Vevina found Arthur working in the blacksmith hut. He was shirtless, his bare chest shimmering with sweat while he hammered away at the red hot tip of a sword laid flat on an anvil. She couldn't help but compare him to his twin. Where Astrid was lean and fit, Arthur was thick with muscle, defined and sculpted like a marble statue, but not cold and aloof like marble or like his sister could be at times.
Arthur was affable, his smile genuine, his nature pragmatic. He was a dependable and reasonable man, one easy to converse with. He had been honest about what he expected from her as a wife and made her feel as comfortable as possible with their forthcoming marriage arrangement.
When Arthur saw her, he gave the sword one last hammer and then shoved the tip into the rain barrel, steam rising off the water before he deposited the weapon on a nearby worktable.
"Is something wrong?" he asked.
"Why do you ask that?"
"Because we have barely exchanged more than salutations between us since you wed my sister."
"My fault," Vevina admitted. "I cannot say it has been easy adjusting to the sudden change in my situation."
"I am sorry for that."
Vevina smiled. "It wasn't your fault, though I felt I lost a good husband."
He laughed. "You're so sure of that?"
Vevina nodded firmly. "You will make a woman a fine husband one day. She will be lucky to have you."
"And I will be lucky if she possesses half the good nature that you do. Actually, your pleasant temperament is what made the arrangement so appealing, but by now my sister must realize her good fortune in having you as a wife."
Vevina shrugged. "I'm not sure how your sister feels. I thought perhaps you could help me to understand her better."
"I wish I could understand her better myself now." Arthur shook his head. "She is different since her return. She keeps to herself removed from most. We don't talk as much as we once did."
"It sounds as if you miss your sister."
"I do," he said.
"Have you tried speaking with Astrid?"
"Obviously you came to me with concern for my twin sister, yet you are advising me on my concerns. You are a thoughtful woman, Vevina." He winked playfully at her. "Perhaps I was foolish to let you go so easily."
"Perhaps you should respect the fact that she is your sister's wife."
Vevina and Arthur turned to see Astrid, her hands fisted at her sides.
"Arthur was only teasing," Vevina explained.
"Let him find his own woman to tease," Astrid spat back, her golden eyes steady on her brother.
"I meant no disrespect," Arthur apologized.
Vevina was not well acquainted with siblings and their peculiarities, but she was certain that friction sizzled between the two. It seemed if she didn't separate them soon, an altercation would ensue.
"Make sure you don't," Astrid warned unnecessarily. Arthur made a civil attempt to lighten the atmosphere. "Remember that it's through my generosity that you have such a wonderful wife."
Astrid took a sharp step forward, and Vevina without thinking, stepped between the two.
"I am feeling rather tired. Would you walk me back to the keep?"
Arthur's glare remained locked with his sister's. "I'll be right here if you have anything else to say to me."
Vevina slipped her arm around her wife's and gave a light tug. "Actually, I could use a hot brew. I'm feeling quite chilled." She forced a shiver to prove her point.
"We'll talk later," Astrid said to her brother.
"I'd like that," Arthur said, and turned to shove the sword he'd been working on into the fiery ambers.
Vevina waited until they were a distance away from the blacksmith hut to say, "Arthur is a good man."
"Unfortunately, you're stuck with me as your wife, and you can thank your stepfather for that."
"You're right," Vevina said, her head cast down as they walked along the pitted path to the keep.
Astrid's head snapped around to glare at her.
She raised her head and was quick to correct her misunderstanding. "You're right about my stepfather being at fault, not about me being stuck with you. I don't feel stuck with you. I am freer with you than with my stepfather. You don't confine me, and I appreciate that."
"False praise or gratitude will get you nowhere with me."
Vevina was stunned by her caustic accusations and her assumptions. "You think I lie?"
"Manipulate," Astrid corrected.
"I do not," Vevina said, halting their tracks.
Astrid laughed and sneered. "All women do. I know that because I am one, too."
"I'm not all women," Vevina said, and stepped away from her, insulted. Astrid's laughter was cut short as Vevina stomped off and went straight to the sewing room, wanting nothing more to than to forget the two siblings.
~*~
After discarding her cloak haphazardly on a chair, she paced in front of he fireplace. She didn't understand the Sinclares and didn't know if she wanted to. She would much prefer to find a solitary spot in the woods, erect a cottage, and live there contentedly. Her heartbeat quickened and she stopped pacing, but then wrung her hands together. The thought of being separated from her wife had jolted her. She unwittingly found herself attracted to her, caring about her, and considering a good life with her. She wouldn't want to lose that. She didn't want to see a rift occur between siblings that could not be mended, and she felt helpless as to how she might prevent any of it.
Vevina finally plopped into one of the chairs before the fireplace, too distraught to even consider her needlework. Being a wife was much more difficult than she'd imagined it would be. Or was it because she'd begun to have feelings for her wife? If she had simply regarded her marriage as an arranged one, with nothing to expect from it, she would not be disappointed. But she did expect things from her marriage, she thought, and should say as much to her wife.
Vevina yawned and blamed the walk on the moors for her sudden tiredness. Her worries might have had something to do with her exhaustion. Either way, her eyes drifted shut and she was soon sound asleep.
Astrid and Lancer walked into the great hall, Arthur arriving before them to overflow their tankards with ale.
"To the Sinclares," Arthur toasted, his tankard raised.
Astrid and Lancer cheered the toast and downed the ale. Astrid reached for a fourth tankard, its brim overflowing, and Arthur stopped her. "That's for Rohan. He is with us though he is not here...yet!"
Astrid refilled the tankards and this time it was she who made the toast. "To Rohan."
The siblings downed more ale and scrambled over the benches to sit at the table in front of the hearth.
"We will find Rohan," Lancer said, taking his turn to refill the tankards.
"Just like we did when we were young," Arthur reminded. "Rohan would get himself lost and..."
"One of us would find him," Lancer finished with a slap to Astrid's back. "One of us, not only you. We each took our turn getting him out of someplace he shouldn't have been."
"That's what we do," Astrid agreed.
Her two brothers agreed with a nod and a snort.
"Food, my pretty lassie," Lancer called out with a smile to a passing servant girl. She giggled, nodded, and hurried off to do his bidding.
"One day you're going to come up against a woman who won't jump to your charming commands," Arthur warned with a laugh.
"It will serve him right," Astrid said.
"That it will," Arthur agreed, refilling empty tankards.
Out of the corner of her eye Astrid caught her father entering the hall along with her mother. Guilt punched her in the gut and she stood and called out, "Father, come join us."
Her mother's relieved smile sent another guilty punch to her stomach, and she knew she owed her father an apology. She should never have spoken to him the way she had, her father didn't deserve it.
Arthur and Lancer remained silent, though both hid satisfied grins behind the tankards resting at their lips.
Astrid watched her mother kiss her father and hurry off with a smile. The genuine affection between her parents had been a constant in her life. It was a common sight to see the clan leader kiss his wife, hold her hand, laugh along with her, hug her.
Astrid had wanted, hoped, ached, to share that biding love with a special woman one day. A woman who wouldn't jump to her commands. At first, she had not thought that possible with the mousy Vevina, but of late, she'd come to admire the wife who was forced upon her seemingly by fates.