“I don’t suppose there’s any way to change your mind. Silver, perhaps?”
The big man shook his head. “An order is an order. You’re a knight. You understand.”
“Aye.”
Gaspar closed both fists around the handle of the club and took a sweeping practice swing. Nodding toward the wineskin in Alex’s hand, he said, “You’d best finish that off. She said I was to do a thorough job of it.”
Alex drained the wineskin and tossed it aside. “Do me one small kindness if you would, Gaspar. Don’t damage my sword hand.”
Gaspar smiled. “Only too happy to oblige.” He stepped forward and swung, slamming Alex in his midsection. Bone crunched. He hit the dirt. Two more jolting blows came from behind. One got him in a kidney; he swallowed down a roar of pain.
Don’t yell. Keep your mouth shut and take it.
They struck him in the legs, the back, the stomach. He wrapped his arms around his torso to keep from using his precious hands to shield his face when they started in on that. Pain surrounded him, consumed him in blooms of white fire. He swallowed dirt and blood.
In his mind’s eye, a face materialized, backlit by a haze of searing light—the smooth, pale, coolly innocent face of Nicolette de St. Clair. He fixed his entire being on that face, studied it, focused on its every detail as a way of transcending the hot bursts of pain that erupted again and again and yet again.
At long last, the pain receded, the face faded, the light dimmed, and a dreamless night descended upon him.
* * *
Alex swam in and out of consciousness for a timeless interval, aware mostly of pain—everywhere there was pain—but also, dimly, of hands tending to his wounds—the hands of a woman, for he heard her voice, and sometimes that of his brother. The hands were cool and slightly work-roughened, the voice throaty. She smelled of cooked food and sweat and some cloyingly sweet scent. Another odor—turpentine?—made his nostrils flare, but it didn’t come from her; it seemed to come from him.
When he came fully awake, he found himself in bed in his own chamber at home. He tried to sit up, only to groan in agony and frustration. Both arms and one leg were splinted, his ribs tightly swaddled, and the rest of him—from the head down—heavily swathed in bandages and poultices. All he could move were his hands and feet. He flexed the fingers of his right hand slowly, relieved to find that it appeared to be intact. Gaspar had been as good as his word.
“You’ve been doing that for the past three days,” came a voice from somewhere behind him.
“Luke?” Alex rasped through parched lips.
A chair squeaked. The face of his brother appeared above him. “Your eye,” Alex moaned contritely when he saw the fading bruises surrounding Luke’s left eye.
Luke smiled weakly and touched his black eye. “You’ve got two of these, and your nose looks like a great white turnip. But that’s the least of it. Your right hand is the only part of you’ve that’s moved since I found you.”
“What is that stink?”
“You.”
Luke brought him a cup of water and held his head up so he could sip it. Alex saw that his brother had something wrapped around his hand—the leather thong attached to the wooden crucifix he’d carved as a boy, and which he wore around his neck. It was his habit to hold it this way, with the cross in his palm, while he prayed. “Were you that worried about me?” Alex asked.
Luke’s expressed sobered. His eyes, Alex noted, were red-rimmed. He’d never known his brother to cry.
“I thought you...” Luke’s voice snagged; he cleared his throat. “I wasn’t sure you were going to make it.” He drew in a breath and released it. “When I couldn’t find you the morning of the wedding, I remembered what you said about some secret meeting place by Peter’s sheep pasture. On my way there, I found you on the path...” He shook his head. “I recognized you by your tunic. The rest of you was...Christ, Alex. Was it bandits?”
Alex tried to shake his head, but pain thudded from within. “Gaspar,” he whispered. “And those apes of his.”
Luke stared at him in disbelief. “Why?”
Alex licked his lips. Luke gave him another sip of water. “To keep me from stopping the wedding.”
Luke swore softly. Unwrapping the leather cord from his hand, he draped the crucifix around his neck. “Father Gregoire married Milo and Nicolette that morning.”
Alex felt the room tilt. He had to look away from the sympathy in Luke’s eyes.
Luke said, “They’re on their way to St. Clair now, along with that shrewish mother of hers. And of course Gaspar and his thugs. When we go up north to join William—assuming you’re still up to it—”
“I will be.”
Luke smiled. “That’s the spirit. When we arrive in Normandy, we can seek Gaspar out and teach him a lesson.”
Alex tried to shake his head again, and winced. “Nay. He was following his mistress’s orders. ‘Twas only right that he do so.”
“Look at you. He had no call to give you such a savage beating. He nearly killed you.”
“I deserved it. I was a fool. ‘Twas a useful lesson to me.” Wondering exactly how much of a fool he’d been, Alex said, “Do you think she was deliberating encouraging Milo behind my back?”
Luke’s expression of contempt said it all.
“Then why did she keep coming to the cave with me? Why would she have let me think she cared?”
“I’ll tell you,” Luke said with a hesitant smile, “if you promise not to deal me another black eye. Not that you could, in your fix, but—”
“Tell me,” Luke demanded, unamused.
“Women have been known to use one fellow to make another one—the one they’re really interested in—jealous.”
Alex digested that, finding it all too plausible. But... “Milo loves Violette. He couldn’t have been made jealous over me.”
“She doesn’t know about Violette.”
“She does. He told her when he asked her to marry him.”
Luke blinked. “Verily? He’s not as clever as I’d thought. But he didn’t tell her until he proposed, so she might have thought it would work.”
Alex’s head pulsed. “God’s bones, do you really think—”
“She wanted Milo,” Luke said. “And she saw you as a way to get what she wanted.”
“Christ.” Could it be true? If so, then the passion he’d inspired in her that night in her chamber, when they’d almost made love, had been nothing more to her a physical craving, an itch that had needed scratching. “It’s all so damned complicated and sordid and—”
“Welcome to the domain of the heart.” Luke turned and crossed to the little window, opened the shutters, and leaned out. When he spoke, his voice was so soft and measured as to lull Alex into drowsiness. “‘Tis a hard life, that of a soldier. We’re not like other men. The things they cherish—a home, a loving wife, children—are denied us. No woman of any worth wants to be united with some great lout in bloody chain mail who never knows where he’ll be or who he’ll be killing tomorrow. Falling in love is not an option for us. We must make do with our laundresses and whores and tavern wenches.”
“No attachments,” Alex murmured languidly, repeating the advice Luke had tried with so little success to drum into him. “I was an idiot. I shall not make the same mistake again.”
Turning back around, Luke leaned against the window frame and crossed his arms. “Until you’re landed. Then you can—”
“Never again,” Alex breathed, his eyes closing of their own volition. “No attachments.”
Alex awoke some time later to the sensation of pleasantly rough fingertips gliding over his lips, anointing them with some sort of fragrant salve. Drawn for some reason to taste it, he touched his top lip with his tongue, brushing it across a fingertip in the process. A woman’s low chuckle made him squeeze his eyes open.
“Oh.” He squinted to bring the face into focus—dark eyes, lush lips, a snarled mane of auburn hair spilling out of the rag in
which it was tied. Tempeste; she sat on the edge of his bed, holding a tiny jar. He’d just licked her finger. “Terribly sorry.”
She smiled and leaned closer, her bosom resting heavily on his chest. “You may do it again,” she offered, nudging his lips open with the slick fingertip. “Do you like the taste? ‘Tis violet water and oil of sweet almonds in duck’s grease.”
He heard the creaking of the chair behind him, and then Luke appeared in his field of vision. “Awake again, are you? Tempeste has been caring for you. I sent for her as soon as I brought you home.”
“I see,” Alex managed.
“Didn’t I tell you she’s handy with poultices and the like? Three days and not one wound has festered.”
“‘Tis the turpentine that keep them from putrefying. One of my many little tricks.” Tempeste smiled coyly at Luke as she rose and went to set the little jar on the corner table, which was covered with vials and bottles and stacks of clean bandages.
“Tempeste’s talents are myriad and varied.” Luke lowered his voice. “I’ve paid her well to tend to your needs—all of them. See that you let her. I hate wasting my silver.”
“Are you serious? I can’t even move.”
Luke smiled slowly. “Tempeste can.”
* * *
“That’s it, then,” Tempeste announced after she’d removed the last of Alex’s bandages. His nakedness seemed to trouble her not in the least, so he didn’t let it trouble him. The only services she’d attempted to render him since he’d regained consciousness several days ago were of the healing variety, which was just as well, all things considered.
“I’ll have to rebandage some of them bad ones,” she said, dipping a cloth in a bowl of warm water and wringing it out. “But I reckon it’s high time I cleaned you up a bit.”
She started with his face, dabbing the cloth with great care over forehead, cheeks, and nose. As always when she tended to him, she sat snugged up against him on the bed, breasts and hips and fleshy arms pressing against him as she worked, her earthy scent enveloping him. “Some of them scars will stay,” she said. “But the way I see it, that’s all for the good. You were almost too perfect before. A man shouldn’t be more beautiful than the woman he’s with.”
Alex gestured toward the wall behind her. “There’s a looking glass hanging over the wash basin. I use it for shaving. Bring it to me.”
“What do you want to shave for?” she asked, rubbing a hand over his youthful stubble. “I like a man with a rough jaw.”
“I want to see my face.”
Quietly she said, “No you don’t.”
“I do.” He wanted to brand his wounds into his memory before they healed. He wanted never to forget what his unchecked infatuation had wrought. “Bring it to me.”
She did. He kept his expression neutral as he inspected the ravaged remains of his face, knowing he would never look quite the same again. The boy who had lost his heart to Nicolette de St. Clair was gone, replaced by a man who would bear the scars of his encounter with her for the rest of his life.
Tempeste hung the looking glass back up and set about washing him from head to toe, expounding all the while on his beauty—the squareness of his shoulders, the hard muscles of his belly, his lean hips and long legs.
She saved one attribute for last. “You’re quite as sizable in your privities as your brother,” she observed, thoroughly bathing the part in question, which responded by stirring to life. Although far from modest by nature, Alex couldn’t help but feel nonplussed to be growing hard under such close scrutiny, even by a woman who spoke of men’s privy parts as if discussing the qualities of potatoes.
“It’s obvious you and Sir Luke were sired by the same stallion,” she cooed, rubbing the warm cloth over him with increasingly firm pressure.
He rose painfully onto an elbow. “You really needn’t—”
“Lie back down before you hurt yourself!” she scolded. He did so. “That’s better. You must let Tempeste tend to you.” Dropping the cloth in the bowl, she slid her damp fist up and down his length, watching intently as the object of her fascination swelled and rose.
He clutched the sheets as she stroked him, her palm deliciously raspy against his taut flesh. “Look at that,” she marveled softly as he became fully erect. “What a shame for such a lovely thing as that to go to waste. Don’t you think so, milord?”
Alex swallowed hard. “I suppose.”
“Your brother said as how I was to take away all your aches and pains.” She pumped him faster now; his breathing grew harsh. “All of them.”
He thrust into her hand, which incited a bolt of pain in his right hip. “I...I don’t know as I’m capable of...”
“You just lie still,” she soothed as she began gathering up her skirts. “I’m capable enough for the both of us.”
Alex closed his eyes and lay unmoving as Tempeste climbed atop him and set about ridding him of the last shreds of his innocence. “That’s right, Sir Alex...just relax. Let me do all the work.”
He hitched in his breath when she lowered herself onto him. So did she.
He saw the burning white light again, and Nicki’s ethereal image, her smile serene, her eyes cool and unblinking as the pleasure mounted within him. And he promised himself this would be the last time he allowed himself the agonizing luxury of gazing upon her face, even in his imagination.
Chapter 7
“Alex? Alex, wake up.” Nicki crouched over Alex, sleeping on an oarsman’s bench in this forsaken longboat, wondering why the devil he wouldn’t awaken. She must have said his name a dozen time.
“Alex,” she said more loudly. Still no response. She began to wonder whether she ought not to go get some water from the river and dump it on him, when he stirred, stretched...and looked at her.
Her heart lurched.
God, those eyes. How many times over the years had she dreamed of looking into them again. Sometimes, as now, she could see right into them, as if they were polished chunks of amber. Other times, it was like gazing into pools of ink.
Alex glanced around—at the boat, the sky—as if he couldn’t quite remember where he was or how he got here. Meeting her gaze again, he mouthed her name. And then he reached for her.
Nicki held her breath as Alex trailed a callused fingertip lightly down her cheek. It was as if he didn’t quite believe she was really there, or that it was really her. His touch rekindled something in her—a heat, a longing, a need for him that had never completely gone away, just lain dormant for nine cold years.
A band of white wrapped around his knuckles caught her eye. “What’s that? Are you hurt?”
He glanced at his hand, then quickly withdrew it and sat up, pivoting so that his back was to her. That seemed to upset his equilibrium, for he sank his head in his hands and groaned.
She stood up. “Are you all right?”
Alex grunted in what she took to be affirmation. From his movements, she could tell he was unwinding the bandage from his hand. She couldn’t wrest her gaze from the powerful slope of his back, layered with muscle. In the summer heat, Peverell’s men-at-arms would sometimes train without their shirts. On such days, the athletic field would be a sea of naked backs, yet she couldn’t recall ever having seen one worth staring at.
What would Mama have thought if she knew her daughter had deliberately awakened a man asleep in a boat in his underdrawers? She would have been appalled—especially considering that the man in question was Alexandre de Périgeaux, whom she’d despised with a virulence bordering on madness.
And whom Nicki, God help her, had loved to distraction.
She could scarcely believe her eyes when she saw him yesterday in the castle courtyard—not just because he was there, but because he’d changed so dramatically. Gaspar was right; Alex had grown up, gaining several inches in height and filling out that lanky adolescent body with dense muscle. In proportion, he reminded her of that tiny marble statue of a Roman warrior that Mama used to make Uncle Henri hide from he
r. Of course, she’d found it and studied it at every opportunity, entranced not only by its naturalistic beauty, but by its aura of potent masculinity.
Alex looked every bit the seasoned soldier. His body had the well-used look of a wooden shield that had been nicked in too many battles. He had scars everywhere, and some were ghastly. It chilled her to think how many times he must have come close to death.
He leaned over to pick something up off the deck of the old boat, stuffing the bandage into it. “How did you find me?” he asked groggily. His voice had deepened considerably since adolescence, but retained the slight raspiness she’d always liked.
“The lady Faithe told me where you’d be. I tried to wake you up for the longest time. I got worried something was wrong with you.”
He rose unsteadily and stumbled over something, which rolled into her field of vision—a leather flask, the type men liked to keep strong drink in when they went out and about.
“Ah.” She should have recognized the symptoms of a morning head. She’d lived through Milo’s often enough, back when he still had them. They seemed to be a thing of the past now that he reached for his wine immediately upon awakening.
Alex leaned heavily on the boat’s sloping hull. He rubbed his forehead as if it ached. “‘Twasn’t the wine. I sleep very deeply. ‘Tis a common source of complaint, not being able to rouse me. It usually takes a few hard kicks. A fellow I was quartered with once cracked two of my ribs trying to wake me for battle.”
Nicki flinched.
He shrugged. “It worked. Women don’t use enough force, so they have less luck.”
This oblique reference to the women who’d shared his bed did not escape Nicki. It made sense that he would have found success with women. Alex de Périgeaux was more than merely handsome. His face had a quiet drama to it that was extraordinarily compelling. His most striking feature had to be those eyes, not so much because of their shape and color—although they were quite beautiful, and set off by sharply slanted black eyebrows—but because of their intensity. They didn’t just look at you—they focused in, as if you were the only person in the universe, and Alex’s sole desire in life was to plumb the depths of your soul. They drew you in, those eyes. Drew you in and never let you go.
Lords of Conquest Boxed Set Page 112
