Page 74 of The Champion

“As was I.”

She sat there in thought for several heartbeats and he watched as her face turned troubled. “It should be easy to just leave, shouldn’t it? To just take my lute and pack a few belongings, then head out. But it isn’t. My uncle has no heirs and I am certain Henry would confiscate our lands and hand them over to another noble.”

“Aye, he would.”

She sighed. “So, there really is no escape for me, is there? I shall have to marry eventually.”

“Perhaps there is. We could give Henry what he wants. A marriage between us that would set us both free.”

She gave him a peeved glare. “Again, you propose the impossible.”

“It makes perfect sense. You would be free to pursue your music, and I would have at least some of my admirers thwarted by my marriage. After all, why pursue me to be the Countess of Blackmoor when I already have one safely entrenched on my lands?”

“Is this truly what you desire? A bride to be left alone while you travel the world?”

“We both have to marry someone, Rowena. That fate seems every bit as inescapable for me as it is for you.”

Rowena considered his words for a bit. It would get her uncle to leave her in peace, and it would allow her to build her school.

“But what of love?” she asked quietly.

“What of it?”

“Do you not wish to be in love? To feel the ecstasy of Cupid’s bow piercing your heart with hope and promise? To ache with want every time you think of your wife waiting for your return?”

Stryder made a disgusted noise. “You are speaking foolishness now. Love like that doesn’t exist. Love is merely a title given to responsibilities to make them easier to bear.”

She frowned at his words. Did he truly mean that? “Is that all Kit is to you? Your Brotherhood?”

He looked away from her. “I treasure them all, aye, but in the end, I would treasure my vow to you just as deeply.”

“Nay, Stryder.” She reached up to take his chin into her hand. She forced him to look at her. “I’m not speaking of treasuring a vow. Not like that. I mean the fierce passion that love can bring. I want from my husband that same heartfelt devotion that causes you to pound any man who questions Kit’s reputation into the ground. I want more than my husband’s loyalty. I want his heart. I want him to burn for me in my absence just as I burn for him. I want my heart to ache with pain at the thought of being without him.”

He scoffed at that. “There is enough pain in life, why would you wish for more?”

“Because true love isn’t pain. It’s beautiful. It makes all of us better people. Makes us strive to improve and become more than what we are.”

“Bah! If love is so great, why then, have you never felt it? Why haven’t I? There is no love like you describe. It’s a fabrication made up by men who seek only to get other men’s wives to betray their lords for them.”

Perhaps some men played on women’s hearts. But not all. She believed it existed. “Your father loved your mother beyond all reason. You said it yourself.”

“My father was a fool. One who killed himself and her. If that is love, then you can have it. I’ve no desire to run my sword through you, let alone myself.”

“And what of your friend, Simon of Ravenswood? Did he not find love?”

He hesitated before he spoke. “They are newly wedded. ‘Tis too soon to see if their love is real or merely infatuation.”

Rowena ground her teeth in frustration. She shoved lightly at his shoulder. “Stryder of Blackmoor, love does exist and I will marry for nothing less.”

“And if the king commands otherwise?”

She paused at that. Henry could be most capricious at times, and he could very well recant his oath to her. It was a king’s prerogative to make marriages that benefitted his crown.

She would die if Henry forced her to marry someone like Cyril.

“Marry me, Rowena,” Stryder insisted. “I can’t offer you a great love, but I can make sure that Henry doesn’t tie you to another who will have no respect or regard for you whatsoever.”

Oh, it was tempting. But even though she liked Stryder a great deal, they were so very different. He hated the things she held dear and she hated the warring nature that he lived for.