I am glad I have not felt alone these past two weeks. I have you to thank for that. If my thoughts cannot go somewhere, they would rob me of all peace and drive me to insanity.

It is late afternoon and we are ensconced snugly in a fine carriage with my lord. I should be lulled into sleep by the sway and lumber of the wheels and the gentle clip-clop rhythm of the horse hooves upon the gravelly rocks, but my head is full of too many things.

We have spent the better part of the day visiting my father and cousins, and a short time among my friends in the village. I would like to think the silence that hangs thick between he and I is simply due to the exhaustion of travel and talk.

Every so often, Lord Vane watches me pensively. I can only hope he is not thinking about the scantness of my family home. However, that thought pales sharply in comparison to the inner turmoil I feel.

To know my thoughts, we have to return to the morning hours.

After several more days of lingering weakness, I was finally well enough and out of bed, full in preparations for my visit home. I helped the kitchen prepare my father's favorite pie, a filled pastry of sweet cream, crushed nuts, and spices, then went to the garden to cut three small bouquets for my cousins.

I was bent low behind a waist-high green hedge, clipping buds from a variety of flower plants I knew they had not seen before.

It was then that the gardener and his sweetheart, a milking maid, passed on the path on the other side of the hedge.

Their conversation went something like this:

"My lord's two little brats have been sneaking round the garden playing games. I've found several bushes trampled underfoot! Look at this one," grouched the gardener.

Ah, and there I was, cutting at his bushes. I slunk lower in shame with my shears. Suddenly, what was said hit me with the force of a toppling great oak: my lord's two little brats?

The maid replied, "How terrible! I've heard the children have been confined to the west turret?"

"Mm. My lord's man of business saw to that. Less eyes that see them the better, else rumors will fly about the lord's intentions. Especially after their mother's sad tale. He'll be rid of them soon enough."

The two of them were moving further away while my mind was struggling to make sense.

The maid's answer was no less confounding, "Perhaps they will be sent somewhere to learn trade? The little girl, I only caught a glimpse of her, but she's got a head of shiny black hair. Puts me in mind of the lord, really. It's not often you see it that stark."

They were beyond my hearing now, thankfully. It would be some minutes before my legs would thaw. And some minutes more before I moved away, wondering why there were children my new husband was hiding.

Had I not been sick, would I have seen them running about?

A young girl, with his resemblance...

Hours later, I finally resigned myself to one conclusion. And it is not a pleasant one. As of late, it feels like they never are.

There were men in surrounding villages known to have issue (as I have heard offspring called) outside their wife. Such children usually faced abandonment, starvation, and, in most cases, were unclaimed by their sire. I knew this well because My father and I had fed such children from time to time.

If this were the case with my lord, should I not do something? Say something? Could I sit silently by while two more little ones are abandoned?

"Charis..." Lord Vane calls me back to the present. The carriage has stopped, but we have only reached the wooded reserve halfway to the manor.

He does not seem to notice we have stilled. Instead, soundless words are forming on his lips as if he is sorting through his own mental array.

"Charis...can I share why I asked for you as my bride?"

I had wanted to know why. But right now, I need other answers and am working on building my courage to ask.

He takes my lack of ability to talk as assent, and begins as such:

"I never expected to succeed my great uncle. There were many ahead of me. Six, I think. I was not raised wealthy. My home was not much bigger than yours, in fact.

Three years ago, when I found myself inheriting, I had a lot of work to do to rectify my uncle's rash ways. Months on end, I spent holed up with tenants, the accounting books, the maintenance of farms, and a score of other obligations. All completely new to me and difficult to learn, so there was no time for anything else.

One name kept reaching my ears wherever I went: Charis. You are loved greatly by the people around here. How kind you are, how you visit the sick, and make clothes for the destitute with what little you and your father had.

Over time, your character and beauty continued to be praised.

Less than two months ago, I was close to the manor, riding back from a tenant's farm when a hail storm drove me to shelter beneath an elm. I discovered a man on foot hiding there as well. He was soaked and far still from the village, so I invited him in to warm himself once the storm passed.

I learned then that he was your father.

Over a meal, his history was shared with me. How he is the youngest great grandson of a lord, sent for training as a child to the king's court as a royal scribe. He spoke of the odd events that led to his banishment twenty years ago, able to laugh at the absurdness of it all so many years later .

Then he told of how he wound up here, married to your mother, working as a tutor and scribe for the villages all around the area.

Knowing that the one female who is highest in my esteem by reputation was now of eligible birth, there was nothing to hold me back. And I asked your father, right then and there."

Lord Vane pauses briefly, dropping his voice to a near whisper, "I was probably half in love before I even met you."

He is finished and I wonder at how a man's character can be so at odds with itself? The compliments he pays me I am unable to enjoy, although my cheeks warm at his directness.

Words are almost burning to get out, but they refuse to sound. What of these children?

Again, my silence spurs him on.

"I want a wife who knows and loves these people. Not one shadowed by the weight of pride and extravagance."

"My..my lord," I find my voice finally, timid and unsure, but am cut off.

"Ah...I have only been a lord these three years, sharing that name with some who did not think and act as I would have, and I now bear the burden of that fact. I had hoped with my wife--with you--I could just be myself."

I know well what he is asking for.

"Gavriel," I speak. His eyes soften, so I continue, "May I ask you a question now?"

If he can be so open, I tell myself I am ready as well. My heart hammers furiously. I do not know how to word this, but I will try.

"If a man has...well...issues...with whom he needs to be responsible for, is it acceptable for him to conceal the...the...issues...he has to the one perhaps it would matter most to?"

I finish, cringing, lest I am not understood and have to reword it more directly.

~Chapter 7 End~

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