Wild Wind

by Patricia Ryan

  "We both know why you're here," Milo said under his breath, "and I know your intentions are good. You're a man of honor, after all, but still—"

  A huff of disgusted laughter rose from Alex. "I used to be a man of honor. I don't know what I am anymore."

  Milo waved a bony hand toward the hilt of Alex's sword. "Swear to it, so I can rest easy."

  With an exasperated sigh, Alex gripped the hilt of his sword. "I swear to Almighty God and all the saints that I will..." Christ, but he couldn't bring himself to say it out loud, even to Milo.

  "That you'll endeavor to sire me a son," Milo provided.

  "I so swear it."

  "And that you'll keep your true purpose from Nicolette, and when it's done, you'll leave here and never contact her again—or the child, of course."

  "Fear not," Alex assured him. "I've no desire for such attachments. I do have one condition, though. You mustn't attempt to trade the babe away, if it's a girl. I don't mind your procuring a boy and claiming your wife bore twins, but—"

  "Yes, very well." Milo waved a hand dismissively. "Swear to it—all of it."

  Alex hesitated as he pondered the implications of this oath...You'll leave here and never try and contact her again.

  "Cousin?" Milo prompted.

  Alex squeezed his eyes shut. Women have been known to use one fellow to make another one jealous....Not only had she lost her virginity years before, but she'd already been with child. "I swear it," he said quickly. "I will do all that you've asked of me."

  "And what is that?" came a soft voice from behind. Alex wheeled around to find Nicki standing in the turret doorway.

  Milo greeted her with a mild smile. "Nicolette, my dear. I thought you'd retired for the evening."

  "It occurred to me that you might need...a few things during the night." Nicki set a candle on the little table next to him and placed a chamber pot beneath his bed. She still wore the tunic she'd had on earlier that day—a pink one—but she'd freed her hair of its veil and brushed it out of its braids. It swayed in a rippling sheet as she moved, reflecting the light from the low fire that crackled in the hearth. Nicki had ordered the fire built in an attempt to ward off the damp chill of the hall for Milo, who got cold easily, but Alex appreciated it, too. The warmth eased the pain in his hip.

  "The servants who sleep in the hall can tend to my needs," Milo assured his wife. "Go back upstairs. I'm fine."

  Her gaze lit on Alex's hand resting on his sword hilt. "You were swearing sort of oath when I came down." Her eyes reflected the firelight, too, sparkling like pale green crystals.

  "I..." Lying had never come easily to Alex; he groped for words. "I was merely...I wasn't really..."

  "He was promising to instruct the men in swordplay while he's here," Milo said easily, and brought the goblet to his mouth.

  Nicki's elegant eyebrows drew together. "You made him swear to do it?"

  Milo shrugged. "Seemed like the thing to do. Perhaps my thinking was muddled."

  Her consternation appeared to deepen. Little wonder; Milo's memory lapses and confusion had gotten worse over the past few days, no doubt from the stress of the trip.

  "I want you to eat something before you go to sleep," she said.

  He made a face. "Don't start trying to shove food down my throat again."

  "You haven't eaten since we got home. I'm going to go out to the cookhouse. There may be some of that stew left. If there is, I'm going to sit here and see that you eat it."

  "Damnable harpy! You can bring it back, but you can't make me eat it."

  "It's raining," Alex said as she turned to go. "I'll get the stew."

  "I'll be fine—I'll wear my mantle," she called out as she disappeared into the stairwell with her husband hurling threats and insults at her back. Milo didn't seem to notice when Alex bid him good night and retreated to the undercroft.

  Alone in his candlelit chamber, Alex sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed his hip until the band of pain loosened a bit. He tugged off his boots and hung up his tunic, and had started pulling his shirt over his head when he noticed a small oaken door tucked into a corner. Perplexed at not having noticed it earlier, he realized that it had been concealed by a tapestry, now gone. His first thought was that the door must lead to an adjoining chamber, but that was impossible, seeing as how it was positioned at the juncture of two outside walls. Perhaps he had his own private garderobe.

  Lowering his shirt back down, he opened the door and ducked his head into it, discovering a dark shaft with narrow stone steps winding steeply upward—a secondary stairway, probably intended for servants, hidden within the thickness of the keep's massive walls. Wondering where it led, Alex took his candle and climbed awkwardly up the musty, spiraling passage until, halfway up, it opened onto a tiny landing with another small door. He had to push the door hard to get it to open, sacks of something heavy having been piled against it. Inside he found a small, whitewashed room lined with benches on which were stacked loaves of bread and various other foodstuffs; dried fruits and meats hung from the ceiling. It stood to reason that there would be access between the pantry and the undercroft, seeing as the lower level had once been a kitchen.

  Withdrawing to the landing, he gazed up the stairwell, which rose to the keep's third level—the solar, now Nicki's private domain. Alex wondered if it was as unrelentingly grim as the rest of Peverell Castle. After a moment's hesitation, he made his way up the stairs to the topmost landing, silent in his stocking feet. Pausing at the door, he listened for sounds from within. Nicki was out fetching her husband some stew, but her personal maid might be puttering about. On hearing nothing, he cautiously turned the door handle. It opened without resistance.

  Alex stepped into the spacious, lamplit room, remembering the other time he'd stolen into Nicki's domain uninvited, the night before her marriage to Milo. Part of him felt like the lowest form of knave for trespassing on her privacy, but he found he could not stifle his curiosity. As it happened, Nicki's solar was a far cry from the rest of Peverell Castle.

  The windows were large, the walls whitewashed and festooned with colorful, exotic rugs. One was draped over a long bench, on which a dozen embroidered pillows had been scattered, along with a book that had a white ribbon hanging out of it. He recalled that Nicki sometimes used to undo her braids when she was reading to him in their cave, so that she could use her ribbons as bookmarks. There was an empty spot where Milo's bed had apparently been. Next to it, coming out from the wall, stood another narrow bed, curtained in pale yellow. The insides of the window shutters and turret door had been painted the same summery color. Sunflowers with long, crooked stems sprouted from a clay pot on a writing desk.

  Rain drummed on the oak-shingled roof overhead, rattled the shutters. Yet the solar felt snug and cheerful, bearing as it did Nicki's intimate stamp. It looked like her—like the best of her, the sweet and girlish Nicki he'd known in their dreamy afternoons together in Périgeaux. Or rather, the girl he'd thought he'd known—untouched, unspoiled. Reality had been a different matter entirely, he reminded himself.

  So this was why Milo had insisted on giving him that little corner chamber downstairs—because it connected, very discreetly, with his wife's private sanctum. No doubt he had ordered the tapestry removed, so that Alex would not be long in overlooking his chamber's most significant amenity. Shaking his head, Alex prowled around a bit, peeking into a chest, opening a bottle and sniffing its contents. Did Milo expect him to bed her up here, he wondered, or take her downstairs? Alex had tupped married women on occasion, but never with their husbands sleeping beneath the same roof. This arrangement felt increasingly unsavory by the moment.

  The slanted writing desk with its attached chair drew him. She must have had two dozen ink-stained quills of varying types and sizes all laid out in an orderly row. Alex lifted one that looked as if it had come from a raven and stroked his lips with the glistening black feather. Picking up her bone-handled pen knife, he scraped its blade against his cheek; i
t was sharp enough to shave with. A sheet of parchment, blank but neatly ruled, was pinned to the desk next to a wax tablet and stylus. On a table next to it sat a small wooden chest, its lid open to reveal a stack of heavily inked pages—her poems. The stack was untidy, as if she'd been searching through it—apparently with success, for one page had been removed and set aside.

  Alex lifted this page, mystified by what was written on it, of course, but intrigued by the delicate little drawing above the title: two hands clasped within a thorny wreath that bore a single delicate rose.

  The door to the turret staircase squeaked as it opened. "Alex!" Nicki stared at him from the doorway.

  "Nicki. I..."

  "Give me that!" Crossing the room swiftly, she snatched the sheet of verse from his hand. "You had no right to read this."

  "I didn't. I...can't."

  "Ah...yes." Seeming both chagrined and relieved, Nicki returned the page to the box and locked it with a key that she retrieved from the pouch on her girdle. Avoiding his gaze, she unpinned her blue mantle, drenched from the rain, and hung it on a peg, then kicked off her sodden slippers and stepped into a pair of dry ones. Her hair shimmered enchantingly in the lamplight.

  "Has Milo finished his stew already?" Having been caught snooping in her things, Alex decided he'd rather brazen it out than slink away with his tail dragging.

  "He dumped it in the rushes." She lifted her chin, but her smile wobbled slightly. "I'm not sure how to get food into him anymore, short of tying him down."

  Alex's chest ached. "Nicki..." he said softly, taking a step toward her.

  Footsteps shuffled up the stairs. "Edith!" Sprinting to the turret, she called down, "I won't need you tonight, Edith. I'll undress myself."

  A pause, and then came the reedy voice of her elderly maid. "As you wish, milady," and the footsteps receded.

  Nicki shut the door and slumped bonelessly against it. "How did you get in here?"

  Alex nodded toward the small door in the corner. "That stairway leads to my chamber. I was exploring, and I ended up here."

  She frowned. "Milo put you in that little corner chamber?"

  "I don't mind." The lie came all too easily to his lips—or perhaps, now that he knew of the secret passageway, he really didn't mind.

  "Nonsense," she said. "There's a much larger chamber down there, with a fireplace."

  "It's July. What need have I of a fireplace?"

  "Perhaps, but it's twice the size of the one you're in." Turning toward the door, she said, "I'll have your things moved right away."

  "Nay!" Leaping across the room—at considerable expense to his hip—Alex seized her arm. "I don't mind." He gentled his voice, rubbed her arm soothingly where he'd grabbed it. "Truly. Don't trouble yourself."

  "'Tisn't any trouble." She eyed him guardedly, almost suspiciously. She was an intelligent woman, he reminded himself, very intelligent. He must tread carefully, lest the purpose of his visit become all too obvious.

  "Aye, but you've got enough on your hands just dealing with Milo."

  At the mention of her husband's name, she backed away, disengaging his touch. "I hate to think of you pitying me."

  "I don't pity you, Nicki. I might if you seemed overwhelmed, or hopeless. But you handle him as best you can. I admire you for it." That just came out, but it was no more than the truth.

  "You're different than you were...at the boat that morning," she said, studying him in that intent way of hers.

  He laughed sheepishly. "I don't have a head full of wine now. Some of the things I said...and did...that morning..." He shook his head.

  "Me, too," she offered quietly.

  For a moment their gazes connected, and he knew that the spell that had bound them together nine years ago had not completely lost its power. "I said some things," he said, "about what happened between us that summer that I wish I hadn't—"

  "Perhaps it's best if we don't talk about that summer."

  She was right. They were getting along, and if they tried to analyze what had passed between them before, they would surely start arguing again. His point in being at Peverell, he reminded himself, was to entice her into his bed, and he could hardly do that if she had her defenses up, waiting for him to accuse her of past wrongs.

  "All right," he said, taking a step toward her. "Let's pretend it never happened."

  "Good." Turning abruptly away, she crossed to her writing desk and tidied up the row of quills he'd disturbed. Alex didn't know whether her nervousness in his presence boded well or ill for the success of his mission. She took the little locked chest of poems and knelt gracefully next to the bed, sliding it underneath.

  "You wrote all those poems?" Alex asked, just for something to say; he didn't want to leave yet.

  "Aye—over the years. Some are from when I was a child." She braced a hand on the bed to rise. Alex crossed to her in two strides and offered his hand, which she hesitantly accepted. He helped her to her feet, but kept her hand, rubbing his thumb on her palm.

  "You have the smoothest skin I've ever touched," he said.

  She tugged her hand from his and hugged herself. "You should go. You shouldn't be here."

  There had been a time when she would let him hold her hand for hours. Perhaps he'd erred in remarking that hers was the smoothest skin he'd ever touched—a reminder of all the other women he'd touched over the years. Yet what he'd said was true—none of them had felt as enticingly soft as Nicki, or smelled like her, or been her. Had he thought, somewhere deep inside, that if he sampled enough women's favors, he would eventually find a replacement for the lost love of his youth?

  From outside the door came the scrape of feet on stone, and old Edith's voice. "Milady? I've come to help you get ready for bed."

  Nicki closed her eyes briefly. "It's all right, Edith. I can undress myself."

  A pause. "Oh. Aye. Very well." She shuffled away.

  Alex cast a puzzled look at Nicki, who sighed. "Edith is getting old. She forgets things. I'd replace her, but 'twould break her heart."

  "Then, even if she had seen me here," he said with a smile, "she might not remember."

  Nicki didn't smile. "Someone else would. You should never come up here again. Please don't."

  Stalling, for he was loath to leave, he said, "What was that poem about? The one with the two hands drawn on it?"

  Spots of color bloomed on her cheeks; she averted her gaze. "It's just something I wrote a long time ago—The Thorny Rose. I...don't care for it."

  "Then why do you keep it?"

  "'Twouldn't do any good to discard it at this point. Milo came upon it while I was finishing it. We'd just gotten married, and I was...he thought 'twould cheer me up if..." She sighed. "He took it and had it put to music by one of the knights, a fellow named Marlon, who's something of a trouvére—he sings beautifully. He still sings it from time to time. It makes me cringe."

  "Why?"

  Her back still to him, she shook her head. "You should leave, Alex," she said quietly.

  "Nicki, I'd really like to know—"

  "Please leave." She turned to face him, melancholy darkening her eyes. "Leave."

  Alex crossed grudgingly to the small doorway in the corner. This was not going as well as he had hoped. "Come for a ride with me tomorrow, if the rain lets up," he said as he reached for the door handle.

  She stilled. "I...I don't..."

  "You can give me a tour of Peverell," he suggested.

  "I'll ask Gaspar to show you around."

  "I want you to do it."

  She folded her arms. "Gaspar could show you the barracks, introduce you to the men."

  "Nicki..."

  "No, Alex. Please—you should go."

  He raked a hand through his hair. "I thought we were going to put that summer behind us."

  "This has naught to do with that summer. I just don't think it would look right, me going off alone with you for a ride."

  Alex gritted his teeth. Damn her sense of propriety—and the
memories that lingered stubbornly, defying banishment. This was going to be more of a challenge than he'd anticipated.

  An idea occurred to him. "If it's all right with Milo, will you come riding with me?"

  "Milo's judgment isn't what it should be. Nay. I won't go riding with you."

  "Nicki..."

  "Good night, Alex."

  "Nicki, can't we just—"

  "Go, Alex." She held his gaze for a moment, looking very sad and very determined. "Go. Please."

  He opened the door. "Good night, Nicki."

  "Good night."

  He muttered a string of raw oaths as he limped back down the twisting little stairwell, berating himself for his ineptitude. He couldn't even talk her into a ride. How the devil was he supposed to seduce her?

  Alex the Conqueror, indeed.

  * * *

  Chapter 10

  "Why did you invite Alex here?" Nicki asked her husband the next morning as she sat on the edge of his bed, coaxing spoonfuls of porridge into him.

  "What do you mean?"

  Nicki scanned the great hall. Servants were breaking down the breakfast tables, and a few soldiers were laughing in the corner, but no one was within earshot. "You know what I mean."

  Milo stared at her. "I'm afraid I don't." He seemed so guileless, but then he had the gift for displays of mock sincerity. Lying didn't trouble him, as long as he could justify it to himself.

  Nicki sighed in irritation and spooned some more porridge into his mouth. As eager as she was to question him, she also wanted to take advantage of his good mood and relative sobriety—he was his most clear-headed upon awakening, his worst at night—to get him to eat.

  Milo watched her as he swallowed his porridge, something half-amused, almost sly, in his eyes. "I'm sorry if my inviting him has troubled you, my dear. I know you and Alex don't care for each other, and perhaps I should have taken that into consideration before asking him to stay. But he's my cousin, and we were always close."