I shook my head, focusing on the scar on his collarbone. “I won’t.”
He leaned down closer until I could feel his breath. “You can’t be sure of that.”
“I can. And if you try to hurt him, I’ll know. I won’t say anything about tonight. I’ll keep the secret, but if you ever try anything like that again, I’ll know and I’ll speak out. Both your father and Rolf will believe me.”
“I’d be executed or at best disinherited. You would do that?”
“Yes.”
In that instant, our friendship died. A sharp pain struck me at the thought, but it passed.
Turning, I walked away. I had needed my friendship with Sebastian here, but Rolf was my husband.
My loyalty was to him.
In the year that followed, my life changed a good deal.
I turned eighteen.
Rolf and I were now important people. We held small house parties at Volodane Hall, and I was allowed not only to make improvements to the guest quarters but also to take some areas reserved for storage and turn them into guest rooms.
We were invited to stay at great houses across the nation. Sometimes Jarrod came with us, but Sebastian never did.
I’d begun having all leftovers and other food supplies sent down the village, and Jarrod never questioned me. I think perhaps Rolf spoke to him on this matter. I’d also begun whispering to Rolf about easing taxes on his own people.
We had plenty of wealth ourselves, and our lands would be improved if the people were stronger. He listened.
Soon, I found that I could live without Sebastian’s friendship. We existed in a state of polite civility, and he began spending more time in Rennes now that he was no longer so necessary for Rolf to rise in position. I was lonely at first, but I adjusted, and Miriam was ever my friend.
I found myself content.
Only one thing caused true disharmony in our household.
It started off as a small concern, but it grew worse each month. Jarrod would study my stomach for signs that I carried a child. I began to dread the start of my courses. Each month, I fervently hoped they would not come, and that I would feel sick with breakfast and could tell Rolf that a child was coming. This didn’t happen. A year into our marriage, with him sleeping in my bed almost every night, and no baby had quickened in my womb.
If a marriage didn’t produce a child, it was common knowledge that the woman was at fault. If she should give birth only to girls and no sons, it was her fault as well.
Another year passed, and I began to feel like a failure. Miriam consulted midwives, and I was told to eat everything from asparagus to wild game birds. Nothing worked.
Jarrod made cutting remarks about me being barren, but Rolf never said a word of reproach, and I sometimes even caught him looking at me in what appeared to be pity. That was worse.
Then one night, as I made my way down the passage toward the dining hall, I heard raised voices, and I stopped.
I couldn’t see Rolf or Jarrod through the archway, but I could hear them.
“Then put her aside!” Jarrod shouted. “She’s done what we needed for you. Now you need a son! I didn’t go through all this to have our line end! Find a wife who can give you a son.”
I trembled. What would become of me then? Would my father take me back? I shuddered at the thought.
“I’ll never put Megan aside,” Rolf returned. “Not for anything. You must know this isn’t her fault. In your heart, you must.”
I’d never heard him speak like that.
There was no answer at first, and then Jarrod asked tightly, “What do you mean?”
“You remember Bess. Of course you do. And Jane? And Eliza? I never made a secret of any mistress I took from the housemaids or the village. Father, Bess slept in my bed for the better part of a year, and there was no issue between us.” His own voice grew strained. “I’ve never made a child with any woman.”
I couldn’t imagine what it cost a man like Rolf to admit this.
“That means nothing,” Jarrod shot back.
“It does. You could pack the hall with new wives for me, and you wouldn’t have your grandson. At least not from me, and I wouldn’t pin much hope on Sebastian.”
“Then it was all for nothing,” Jarrod said more quietly.
“Not to me. I’ve been more fortunate than I ever could have hoped, and I won’t waste it wishing for something that will never happen. I plan to live the life I have.”
Who knew my husband had such thoughts and feelings?
I almost wept with relief. He didn’t blame me for his lack of a son, and more, he did not seem to care.
Resuming my path, I let my heels click more loudly so they would hear me coming.
“Good evening,” I said upon entering. “Ester’s prepared a turkey for dinner.”
The years passed, and Rolf was voted as the head of the Council of Nobles. He often conferred with the king. With my guidance, he proved a good leader, and he never stopped conferring with me on important matters.
We did not have a passionate love.
We did not have a child.
But we had mutual respect and value of each other . . . and we had a good deal of power.
The world around me vanished, and I found myself standing once again in the storage room of my parents’ manor, staring into the right panel of the three-tiered mirror.
I stumbled backward, fighting to take in air, thinking on all that I had just seen.
But the dark-haired woman was now looking out from the center panel.
“That would be my life with Rolf?” I gasped.
“That would be the outcome of the first choice,” she answered. “But now those memories will vanish, and you’ll go back to the beginning, to the wedding day once again, to live out the second choice.”
“Wait!” I cried. “I won’t remember anything of what I just saw?”
“To the beginning once more,” she answered. “To live out the second choice.”
My mind went blank, and the storage room vanished.
I found myself back in my family’s dining hall. It was my wedding day.
Chairs had been set up in rows, and guests were seated in them. I wore a gown of pale ivory and held my father’s arm as he walked me past the guests toward the far end of the hall.
Flowers in tall vases graced that same end, and a local magistrate stood there with a book in his hands.
Beside the magistrate stood Sebastian. I had chosen him.
He smiled.
The Second Choice
Sebastian
Chapter 9
The first time I laid eyes upon Volodane Hall, I was wet, damp, and struggling not to give way to misery.
Not long after my wedding at Chaumont, I’d been swept up in a journey north with my new husband, his father, both his brothers, and their retinue of guards. Sebastian told me the ride would take two days. He was the only one of the men who spoke to me. Kai pretended I didn’t exist, and Rolf seemed to seethe in quiet anger that I’d not chosen him.
My one comfort was that I’d been allowed to bring Miriam with me.