“Alise, I’m afraid I must insist. I’m opening the door now.”
“Don’t!” she warned him, but he did, pulling it open to admit a slice of afternoon light into the small room. Instinctively she moved beyond its reach and half turned her face away from it. “What do you want?” she demanded, and in the next breath, “I’m packing my clothing back in my wardrobe,” she lied. “I’ll be ready to leave soon.”
He was merciless. He pulled the door open wide. She stooped to pick up the blouse from the floor, contriving to turn her back to him. As she did so, she lost her balance and nearly fell. In two steps he was inside the room, catching her arm and holding her up. She clung to him gratefully, both hands on his arm as she looked over his shoulder. “I’m dizzy,” she admitted breathlessly.
“It’s just the movement of the barge on the river,” he said. In the same moment, she realized that the barge was in motion again. Behind him, she saw the stately parade of immense tree trunks as the ship moved upriver. Her vertigo was suddenly the gentle shifting of the floor under her feet. It passed.
“We’re under way,” she said in wonder. She found herself clutching his arm and staring over his shoulder at the passing riverbank. She could not quite believe it. She had defied him, and she had won. The barge was carrying her upriver.
“Yes. We are.” His response was curt.
“I’m sorry,” she said, and then wondered at her words. She wasn’t sorry, not at all, and yet she could not keep herself from apologizing. When had it become so ingrained in her to apologize whenever she wanted something for herself?
“That makes two of us,” Sedric responded. He took a deep breath, and she was suddenly aware of how close she was standing to him. It was almost an embrace. She could smell him, the spicy scent he wore, the soap he used. She was surprised that she recognized those scents. They brought Hest sharply to mind, and she stepped back. She suddenly wondered if the two men used the same perfumed oils. She frowned, thinking about that.
His voice was deep and regretful as he interrupted her thoughts with, “Alise, this is mad. We’ve just embarked on a journey with no fixed destination, into territory that has never been successfully mapped. We’ll be gone for weeks, if not months! How can you do this? How can you just walk away from your entire life?”
A stillness welled up in her and then a joy as dizzying as the gentle rocking of the barge spun her. He was right. She’d left it all behind. After a moment, she found her voice. “Walk away from my life, Sedric? I’d run away from what you think is my life if I could. The hours sitting at my desk, scratching away with a pen, living a life based on things that happened centuries ago. Dining alone. Going to bed alone.”
Her harshness seemed to shock him. “You don’t have to dine alone,” he said awkwardly.
Her mouth was dry with bitterness. “I suppose I don’t have to go to bed alone, either. Yet, when one weds, one expects one’s husband to be her companion for those things. When Hest asked me to marry him, I foolishly thought that I wouldn’t have to worry about loneliness again. I thought he would be there, with me.”
“Hest is with you when he can be.” Sedric sounded uncertain, probably because he knew he was lying. “He’s a Trader, Alise. You know that means he must travel. If he doesn’t travel, he can’t find the special goods that bring in the prices that allow him to provide you with the life you have.”
“You don’t understand, Sedric.” She cut off the spiral of words that she had heard so many times from Hest in the early years of her marriage. The tightening noose of words that inevitably proved how selfish she was to resent being left home alone, night after night, week after week. “It isn’t that he’s away so much. I don’t mind that anymore. I don’t pine after him. Do you know what I hate now, Sedric? I hate that I’m glad when he’s gone. Not because I like to be alone; I’ve learned a great tolerance for it. I’m very good at it, actually. I don’t think of him when he’s gone. I don’t wonder who he might be with or how he treats her.” She halted abruptly. She’d made a promise to Hest, never to accuse him of lying again, never to pelt him with such suspicions. Sedric had been there and knew of the promise. She pressed her lips tightly closed.
Her words had made him uncomfortable. She felt him shift slightly, as if he wished to move away from her but didn’t know how to untangle himself gracefully. With a leap of certainty, she knew her suspicions were well founded. Hest did have someone else now, and Sedric knew about her. Knew about her and felt guilty for shielding Hest. She suddenly decided to free him from that guilt. “Don’t worry about it, Sedric. I promised I’d never ask again, and I won’t. I don’t wonder anymore if other women in Bingtown know how little he cares for our bed. If they like him, they are welcome to him. I’m tired of his hard words, his hard heart, and his hard hands.”
