It was on the tip of Leta’s tongue to
argue, to tell her father what he could do with his suitor who
thought he could fix the poor little blind girl. But she bit it back.
This was what they’d hoped for, what they’d thought would be
impossible. This was no time for her battered pride to make a stand.
“I’ll meet with him.” She took a
deep breath and straightened her spine. “Perhaps you could invite
him to dinner this week?”
Her father cleared his throat. “He’s
here. Now.”
She slumped, hands going limp in her
lap. “What? What do you mean he’s here now?”
“He’s here…for you.”
“He’s…” Her voice was a
pathetic squeak, and now it was her turn to clear her throat.
“Father…are you telling me you’ve already given him my hand?”
“I signed the marriage contract five
minutes ago.”
His voice was a whisper, so quiet she
might not have heard it two months ago, before she’d lost her
vision, when her other senses had not been quite so keen. She swayed
and put a hand on the floor to steady herself. She’d agreed to an
arranged marriage, had given him her blessing to find her a suitor.
But…
“I don’t understand. Why so
quickly?”
“Leta, it’s been two months. I’d
hoped you would come through this on your own. I prayed you
would come through this on your own. But you haven’t. I don’t
know how to help you. I…” His voice broke and he groped for her
hands, took them in his trembling fingers. “Leta, you need someone
who will make you feel safe, who might be able to bring you through—”
“And what if there is no through
this? What if this is who I am now, what I am now?” Her
muscles tingled with the urge to stand, to stalk away from him, storm
off in a healthy fit of justified indignation. “You couldn’t let
me have any dignity? Couldn’t let me go into this arranged marriage
like any other woman? You had to send me off to be fixed, as though I
were a table with a wobbly leg?”
Experience kept her kneeling on the
floor. If she tried to fly off in a rage, she would succeed only in
humiliating herself. High emotions flustered her, made it harder to
remember where all the furniture was, how far the wall was. A broken
nose or bruised shins wouldn’t help anyone, and it certainly
wouldn’t do her wounded pride any good. And so she sat there, a
prisoner. Locked in a dark world.
“Well then,” she said, her voice
tight, “I suppose I’d better go meet the man who will be my
nursemaid from now on.”
“Leta—”
“Are you going to escort me out, or
would you like me to feel my way there, give him a good idea of what
he’s getting himself into?”
“Leta, please—”
“Very well.” She was being childish
now, but she didn’t care. She surged to her feet and stuck her arms
out in front of her, swinging them side to side as she took small
steps toward where she thought the doorway was. Her nerves screamed
with heightened awareness, bracing to be struck by something, as if
the room were suddenly full of stalactites. Ignoring her father’s
protests, she shuffled forward, feeling in front of her with the toes
of each foot and the tips of her fingers.
Her father tried to take her arm when
she reached the door, but she shrugged him off. Composing herself as
best she could, she groped along the wall of the hallway, inching
closer and closer to the main room of the house. She was grateful
there were no stairs, and she was able to make it to the sitting room
attached to the foyer without falling or striking anything.
It was hard to describe how she knew
someone was in the room, even though she couldn’t see. Something
about the hairs on the back of her neck, a tingle down her spine that
screamed at her she was being watched. She always knew when someone
else was in the room with her, but this time there was something
more. A thrill that brushed her fight-or-flight reflex, filled her
with a strange, warbling anxiety. Someone was watching her.
Someone…big.
Don’t be ridiculous. You
can’t possibly feel size, her mind chastised her. Still,
her senses stubbornly refused to admit any doubt. Whoever was
watching her had a weight to his presence, and she could feel it. She
blinked and moved her eyes around, trying to see something, anything,
a slice of shadow or light that would give her a clue. But the
darkness remained as thick as it always was, silent and impenetrable.
A strange scent wafted past her nose.
Musk and the crisp scent of the wind off the mountains to the north.
The faintest hint of sea air. The floor creaked as someone shifted
their weight. Her heart skipped a beat and her instincts crowed in
vindication. There was definite weight to that sound.
If that was her husband, he was not a
small man.
“Are you really going to let the
blind woman stand here wondering if she’s alone in the room?”
“You seem very aware that you are not
alone.”
The voice was masculine, and so deep
that it vibrated things low in her body, quickened the pulse in her
neck. She angled her ear toward that voice, forming a mental picture
of the room and her visitor’s location based on where his voice had
come from. It was lower than she’d expected, as though he were
sitting down.
“Leta, this is Torben Biorna. Torben,
this is my daughter Leta.”
“I understand I’m your wife now.”
She threw the words down like a
gauntlet, using her tone to make it clear what she thought of such
things being settled without her presence, let alone input. The floor
creaked again, and somewhere underneath that was a different sound
that she wasn’t familiar with. Something hard sliding against the
wood. It was brief, too brief for her to consider it closely. She
frowned and tilted her head a little more, waiting to hear if it
would happen again.
“Yes, you are my wife.”
Again his voice did strange and
wonderful things to her body, teasing sensations from her with that
hint of promise, that faint brush of heat. Warmth washed over her
cheeks, and she was horrified to realize she was blushing.
If he noticed her embarrassing
reaction, he kept it from his voice. “Things progressed quickly,
and I don’t blame you for being displeased at your lack of
participation. It is not how I would have liked to begin our
relationship, but I hope you’ll give me a chance to make it up to
you.”
She groped for her temper, needing it
to bolster her defenses against that voice. “My father says you
think you can fix me.”
“Leta,” her father warned.
“No, it’s all right. I would be
offended too, were I in her place.”
Another creak of the floorboards,
followed by that same sound. Leta leaned forward, and it stopped
immediately.
“You do not need to be fixed, Leta.
You are not broken.”
Her father had spoken those same words
to her, more times than she could count. But they were different
coming from this man. He spoke with a definite authority, an
unwavering confidence that said he knew he was right. It touched
something inside her, something frightened. A tiny knot of tension
she hadn’t been aware of relaxed.
“Torben was a solider.” Her
father’s voice was gentle now, encouraging. “He’s known a lot
of men who had very strong reactions after witnessing horrible
things. He’s helped them.”
“Your father told me what happened to
your mother,” Torben said quietly. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
Echoes of her mother’s screams filled
Leta’s ears. Her chest rose and fell more rapidly, her breaths
sharper, painful. Ice water trickled through her veins, chasing away
the warm feeling Torben had summoned with his words, his voice. The
knot of tension returned, trailing a string of others until she stood
hunched in on herself, falling into an all-too-familiar nightmare.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
Her voice was weak, strangled by the memory peeking out at her like a
monster from the mouth of a cave. She held her hands out, feeling
around herself for orientation.
“Leta, here, come sit down.”
Her father took her arm, and she wilted
with relief and let him lead her to a chair. Sitting calmed her, took
away the awful feeling of disorientation that struck her when her
emotions overwhelmed her spatial sense. She fought her way out of the
panic, tried to reorient herself, remember where her husband was.
“We don’t have to talk about it.”
He spoke as if he’d sensed her discomfort, her need to know where
he was. “Know only that I am here to listen if you change your
mind.”
She bobbed her head, grateful for his
willingness to let it go. “You’re going to stay with us for a
while, then?”
Awkward silence billowed into the room
like dense fog.
“Leta…he’s your husband.” Her
father shifted on his chair, his discomfort announced by every squeak
of the wood. “You’re leaving with him.”
