Page 188 of The Valiant Knight
I can’t take back what hurt you, but going forward, I can promise to be a better mate, a stronger soul to lean on when you are tired and exhausted.
I can be better if you just return to me.
That’s all it will take.
Give me another chance to prove that our love isn’t just arranged but was meant to be.
Anyway, I hope we see each other soon. I miss your beard, and your embrace. I miss you holding me tight and protecting me.
Until we see each other again, and I can be held in your strong arms against your body…
Your love,
Ceit.’
She considered it.
“At some point, they were good,” she said. “How did that go to the point where she’s killed?” Gabby asked. “Because that’s a wide margin there.”
Yes, it was.
And that was a good question.
“I guess a lot can happen in a marriage,” Finn said, “specifically if it’s an arranged marriage. They were tossed together and forced to figure it out.”
Tony agreed.
“She was a child,” he said. “She was around eighteen when she gave birth.”
Finn was curious.
“About how old was Duncan? Can you tell by what you saw with his bones?”
He nodded.
“His bones stopped growing, and he shows markers of arthritis. I’d put him at about fifty-five when he died, but he was likely in his thirties when he married. That was the standard for men back then.”
Immediately, Gabby shook her head.
“Nope. That’s all kinds of wrong. I don’t care what century you lived in. That’s just icky.”
On that, Finn agreed.
Unfortunately, in the sixteen hundreds, they made women marry young.
And against their will.
“What happens next?” Tony asked.
Pulling out the next paper in the order Ian and Gryphen had left them, not in the order of their dates, she read it to the two men as they followed along.
‘Ravensmire Castle
Scotland
October 1593
My Dearest Duncan,
