caught her in his arms. He kissed her soundly on the lips, and she sat back in the circle of his arms and just smiled at him. “When can I have one?” she asked him sweetly.
“If it’s going to be anything like that, never,” he informed her while hugging her tightly. “I could never bear to lose you.”
“I love you too,” she assured him, returning his tight embrace. “Let’s go check on Lexy.” The two got up and strode upstairs and into Lexy’s room.
Lexy was propped up with several pillows, holding her tiny little daughter in her arms. “Isn’t she precious?” she asked her brother and sister.
“The most precious thing I’ve ever seen,” Dylan assured her.
“She looks just like her daddy,” Lexy said with a hint of sadness in her voice. “She has his eyes, and his hair.”
“Babies always have blue eyes,” Sabrina offered. “And the hair is just as likely to change.”
“What about the nose, and the mouth, and the high cheekbones?”
“I think you’re overtired,” Dylan told her. “Why don’t we let you sleep?”
“Why didn’t he come?” She asked Dylan.
Dylan, who knew that it would be stupid to even try to lie about going after him, shrugged his shoulders. “He was the stupidest man ever born, Lexy. He gave up you and his daughter because of his pride, he’s not worth any more of your tears.”
Lexy turned and stared out the window, and Sabrina and Dylan took their cue to leave. After they had gone, she looked down at her tiny little daughter. “You look just like your daddy,” she whispered as she stroked the infant’s cheek. “Maybe someday you’ll meet him.” For the first time in months, Lexy broke down over the loss of her husband.EpilogueSabrina sat with little Ryana in her arms, and Dylan wasn’t too far away, Lexy smiled at the perfect picture their family would be when Sabrina had her fist child. She felt a jab of hurt, deep in her chest, but didn’t let it get to her. She wasn’t about to show them that she still cared for Tristan, a man who obviously didn’t care for her.
There was the sound of a scuffle outside the door, and Lexy was about to get up when the door burst open. “Your Ladyship,”
“His Lordship is home,” Tristan finished as he stormed into the room and stood, legs apart and hands on hips, in front of Lexy.
“I think we should go,” Sabrina announced as she gave Ryana back to Lexy and dragged her husband out the door.
“You two look nothing alike,” he announced.
“Tristan we are identical, even our parent’s couldn’t tell us apart.”
“Then explain why I knew it was you when she was the one holding the baby.”
Lexy opened her mouth to say something, but couldn’t come up with a reasonable answer. “If you have only come here to call me a liar again, you can just leave.”
A throat was cleared near the door, and Cook stood there. “If her ladyship would like me to throw the scum out?”
Tristan was about to roar a scathing remark to cook, but Lexy cut him off. “Thank you, but if there is to be any kicking, I would be more than happy to do it myself. You can leave now, thank you.” Cook moved immediately to his post right outside the door. He refused to be more than a short call away.
“Ah, his Lordship is home,” the doctor announced as he entered the room without so much as knocking. Tristan wanted desperately to knock his head against a door…or a wall even. “How did your business dealings go?”
“He wasn’t,”
“They went remarkably well,” Tristan interrupted his wife.
“You are damn lucky you have a wife to come home to at all, or a daughter for that matter,” he informed Tristan as he quickly checked Lexy’s pulse, eyes, and mouth in a routine check-up. “Nearly lost them both, it’s a miracle either of them survived the ordeal, never mind both of them.”
Tristan realized what he had been denying for the past fortnight. He had almost lost his wife forever, the woman that he loved, because of his damnable pride. She had never hurt or lied to him, really, he understood why she had helped her sister, and couldn’t fault her for it. It was a very brave thing she did, and he couldn’t hold bravery against her. He, on the other hand, had hurt her badly.
“I’m sorry,” he said after the doctor had left the room.
“That’s all? ‘I’m sorry’ and all is supposed to be forgiven? You gave me almost a year of hell, and all you have to say for yourself is ‘I’m sorry’?”
“I was stupid,” he continued.
“You’re getting better.”
“I was proud and arrogant, and a complete idiot.”
“Don’t forget incredibly mean and stubborn.”
“I was all that and more,” he told her. “But now…all I am is very very sorry. I hate myself for having hurt you as much as I did. I love you so much, Alexandra. Please take me back? Let me be the husband that I started out to be before I made such a big mistake? Let me try to be a good father to this little angel?” He took his daughter in his arms for the first time, and Lexy laughed at his awkwardness.
“She isn’t a china doll,” she told him. “Just make sure she’s right-end up and you’ll be fine.”
“I’ll never be fine again,” he told her, “until you tell me that you’ll give me one last chance.”
“That’s all you get, you know,” she warned him.
“That’s all I’ll need.”
He kissed her, and took her in his arms as well as the baby.
“I’m sorry it’s not a boy,” she whispered.
“We have plenty of time for boys,” he told her.
Lexy looked down for a moment, as if debating with herself as to what to say.
“No more holding back anything,” he told her.
“I can’t have anymore children,” she told him. “He said that I would definitely die if I were to have another.”
He hugged her even more tightly. “Then you gave me exactly what I wanted. A wife and a beautiful baby girl that I can spend the rest of my days making up a year of mistakes to.”
“I love you, Tristan.”
“I love you too, Darling.”