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Of course, it wasn’t.  But she’d rather live her life alone than share her bed with a man who could never love her.  A man who had, in fact, believed the absolute worst of her.  She didn’t answer his question.  Instead, she turned from him and slathered more cream on his back.  Her nimble fingers lightly massaged it into his skin.  

She was behaving like a fool.  Like a lovesick fool.  Breaking her heart over a man she’d known for only two days.  It was absurd.  Perhaps she was just exhausted.  Her back ached so badly still.  And no one had rubbed any cream into her skin since yesterday.

His muscles were trembling with relief right now.  He wanted to weep.  Just because his back was sighing with the blissful comfort of her cold fingers on his skin.  Surely, that was the only reason he wanted to cry.

He couldn’t see her face right now.  And she hadn’t answered his question.  He stayed silent as she ministered comfort to his body.  She heaved a deep sigh a few moments later as she stood up.  He saw her grimace in pain.

He frowned.  “When did anyone put cream on your back last?”

“Yesterday,” she whispered as she turned from him. 

He reached out and wrapped his long, slender fingers around her wrist.  “Mari…” he murmured.

Caught by that strong hand, she kept her gaze averted.  She felt like bawling again.  She’d spent most of the day weeping in the garden.  She was thoroughly exhausted.  She couldn’t take much more.

He drew her towards him.  He pulled her back down onto the bed.  As she sat next to him, he released her wrist and reached for her hanbok.  He began to tug it upward.  She gasped and jumped up.

“What are you doing?”

“Mari,” he uttered in exasperation.  “You must be in intense pain.  Come.”  He patted the bed.  “You should have been attended to today.  I’m surprised Moonflower didn’t treat your back while you were with her.”

“I left the cream here.”

He lifted his fine eyebrows.  “Then, allow me.”

“But…”

“Are you afraid to let me see you?” he whispered gently.

His sweetness almost broke her.  His fingers were softly brushing the top of her hand.  He was making her dizzy with desire.  Her eyes flooded with tears.  

She swallowed.  Then, she nodded.

His heart flooded with tenderness for her.  “It’s pretty dark over here.  I don’t think you have anything to worry about.  But if you want me to avert my gaze while you remove your hanbok, I will.  You can hold your undershirt up in front of you while I put the cream on your back.”

She was gazing down at the bed.  She didn’t answer him.

“Please, Mari.  I can’t stand to see you in pain,” he breathed.

His voice had caught on the last word, forcing her eyes to his own.  When she saw the expression in his gaze, she wanted to throw herself at him and kiss him.  But she held herself back.  Finally, she nodded her head.

He looked away, and she stood up to remove her hanbok.  She sat down in her bloomers.  Then she pulled her undershirt off.  But she covered her torso with it as she presented her back to him.  

He reached for the jar of cream that she had set next to him on the bed.  He stuck his fingers into the ointment before turning his gaze upon her beautiful back.  But what met his eye shocked him.  He gasped as he stared at the deep ridges in her skin.

“Mari.”  He swallowed the lump in his throat.  “What made these scars on your back?”  As he asked the question, he reached up to slide his fingers along one ridge.  

She closed her eyes.  Now he would know the other reason she was so certain he would never want her.  She was marred.  Men wanted a flawless wife.  Not a scarred one.

“I was lashed once.”

He stared in horror at the marks even as his fingers lovingly caressed the wounded skin.

“With what?”

“A scourge.  It had only one tail.  But it was embedded with little pieces of pottery.  Sharp pieces.”

He felt sick to his stomach.  It lurched, and he felt bile rising into his throat.

“Who would use such a sadistic tool on you?” he cried out in anguish.

“My master.”

“Your master?”

She nodded.  “I was a slave.  Until I was thirteen.  He lashed me when I was ten years old.”

“Why?” 

He was weeping.  Tears were streaming down his face.  This poor, broken girl.  Ten years old?  How could anyone touch her beautiful skin with that horrid lash when she was just ten years old?  

He had sought to save her from punishment yesterday.  Not knowing she’d already endured something so much more wicked than a beating.

“How many times did he hit you?”

She was trembling now.  He could see it.  She was shaking like a leaf.  She closed her eyes against the memory.  Against the searing pain that had been her companion for weeks afterward.

“Ten.”

But he didn’t need her to tell him.  He could clearly count them.  His fingers were sliding over them.  Then he bent his head, and his lips brushed the top scar.

She was sobbing.  She could feel his fingers apologizing to her skin for another man’s cruelty.  No one had ever touched her with such gentleness before.  His kindness was breaking her afresh.  

But then, she felt something different.  A light brush of softness against her upper back.  Then, it happened again.  And again.  All the way down that ridge.  

Then she realized what it was.  And it shocked her.  Tae was kissing her scars.  She began to weep as he continued to tenderly touch the wounds another man had inflicted with such relish upon her innocent back.  With such spite.  Tae was attempting to unravel her pain.  But his gentleness was devastating her.

“See, Tae?  You cannot want me,” she whispered brokenly.  “Not really.  Certainly not now that you know the truth.”

“The truth?” he whispered.

“That I’m horribly disfigured.  I’m hideous.  I know it.”  She grabbed her pillow and began to sob into it.

Tae’s heart was doing somersaults in his chest.  This poor, broken girl.  

He wrapped his arms around her from behind and whispered into her ear, “You are not.  Mari, you are not hideous.  You are beautiful.”

He was holding her up against him.  His lips were kissing the side of her head.  She felt instant confusion.  Why was he treating her so sweetly when he loved another woman?  Why was he speaking so kindly to her?

She lacked the strength to harden her heart against him.  So she relaxed into him and let him cover her cheek in soft kisses.  After a while, he released her and began to rub the cream into her sore muscles.  She groaned as he hit several sensitive spots.

“Mari,” he breathed as he worked.  “I don’t want an annulment.  Please.  Don’t leave me.”

He couldn’t stand the idea that this beautiful girl would shame herself into a life hidden within the walls of a priory.  Hiding herself away, believing that she was some kind of monster.   When she was simply a lovely girl whose back had been twisted by a true monster’s cruelty.  

Tae could not allow her to punish herself.  She should never have been touched.  Never treated so.  It absolutely broke his heart.  He despised cruel men.   Unfortunately, there were too many of them in life.

His gentle words slipped into her heart.  They were a healing balm to years spent alone, drowning in misery.

“You want me?” she breathed, barely daring to hope that he was serious.  “But…you love Moonflower.”

There.  She’d said it.  She’d tossed it into his face at the height of his tenderness towards her.

He didn’t even try to deny it.  “Moonflower belongs to another.  She will never be mine.  But you could be.  If you choose me.”

He’d left himself vulnerable.  And he knew the very worst there was to know of her now.  

His fingers stilled on her back for a moment.  Then they began to brush lightly over her skin.  Tingles were spiraling down into her back out of those beautiful fingers.  She began to shiver again.  For a different reason this time.

“I’ve never been with a man.  I’m scared,” she admitted.

“Let’s take things slow,” he murmured.  “Get to know each other first.  I – I ask for only one thing.  If you choose to stay with me, that is.”

“What?”  She turned her head to look at him.

“That you share this bed with me each night.  Sleep with me.  I’ve seen too many times what happens between a man and his wife when they don’t share a bed.  I’m not talking about sex.  I’m talking about breathing the same air at night.  It lends itself to intimacy.  I want to know you, Mari.  I think you have a beautiful heart.  I long to plumb its depths.”

Dear God!  

The man was a poet too.  She sighed.  She began to pull her undershirt over her head.  He helped her to pull it down.  Then she turned towards him.  She gazed into his intense, chocolate eyes.  

“I will stay with you, Tae.  If you truly want me, I will stay.  Though, I really don’t understand how you could desire a broken girl like me…”

“Mari.  Do you understand why Moonflower loves the king?  Even with his scar?”

“She’s blind.  She cannot see his scar.  You can see mine.”

“What scars?” he asked soberly.  He glanced at her, his eyes sliding over her person for a moment.  “I see no scars.”  His gaze found hers again.  “I find no flaw in you, my love.”

Her face crumpled, and she began to weep silently.  He reached out and pulled her close.  

“Don’t make such a big deal of it.  You’re lovely.  No matter what that cruel man did to you.  He couldn’t blot out your beauty with his ugliness.”

He pulled her up against his naked chest.  She buried her face against his skin and inhaled.  And immediately derived immense comfort from both his scent and his closeness.

She knew she wasn’t really his love, but his words solaced her anyway.  So did his touch.  And she’d just fallen a lot more in love with him.  How could she not?  The man was absolutely adorable.