Wild Wind

by Patricia Ryan

  You haven't changed a bit, he'd remarked to Gaspar yesterday.

  Yes I have.

  "Does Gaspar know you're asking this of me?"

  Milo's eyebrows drew together. "Nay." He tried again to make the wineskin produce wine, grimacing when he remembered he'd run out. "'Twould irk him, I think, that I chose someone else over him. As I said, he took offense when I told him Nicolette would never have him. I was too soused at the time to realize why, but I understand now. He doesn't like reminders of his station, and he assumed the only reason I rejected him is that he's baseborn. I told him I'd decided entirely against the idea of another man siring her child."

  Gaspar donned his tunic, buckling his belt over it, and ran his hands over his close-cropped hair. He noticed Milo and waved, and Alex was struck by how tame and civilized he appeared. Alex looked away to find Faithe, carrying the baby and accompanied by Robert, crossing the field toward them.

  "Whatever you do," Milo said in a heated whisper, "don't let Gaspar know that I've asked this of you. He wouldn't take it kindly if he found out I chose you over him. Hopefully you'll get the task done and neither he nor Nicki will ever know it was by my design. They'll think it...just came about."

  "Just came about..." Alex muttered, musing on this elaborate and ignoble scheme.

  Milo gripped Alex's shoulder; his breath stank of sour wine. "Cousin, I know this business doesn't sit well with you. I can appreciate your misgivings. But think of what will happen to us if we're cast away from Peverell. Look at me. I've no skills, no trade. I never learned how to fight, and my hands shake too badly to hold a sword even if I had. I've turned into an old man, and old men like to stay where they are. Take pity on both of us."

  They descended the knoll to greet Faithe, and were soon joined by Gaspar, whom Milo congratulated for his defeat of the black giant. The big man greeted Alex coolly. Alex merely nodded.

  Alex observed with interest Gaspar's transformation from bloodied brawler to cheerful retainer—his deference toward Milo, his politeness toward Faithe, his easy way with Robert. Gaspar's gaze, however, kept straying toward something in the direction of the castle, which seemed to absorb him. Alex doubted he would have noticed this had not his own attention been fixed on Gaspar. Turning casually, he found the object of Gaspar's covert preoccupation to be Nicki, walking toward them.

  "Hlynn was fast asleep by the time I put her on her pallet," she reported to Faithe as she joined them. "Your maid is watching over her."

  During the ensuing small talk, Alex noticed Gaspar's gaze crawl over Nicki very briefly, almost imperceptibly, when he thought no one was looking. Alex's hands curled automatically into fists.

  Milo broached the subject of Alex's furlough, prompting Faithe to say, "The children will be thrilled to have their Uncle Alex for such a long visit. As will Luke and I."

  "'Tis most gracious of you," Milo said in the measured way that meant he'd resumed caring about appearances. "But I was thinking perhaps my young cousin might prefer a change of scenery." He turned to Alex, his bleary gaze sharpening, becoming almost smug. "I thought perhaps you'd like to come stay with us at Peverell. My lady wife and I would relish the company...wouldn't we, my dear?"

  Nicki blinked at her husband, and then at Alex. "I...yes, of course. But I'm sure Sir Alex would prefer—"

  "You see, Alex? We'd love to have you. You can return with us to St. Clair and remain there through Christmastide. We've got a nice, private guest chamber for you," he added significantly, "very quiet and cozy. What say you, cousin?"

  Faithe smiled and shrugged. "We'll understand if you choose to spend your leave at Peverell, Alex. I'm sure you've missed your cousin."

  Gaspar stared at him with a cool lack of expression.

  Nicki studied him in that still, wide-eyed way of hers, her arms wrapped tightly around herself.

  "'Tis a kind offer," Alex said tightly. "And one which I find myself...helpless to refuse."

  Grinning broadly, Milo landed Alex a good-natured but feeble punch to the arm. "I knew I could talk you into it."

  * * *

  "More wine, milord?" inquired Gaspar, offering the jug as he stood over the table at which Milo sat in a drunken stupor.

  Milo lifted his face from the table to gape at him in the jittery, open-mouthed way that meant he'd long since forgotten where he was or what he was doing. The sorry sot would be out cold soon enough, Gaspar knew, but that didn't mean he didn't want a refill. Milo de St. Clair always wanted a refill.

  The lady Nicolette, sitting next to her husband, caught Gaspar's eye. "He's had enough," she said softly. Judging from the expressions of the others at the dinner table—the de Périgeaux brothers, the lady Faithe, that witch Berte de Bec and her fat toad of a husband, even those blasted children—they concurred with her ladyship's assessment.

  Gaspar couldn't wait to get back home, where he wouldn't have a dozen pairs of eyes scrutinizing his every action. He liked things as they were at Peverell. He particularly liked not having to play the fawning lapdog, except perhaps with the lady Nicolette, who still fancied that she exercised some measure of authority over her subordinates—even him.

  Of course, things wouldn't be quite the same, with that irksome young cousin of Milo's spending the next six bloody months with them. Milo wouldn't be so hospitable if he knew the bugger had almost stolen his bride away before he could marry her. Gaspar could share that fascinating bit of de Périgeaux family history with his master, but then Milo would surely question why his trusted retainer had waited so long to do so. If Gaspar were to reveal the truth—that he made it a practice to tell Milo only enough to keep him from interfering with Gaspar's authority—it wouldn't go well for him. He would tell Milo about his wife and his cousin if and when it became useful to do so.

  "Gaspar," said Lady Nicolette, "my lord husband is tired. Perhaps you'd like to help him to—"

  "Meddling bitch!" Milo's slammed his open palm on the table, his face contorted in a drunken rictus of indignation. "Jus' need s'more to drink." Milo tried to push his half-full goblet toward Gaspar, but it toppled over, soaking the oaken table with wine. "Damn. Fill that up." He grabbed his wife's goblet, as he was wont to do, and gulped down its contents.

  Alex de Périgeaux stood. "I'll take him to bed, my lady."

  "Thank you," she replied, "but Gaspar doesn't mind. Do you, Gaspar?"

  God's bones, but he wished she wasn't so bloody beautiful. When she looked at him like that, with those haughty eyes and those silky pink lips, he felt something wind up tight inside, coiled for release. He wanted to slap her; he wanted to grind his mouth against hers and shock the chilly complacency out of her.

  Patience...

  "Certainly not, my lady." Hauling his insensible master off his bench, Gaspar dragged him up the tower stairs to his chamber and dumped him unceremoniously on the bed.

  Her ladyship's night shift had been laid out, he saw, folded up all nice and tidy on a pillow. Gaspar rubbed his hand across it, his calluses snagging on the delicate silk. It got him hard, remembering how she'd looked in this the other night, her tits as round as a young girl's, and those long, shapely legs—the kind that could wrap good and hard around a man's back.

  He could filch the shift. It would be easy, just shove it into his tunic and bring it out later, when he was alone. Take it back to Peverell and keep it hidden in his quarters with the other little souvenirs he'd been squirreling away all these years—the garnet earring, the satin slipper, the beaded girdle, and his favorite, the chemise sleeve. He liked that one, because it smelled like her. This shift would smell like her, too, he reckoned. He could rub it on his face, his body...

  Milo mumbled something. It sounded like "Violette."

  "She's dead, you pathetic souse." To ravage yourself with grief over some chit from the past when you had a woman like Nicolette de St. Clair in your bed struck Gaspar as the height of lunacy. Setting himself to the task of undressing this drunken wretch, he pondered his role in bringing about M
ilo's marriage to Nicolette nine years ago.

  It was obvious that Nicolette had taken a fancy to young Alex that summer in Périgeaux. Nothing about her escaped Gaspar's notice for very long. Still, he'd been astounded when Lady Sybila had come to him in one of her dithers, screeching that Alex was threatening to steal her daughter away before she could wed Milo.

  Gaspar had shared in his mistress's alarm. It was imperative that Nicolette's marriage to Milo proceed as planned. Not that he was happy about it. He'd wanted her for himself, of course—he always had—but given his station, she'd been unattainable. Since it was inevitable that she marry, better Milo than Alex de Périgeaux.

  Despite his youth, the young knight had all the hallmarks of a natural soldier and leader of men. If he were ever to become castellan of Peverell, he would command with an authority Gaspar could never hope to usurp. Not so the weak and harmless Milo.

  Just as galling, a marriage between Nicolette and Alex would have been a union of passion, not property. It was clear that she was well on the road to falling in love with him, if she hadn't already. He represented a threat not only to Peverell, which Gaspar aspired someday to command, but to Nicolette's affections, which he'd been determined—in his foolish naiveté—to capture.

  She would eventually come to care for him, or so he'd thought, when she accepted that he was the true lord of Peverell, and her equal in spirit if not by birth. Not that she would ever agree to marry a lowborn apothecary's son, sensitive as she was to the opinions of her aristocratic peers. But if she lost her heart to him, she could most likely be persuaded into his bed—perhaps even consent to become his mistress, if he promised secrecy. That had been his plan, and he'd intended to see it to fruition.

  When Lady Sybila had launched into her fit of rage over Alex's resolve to run away with Nicolette, Gaspar promptly mixed her up a sedative tonic—extra strong. Not only would it make her stop shrieking in his ear, but she'd be all the more receptive to his solution to the dilemma of Alex de Périgeaux. As it happened, she suggested the beating even before he could plant the idea in her mind. And if he never wakes up from it, she'd drawled as the tonic took effect, so much the better.

  In the end, he'd chosen to stop just short of killing the boy, though it had taken some doing to call Vicq and Leone off. Once they tasted blood, those two were damnably hard to rein in. Lady Sybila had been peevish upon hearing that the object of her wrath had survived, but the trouncing had served its purpose. Alex had ceased to be a problem. Indeed, for almost a decade, it was as if he'd never existed.

  Until now.

  Having stripped Milo down to his drawers—Jesu, but he was scrawny as an old man—Gaspar drew the sheet up to his chin, thinking how very much he looked like a corpse in a shroud. It would be a simple matter to turn appearances into reality...stir a bit of poison hemlock and white hellebore into his wine, and that would be that. If Milo's death would solve anything, Gaspar would have brought it about long ago, but Nicolette as a widow was a dangerous prospect. William the Bastard would marry her off instantly, to preserve the castellany, and her new husband might not be the meek and pliable puppet that Milo had proven himself.

  Gaspar watched in disgust as Milo muttered unintelligible things in his drunken torpor. Pathetic bag of bones. A far cry from the man he'd been in Périgeaux, yet even then Gaspar had detected a frailty of character hidden deep within his facade of urbane good humor. He'd sensed Milo's weakness as any good predator should, and once they were settled in at Peverell, he'd set about nourishing it. This he'd done for the most part by encouraging his new master's dependence on wine. After Violette's suicide, it had taken little urging for Milo to steep himself in it.

  Milo grumbled and turned onto his side, disturbing the little red brocade pillow, which slid to the floor, taking the shift with it. Gaspar replaced the pillow on the bed, but held onto the shift, stroking the silk that had caressed Nicolette's body so provocatively.

  Gaspar had grown to relish the power he'd carved out for himself at Peverell—just as he'd grown increasingly consumed by his need to possess its mistress, although his desire for her had taken on a bitter taste over the years. Not once had that cold-hearted bitch ever looked at him as a man. He was her subordinate, her apothecary castellan. He always was and always would be beneath her.

  Gaspar gripped the silken garment in his fists, wondering how it would feel to throw her onto a bed and yank it up—or better yet, tear it off her until it hung in shreds. He'd drive himself into her like a battering ram, fuck her till she screamed. She'd notice him then, by God.

  Looking down, he saw that he'd ripped the shift along a seam. Now he'd have to take it with him; how could he explain the damage?

  He wondered if Nicolette even suspected the depth of his hunger for her. What would she think if she knew how often he'd imagined finding her alone in the woods and forcing her to strip for him...she'd weep and plead as he shoved her down on her hands and knees. Often he pictured Vicq and Leone there with him, watching. Sometimes he even imagined letting them have a go at her while he watched.

  How many times, in his waking dreams, had he done things to her, or forced her to do things to him, that a woman like her couldn't begin to imagine, things even whores balked at. He'd humble her, degrade her, and then she'd know how he'd felt all these years. Then she'd know.

  Patience...he'd have her soon enough. His only regret—and it was a major one—was that she'd be in a drugged stupor while he took her, unaware of what she'd be made to submit to.

  But at least he would have her, at long last...with or without her lord husband's permission. Milo had been so tractable at first, letting Gaspar foster in his inebriated mind the logical solution to his lack of an heir...Of course, if another man were to sire the child...but surely you've thought of that, milord...no doubt you've considered me for this service, and if you order it, it shall be done, with the utmost discretion...

  Only, once he'd sobered up, Milo had rejected the scheme on the grounds—all too sound, but vexing nonetheless—that Nicolette would never voluntarily take Gaspar to her bed. And so Gaspar had suggested the sleeping draught, but Milo seemed squeamish about such measures. That drunken fool might be willing to let Peverell slip through his fingers, but Gaspar had no intention of allowing it. Losing Peverell would destroy everything he'd worked for all these years, and what's more, he'd never have Nicolette.

  He would have her; he would. If it must be without her knowledge, so be it. He didn't need Milo's approval to dose her wine with sleeping draught. And once his seed was sprouting in her belly, Milo would be so relieved that he wouldn't care how it came about.

  Patience...wait for the right moment.

  Gaspar wadded up the torn shift and stuffed it beneath his tunic and shirt. It felt slippery-smooth against his chest. Her naked flesh would feel this way against his, smooth and warm and arousing.

  The hell with patience, he thought as he left the little chamber and descended the tower stairs. He'd dose her wine at the first convenient opportunity after they returned to Peverell. He'd waited long enough for Nicolette de St. Clair.

  No more waiting.

  * * *

  Chapter 9

  St. Clair, Normandy: Peverell Castle

  "Is there a relic in that sword?" Milo demanded of Alex as he struggled to sit up against a mound of pillows in his narrow, curtained bed. He spoke quietly to avoid being heard by the people at the opposite end of Peverell's enormous great hall—two serving wenches clearing away the last of the supper dishes and some soldiers playing draughts. Alex could barely hear him over the rain pattering against the window shutters.

  "Aye." Standing next to the bed, Alex reached for the hilt of his sword, his hand closing over the knob that contained the hair of St. Augustine.

  "Swear on it."

  Alex shifted to take his weight off his bad hip, which the weather had set to throbbing. "For pity's sake, Milo, I don't need to—"

  "Swear on it!" Milo sat forward, his g
oblet clutched in a quivering fist. "I want to know that the thing will be done!"

  "'Twill be done," Alex whispered, glancing uneasily at one of the wenches, who'd looked toward them at Milo's outburst. "Why do you think I'm here?"

  In truth, Alex had been asking himself what he was doing here ever since their arrival early that afternoon. After a full week of dazzling sunshine in Rouen, the steady rain that had plagued their journey to St. Clair—and which had persisted past sundown—struck him as a bad portent. He'd found Peverell Castle to be entirely as huge and dismal as he'd been warned, although it had clearly been modified somewhat for comfort during the century or so since it was built.

  The vaulted ground floor, through which entrance was gained to the keep, had once housed a kitchen. When a freestanding cookhouse was constructed in the inner bailey, this undercroft was partitioned via walls of stone into guest chambers for important visitors. One of these chambers, a modest corner cell with a feather bed and two window slits, Milo had assigned to Alex. Upon discovering the other chambers to be empty, Alex had asked for the large one with the fireplace, but his cousin had smiled cryptically and insisted that he'd find the corner chamber more to his liking.

  A stairwell in the keep's single turret provided access to the raised hall, a cavernous space with a hearth at one end and a cluster of smaller rooms—buttery, pantry and dairy—at the other. Here meals were served on collapsible tables to the scores of soldiers quartered, along with Gaspar, in barracks located in the outer bailey.

  The level above the great hall was a solar which served as a great chamber for Peverell's lord and lady. However, immediately upon their arrival today, Milo had ordered his bed to be disassembled, carted downstairs, and rebuilt in front of the hearth in the great hall. His wife's bed would remain upstairs, but until further notice, he would sleep in the hall. The visit to Rouen and the journey back had drained him, he explained, making the trek up and down the turret staircase a torturous prospect. Milo did appear particularly pale and shaky of late, but Alex suspected his new sleeping arrangements had less to do with his health than with a desire to provide Nicki with as much privacy as possible during Alex's stay.