‘I always pay my debts, Kara,’ he continued while she regarded him as if she wanted to wring his neck. He’d forgotten how beautiful she could be when aroused. ‘And you gave me back my life.’
‘How can I give back something you never lost?’ Her voice dripped with sarcasm. ‘Speaking the truth benefits everyone. Lies are always discovered. We did marry seven years ago. I’m pleased you finally remembered you had a waiting family in the midst of your adventuring.’
Ash struggled to control his temper. He’d always known he had a family. He’d endured the last six years of hell so he could return with his head held high and his honour intact...for his family. ‘What was going on out there, Kara?’
‘I was about to marry an honourable man. Generally that is what being a bride at a wedding means.’ Her deep-blue eyes blazed defiantly. ‘To the best of my knowledge, you died in a shipwreck, Ash.’
‘I promised you I would return.’
‘There are some promises people are unable to keep. I’ve learnt that lesson well, Ash.’ She slammed her fists together. ‘You must be aware how difficult it can be for a widow to survive.’
Ash rubbed the back of his neck. He supposed he deserved the rebuke. For as long as he could remember Kara had hung on his every word and adored him. When his father had ordered him to marry, Kara had been the natural choice. Safe. Comfortable. Always there and someone who believed in his dreams and him. He’d taken her for granted, just as he had all of his good fortune in those days. But when he’d been trapped in that dungeon with his men dying all about him, he’d known that he couldn’t return to Raumerike ruined and broken. He’d sent a message.
He tried to think if the Kara he remembered would have spoken in front of a crowd. His main memories of her were her soft crooning voice as she tended one of the sick animals she had found. Or blushing crimson when he stole a kiss.
‘Why did no one recognise me until you asked?’ he asked to keep his mind off uncomfortable thoughts.
She tilted her chin upwards. ‘If you wanted to be recognised without question, you should have returned sooner.’
‘I ran into complications.’ Ash waved a hand, dismissing the past seven years. The past was behind him. The less Kara knew of his struggles, the better. She only needed to know he’d returned a hero. She’d always loved a hero. ‘Why were you prepared to marry Valdar Nerison? He is the wrong sort of man for you.’
She batted her impossibly long lashes and her lips quirked upwards, but anger and bitterness blazed in her eyes. ‘How would you know what sort of man I require, Ash? Seven years, Ash, without word. Seven years is far too long.’
He silently counted to ten, rather than giving way to his temper. Did she really want the broken man he’d been after the dungeon? He could remember her last whispered words about making her proud and returning with gold in his purse. ‘Where is my father? Why wasn’t he there? Or doesn’t he approve of the proposed union?’
Stifling silence invaded the small room. Her expression changed from fury to one of sorrow and pity in an instant. His mind reeled. Ash braced himself, hoping against hope that he guessed wrong.
‘Your father collapsed when he learnt of your death. He never recovered the use of his limbs.’
‘No! I sent a message back. I thought he understood what I needed to do.’ Ash fell to his knees on the rushes. His entire body shook. One of the things that had driven him onwards was the thought that his father would finally have to admit that his son was worthy of being called a Raumerike warrior. His father would once again be able to hold up his head. All sense of shame would go. His father would realise the sort of man he’d become. And now he never would.
His father had always seemed as sturdy and steady as the oak which served as the family’s guardian tree or tuntreet. His father had collapsed when he thought his only son had died and never recovered. Never recovered. Ash’s mind shied from the word.
‘Can you take me to see him?’ he asked, hoping that his guess was wrong.
‘There is more.’
‘Don’t spare me. I want to know everything.’
‘You asked.’
Each new word rained a blow to Ash’s heart. His father was dead, but more importantly Kara had spent the last few years caring for his bedridden father.
‘He died last Jul-tide of a fever,’ she said, finishing. ‘I run Jaarlshiem the best I can, but the estate needs a master as well as a mistress. I refuse to lose my home, Ash, simply because I don’t have a man.’
‘I wish I’d known.’ He closed his eyes and offered prayers for his father’s shade to any god who happened to be listening. The sort of son his father wanted would have been there to sing the lament and pour some of the ash from the funeral pyre on the family’s tuntreet.
There were so many things he had planned on telling his father. He’d looked forward to his father finally declaring his only son was worthy of being called the son of one of Raumerike’s legendary warriors. ‘I...I would have done things differently.’
‘Undoing the past is an impossibility, Ash.’
Ash struggled to think. His father’s demise gave an explanation as to why his Uncle Harald refused to recognise him and why Kara had planned to remarry. His uncle had always coveted Jaarlshiem and the title his father had won through the strength of his sword. The conferring of a jaarldom was far from straightforward if the heir was absent or not a strong enough warrior. It normally took a year or more. And Kara’s fate would be tied to the land.
Ash clenched his fist and stared at the cold hearth, aware of his many shortcomings. He’d simply never thought it possible for his father to die.
‘I know you loved your father,’ Kara said, breaking the silence. ‘Your father certainly loved you. Weep, if you like. I cried when he breathed his last.’
He raised his face to hers. Tears might come later, but not now. He refused to cry in front of anyone. He remembered her finding him in tears once before when he had run away after his father had beaten him for some trivial offence. She’d wiped his eyes with the corner of her apron. The shedding of tears was an occupation for the youth he used to be, not the man he’d become.
‘I sent word,’ he said, turning back to face her when he knew he could trust his voice to remain steady. ‘I did what was necessary for my honour. My father must have understood.’
She put a hand on her hip. ‘Your honour? Since when does honour come before life? Before family?’
‘For my father, always,’ he said very slowly. There was no need to recount the beatings he’d suffered as a boy when he’d fallen short of his father’s ideals or during the horrors he’d endured in his quest to restore his honour. The thought of returning home without that honour had been unthinkable and, not for the first time, he wished his life had taken a different path. ‘I returned with enough wealth to pay all life debts and tributes I owe. I’m aware of what my father required from any son of his. He beat it into me as a boy.’
Kara slammed her fists together and her eyes blazed with fury. She looked like she had truly become one of the Valkyrie, rather than merely named after one.
‘Your father thought you dead! Dead!’ She stamped her foot. ‘Instead of worrying about your precious honour, you should have returned. Your father wanted you here by his side, running the estate when he became too ill.’
‘Hiding behind my father’s shade, Kara? We both know how he used his fists. Be honest—you wanted me here, but you also wanted me to be a hero. You asked me to return one.’
She