Women must find him utterly irresistible. Just as she had.
A cloud of regret passed over her soul; she would have been his first, had things been different. She didn’t respond to his comment about women, resolved to maintain a prudent distance from him—after all, she was married to his cousin, and the past was dead and buried—but he frowned slightly, as if sensing her discomfort. He used to do that a lot, she reminded herself. He always seemed to know what was in her heart. No one had ever seen all the way inside her the way Alex did.
Alex’s morning stubble rasped as he rubbed his jaw. She remembered his eyes as having shone with the unclouded innocence of youth, but that guilelessness was long gone, and the intent focus she’d found so mesmerizing had changed character. He studied her with a gaze as penetrating as that of the wolf for which he’d been named.
His face had lost the boyish softness that had made him almost pretty, the years having imparted a ruggedness to his features that his nearly-imperceptible facial scars only served to enhance. And of course his hair was longer now, as shaggy as an Englishman’s. Yesterday it had been neatly combed, but this morning it hung in stray tendrils over his forehead.
Silence hung heavily between them. She’d come here with a purpose, but somehow this seemed an inopportune moment to say what she had to say. Instead, she said, inanely, “You have so many scars.”
He looked down at the old, well-healed injuries that marred his body. “No more so than most soldiers.”
She sat on the bench next to the one he’d slept on. “Yesterday, His Highness mentioned you as being part of his private retinue. I’d always thought you were a stipendiary soldier—a mercenary who fought for pay.”
“I started out that way—Luke and I both did. William recruited us right before...before you came to Périgeaux that summer, for his Brittany campaign.” Chuckling humorlessly, he rubbed the back of his neck. “What a disaster that turned out to be.”
“Your father was a wise man—he predicted the Brittany defeat.”
“Aye,” he said. “Just as Milo predicted that the English witan would choose Harold over William.”
“And that William’s army would respond by rushing across the Channel.”
“We didn’t rush,” Alex said testily; she’d struck a nerve. “‘Twas a well-planned invasion, and we conquered England with a single battle. A good day’s work, even if I didn’t walk away completely unscathed.”
“Is that where you got...” she began, eyeing the worst of his scars, a jagged gash on his side that disappeared beneath the waist of his drawers. “Nay, I don’t want to know.”
“This?” She froze in astonishment as Alex casually untied the drawstring and lowered his drawers, maintaining the barest coverage for modesty’s sake while displaying his mangled hip in its entirety.
“Blessed Mary,” she whispered, taking in the deep and disfiguring gouge, as if his flesh had been torn off the bone by wild beasts. “I’m surprised you can still walk.”
“It did take a bit of work to get back on my feet after this one,” he said, hiking the drawers up and retying the cord. “It still seizes up on me if the weather’s cold and damp. ‘Tisn’t from Hastings, though. It happened a few months later, while we under the command of a sheriff in Cambridgeshire, subduing rebellion. Luke and I were on the way to Hauekleah, for his wedding to Faithe, when two Saxons ambushed us in the woods. One of them had this...well, it’s a farm tool, really, but peasants use it as a weapon, and it’s a good one—a great mallet with a spike on it—”
She shuddered. “I don’t think I want to hear this.”
He smiled slightly, and she saw something in his eyes, a glimmer that reminded her of how it had once been between them, when they used to meet in their cave and talk for entire afternoons. He was still easy to talk to, she realized with some measure of surprise. Despite everything, she found herself relaxing in the presence of this half-naked, hung-over, ravaged soldier she had loved as a boy.
“What about that?” She pointed to a gash on his calf.
“Wolves.”
“Wolves?”
“Well, one wolf. The whole pack was after me, but—”
“I don’t suppose any of your wounds were actually earned in battle,” she said.
He surprised her by laughing. “This” —he pointed to a deep crease in his right forearm— “is my memento of Hastings. A Saxon with a fistful of throwing axes.”
“Ah.” She rubbed her arms.
Alex bent over to retrieve the wad of clothes his head had been resting on, which caused him to squeeze his eyes shut briefly, in evident pain. Extracting a pair of chausses, he sat on the bench—facing her this time—to insert first one foot and then the other into the woolen hose. “This arrow wound on my thigh is from the northern expedition a year or two after that. William paid off most of his mercenaries at the end of that campaign, thinking things would settle down and he wouldn’t need them again. I refused to go, which seemed to impress him at the time. He drew me into the ranks of his personal corps, and I’ve been there ever since. He still pays me, but that’s only because I won’t take land.”
He stood to pull up his chausses and tie them off, his keen gaze fixed on her the whole time. “You always did have a way of making me go on and on about myself,” he said quietly. “What of Nicolette de St. Clair? How has she fared these past years?”
Nicki looked off toward the river. “I think you know how I’ve fared.”
She entertained the rash urge to tell him about her and Milo’s predicament—that they were going to lose Peverell if she failed to bear a son by the appointed date. But she barely knew him anymore. How could she disclose something so personal, so potentially calamitous? Moreover, he’d pity her even more than he did now, and she didn’t think she could stand that.
When she looked back at him, he was studying her with an oddly intent expression that she fancied held a trace of sympathy. She smoothed the skirt of her pale blue gown. “There were two northern campaigns, weren’t there?”
He gave her a look of amused indulgence that let her know he was aware of effort to direct the conversation back toward himself. She supposed he’d had enough experience with that tendency of hers to know it when he saw it.
“Aye,” he said, shaking out his big, wrinkled shirt, “we headed up north again in the winter of sixty-nine, to rout the Danes out of Yorkshire. They fled over the Humber River, meaning to gather supplies, so we...” He frowned uneasily. “You don’t want to hear this.”
“I do.”
He gathered up the shirt and lowered it over his head. It was partially open, displaying the smooth planes of his upper chest, the topmost ridges of his belly. “We burned them out,” he said. “We followed them past the Humber and gathered all the farm implements and foodstuffs into giant piles and set them on fire. We slaughtered cattle, torched houses...”
“What about the local people? You were destroying their property, their means of sustenance. Didn’t they object?”
“Of course.” He dragged his fingers through his hair. “They screamed and wept as we razed their villages. Five shires in northern England are barren and desolate to this day.”
“How could you have...I mean, didn’t you feel bad about—”
“I was consumed with remorse,” he said quietly. “But my king ordered it done, and so I did it.”
“Yes,” she murmured, comprehension dawning. He’d sworn an oath of obedience to William, and he did not take oaths lightly.
“If we sinned in what we did,” he said, fetching a leather pouch from the deck and tying it around his waist, “our punishment came during the march back to York. ‘Twas a bitter winter that year, and we had to travel on foot through steep mountain passes. Some of the men lost their toes and fingers. Many of them took ill. My closest friend, Hugh, died in my arms.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t ask to be dismissed from the king’s service after that.”
“I’m a soldier,” he sa
id, sitting to pull on his boots. “Luke warned me when I embarked on this life that I might have to follow orders that didn’t sit easy with me. ‘Tis a hard life, but there’s a certain freedom in it. I’m responsible only to myself and my liege—and, of course, to God. I’ve no estate to maintain, no villeins depending on me for their livelihoods, no wife and children to be responsible for. William tried to release me again last year, after our campaign against Malcom king of Scots, but I turned him down.”
“There was a time when you craved the land you now turn your back on. ‘Twas the very reason you put in with William in the first place.”
Looking up, he met her gaze. “I changed my mind,” he said tonelessly. Before she could summon a response, he stood, wincing, and made his way down the weathered board that served as a sort of makeshift gangplank between the boat and the riverbank. “I can visit Hauekleah whenever I’m on leave. ‘Tis adequate to satisfy my rare urges to envelop myself in the noisy bosom of family life.” Kneeling by the river, he cupped his hands in the water, filled his mouth and spat it out.
Lifting her skirts, Nicki stepped cautiously onto the dilapidated board. “Is that what you’ll do during this six-month leave the king has imposed on you? Spend it at Hauekleah?”
“I imagine so.” Turning, he saw her inching her way down the steep incline, but he made no move to assist her. There was a time when he would have rushed to offer his hand. His gallant streak had been part of the youthful charm that had stolen her heart that summer in Périgeaux.
“I’ll stay with Luke and Faithe,” he said, rising and drying his hands on his chausses, “while I petition the king to allow me to come back earlier.”
“Even as a boy, you were fiercely dedicated to soldiering. I always knew you would never give it up, not for—” Not for me. That’s what she’d been about to say. Instead she said, “‘Twas a consuming passion with you.”
“It was,” he said quietly. “Now, it’s...just a way of life.” Spearing her with a look that made her shiver, he said, “It’s all I’ve got anymore.”
She couldn’t mistake his hostility as he turned abruptly and squatted down by the river to splash water onto his face. It seemed he blamed her for the lonely and unsatisfying course his life had taken. True, she might have tried harder to discourage him that summer in Périgeaux, knowing they had no future together. But she’d been young, and she’d adored him; how could she have been expected to turn him away? And, too, considering his knightly vocation, he knew as well as she the futility of pursuing her.
Perhaps she’d been unwise in coming here. Given their history, she should be avoiding him, not seeking him out; had experience taught her nothing? She decided to broach the subject she had come here to discuss, and then leave. “Milo woke me up in the middle of the night. He asked me if I might have any idea why you...why you might hate me.”
He stilled, crouched down with his back to her. After a long moment he stood and turned to face her, lifting his shirt to dry his face. “What did you tell him?”
He could have denied any animosity toward her, but he didn’t. That stung in light of her feelings for him, which had lingered tenaciously all these years. How he would laugh at her if he knew! Straightening her back, she said, “I told him that nine years ago in Périgeaux, you’d...wanted me to become your mistress. And that I’d refused.”
Incredulous anger flashed in his eyes. “That can’t honestly be how you remember it.”
Her gaze dropped to the muddy riverbank. “I know there was more to it. But I didn’t think it wise to share...everything with Milo. Just the basic facts of what—”
“Facts?”
“You can’t deny that you tried to...that we almost—”
“And you can’t deny that it was more than mere lust that drove me.”
“Don’t you understand, Alex?” She forced herself to meet his eyes. “It doesn’t matter what drove you. The fact is, you knew you were leaving to join William.”
“And that meant I couldn’t fall in love?” He took a step toward her; she took a step back. “I loved you, Nicki. You knew how I felt. I told you.”
“I know.”
“I asked you to run away with me, for God’s sake!” he exclaimed, his hands fisted, a cord bulging on his neck.
“I know,” she said softly, “but you never asked me to marry you.”
He stared at her, a hint of what looked like self-doubt eroding his expression of outrage. That he was so clearly taken aback made Nicki almost pity him. How deluded he’d been. “I...” He raked his hair off his face, but it fell right back. “I wasn’t in any position...”
“You wanted me to be your leman,” she said, with as even a temper as she could muster. “You wanted to keep me tucked away in some nunnery until you found yourself between battles and came to call—”
“You’re twisting things around,” he said, but there was a note of uncertainty in tone, and he seemed to have a hard time meeting her gaze. It was as if he were struggling to remember all that had transpired, all he’d claimed and offered and promised, during their last, eventful encounter. “The convent was supposed to be a temporary refuge until I earned some property of my own.”
“You weren’t in a position to marry me,” she said, quoting his own words back at him, “but you wanted me to run away with you.” She shook her head solemnly. “Mama was right. You could offer me naught but shame.”
He spun around, grinding his fists against his temples. “Damn, I wish my head would stop pounding, so I could think.”
“You wanted me to be your whore.” She chanced a step toward him. “Milo wanted me to be his wife.”
“Milo wanted Peverell!” he thundered, whirling around.
“Who are you to judge him?” she demanded, her own voice rising in righteous anger. “You, who were willing to ruin my life just to possess me.”
“Christ, Nicki, you knew me.” His eyes glittered with sincerity. “Do you think I had it in me to be that inhuman, that coldly calculating? I was too young for any of that. I loved you. I wanted you. ‘Twas that simple.”
“Perhaps so,” she conceded, seeking forbearance and understanding within herself. “But you wanted the soldier’s life, too. Didn’t you know you couldn’t have both? Your brother offered you counsel on everything else. He must have told you this.”
He closed his eyes, rubbed the bridge of his nose. She barely heard his whispered, “Aye.”
“Regardless of your intentions,” she said, “if I’d left with you, ‘twould have been a nightmare, especially for me. You would have led me into a life of disgrace...clandestine meetings when you could manage it, long months of loneliness in between. You would have grown weary of the secrecy, the complications, my unhappiness. When it all became too much, you would have been compelled to discard me. I don’t think I could have borne that.”
“I bore it when you discarded me.” Alex’s voice seethed with a bitterness cultivated over nine long years. “Or don’t you recall having done so?”
“I...” She remembered how wretched she’d felt during Peter’s announcement of her betrothal to Milo, how she’d wanted to run to Alex and throw her arms around him and weep and scream and explain and...
“I was the one who was tossed aside, Nicki. You led me on for weeks, letting me lose my heart to you, letting me think you cared, when all the while you had your sights set on Milo. You were using me to make him jealous. I was but the bait for the trap you laid—”
“Trap! How can you—”
“And it worked. Congratulations,” he said nastily. “I hope you’re happy with the quarry you snagged.” Stalking past her, he climbed back up to the boat and grabbed the leather flask. When he stepped back onto the improvised gangplank, his foot slipped and he stumbled, the flask falling to the ground as he regained his bearings. He rubbed his eyes with trembling fingers, his face pale as chalk.
She retrieved the flask and handed it to him when he got to the ground. Sympathy for him warred wi
th hurt that he could think so ill of her. “If this is what’s become of you,” she said, “I daresay I’m no worse off with Milo than I would have been with you.”
He wheeled on her, advancing with swift steps that forced her back against the hull of the longship. She tried to push him away, but he threw the flask aside and seized her hands in a painful grasp. “Don’t compare me to that withered old hen.” His gaze lingered on her body as he moved closer. “You wouldn’t want to goad me into demonstrating how wrong you are.”
She rammed her heel down hard on his instep. He spat out a ripe oath as he released her. “I daresay you’re right about that,” she said, moving aside to put some distance between them.
He pressed his forehead to the hull of the boat. “Nicki, I’m...” He shook his head. “That was...” He sighed. “Go away, Nicki. ‘Twas ill-advised, your coming here.”
Her heart ached, remembering those long, enchanted afternoons in their cave. She mourned for the boy who’d shyly taken her hand the day they’d discovered their haven, and held it in the dark while a secret awareness passed between them, heady and exhilarating. He’d been so young, so fervent, so eager—not just for her, but for his future and the glorious battles that would shape it. Now, by his own admission, soldiering was simply all he had anymore.
“You’ve changed, Alex,” she said. “You were so...unsullied. Such a good, sweet boy.”
“I wasn’t a boy, not really, Nicki,” he said quietly, turning to face her. “Not in any way that mattered. And I’m certainly not now. Nor am I particularly good and sweet.” Wearily he reached down and picked the flask up off the ground. “Go away.”
“Why were you and Milo talking about me, Alex?”
He blinked at her. “We...” He shrugged carelessly, but consternation darkened his eyes. “I don’t know. He happened to mention you. I don’t remember—”
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