Closing her eyes, she remembered him as he'd been back in Périgeaux—the charming, funny, erudite older cousin of the boy she loved. Alex had adored Milo, and for that reason, so had she. He was immensely likeable; who could help but be fond of him? When he'd proposed, she knew she could have done far worse.
Of course, she hadn't known how he would deteriorate. It made her ache inside to think what had become of him. He'd lost the best part of him. And she...she'd lost Alex.
"I've missed this." He stroked her hair with a palsied hand. "I've missed you. Do you remember the last time we made love?"
She shook her head. Their couplings had been all too forgettable, and they'd ceased so long ago. She did recall trying to talk him into bedding her after he'd lost interest, for the sake of an heir. And she remembered the night he'd finally admitted the truth—that the problem lay not with her, but with him, and that they'd never have children and she'd best accustom herself to the idea.
"'Twas in your father's shop," he breathed into her ear, "after your family had gone to bed. I came and woke you up in the middle of the night, remember? You all slept in that one room, so we had to go in back, where he made the saddles."
Oh, God. Nicki closed her eyes. "Milo..."
"I remember the smell of the leather." He pressed his lips to her temple so tenderly it made her eyes sting. "And the smell of you, and the little sounds you made, and the way your breasts felt through that rough homespun shift of yours. You made some silly jest in the middle of it, and giggled—I felt it deep inside you. You asked why I didn't laugh."
He kissed her hair, her forehead. Never, even when they were first married and trying to make a go of it, had he been so gentle and loving. She hadn't known he had it in him. To discover it now, in this way, consumed her with sadness.
"I couldn't tell you," he murmured hoarsely, "what I came to tell you that night—that I'd be marrying someone else in the morning. I'm sorry, Violette. 'Twas weak of me, and cruel, to let you find out afterward. I know you never—" His voice caught. "You never forgave me," he finished in a quavering whisper.
"God, Milo." Nicki's throat felt as if a fist were squeezing it tight. "Milo..."
"Shh." He kissed her eyelids, damp with unshed tears. "Let me tell you now what I couldn't bear to tell you then—that I had to do it, or thought I did. I thought it was my only chance for happiness." His little rasp of laughter was grim. "God, what a fool I was. And you paid the price."
She stroked his face—skin stretched over bone. "It's all right, Milo," she managed as hot tears spilled down her cheeks. "You did what you thought you must. I forgive you."
"How can you?" he whispered.
Nicki thought of Violette, who'd sacrificed her life rather than go on without Milo. "Because I love you. I always have. That hasn't changed."
"Oh, God, Violette." He held her tighter than she would have thought possible, given his frailty. "I love you so much. I love you. I love you. I'll always love you."
"I know." She was weeping now, and holding him as tightly as he held her.
"I'm sorry. I'm so—"
"I know. It's all right. You can go to sleep now. I'm here."
"Will you be here in the morning?"
She took his face in her hands. "I'll always be here. We're together now."
He smiled in the dark, and for a moment he looked like the old Milo again, the jocular, carelessly agreeable fellow who was everyone's friend.
She kissed his cheek, snuggled up against him. "Good night, Milo."
"Good night, my love." His breathing grew steady, his arms around her heavy. As he drifted into the darkness, so did she.
Just as sleep was claiming her, she thought she heard him whisper, "Thank you."
* * *
"Damn!" Daybreak glowed through the narrow slits that served as windows in Alex's tiny chamber. He'd overslept.
He grabbed his chausses off the floor and pulled them on, berating himself; he'd meant to check on Nicki during the night. That is, he meant to check on Milo and see how Nicki was doing with him.
He threw on his shirt as he leapt up the turret stairs. Servants were setting up trestle tables when he strode into the great hall. A few soldiers loitered about, waiting for breakfast. The hall was vast and dim, lit only by a few shafts of dawn light squeezing through the arrow slits.
Nicki's pallet was empty. Milo's bed curtain's were closed. She must have arisen early and gone up to the solar to wash up and get dressed.
Hoping Milo had managed to get to sleep, Alex stepped silently over the pallet and pulled the bed curtains aside. In the dark, womblike shelter of the bed he saw that Milo was, indeed, sleeping.
With Nicki, also sound asleep, curled in his embrace.
Alex stared, shaken on some level he hadn't known existed. Nicki and Milo asleep together, their arms around each other.
Like lovers.
Like husband and wife.
She had her back to Alex, but her face was tilted up. Her mouth was slightly open. A strand of golden hair was stuck to her cheek, in the salty trail of what could only have been a tear.
Would she have cried for him, he wondered, if he'd been the one who'd succumbed to this mysterious affliction? For it must be an illness of the brain, caused by atmospheric upheavals, as that withered old surgeon had insisted. Alex had briefly suspected Gaspar, but the pieces didn't fit. Gaspar's scheme had been to dose Nicki with a sleeping draft, not a poison that caused lunacy and convulsions.
Nicki's incredible hair spilled off the side of the bed, cascading to the floor. Her bare shoulder and arm looked creamy in the semidarkness.
Alex wondered how it would feel to wake up in the morning with Nicki's arms around him. At that moment he would have given anything to trade places with Milo.
No attachments, remember? He was here to plant a babe in her belly, nothing more. He'd sworn an oath to do it, so he'd damn well do it—and without wasting any time about it. The sooner she quickened, the sooner he could get away from here—which he was suddenly very eager to do.
He started to draw the curtain closed, when Nicki's arm moved. She shifted restlessly, as one does upon awakening.
And then she opened her eyes and looked at him.
* * *
Chapter 12
Nicki was taken aback to find Alex staring at her, standing over the bed with the curtain held aside. His gaze was steady, his eyes very large and dark.
With the poor light, she couldn't see his hard edges, the faint scars. He looked almost boyish, or would have were it not for the morning stubble that shadowed his jaw.
Alex looked toward Milo, still sleeping peacefully, and back at her. It felt strange for him to see her this way, in bed with Milo's arms around her. But for the immodesty of it, it shouldn't. Milo was her husband, after all. And yet...
She'd loved Alex. If the truth be told, she loved him still—a sinful love, given her marriage to Milo, and foolish, given his lack of regard for her, but there it was. To have this man for whom she harbored this illicit, barely-suppressed passion looking on as she awoke in another man's embrace confounded her utterly.
Don't let him sense your discomfort, she counseled herself. Don't let him know you care. All you've got left is your dignity.
He cleared his throat softly. "Milo is better, I take it?"
It helped her composure that he seemed to find nothing awkward in the situation. "Aye," she whispered, trying not to disturb Milo.
He looked back and forth between them again, his expression almost grim. "I'll be gone for most of the morning. I'm going to saddle up Milo's horse and give myself that tour of Peverell."
"Ask Gaspar to go with you."
He grimaced. "I plan to keep my distance from that blackguard. You'd best do the same."
"Blackguard? I admit he's rather rough, but he's always been trustworthy."
"I think he's changed." Alex looked as if he wanted to say more, but he merely shook his head. "Just stay away from him."
> "Alex..."
"Good day, Nicki."
He closed the curtain and she heard his soft footfalls fading away.
* * *
"Here you are, milady." Gaspar handed Lady Nicolette the goblet of wine he'd dosed with his strongest headache remedy. "This'll set his lordship straight." How he loathed playing the servile attendant. But it was fitting enough, considering how badly he'd bungled things last night. He knew Milo liked to drink from his wife's cup; he should have taken that into account.
She put aside the boiled onion she'd been holding under the nose of her husband as he lay in his bed by the hearth. "Thank you, Gaspar," she said as she took the goblet.
"Yes, a thousand thanks," Milo rasped, "for making her take that nauseating thing away from my face. Stinks like the very bowels of hell."
Peering into the goblet, Nicolette frowned. "Did you have to put it in wine?"
"Wine?" Milo perked up for the first time all day. He'd been listless since awakening, lying unmoving in his bed while his wife bathed him and changed his clothes. She hadn't left his side all morning except to attend to her own toilette in the solar while Milo's manservant, Beal, shaved his chin and held the chamber pot for him. She'd eaten her dinner at his bedside while he took a mid-day nap. Now, at the mention of wine, he struggled upright, his wife hurriedly bolstering his back with pillows. "Where?"
"I asked you to put the headache powder in juice," she reminded Gaspar tersely.
"His lordship asked for wine, milady." A patent lie; Milo had been too consumed all morning by his aching head and terrible lethargy to ask for anything.
"Did you?" Nicolette asked her husband.
"I suppose I must have." Milo reached for the goblet, but his hand quaked so badly that his wife had to hold it to his mouth so he could drink.
"He's having trouble remembering things," she told Gaspar as Milo sipped from the goblet. "He can recall nothing of last night. I had to tell him he'd been sick."
Gaspar smiled, elated by this news. In a way, it was a stroke of luck, Milo having drunk the potion intended for his wife. Now he knew that it did, indeed, affect the memory. This evening, when he dosed Nicolette—and this time he'd make damned sure she drank the stuff herself—he'd have the peace of mind that came from knowing she'd remember nothing that transpired in her solar during the night.
She was looking at him strangely.
"Is something amiss, milady?"
"I was just wondering," she said evenly, "what it is about my husband's condition could prompt you to smile."
Gaspar thought fast. "He underwent a terrible experience last night, milady. Who would want to remember it? Forgetfulness can sometimes be a blessing, don't you think?"
She waited too long before answering; it made him nervous. "I suppose." She returned her attention to her husband, setting aside the half-emptied goblet and holding a bowl of eel soup to his mouth. "Your favorite, Milo. I had Cook make it up just for you."
Her apparent distrust sat ill with Gaspar. Regardless of her coolness in the past, she'd always had the utmost faith and confidence in him, of that he was sure. What had changed to influence her? Could it be the presence of her husband's cousin at Peverell? On the surface, Alex de Périgeaux treated him civilly enough, but there could be no mistaking the resentment that seethed beneath the surface—no doubt a result of the clobbering Gaspar and his men had dealt him nine years ago. Most likely his antipathy toward Gaspar was rubbing off on Nicolette. Gaspar knew that bastard would be trouble. Perhaps he was still sweet on her—and she on him. Best to keep an eye on those two, the better to foil any budding romantic intrigue before it had the chance to spoil his plans.
He didn't deserve her, the conniving little whoreson. She was rightfully Gaspar's. Gaspar had waited years for her, biding his time while he planned and positioned himself. Now that his machinations were on the verge of yielding fruit, he'd be damned if he'd let that cocky young upstart steal the object of his fixation out from under him.
Milo sipped obediently from the bowl, to his wife's obvious delight. "This is just what you need to help you get your strength back."
An idiotic sentiment, to Gaspar's way of thinking. It had been years since Milo could lay claim to strength of any kind.
"I'm going to stay by your side until you're completely better," she promised him, tilting the bowl carefully to his mouth.
Milo turned his face to the side, letting soup spill down his chin for his wife to wipe up. "I don't want you to."
"But you need me to—"
"Whatever I need, Gaspar can attend to. Isn't that right, Gaspar?"
Gaspar bowed his head in the servile way that he despised, but which the highborn seemed to find reassuring. "Of course, milord."
Lady Nicolette cut her gaze briefly toward Gaspar. "But what if he's not here when you—"
"Then some other servant can help me."
Gaspar's hackles rose at being lumped in with the other servants.
"I know you want to feel indispensable, my dear," Milo said soothingly, "but you do have other duties to attend to."
"Naught of any importance."
"Aren't you supposed to be giving lessons to Alex in the afternoons?" he asked. "You should be doing that right now instead of pouring soup down my throat, which anyone could do."
"Alex wasn't at dinner," she said. "I assume he's still touring Peverell."
"Perhaps he's waiting for you, eager to begin his studies."
She caught her bottom lip between her teeth. Gaspar liked that nice, wide mouth of hers; he wondered if she'd ever used it the way he'd make her use it tonight.
"Go," Milo urged, patting her cheek with a jittery hand. "I'm really much better. And, in truth, I'd rather enjoy the solitude."
"All right," she said, her eyes lighting with devilment. "But only if you finish the soup."
He groaned. "My belly's in a—"
"Your belly's always in a twist." She brought the bowl to his mouth again, smiling when he drank from it. "It's probably because you don't eat enough."
Milo finished the soup with surprising speed, whereupon he ordered her gone.
"Stay with him for a bit, won't you?" she asked Gaspar as she tidied up.
"As you wish, milady."
"You won this bout," she informed her complacent husband, "but there's no way you can keep me from sleeping down here on the pallet until you're entirely well again."
Down here? "That's not necessary, milady," Gaspar said.
They both turned to look at him.
Bloody hell. His plans depended upon the privacy of her solar. "Beal can sleep on the pallet. 'Tis too much of a burden for your ladyship."
"Gaspar's right," Milo put in. "You'll be more comfortable upstairs."
"It's not a matter of comfort," she said crossly. "You're my husband! Does no one understand that?"
Neither Gaspar nor Milo could offer a response to that.
"I'm sleeping down here tonight," she declared as she turned to leave. "And every night until you're better."
Gaspar ground his teeth as he watched her go. This was a vexing development. He could drug her wine, but he couldn't very well tup her on a pallet in the great hall! He'd have to wait to make his move. He'd do it the very first night she went back to the solar.
But damn it all, he'd waited long enough. He was sick to death with waiting for her. His craving for her had become a live thing, a beast that needed to be fed. It strained at his seams, threatening to split him wide open.
"Bloody hell," he muttered as he glared at the turret doorway, through which she'd disappeared. "Bloody, bloody hell."
"Anything wrong?" Milo inquired.
Gaspar grabbed the goblet off the table and thrust it at the pathetic bastard. "Here. Drink."
* * *
Nicki dismounted in her usual place, at the apex of the waterfall, and tethered her beloved dappled mare, Marjolaina, next to Milo's sorrel gelding. If Atlantes was here, it meant Alex was, too. He had come afte
r all, although it was already mid-afternoon, and they'd agreed to meet every day right after the noon meal. She wondered if he'd been waiting for her all this time.
She untied her saddlebags, which contained a blanket, a tablet, a stylus, a Latin primer and some leftovers from dinner, and carried them down the rugged slope toward where they'd agreed to meet. She squinted through the trees. There was no sign of him up ahead, in the designated spot. Frowning, she turned in a circle, scanning the woods and the stream.
And saw him.
The saddlebags thudded to the ground. He was standing under the waterfall with his back to her, skimming his hands over his hair.
And he was naked.
* * *
Chapter 13
Nicki watched in shock as Alex turned toward her, his eyes closed, his head tilted back into the water that crashed behind him, scrubbing at his face. The stream came up only to his calves, so she could see nearly all of him, and, God help her, she couldn't wrest her gaze from the sight.
She'd never seen a man entirely naked before, even in bed. Milo had always blown the candle out and kept his nightshirt on. And thinking back before that, to Phillipe—well, their joinings had been clandestine and frantic. He'd untie his chausses and throw her skirts up, and it would be over within moments.
Water coursed over Alex's broad shoulders and chest, meandered in rivulets over the densely packed muscles of his stomach. He stood with his weight on his good hip, the damage to his injured one all the more striking for his nudity. It was as if God, having judged him too perfect, had ripped a piece from him to make him as flawed as the rest of mankind.
Watching him like this recalled all the times she's stolen into Uncle Henri's chamber to dig the Roman statue out of his chest of valuables, which she'd learned to unlock with her eating knife. She'd sit cross-legged in the rushes and turn the little marble soldier over and over in her hands, marveling at its masculine proportions, its air of virility...and wondering what the devil was hidden underneath that tiny leaf.
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