MADELENA
How is it possible to own so much guilt over a secret that wasn't even mine? This secret should have come out years ago, when it could have ameliorated so much of his pain. Now I wonder if it is too late to undo the damage done to him. Finding out the truth now may just cause more grief instead of a lessening.
I remember the first time I saw the girl, and a girl she was. Raven hair tumbling over an ivory shoulder, unwilling to be tamed into the elaborate and sedate style of the times. Her smile was infectious and pulled in even the most morose party guest. Hanging as I was on a silver chain around her neck, I could feel the bubbly laughter that she could not contain even with all the scowling prudes attempting to tamp down her nature. She refused to be cowed and I admired her from the moment I was placed upon her skin.
I was a gift, you see, from her betrothed. An arranged marriage that never should have been proposed by a proud Papa who wished to see his daughter connected with the most prominent family in their new town. A Papa who had been willfully ignoring the furtive glances and lingering touches between his pride and one much below her station. He didn't realize the carefree girl had already given her heart to another and not to the cold man who would eventually marry her. A marriage that could have broken the girl if not for the gift she brought to it.
She wore me to the stables the morning after the engagement party and I saw him for the first time. I instantly knew the marriage she was cursed to would bring her nothing but pain, because this simple stable hand loved her with more warmth and passion than her husband-to-be would ever be able to muster except in anger. It was obvious the two had been meeting secretly for weeks, but this morning I bore witness the consummation of their love. Along with the downstairs maid.
Her father sent the man off to purchase horses at auction and hired a murderer to ensure he would never return from his quest. News of his death broke the spirit that had seemed impenetrable and so she entered the marriage with a bruised heart, soon to be followed by bruised skin. The light only returned to her eyes when she discovered a part of her lost love was inside of her and how she adored that child. Raven locks as wild as hers, but eyes as blue as the sky she lay under when making love in the meadow with her true heart.
She vowed to protect him from the harsh words and angry hands of her husband and would have been successful if not for the arrival of a second son, who would never know the mother who loved fiercely and completely. She passed on to another place, one not of the eternal grave, yet one not appropriate for small children who she assumed would be safe within her family. She gravely underestimated the amount of hate a grown man could have for a child free from the sins of his mother, but assigned to pay the price in her steed.
I have watched that boy grow into a man who forever doubts his capacity for love based upon the father who isn't even his. He and his brother eventually met the same fate as their mother...and that of the smirking boy's real father. But I am the only one left standing with all the pieces of the puzzle. Would putting them together help heal the wounds of a little boy, or would I only open scars so long scabbed over?
And so here I sit. Burdened with knowledge and a love that consumes me. Waiting for the answer to come.