The Lady Series

by Domning, Denise

  A morose breath gusted from her as she tottered back into the hall. “As well as might be expected for a man in his condition. If you’re thinking to see his lordship tonight, you’re too late.”

  Like many of the older servants, as well as a good number of the villagers, Mistress Miller cared nothing for the legalities of Nick’s title or lack thereof. All that mattered to them was that Nick was the eldest son of the previous lord, making him lord in their eyes. “The damp and that woman of his chased him into bed early this evening.”

  Kit glanced past her to the hall screens, behind which stood the stairs to the family quarters. “Is Master James about?”

  “Nay, he’s gone off to London to do Lord Nicholas’s business,” she replied. “Now, no more talk. You’re sodden, through and through.” She latched a gnarled and wrinkled hand onto his arm. “You should have sent word you were coming. I’d have seen a decent meal laid out for you, instead of just a bite and a sup. Come then. I’ve sent a lass to wake the fire in your chambers. Up you go to warm yourself.”

  It was nearly noon the next morning before Kit tapped on the door to his brother’s suite. He wore his most comfortable attire, a brown doublet, the sleeves left off, atop a pair of well-worn leather breeches. This was home, a place to toss aside courtly affectations and live the simple life.

  With Jamie gone to London Kit expected Nick to call for him to enter. Instead Cecily Elwyn opened the door. “Good morrow, Kit,” Nick’s woman said in greeting, her golden eyes alive with pleasure at seeing him again.

  Aside from her odd yellowish eyes there was nothing remarkable about Cecily. She was narrow of face and round of body. Strands of black hair escaped her widow’s kerchief while her blue bodice and brown skirts were a little haphazard in their arrangement.

  “Good morrow, Cecily,” he said as he stepped within the chamber. “Is Nick ready to see me?”

  “He is,” she replied, still smiling. “Come along, he’s in the bedchamber.”

  As Kit started across the suite’s forechamber he shook his head. Once again, papers were strewn across Nick’s desk, the tables heaped with precious tomes. Only as Kit saw Cecily and the room together did he realize that Nick’s room was very much like Nick’s woman, both of them being comfortable in their disorder. The comparison made him smile.

  “I vow Cecily, he hasn’t changed a whit since our youth. At least this clutter of his appears to be an organized mess.”

  “So he claims,” she said, “forbidding us all from straightening, fearing he’ll find nothing after.”

  “Is that you, Kit?” Nick called out, the cost of raising his voice a cough as he appeared in his bedchamber door.

  “It is, indeed,” Kit replied as he and Cecily stopped before Graceton’s master.

  Nick wore a long, black robe, not unlike those affected by older gentlemen at court right down to the belt about his middle. Day’s bright light streamed past him from the windows behind him. Even in so thick a robe, his form was gaunt. Still, he seemed no thinner now than he’d been on Kit’s last visit.

  “If you two are to talk I’d best be on my way,” Cecily said.

  With a smile to her lover, she started to turn. Nick caught her by the elbow to hold her in place.

  “There’s no need for you to go. What Kit and I have to say isn’t private,” he said softly, the affection he knew for her filling his voice.

  Kit glanced between the two and swallowed. It was the same love Kit felt for Nan he saw reflected in Nick’s green gaze. Nor was there any doubting that Cecily cared just as deeply for Nick. It fair glowed in her narrow face.

  “Huh,” she replied, her attempt at scorn defeated by her softness for her lover. “You only wish me to stay because you’re greedy for my company. You’d not be so lonely if you’d come out of these rooms.”

  Nick only shook his head, his gaze smiling at her if he couldn’t. “Nay, I daren’t come out, else you’d never again come in to wake me. You are a wondrous sight by morn’s light.” He lifted his bony fingers to her face, turning his hand to draw the relatively unmarked skin of its back down her cheek.

  “So says the scarred man of his plain woman,” Cecily laughed, then gasped as Nick wrapped his arm around her to pull her against him. She shoved free of his embrace. When he reached for her again, she slapped at his hand. “Nay now, you’ll not do me so with your brother standing right here.”

  “What? Do you think Kit a child in need of protection from what it is men and women share?” Lust and laughter filled Nick’s voice.

  Cecily crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes. Her show of anger couldn’t belie the pretty pink stain pleasure left upon her cheeks. “You’ll not draw me into one of these sorts of arguments. I’m going now, but you remember your vow,” she warned with a shake of her finger. “I’ll know if you’ve dumped it.”

  A touch of chagrin flashed through Nick’s green gaze and was gone. “Just because I wouldn’t drink that last brew you made me is no call to go doubting my word. I vowed I’d keep it a full twenty-four hours, and so I shall.”

  “Until this even then.” Standing on her toes, Cecily pressed her lips to Nick’s scarred cheek. She turned and made her way across the suite, shutting the door behind her as she left.

  Once she was gone, Nick sighed. “She won’t wed with me, you know.”

  “You’ve asked her?” In Kit rose all the harsh prejudices his forefathers held against noble marrying peasant. He shook them away. Here was a woman who loved and accepted Nick in spite of his scars. What right had he to deny his brother happiness?

  Kit frowned at the door. “Why should she refuse you? She ought to be thrilled to move from that woodland hidey-hole of hers and become the dame of this fine place.”

  “She claims there’s no point to our wedding, not when she knows she’s barren,” Nick started, only to have a spate of coughing overtake the rest of his sentence.

  Kit’s frown deepened. So Cecily wished to leave Nick free to wed and beget true heirs. And rather than betray the one woman who accepted him, scars and all, Nick looked to Kit to carry on their family’s line and name, something Kit adamantly refused to do. Regret spiraled in on Kit. Why had it taken him so long to see this? Fie on him for daring to toy with his brother’s life and love. Now if he couldn’t find a way to escape the murder Lady Montmercy planned for him, Nick would have no choice but to set aside Cecily and wed another.

  Nick finally caught his breath to finish his thought. “In all truth she fears cries of witchcraft most. Cecily says the villagers are uncomfortable enough with her, what with her strange eyes, her herbal knowledge, and her mother’s madness.”

  “Her mother wasn’t mad,” Kit replied out of long habit, having spent many an hour in Cecily’s woodland cottage as Nick recovered. Cecily’s dam had owned a hermit’s personality, liking as little contact with others as possible.

  “So you and I know, but others don’t see it so. Cecily fears shouts of black magic if she, a poor cottager, should wed the local gentry. Enough of that.” Nick laid a hand on Kit’s shoulder in invitation. “We’ll sit while we talk.”

  Kit followed his brother into his bedchamber. “Mistress Miller tells me Jamie’s gone to London. What’s he doing there?”

  Nick’s amusement sounded husky in his ever-breathless lungs. “Business with regards to Graceton Castle. He didn’t want to go, saying London is fetid this time of year.”

  That made Kit laugh. “He’s right in that.”

  Nick claimed the chair closest to his private altar, leaving Kit with the nearer one. Kit dropped to sit, only to rear back out of its depth, his eyes stinging as he gasped for breath. “Christ, Nick! What is that stench?”

  Whatever it was, its source was the pot hanging over the slow burning fire on Nick’s hearth. Kit coughed and turned his head aside in the hopes of escaping the pungent air. Nick loosed a helpless sigh.

  “This is the source of Cecily’s scold. It’s a concoction meant to loosen my lungs. She’
s worse than you for fussing over me, but I say I’d rather die from lack of breath than live with this stink.”

  Even as he raised a scarred hand to wave it beneath his nose, his green eyes glowed with laughter. “Only the fact that I gave my word is keeping me from dumping it out the window and into the river. Thus her chide, for she knows I’m counting the hours to eventide. Give it a moment. It gets easier as you become accustomed to it.”

  Already breathing more freely, Kit smiled at his brother. Never had he seen Nick look happier. Indeed, contentment etched itself into every line of his brother’s thin body as he sprawled in his chair. Nor had Kit ever seen Nick look healthier. He had good color where his skin wasn’t scarred; his eyes fair glowed with health.

  A tension Kit didn’t realize he owned eased from him. He sighed against its departure, his heart lightening. All in all, this was turning out to be a most surprising and marvelous trip home.

  “It’s good to see you looking so well, Nick.”

  “I am well,” Nick replied without hesitation then surprise darted through his gaze. “I didn’t hear you shout last night, Kit.” This was a careful reference to the dream.

  “That could be because I didn’t shout.” Wonder swept over Kit again, just as it had when he’d awakened this morn. For the first time in forever he’d slept through the night here at Graceton without a single dream, much less that nightmare. “I suppose travel in the wet left me tired enough to sleep like a rock.”

  “Aye, and our Lord Jesus tells me He returns on the morrow,” his brother retorted, eyes narrowed in scorn. “What’s happened, Kit?”

  The urge to speak of Nan and how her love had changed him filled Kit’s mouth. He swallowed the words. How could he tell Nick he was finally ready to wed, but certain death followed his marriage? He couldn’t, not when the only woman Nick wanted was barren and beneath him.

  “I wish I knew,” he finally lied.

  “Well whatever it is, I’m glad for it,” his brother said. “Aye, and I’m just as grateful Jamie wasn’t here. Why, he could have sat for hours upon that landing waiting on your appearance.”

  Kit smiled at the thought of Jamie sitting in the dark. The image brought with it long-forgotten memories of their school days, before the accident. He leaned back in his chair, fingers laced behind his head. “Do you remember Father Roger and how he made us sit?”

  Amusement bubbled from Nick’s scarred lips. “God’s love, but I haven’t thought of him in years. Do you know he once wrote our lord grandfather suggesting we’d be better off drowned as we were certain to bring dishonor to his name?”

  Vindictive pleasure filled Nick’s gaze. “When I found that letter, I added him to my prayer list, knowing my words would annoy him no matter in what realm he now languishes.”

  Mention of their Catholic tutor brought with it the reminder of Kit’s reason for returning. He glanced at the massive crucifix hanging on his brother’s wall. As always, illegal candles burned upon Nick’s private altar, their twining streams of smoke bearing heavenward Nick’s even more illegal prayers. “Nick, the queen sent me to you.”

  “Let me guess why,” Nick interrupted, his eyes bright with intelligence. “She sends you to probe my loyalties, hiding her intent behind the guise of you helping me count Graceton’s men and weaponry.”

  This set a curl to Kit’s lip. “I tried to assure her there’s no reason to doubt you, but she heeds no one. She fears Norfolk yet intends to wed with the Scots queen and that leaves her shaken.”

  His brother’s scarred brows rose to their limit of mobility. “And shaken she should be,” he said, the words carrying far more than their simple meanings.

  Kit moved to the edge of his chair. “What is it you know?” he demanded.

  “Do you mean beyond the fact that Norfolk has sent the Scots queen a diamond as a token of his promise to wed her?”

  Kit grimaced against this bit of news. “I’d not heard that. Who says so?”

  “I’ve had letters,” Nick said with a shrug. “It’s for the good of the country, or so they say, that our duke must wed the sweet”—he gave the word a sarcastic edge—“Mary Stuart. Much mention is made of our own queen’s heretical and Protestant advisers, evil men who steal from the nobility, by which they mean themselves, their hereditary positions and honors. England must purge its government of these men so our misguided Elizabeth can be returned to the Pope’s fold.” Nick almost managed a scornful look. “Or else,” Kit bit out, “they’ll put their Catholic queen and her English consort upon our throne.”

  Kit truly hadn’t thought Norfolk and the recusant barons would go so far. So repugnant was the idea of civil war that he came to his feet and strode to his brother’s window, needing to see that the world beyond it hadn’t already been laid waste.

  Below him the willows swayed in the breeze. From the rushes along the bank, a family of swans appeared, gray cygnets caught between their white parents. Kit watched them float gracefully downstream until he could see them no more.

  “Who was it that wrote to you?” he asked without turning.

  “Well now, that’s the strangest thing,” Nick replied. “The ink ran, obscuring the author’s name.”

  Kit whirled to stare at his brother. “You protect traitors?”

  Even before he spewed the question, he knew his brother wouldn’t answer. Nick couldn’t, not trapped as he was between his deeply held faith and his belief that God, Himself, had set Elizabeth upon England’s throne.

  “I protect dreamers, not traitors,” Nick replied with a sigh. He rose and came to stand beside his taller brother at the window, laying his scarred and bony fingers on Kit’s arm as if to comfort. “Kit, leave it be. No man should be judged by his dreams any more than a queen or priest should peer into a man’s soul to discover what beliefs he holds there. On that issue our Protestant princess and I are in accord.”

  “How can you be so certain there’ll be no war or usurping of the throne?” Kit asked.

  “Because these plotters cling to a time when men asked no questions, only followed their sworn lord in battle because he bid them go,” Nick replied. “I think me those days died before our grandsire did. Shall I tell you how I replied to my correspondent?”

  At Kit’s nod Nick’s eyes narrowed with amusement. “I asked him why I should replace this fine Tudor queen, a woman who’s given me ten years of peace in which to prosper. I reminded him that Catholic or not, Mary Stuart has already proved she can start a war on one side of the border and looks to be fomenting another on our side. Me, I’m hungry for ten more years of peace and all the wealth that might bring.”

  As Nick read the astonishment in Kit’s face, laughter rumbled from him on a cough. Turning, he retreated to sit in his chair, looking more prince than prisoner as he stretched out his legs before him and clasped his hands atop his chest.

  “What? Did you think I was one with our grandsire, ready to defend the true faith unto death? Nay, as long as our sweet Elizabeth leaves me in peace and none of those Puritan preachers again befouls my village with their tripe, I couldn’t give a farthing for the rest. You”—he pointed a bony finger at his brother—“do not come home often enough if you thought anything other of me.”

  Kit grinned. “Then, I shall assure her majesty you will not rise against her.”

  Nick snorted. “You can tell my dearest, fairest, sweetest majesty that she owns my loyalty, along with all the pikes, poles, men, and arquebuses I own, for as long as I continue to profit under her rule.”

  With a laugh Kit returned to sit in the chair opposite his brother. “You’re right, I don’t get home often enough. I’ve never seen you so at ease.”

  “I am no different today than I’ve been in years,” Nick said, his words dying away into a quiet gasp. “God’s love, but you’re looking at me,” he whispered, his tone almost awed.

  Kit shot him a puzzled look. “Of course I’m looking at you. I’m sitting across from you in a chair and cannot help it. Why
do you always go on about this?”

  “Because, until this moment, all you’ve seen were my scars. At last you look at me, the man beneath what the fire and steam laid upon my face.”

  His words twisted in Kit but where there’d once been horror, there was now only sadness. What had festered for so long was well on its way to healing.

  “I’ve never told you how sorry I am over what happened,” Kit said quietly.

  His brother groaned then coughed. “Kit, you’ve begged my pardon so many times that I’m heartily sick of hearing it, especially when it was I who did this to myself.”

  That shocked Kit. “How can you say so when it was my foot that sent you tumbling?”

  “Think,” Nick insisted. “Do you not remember my anger? I was furious that our lord father was sending me away while you were allowed to stay. I set out to hurt you in that battle of ours. When I couldn’t, I cheated. You were but trying to even the score between us.”

  Sorrow glowed in Nick’s eyes. “I’m the one who should beg your pardon. No one would heed me when I tried to explain what I’d done. Instead, our lord father, our lady mother, the others, they all turned on you. So heavily did they ladle their blame and hatred upon you that your every night came to be tortured with that dream. By the time I came into my own, with knowledge enough to see what they were doing, it was too late. You’d taken up where they’d left off, castigating yourself for them.”

  Kit frowned. From his memory rather than the dream this time, he felt again the ache where Nick had struck his shoulder. His mind’s recesses provided the angry echoes of the child Nick’s words. Horror paled then the memory sank deep into him, shrouded as if for burial. Kit loosed a bitter breath. Aye, who had time to think on the past, when the future loomed and it promised nothing too kind?

  Nick shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “So now that I’ve told you we’re prospering, you’ve no questions over the status of our accounts?”

  “Why should I?” Kit asked, startled by this odd change of subject.