Free Amongst Silk and Spice by Camille Oster Page B

"He will likely see it as your duty to marry as he prescribes."
    "Then he is in for a surprise. Did you marry as you were told to?"
    "Yes," he said. "My father agreed with the king on the alliance."
    "Who was she?"
    "Lord Tiverton's daughter."
    "Did she have a name?"
    "Annette," he said.
    "What was she like?"
    "She had brown hair." Truthfully, he couldn't remember much more about her.
    "I'm sorry for your loss. It must be awful losing a wife and a child," Eloise said, the sharpness in her voice leaving her. "I could not imagine."
    "In all honesty, I didn't really know her. I met her at the altar and stayed with her for some weeks before returning to France. She was shy and didn't speak much."
    "Likely she was scared of you. And that is not the kind of marriage proposition I'll be willing to accept. How can you marry someone, choose to commit the rest of your life to someone you don't know?"
    "Duty," he said, remembering how ill at ease he'd been, marrying a girl he didn't know, or had even seen, from a neighboring district, but the alliance had brought land with it, and that was reward above anything else. Perhaps Eloise was right, though; she had some protection against her father's will due to the annulment, nor was she tied to the land and subject to the earl's will as her mother was French. Legally, he didn't have sway over her, but then courts weren't always interested in the rights of illegitimate women.
    They grew quiet for a moment and Hugo sat down again, along the oppose wall of the small cave, his sword next to him in case thieves or worse tried their luck during the night.
    "You look down on my marriage?" he said. "And your absence of marriage with a Saracen was better?"
    "At least I loved him, and he me."
    "A sin some would say," he stated back, knowing her point was valid. He hadn't known either his wife or the son resulting from their short time together. Their passing had been an abstract thing, not a loss keenly felt. It did bother him on some level that the passing of his family had been registered more with annoyance than with care. Love was not a thing he readily understood. He'd loved his brother and Ritchie's passing had cut him deeply, but to love someone not his family, like Eloise professed to love this Saracen, was incomprehensible. "You say you love him, but with a reluctance for permanence." Pursing her lips together, she watched him as the accusation stood. "Your love wavers."
    "You can love someone and release them, knowing it is for the best."
    "Flitting emotions. One cannot live their lives by flitting emotions. Marriage is for the betterment of the family."
    Eloise's eyebrows rose. "You've been indoctrinated in the beliefs of the English nobles."
    "I am an English noble."
    "There are other ways to live. I would have thought you'd noticed, traveling all this way. Does the scenery pass you by without further notice?"
    "What is there to notice? I am an English nobleman and I will be just that when I return. I serve the king, I do my duty and I tend my lands," although no one was doing much of that as of late. "Why try to be someone I'm not."
    "Because maybe those flitting emotions have more value than you assign them."
    "Chaos and inconstancy," he said. "Where would we be if everyone ran around doing what they want? There is no culture on earth that supports that."
    "Maybe you wouldn't be fighting an endless war, for one."
    Hugo smiled, conceding the point to her. "Touché," he said, laying down on his blankets, feeling tiredness seep into his body and mind. Involuntarily, his eyes returned to her ankles, which would be warm and smooth to the touch. He couldn't have her, but abstractly he wished he could. Right now, he could think of nothing he wanted more than to sink into the warm, softness of a woman's body—although perhaps someone a little more wanton than the shrew opposite him. Then again, she'd lived in sin with a man—by choice. Perhaps she relished a man's touch. It didn't bear