by Nicole Locke
It had been a grand gesture from an impoverished knight to his new wife, Helena of Catalonia, the sixth daughter from a family who’d gained wealth in maritime, but no title. His father, a mere knight with a crumbling manor, had had favour and connections with the English Court, and thus had been able to wed a woman of some means.
Such happy news upon his father’s return. His father had been beaming with pride, knowing that with silver the rich soil estate would prosper with the right management and supplies.
Nicholas, six years old at the time, remembered the day Helena had arrived. His father had toiled for months before, and the estate had never looked better. When the carriage had stopped, his father, eschewing custom, had assisted his new wife in alighting from the carriage.
Chin raised, a tight smile on her face, she had stood next to his father. Her gown, almost white, had seemed to glow, made of some fabric he had never seen before. His first and only thought at the sight at his new mother had been, The sun’s light never stays.
He had been right. Helena had had only a modest income from her doting family, and had shared most of her dowry with her new husband and his estate. The remainder had been used for her return to London and Court, where she had remained despite his father’s attempts to make the manor more hospitable for her and his pleading messages. She had stayed there despite his own curt message regarding her husband’s sudden death.
After his father had died Nicholas had seen Helena a few times at Court. She had always been surrounded, but they had exchanged polite greetings given the agreement between them. After all, his father had paid with his life to keep the estate running, and Nicholas had paid Helena with his coin ever after to keep her well-dressed.
It was an arrangement made by his father that he continued. It was his sentence and his prison, too. As long as he paid Helena there would never be enough coin.
There’d been clear blue skies since he’d left London to travel west to his home, but the easy weather and the ride hadn’t alleviated the tumultuousness of his memories or the brutal facts. It had taken him six years to get enough coin. Six years during which he’d lost everything. His friends, his eye, his only love.
In the distance, a different shape arose from the empty peaks and valleys. At first it was too small to comprehend, but as it grew he recognised the lone rider. A friend to greet him.
Not that any greeting would be welcome. He’d never intended to return here. He wouldn’t be here at all except that he’d made a promise to a fellow mercenary to repair his past.
However, the only repair he could conceive of was to exact revenge on the three who had betrayed him. Something, no matter how much pain had been caused to him, he had never been able to bring himself to do.
Yet here he was, travelling alone on a road he’d never wanted to take, intending to do just that. All because his friend had reclaimed his past, found happiness, and requested that Nicholas do the same.
He’d stay the winter at his former home with its ridiculous name, find some justice from the people who’d blindsided him, and then be gone again. With any hope he’d be free of the painful memories of betrayal and be able to find his future.
So revenge he must have. The acts done to him were far past reparation and apology. His hatred of those deeds was the only emotion that had fuelled him for the last three years. There was nothing to reclaim or repair for him. Anything of worth in his past had been lost. He could gain nothing from nothing. Mei Solis was a vast emptiness to him. My Soulless.
Even recognising his childhood friend, Louve, as he neared wasn’t enough to gladden him. Not when he saw him pull up short, causing the horse to skitter backwards. Louve was a master horseman. The only reason for this lack of control was because he’d got a good look at Nicholas’s face and it had shocked him.
His scar. For years now he’d had it. A sword-swipe that had begun across his belly and moved up to his chest, and then the flick of an enemy’s wrist that had projected the sword-tip across his face and destroyed his left eye.
All sewn and beautifully stitched now, it was only a slight silvery shadow of the horror it had once been. The horror it still was, since his left eyelid would never rise again. But it was also a blessing, because it permanently covered the fact that he could no longer see on that side.
It was a battle wound that had made his sword-training fiercer and his battle mien more menacing. In the mercenary business, such a scar benefited him. But here, as the lord of a genteel manor, it was a liability. Now he would have to suffer questions, skirt the truth, or tell lies about how he’d received it. There would be gasps of dismay and horror, and—worse—pity.
He knew this, and though he’d worn no patch since his accident, he wore one now, for the trip home. The patch covered the worst of it, and yet still Louve’s horse skittered at the sudden jerk of his master’s reins.
He’d only just set foot on his land and had a fair distance to go before he reached the manor. He’d hoped for a brief reprieve until then, so he could see how his land fared. Instead, one of his oldest friends—one of those who’d betrayed him—had ridden out to greet him and almost toppled his horse as a result.
He didn’t want this.
Nicholas held his horse steady as Louve settled his. Neither man lowered his gaze. When Louve dismounted, so did he. For just that time Nicholas let Louve gawk at his injury.
He studied Louve as well, and noticed minor changes. His dark hair was longer, and he had more strength to him. But the irreverent look in his eyes, the way he held himself as if the world was a joke—that was painfully familiar.
Another moment passed and then Louve’s lips pursed and he whistled low. ‘You dumb bastard. You’ve returned but you’ve forgotten your eye.’
Nicholas was a liar. He was damned glad to see Louve—but that didn’t mean he liked it. Whatever friendship they had once shared had been battered away.
But what to do about it? Strike him down? Shove a sword through his guts? Nothing. He would do nothing right now. The disquiet coursing through him over coming here was gone, only to be replaced by a burning frustration at the injustice of liars and thieves.
‘Well, I can’t go back for it,’ Nicholas said, gauging this man’s reactions. Louve wasn’t Roger, or Matilda, but still he’d played his part. Something would have to be done.
‘I suppose we’ll have to take you as you are?’ Louve asked.
And there was the crux. He was the lord of this manor, and he’d been sending coin to make Mei Solis prosperous again. But he’d given the control of his home to two men and a woman. Despite the law, this man did have a say as to whether he could return. Which was one of the reasons why Nicholas had not written to inform anyone of his intended homecoming.
When Nicholas shrugged, Louve took the steps necessary to pound his aching back and shake him—briefly and far too roughly.
Unexpected. Unwanted. Nicholas stepped away from his touch.
Louve’s easy manner fell, and he gathered his horse’s reins.
Refusing to ease Louve’s feelings, Nicholas grabbed his horse’s reins and stepped in beside him.
‘Could you look any worse?’
A joke. Did Louve think to make light talk, as if six years didn’t separate them? What was his game?
‘I asked the bastard to take the other eye, but he couldn’t because I’d killed him.’
Louve raised one brow. ‘So you decided to wear some pauper’s unwashed clothes to finish the look instead?’
Wearing a rich man’s clothes would get him killed. ‘I’ve travelled far.’
‘Alone?’ Louve eyed the other tethered horses, which carried large satchels.
Nicholas knew Louve would guess there was coin in there, and he was right.
‘Just since London. Are we walking to the manor?’ It was miles yet, and he’d ridden hard since London.
‘If we ride we’ll be there in a few minutes. Walking gives us time to talk.’
A conversation amongst friends?
A part of him wanted to toss Louve to the ground and demand to know why he hadn’t stopped Matilda’s marriage. Why he hadn’t at least written to him, warn him. No, it was too soon. He would make them reveal their game first, before he revealed his.
‘I’ve written you letters almost every month for the last six years.’
‘True, but I notice the lack of any letter informing us of your return. We’ll probably never hear the end of it from Cook. But I have to admit the coin you sent was convenient.’
‘Was it?’
He was too far away to see the village or his home. Mei Solis was an open field manor. In the centre of his land was the manor itself, with a small courtyard and some buildings for his own private use, such as his stables. A simple gate kept his property separate from the village and from the tenants that encircled the manor for their own protection. Surrounding everything were fields for livestock and crops. All he could see so far was this road, which was narrow and rough, and useless fallow fields.
It stung to return here and be so brutally reminded of his failed past. He might have lost his eye, but while he’d been gone he’d gained balance, and a sense of worth as a mercenary. He’d gained friends—and wealth as well. And yet he was not even a furrow’s length on his land and the weight of his past burdens cloaked him again.
‘Your coin was quite handy. I’d be pleased to show you how,’ Louve said. ‘You are staying, I presume?’
Was Louve’s game to pretend to be friends? Maybe he thought to put Nicholas at ease so he would return to his mercenary life and leave them alone.
A dark, insidious thought came. Matilda had married Roger, but maybe she’d had Louve as well. What did he know? He’d thought she was true to him, as he had been to her. But her marrying Roger had proved she was as faithless as his stepmother had been. And Roger’s and Louve’s lack of correspondence depicted men without honour. All were without honour.
As such, if he did nothing else he would put no one at ease and tell nothing of his intentions. ‘Since I can barely feel my legs, I will stay until they can carry me again.’
Louve shot his gaze over to him, but Nicholas pretended not to see it.
‘I suppose that’s more information than we’ve had in the past,’ Louve said, after several more moments.
‘Not good enough?’ Nicholas said.
‘You’re as surly as a wolf in winter, but I understand why.’
So he should, thought Nicholas.
‘She’s out in the fields now,’ Louve remarked.
She. Matilda. It was late harvest time, and he could envisage her there. Her red-gold hair shining brighter than any crop. Her hazel eyes lit with more colours than a field of green. Matilda—who at one point in his life had meant everything to him, who had been his very soul.
Then she had broken her promise to him and betrayed him in the cruellest of manners. He’d returned to Mei Solis to fix his past. He intended to meet it head-on and bury it.
But he kept his head turned away from Louve, though he could feel his former friend’s gaze. ‘Let’s take the horses to the manor,’ Nicholas said.
* * *
Matilda should have heard their voices or the extra commotion in the yard. She should have heard his voice. But she couldn’t seem to hear anything through the roaring in her head. Not even her own thoughts were clear to her.
She realised that Bess, who walked beside her, hadn’t been as affected as her. Bess had understood that Nicholas was within a few paces on their path and hadn’t steered them in another direction.
But it was too late for her, because Nicholas was suddenly there before her. Already handing his reins to a boy, with whom he shared a few words.
He faced away from her, and his back afforded her a few moments to watch him while he exchanged greetings and soothed one of his horses, who stamped his hooves as the satchels were removed.
Nicholas. How had she forgotten how formidable he was? His brown hair was much longer, and tied back in a queue which emphasised his shoulders, so much broader than when he’d left six years ago. From being a mercenary; from swinging his sword and killing.
Such a dangerous and unscrupulous profession had given him the strength she saw in his arms, in the tapering of his waist to the defined legs that had walked the many lands he’d once written to her about.
The horses he’d chosen were huge, but they didn’t disguise what a giant of a man he was. How had she forgotten the immensity of him?
Bess went still at her side, neither pushing her forward nor turning her away, while others offered shouts and greetings. Not all the voices held joy. There was a tenor of dismay that she couldn’t understand.
Surely sounds of distress had no meaning when the prodigal lord of the manor had returned. Now was a time for joy and much celebration. If Nicholas had returned, it meant he’d fulfilled his vow to his people. It meant he had enough funds to make Mei Solis all he’d envisaged and promised.
Or perhaps he had simply returned without coin. How was she to know? He had once been so honourable in his vows...and then he had broken the vow he’d made to her. To make her his wife.
He turned then, deliberately, as if her accusations had struck his back. When he fully faced her, even Bess’s hand at her elbow didn’t steady her.
She swallowed a gasp as she noticed his left eye was covered by a brown leather patch. But otherwise, how could she have forgotten how he looked? The angles of his jaw softened only by the fullness of his lower lip. The broadness of the nose he’d boasted no one could ever break? How his steady brown gaze had riveted her?
She remembered their kisses. The way he’d smelled and felt when he’d held her. And his gaze...the way he’d looked at her. But she’d forgotten the feeling of breathlessness from just his look. It was this that had captured her when they’d been only friends. It was his gaze that had made him see into her soul and she into his as they fell in love.
What did he see in her right now? Almost eight months pregnant, her skirts saturated with mud, wheat stuck in her hair. Shock in her eyes, trembling in her limbs, and her breath coming short.
Shorter yet as she comprehended why her heart pounded so desperately until her breath wouldn’t come. Why her nerves jarred her inside as if trying to wake her.
Nicholas had a scar across his face. A thin slice that went from his left temple across his left eye, and down his cheek. Then there was a gap at his neck, before a broader gash revealed itself on his collarbone and disappeared under his loose tunic. He’d tried to cover his eye with brown leather, but she could see it. As if in a nightmare, she could see all of it.
All these years she’d imagined the swing of a sword gutting him. Imagined him spilling his life’s blood in a field too far away for her to reach him. He was here—alive—but he had lost his eye. What he must have suffered...
And she hadn’t known. He’d never told her. Hot rage roared through her, until her first and only instinct was to hit and rail at him and never stop. How could he have done this to himself? How could he have done this to her?
His brows drew in and his mouth grew fierce. His gaze, as open as hers must have been, grew cold. What did he see in her eyes?
Too much. She had purposely forgotten how he could see too much. How he knew her. And she’d thought she’d known him. Until the day he’d left Mei Solis. Until the moment he’d stopped writing to her and forgotten her completely.
She’d held on until her mother’s death, when she had realised how fleeting life was and that she should not wait a moment longer. So she’d agreed to marry Roger, and now she carried their baby. A daughter who was now more important than ever.
She briefly closed her eyes to Nicholas. Heard the horses being led away and Louv
e’s chatter regarding the weather. She focused on Bess’s clenching grip on her elbow, on the calls of children and animals, the smell of freshly cut wheat.
She was here on Mei Solis, the home that had remained her home because she had stayed, and she drew strength from it.
Nicholas was standing, waiting. It seemed the whole courtyard was waiting.
For her to throw something at him? To yell? To burst into hysterics or give a cutting remark because she was a woman scorned?
In their youth she had been mischievous and he reckless. They’d appeared a perfect match in every way. They’d shown no caution in their courtship because they’d seen no need to. And then he’d left because of his restlessness and his ideas of grandeur, even as she had begged for him to stay.
Six years. And now not only her but the entire courtyard held its breath for this reunion.
But she wouldn’t rail or hit out—though that had been her first response. Between that breath and now she had found strength from her home. She had purposely changed herself over these last few years and was no longer the woman he had left. No longer the girl he’d grown up with, when they had been friends.
Friends. They had been friends first—before they’d held hands, kissed and promised to marry each other. Before she’d given him her heart and almost her body. Before he’d left and broken her trust.
Friends since childhood. And he had meant the world to her as they’d run and raced and jumped and laughed.
If that boy stood before her now, what would she do?
Striding over, she lifted herself on her toes and gave him a brief embrace before stepping back beside Bess. ‘Welcome home, Nicholas,’ she said, pleased that her voice did not break on his name. That her gaze stayed steady with his. ‘Are you hungry?’
He stood as still as the manor behind him, while she placed her hands on her belly as if to comfort her baby. Only she knew the truth of who truly needed comfort.
His gaze took in her movement and held there for only a moment. Her gown was heavy, and hid most of her pregnancy, but the protective cupping of her hands and their weight against her gown showed to anyone how far along she was.
