Page 7 of A Savior for Branwen (The Welsh Rebels #2)

Chapter Six

W hy could he not stay away from the infuriating woman, Matthew wondered, even as he steered Midnight onto the south road. Esyllt and her daughter had barely been back at Esgyrn Castle a day, and here he was already, riding toward the village—and Branwen.

They had not seen one another since the day she had fainted in his arms outside her cottage, and he didn’t like the way they had left things. Her words had raised too many questions. Who the hell had she been talking about when she’d said he could not prove him right? And try as he may, he just couldn’t forget she’d said she’d been forced to service men.

This was not the kind of declaration one could ignore.

As he saw the first house nestled in the riverbend, he started to wonder. Would he find another man in the cottage today? What would he do if he did? Would he be able to stop himself from strangling him on the spot, especially if the bastard asked him if he had come to take his turn? He couldn’t be sure.

Worse, would he catch the two lovers in the act? Would he hear Branwen’s cries of pleasure as he approached? Everything within him rebelled at the thought. It might be better to turn around while he still could.

He pushed on, and a moment later, he had reached the cottage.

There was no man in front of the door, he was relieved to see, but a woman. She was not the one he had thought to find, even if, admittedly, she did bear a resemblance to her. He did not need her to introduce herself to understand that she was a relative of Branwen’s, perhaps even her sister.

“Good morning,” he said, less cordially than he should have. But really, never had a man’s patience been more sorely tested. Whenever he wanted a conversation with Branwen, he seemed to be thwarted. Where was she? This was her home. If anyone should be there, it was she.

The girl looked at him as if he’d just spoken in a foreign tongue. Which, of course, he had. Evidently, she did not share her sister’s knowledge of English. Although … he’d hardly said anything elaborate. Anyone in their right mind would have guessed he was greeting her. This was getting worse and worse.

“ Bore da ,” he repeated, calling on what little Welsh he’d picked up since his arrival. “ Lle mae Branwen?”

Despite his efforts, the girl did not appear to understand him any better. He sent a stone flying with a kick, not even trying to repress his frustration. What had he done to deserve this? He only wanted to know where Branwen was. It shouldn’t be that difficult. Would he forever be denied where the Welsh woman was concerned?

“What’s the matter with you, can’t you understand a simple sentence?” he muttered, refusing to consider that he might be the one at fault. The woman should have understood him. Even if he’d somehow mispronounced the words, surely, his meaning would be clear? This was Branwen’s home, was it not? What else could he be asking?

“Don’t you dare mock her, do you hear, English! You can insult me all you want, but don’t you dare mock my sister.”

The woman he’d been looking for was suddenly standing behind him, a basket full of wizened apples in her hands and a look of fury such as he had never seen etched on her face. Even when he had walked in on her fresh from a man’s arms and called her a whore, she had not been so irate. In her anger, she seemed a foot taller. Magnificent, like a goddess of wrath. Matthew blinked, determined not to let her beauty impress him.

“Mock her?” He’d not been mocking the girl precisely, only expressing his frustration at being denied a simple thing, to see Branwen. “I didn’t mock her.”

“Don’t you try to be clever with me. I heard you ask what was wrong with her.”

Well, yes, he had, but that was not the same. “I didn’t mean?—”

“Enough!”

Branwen was beside herself with fury and disappointment. What was Matthew doing here? She had thought never to see him again, and had worked very hard at telling herself it was for the best. But not only had he come back mere days after having left, but he had started to mock Eirwen. Tears stung her eyes. He was just as predictable and nasty as the others. Why was she even surprised?

Before she could lash out, she turned to her sister, who was looking at them with confusion on her face. “Stay here a moment, please. Everything’s fine but I need a word alone with the man. Sit on the bench and wait for me. I won’t be long.”

Eirwen nodded and took her place on the bench. Branwen handed her the best of the apples she’d gathered then pushed Matthew toward the cottage. Fortunately, for she was not in the mood to argue, he complied readily enough.

“What did you do to her?” she roared, turning to him as soon as the door was closed. It was one thing insulting her, but to attack her innocent sister was unforgivable. She would never have thought him capable of such villainy.

“ Do to her?” He sounded nonplussed, and not a little vexed by the question. “I didn’t do anything. I asked her where you were. In Welsh no less. And she looked at me as if I made no sense.”

His explanation, so simple and delivered in such a guileless manner, deflated her anger. It seemed she had been wrong, and he hadn’t meant to mock her sister. Feeling utterly silly for having jumped to conclusions, she placed her basket on the table, to try and give herself time to compose herself.

“She was confused because she … because …” She stopped, unable to say it. Matthew might not have meant any harm, but he would for certain mock her if he knew. “Why are you here?” she asked instead.

There was a long pause. Then, he answered, his voice huskier than usual. “I don’t know.”

This extraordinary answer doused the last embers of her anger. He looked genuinely puzzled as to what had made him come, and not best pleased about it, as if he would have preferred to wash his hands of her. But life was not like that. It had a way of forcing you to confront ugly things. She should know, so she could not help but sympathize with him.

“I think you came here for answers,” she murmured. “Just like the other day.”

At least she hoped that was why he was here, because she would not be satisfied until he knew the real reason why she bedded all these men. She needed to tell him what the situation was, and save what little dignity and self-worth she had left. Though she was loath to discuss such an intimate thing, the alternative was to have him believing her the most despicable wanton, so it was better to have the truth out. Despite the harshness he’d demonstrated toward her the other day, she sensed that if he knew the reason behind the Englishman’s presence in her cottage, Matthew would sympathize with her. Esyllt had told her he was nothing like the cold man he appeared to be at first glance and she believed it.

In any case, nothing she said now would not make this any worse, so she had nothing to lose.

Brown eyes pierced her all the way to her soul. “You’re right. I do want answers.”

Very well, but how could she start?

“I’m not who you think I am,” she said, almost exactly the same thing she had told Esyllt. “I … I do bed men, but it’s not for my pleasure. It has never been for my pleasure.”

Matthew couldn’t have explained why that was, but he knew instantly that whatever Branwen told him from now on, however odd, however unpleasant, would be the absolute truth.

He asked the first question that came to his mind. “Why did you bed me then?” It was what he had obsessed about for days and he needed to know, uncomfortable as it was to discuss such matters.

She hesitated, too long for his liking. “Usually, I bed men against my will. With you it was more complicated.” Well, that was not exactly the answer he’d wanted to hear, or flattering, but he couldn’t complain, not when he’d asked for it. Feeling more unsettled than ever, he waited, hoping there was more to it. “I am trapped in a situation where everyone thinks I’m a wanton, when I would like nothing more than to still be a virgin and lead a life free of men.”

There was a pause, then Matthew said. “This is all about your sister, is it not?”

Why he could make such an assertion, he wasn’t sure, but suddenly it seemed clear to him. Branwen had glanced toward the door, and the place where the girl was waiting, when she’d said she wished she could live a life free of men. Somehow this had to be linked to her sister in her mind. But how?

She nodded, proving he’d guessed correctly.

“It all started because I had to protect her. She is different from the rest of us, as you noticed.” Matthew wasn’t sure he was expected to confirm it, but he had indeed seen that the girl’s reactions were slower. “She’s always been like that. The midwife who attended my mother when she was born said the birth had been long and complicated. My sister was stuck, and because of it, her mind has never been able to develop in the same way as other people’s. For all that, she is the loveliest, most loving person I know.”

“Of course. I’m sorry,” Matthew said inadequately. What was he supposed to say to that? He had no idea. He’d never met anyone in that situation.

“She doesn’t understand things as we do, often doesn’t know how to react. But even if she did, she wouldn’t have deserved to be treated thus.”

There was a pause and Matthew braced himself. They were coming to the heart of the matter. What was she about to reveal? Whatever it was, he sensed it would haunt his thoughts for days. “Treated how, Branwen?” he asked in a whisper.

“One day, years ago, I came home to find her on her own with a stranger old enough to be our father. He was trying to … he was …” Another pause. He waited, even if he could guess all too well what the man had been trying to do. Bile rose in his throat. How could anyone be so depraved as to attack a girl who had no idea what was going on? “I couldn’t let him do it. I was already ruined so I … I offered myself instead. It was the only way. At least I understood what was happening.”

Yes, unlike her sister, s he would have understood all too well she was being raped. Everything within him surged in hatred and he wished he had the man before him so he could make him pay for his villainy. Then he registered her choice of words. She’d said she’d already been ruined, not that she had already bedded a man. This suggested the previous encounter had happened against her will as well.

“How come you weren’t a virgin?” he asked, thinking at this point that they were past the awkwardness such a question created.

Branwen swallowed. “A few years before that, a man saw me one day in the forest and …”

And raped her. Matthew rubbed a hand over his face, appalled. “Dear God, Branwen … How old were you when the man attacked your sister?”

“Seventeen.”

“Jesus.” At seventeen she’d already been raped? And how old had her sister been then? Little more than a child, surely, for she was more than a couple of years younger than her, by the look of things. How much more appalling could all this get?

“Anyway, once the man saw that I was willing, he let her go and?—”

“Willing!” Matthew spluttered. “How the devil did he get the idea that you were willing?”

“Because of what I … because of what I did to him.” She lowered her eyes and gave a shiver of revulsion.

“Listen to me,” he said sternly, intent on making her understand she was a victim in the whole affair, not a willing participant. “A man knows when the woman in his arms is there reluctantly. That bastard had no excuse to go to your sister, who was a child and could not possibly want him, and then to pretend that you knelt at his feet because you wanted to. He might not have used physical force on you, but what he did is just as bad. He knew you only did what you did to spare an innocent from his advances, and he took advantage of it knowingly, instead of drowning in shame and self-loathing as he should have done.”

Christ on the cross, he had rarely heard a more sordid tale.

Now he understood why Branwen had always seemed oddly innocent and ill at ease in front of him, despite her supposed depravity, why she’d not been able to explain the urge to kiss him. She was new to all this. All her interactions with men had been imposed on her.

“How many of those men has there been over the years?” he asked through gritted teeth.

Everything was starting to make sense. The way she had pounced on him earlier and immediately assumed he had been trying to hurt her sister, the look of despair and shame after the Englishman had left her cottage the other day, certainly not the way a sated woman looked. She had been pale and teary, like a woman who’d just been raped.

She had even told him as much.

How many men I’ve been forced to service.

And he’d ignored her words. He was sick to his soul, thoroughly disgusted with himself. Instead of letting his pride have the upper hand, he should have asked her if she was all right, and then run straight back outside to ram his fist down the man’s throat.

He had barged in like the ignorant boor he was, accusing her of being little more than a whore, and asking if she preferred he used her mouth or take her up against the wall.

Oh, God, it didn’t bear thinking about.

“How many?” he repeated, resisting the urge to take her hand in his.

She flushed crimson, as if hating that he had guessed what she had done to the man—and countless others. Well, he hated it too, the knowledge that she had been subjected to such treatment from men who’d been too selfish and dishonorable to ignore her distress because they wanted relief. Men like Thomas and Owen who had appeased their conscience with the fact that she had not protested.

“I-I don’t know.” Everything froze within Matthew. There had been so many that she did not even know. That was the worst answer she could have given him. “The next one came to find me as I was washing in the stream the following week, telling me he’d heard about me from his friend, the one after that claimed he’d seen us by the river bank and wanted the same. Since then it has never stopped.”

No. It had not stopped. For years and years she’d been a victim of men who were too blinded by lust to accept or even consider she might be unwilling.

“You don’t tell them you don’t want them?” He did his best not to sound accusatory, because it was not his intention to make her feel bad. He only meant to understand the extent of her predicament.

She shook her head, as if she’d tried this more often than she could think, in vain.

“It’s always worse in the end if you struggle. Then they make you pay for your defiance, possess you in the most animalistic way possible, just to show you what they can do. And it hurts even more.” Matthew’s blood was now frozen in his veins. “I learned the hard way it was better not to protest, so I just let them … do what they want, however they want. With the town now teeming with Englishmen it’s worse than it ever was. I know countless women who have been damaged beyond repair because they tried to fight their attackers. I don’t want to be the next one. If I allow them to take their pleasure, then at least they don’t treat me too badly. But if I can get away with not allowing them to enter my body, I will. Sometimes if I’m lucky, my hand is enough, but more often than not I?—”

“Please, you don’t have to tell me,” Matthew interrupted, appalled.

More often than not, she used her mouth. The guards had said as much, when describing what she had done to their friend Eric in the stables, “no questions asked”. His heart bled, his chest tightened.

Without thinking, he drew her into his arms.

“Don’t,” she protested feebly. But she made no move to disentangle herself, as if the embrace was welcome.

“Please, Raven. Just let me hold you.” He needed it, as much as she did. He needed to know he was doing what little he could to help her; he needed to know he was not the heartless bastard he’d been with her. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. For everything you’ve been through, for not immediately understanding what was happening, for what I told you the other day, for the way I spoke to you.”

For taking the men’s word without knowing the reality of the situation. For thinking her a whore, and talking to her accordingly. For being angry with her. For threatening her. For so many things.

“I’m so sorry.”

“It’s all right. None of it is your fault, and you could not have guessed.”

That did not make it much better. He should have seen that something was not right the moment she had leapt to Elena’s defense that day in the bailey. Now he understood why seeing what she thought was an assault would have traumatized her.

His hold around her tightened. Her confession had cost her, and it deserved one from him in return. Matthew knew just what to tell her. She’d confided something no one knew, something personal and painful, she had opened up to him.

He would do just the same.

“I was a virgin before you made a man out of me that day in the solar,” he whispered, his mouth at her temple. “You’re the first person I have told as much. No one knows about it, not even Connor. Everyone assumes I’ve had more lovers than I can count. But the truth is, I’d never lain with a woman before that day.”

He felt her stiffen against him, not quite the reaction he’d expected, and she drew back to look at him. “You? A virgin?”

Branwen was incredulous. A man as well-favored as Matthew, a virgin? He was virility personified. She’d been so sure he’d bedded scores of women only too eager to be led astray! And she was being told he had never had a lover.

He shrugged, as if embarrassed by the admission, and refused to meet her eye. “It was the only way. I was no innocent, don’t get me wrong. I had pleasured women and allowed them to pleasure me in turn, but I’d never …” He pursed his lips but she understood what he meant. He had never entered a woman’s body.

“Why not?” She hated to pry, but she had to know. It seemed too incredible that a man like him had not been with a woman before two weeks ago. There had to be a reason. When he spoke, his answer confirmed her impression.

“I knew that, as an inexperienced lover, I would find it impossible to keep myself from spilling inside a woman, and the last thing I wanted was to leave bastards in my wake. There are enough of them in the world.”

“Yes.” Branwen didn’t quite know what to say.

“The best way not to tempt fate was to not possess anyone. And it seems I was right to be wary of my ability to control myself or doubt my skill at pleasing the woman in my arms,” he said with a grimace. “That day in the solar I lasted as long as an untried youth, I was as desperate for release as a man half my age, and I did nothing to bring you pleasure.”

He sounded so disgusted with himself Branwen couldn’t bear it.

“You have nothing to be ashamed of. Nothing of what happened is your fault. You know now about my inability to feel pleasure.” She blushed, but she was determined to be honest. Her embarrassment didn’t count, she needed to reassure him. “And you didn’t last because I … I did everything I could to precipitate your pleasure. It was all my fault, not yours”

Having had so many men, she knew all about what made them unable to last any longer than necessary. Usually, she did so because she wanted the ordeal to be over as quickly as possible, but with Matthew it had been different. She had wanted to put an end to it because she had started to feel sensations she didn’t want to feel.

And she had succeeded in spectacular fashion.

He’d been hurtled headlong into his climax. Now she understood why he’d been so primed, why his release had been so explosive. It had been his first time. All his life he had refrained from making love to women because he didn’t want to spill his seed inside them and risk fathering children he would never see grow.

And she had forced him to do just that. She had made him take her, made him come in the way most suited to her.

She collapsed onto the stool behind her as realisation hit. Even if, admittedly, she had not hurt Matthew in the process, she was no better than Bryn, who had taken her innocence before she was ready, who’d thought it his right to decide when and where she became aware of what transpired between men and women.

“My God. I’m so sorry. I had no idea. And I forced you to … I’m not better than?—”

“No, it was nothing like that, and you know it!” Matthew cut in, falling to his knees in front of her. “I won’t let you think such a thing. You didn’t use force, you didn’t hurt me, you didn’t even take anything I didn’t want to give. It was nothing like what happened to you with that bastard, do you hear? I could have said no and you would have heeded my refusal. I could have lifted you off my lap in the blink of an eye if I’d wanted to. But I didn’t. I wanted you, more than anything I’d ever wanted in my life, more than my next breath. If you hadn’t taken me, I believe I would have taken you there against the wall, and to hell with everything.”

There was no doubting his sincerity. He meant it absolutely. For a reason she couldn’t explain, he would have done with her what he had refused to do with other women.

“Why?” she asked, staring at him straight in the eye.

He shook his head slowly, as if he didn’t have the answer to that question and regretted not being able to answer. “I don’t know why, in the same way that I’m not sure you know why you wanted me so badly you gifted me with what so many men have taken by force.”

How had he guessed that he had been the first man she had ever felt desire for? That their lovemaking had been the first time she had ever initiated such intimacy? Though she was no virgin, like he had been, in her heart he’d been her first lover, he had given her the first time she wished she’d had.

“You’re right,” she said slowly. “It’s inexplicable.”

“But undeniable.”

Matthew could only agree. There was something between them, had been from the start. They could both see it. As to what they could do with it, that was not so easy to decide.

While he was pondering what to say next, a woman entered the cottage without knocking, and started talking in Welsh. It was obvious she felt at home and did not expect anyone other than Branwen to be inside. Matthew had no idea what she was saying but she stopped abruptly when she saw him kneeling at Branwen’s feet.

Slowly, even if was too late to pretend he had not been in such an intimate position, he stood back up.

“Mam, this is Matthew,” Branwen said in Welsh, articulating for his benefit.

Mam? Though he’d never heard the word before, it was not hard to guess it was what Welsh people called their mother. But with her fair complexion and blue eyes, the woman looked nothing like Branwen, even if she seemed just about old enough to have given birth to her. It seemed he was not the only one who’d been raised by someone who wasn’t his birth mother.

How odd. He had just been thinking that her confession had stirred his protective instinct. Now he was finding out that they had more in common than he had supposed. Added to the attraction he already felt, it was making it harder and harder to keep his distance from her.

He hadn’t understood at the time what had drawn her to him, but he knew now what would keep him enthralled.

The two women started a rapid exchange, one he could not follow and likely had no business to overhear. Doing his best to appear as if he wasn’t listening, he went to stir the fire embers. The older woman was looking at him strangely, as if trying to make sense of him. After a while she nodded and disappeared through the door again, taking her daughter with her. He guessed she would ask Branwen who he was as soon as they were out of earshot.

He went to the window and took a moment to observe the interior of the cottage. It was clean and well looked after, but very sparsely furnished. This was not the abode of a rich woman. He’d already remarked that Branwen’s clothes, though always clean, had been darned a few times, and that her frame was slender, almost to the point of thinness. He looked at the basket full of sorry-looking apples. The fruit looked almost rotten. Was she eating enough? Did she have all the wood she needed to keep warm at night? What protection did she have against intruders? The contrast between them was suddenly glaring. At Esgyrn Castle, not only did he have plenty to eat, but he also had access to luxury items such as the sugared almonds he favored; he was never cold or in any danger.

He would have to make sure Branwen was well-fed, warm, and protected.

After what she’d revealed, she needed to feel secure more than any other woman he knew. A fierce guard dog would be a start. A litter had been born at Esgyrn Castle a few months back to one of Connor’s wolfhounds. Perhaps a pup could be spared. He would speak to his brother without delay, because he couldn’t bear to think of Branwen all alone in her cottage, an easy prey to the predatory men lurking around.

A moment later, she was back. She looked shy, as if not quite sure how to resume the conversation, which was little wonder given what they had been discussing when they’d been interrupted. He could not help but admire her fortitude. After all she had endured, she could have been forgiven for staying away from him.

“That was Carys, my … well, the woman I consider as my mother. She raised my sister and me when our mother died. I was ten then.” So he’d guessed correctly, the two women were not related by blood. “She came to get her back. They live together at the other end of the village, even if we often spend the day together.”

He coughed, remembering he’d been on his knees in front of Branwen when the woman had entered the hut. “I hope it wasn’t a problem for her to see me kneeling before you?” he asked, not wanting to place her in an uncomfortable position.

At best, the woman would have thought he had just been pleasuring her daughter intimately, at worst, that he was one of the men taking advantage of her. If Branwen had told a woman who was as good as her mother about what she had gone through as a young girl and was still going through, that was. He would not be surprised if she’d kept her ordeal and the direness of her situation from her, in order to spare her from pain.

Branwen flushed a delightful color. “Don’t worry about her. I’m a grown woman now, so she didn’t ask any questions. I can do what I want with my life.”

Except she couldn’t. That was the whole problem.

Silence stretched between them. The sun had already started its decent toward the horizon.

“Matthew … I would ask something of you but I dare not.”

“Ask me.” He would not have her hesitant with him, and if he could atone in any way for what he had done to her, he would. “Anything.”

“I would like you to stay with me tonight. Of course, if you have somewhere else you have to be, I’ll understand,” she added hurriedly, as if she regretted her request, or thought she was overstepping the mark.

But it did not take Matthew long to agree. Hadn’t he been thinking just a moment ago that he wanted her to be safe? Yes, he had. He was not going anywhere. With him around, at least tonight, nothing would happen to her.

He took her hand. “Of course. I will stay.”