“Shut up,” Nicolette said hoarsely.
“—that their opponents hardly even know the game is being played, and thus are all the more easily vanquished. Alex the Conqueror they call him. They say half the women in England have lifted their skirts for—”
“Shut up!” Nicki screamed, bolting to her feet.
“Don’t listen to Gaspar,” Milo said. “Alex didn’t deceive you about his feelings. He’s a man of honor.”
Gaspar laughed incredulously. “Unless I’m mistaken, this is the second time this particular ‘man of honor’ has compromised her ladyship. If you ask me, milady—”
“I can’t recall having done so,” she retorted.
“You’ll forget him. Anyone can see he’s the lowest form of knave.”
“Have you studied a looking glass of late?” she asked him acidly. Before Gaspar could summon a response, she turned to Milo. “I need to talk to Alex. I’m going to saddle up and ride north on the road to Fécamp. He couldn’t have left that long ago. If I ride hard, perhaps I can overtake—”
“Nay!” Gaspar grabbed her arm. “You mustn’t be riding off alone after him. How would it look?”
She twisted out of his grip. “Do you think I give a damn how it looks? I’m well beyond caring how things look. I want the truth.”
“And you think you can get it from that lying debaucher? I can’t let you—”
“Can’t let me!” Eyes flaring, fists clenched at her sides, Nicki faced Gaspar squarely; Milo felt a surge of pride for her. “You may think you’re lord of Peverell, Gaspar Le Taureau, but you’re not!”
Uh-oh... “My dear,” Milo interjected gently, seeing the angry flood of red that crept up Gaspar’s throat, the dull rage in his eyes. “Say no more. Just go.”
“Nay,” Gaspar persisted. “She mustn’t.”
“Go!” Milo said.
She turned and swept from the hall.
Milo let out a shuddering breath as he fell back against the pillows mounded behind him. “Nicki’s right, of course. You do think you’re lord here. But why shouldn’t you? I’ve handed the castellany over to you, as you say.”
“If I thought I was lord of Peverell, would I be going through all this?” Gaspar crossed to a window that would give him a view of the outer bailey and looked through it, scowling. He must be watching Nicki on her way to the stable.
Milo stared at Gaspar’s back, silently repeating the retainer’s words. If I thought I was lord of Peverell, would I be going through all this?
“By the blood of the saints,” Milo muttered. That was it. The bastard wasn’t satisfied being Milo’s retainer. He didn’t even want the stewardship he’d somehow procured for himself. He wanted it all, and God help him, Milo had spent the past months in a drunken stupor in this bed, letting him play out his little schemes...sometimes unwittingly assisting him.
“God’s bones.”
Gaspar turned around. “Thirsty again?”
“You son of a bitch,” Milo ground out, sitting up unsteadily. “You lying, conniving—”
“I’ll be right back.” Gaspar strode swiftly to the buttery and returned with a flagon. Lifting Milo’s goblet, he dumped the little bit of wine at the bottom into the rushes—a slovenly gesture quite unlike Gaspar—and filled it from the flagon. Milo smelled cloves.
“You know how I despise spiced wine,” Milo said. “And I don’t want you serving me anymore. My wife dismissed you from our service. I want you out of here—”
“You’re overwrought,” Gaspar bit out, his face still reddened, his hands quivering; he was jumpier than Milo had ever seen him. “This contains a sedative tonic.” Re-corking the flagon, he set it on the table and he handed the goblet to Milo. “Be sure and finish it all. Quickly.”
Milo studied the goblet in his hand as Gaspar, sparing one last look out the window, rushed from the hall. Milo heard him pounding down the stairs.
Milo’s mind wasn’t what it used to be, but it hadn’t ceased functioning altogether. He knew what Gaspar had just handed him. For nine years he trusted Gaspar, relied on him, depended on him, and this was how it ended.
He should go ahead and drink it. He was less than worthless, a wretched drunk who couldn’t command his own castle. He’d let down those women foolish enough to think they could rely on him—first Violette, and now Nicki.
Milo sniffed the goblet, detecting a whisper of something ominous beneath the spicy fruitiness of the wine. Closing his eyes, he pictured Violette as he last saw her, standing in her night shift at the door of her father’s shop in the middle of the night, waving to him. He could free himself of his wasted body and this sorry life and join her in eternity. It would be so easy.
He brought the goblet to his mouth and took a sip. It tasted both bitter and sweet. It tasted like deliverance.
* * *
Gaspar burst into the stall just as the stable boy had finished buckling the saddle onto Zurie. “You’re not going anywhere,” he growled at Nicki.
The stable boy blinked at them.
“Off with you!” Gaspar grabbed the lad by his tunic and flung him out into the aisle. Nicki heard his rapid footsteps on the earthen floor and he fled from the stable.
“You overstep yourself, Gaspar.” Nicki slipped her foot into the stirrup.
Gaspar seized her about the waist and backed her up roughly against the wall of the stall. His face was reddened; something savage flickered across his dead eyes. “It’s about time I overstepped myself, don’t you think? I’ve been the true lord of Peverell for years now, in fact if not in name.”
“Let me go!” She tried to strike out with her fists, but he pinned them to the wall, then moved in close so she couldn’t kick out. His size, his nearness, felt suffocating; her heart hammered erratically.
“Before you do something rash,” he said in a low, menacing voice, “think about what you’ll be giving up. Your husband’s not long for this world. Once he’s dead, you can marry me.”
“You!” Outrage punched through her fear. “You must be mad!”
“I offered you marriage once before,” he said softly, moving so close that her breasts brushed against his chest with every panicked breath she drew. “You spurned me. But it’s my destiny to be your husband, and castellan of Peverell.”
“You only want to marry me for Peverell. That’s why you proposed after...after Phillipe...isn’t it?”
“Only in part. I fancied myself in love with you then, and I even entertained the absurd notion that you might learn to love me back. I wanted you for my wife as much as I wanted Peverell, but you turned me down. I wasn’t good enough for you.”
“You misunder—”
“Don’t lie to me!” he roared, spittle flying. “You preferred the shame of unwed motherhood to me, didn’t you? Your uncle would have cast you out—surely you knew that. But you would have ruined yourself rather than be bound in wedlock to a lowly apothecary’s son, wouldn’t you? Admit it!”
“Nay! Gaspar—”
“Lying bitch!” He slammed her hands against the wall with a force that jolted her to her bones. “You may have been willing to give up everything, even Peverell, but I wasn’t quite witless enough to allow it. I had plans for you, and I wasn’t about to let you destroy them just to serve that haughty pride of yours.” He leaned in close, his voice a soft rumble, his breath hot and foul on her face. “I imagine you thanked God for saving your precious reputation after you lost that bastard you were carrying. In truth, you should have thanked me.”
She stared at him, at lifeless eyes, his horrible, knowing smile. “Nay.”
“Aye. I dosed your wine with the tonic that purged that misbegotten spawn from your womb.”
“Oh, God.” Nicki recalled the wrenching cramps, the blood, the fear, as her body expelled her poor, wee baby. ‘Tisn’t a pleasant process, losin’ a babe that way, Xavierre had said. ‘Twill pain you somethin’ fierce. It had almost killed her. A part of her did die when she saw the tiny girl, the dainty li
ttle fingers.
“You’re a monster,” she accused shakily. “A devil.”
Gaspar’s mouth curved in a smile; his numb black gaze bored into her. Releasing her wrists, he stroked her hair as it lay over her chest. “I’m a man like any other.” When his hands closed over her breasts, she flailed at his, and he captured her wrists again. “But a man who knows how to get what he wants. I wanted you. I still do, more than ever, despite your contempt.”
“I don’t—”
He backhanded her across the face, hard. She gasped at the stinging pain. “I told you not to lie to me. After all these years, you still treat me like some ignorant errand boy—the apothecary castellan. You’ve never once looked at me the way you look at that bastard de Périgeaux. He snaps his fingers and you lie down and lift your skirts. Well, soon you’ll do the same for me.”
“Never!”
That chilling smile again. “Become my wife,” he said, his voice a lethal purr, “or I’ll tell the world that the child you’re carrying was sired by your husband’s cousin.”
So that was it. He intended to ruin her unless she married him, thus elevating him into the ranks of the aristocracy and forcing her to submit to him—a shrewd plan, but one with a flaw. “It doesn’t matter what you tell people. They’ll suspect the baby isn’t Milo’s, anyway.”
“I’ll confirm their suspicions. I’ll broadcast the shameful details of your infidelity far and wide. How you’d run off to the woods every afternoon to satisfy your lust, while your husband waited for you in his sickbed. You’ll be branded an adulteress. Your reputation will be in ashes.”
Between clenched teeth, Nicki said, “I’d rather the world thought me the basest whore than marry the likes of you.”
“I hate to disappoint you, Gaspar,” came a ragged voice from the entrance to the stall, “but she can’t marry you while I’m still alive.”
Gaspar whirled around.
“Milo!” Nicki gasped. Her husband leaned heavily on his cane, gaunt and frail, his skin a sickly yellow in the dim light of the stable. She couldn’t believe he’d made it here on his own. He hadn’t been out of bed in two months.
Milo held something up—a flagon, looped by its leather cord over his shoulder. “No, Gaspar, I didn’t drink it. If I’m not mistaken, it’s been adulterated. Perhaps with...what was it? Poison hemlock and white hellebore?”
“You’re imagining things,” Gaspar said.
Milo uncorked the clay bottle and held it out to him. “Then you drink it.”
Gaspar hesitated fractionally, and then sneered. “Go to hell.”
“I’ve been there for some time.” Milo shoved the cork back in and hung it back on his shoulder. “I almost drank it, you know. But then I realized that I was playing into your hands yet again. I couldn’t stomach the thought that my last act on earth would facilitate this putrid scheme of yours.”
“How noble of you,” Gaspar gritted out.
“Noble?” A wheeze of laughter rose from Milo. “Can’t recall that word having been applied to me before. The only thing I’m really good at, it seems, is letting people down—especially my wife. It may be a bit late to try and break that habit, but—” he shrugged his shoulders, skeletal beneath his loose shirt “—I’m not dead quite yet.”
Gaspar crossed his arms, his expression contemptuously amused. “What, precisely, is it you feel you can do for her ladyship?”
“I can refuse to drink this,” Milo said, indicating the flagon. “As long as you’re a threat to Nicki, ‘twould be a disservice to her for me to drink it. You can’t marry her while I’m alive.”
“Barely.” Gaspar reached down and slid a dagger out of his boot. “And a condition it would be little trouble to remedy.”
Milo backed up shakily, eyeing the blade. “How do you propose to explain my death?”
Gaspar, with his back to Nicki, chuckled as he advanced on Milo. “I’ll think of something. I always think of something.”
Grinning maliciously, Gaspar jabbed the dagger toward Milo once, twice—a cruel tease. Milo held his cane up as if to ward off the blade, but his whole body quaked just from the effort of standing upright.
Nicki looked around wildly for a weapon—anything! Her gaze lit on the mounting block in the corner, and she grabbed it.
Gaspar kicked Milo in the legs, and he crumpled in the straw. Leaning over him to seize a handful of shirt in his fist, he said, “You’re a pathetic excuse for a man, you know that?”
Raising the mounting block over her head, Nicki slammed it with all her might on Gaspar’s head. With a grunt, he fell on Milo, who managed to roll him off.
Gaspar muttered a curse and braced his hands as if to rise. Steeling herself, Nicki brought the block down once more on his head. He went limp in the straw.
Milo blinked at Nicki, then smiled slowly. “You’ve more talents than I realized, my dear.”
She threw the block aside, her hands shaking, stunned that she’d managed to knock Gaspar unconscious and terrified that he’d wake up before they could get him immobilized. “I need some rope.”
Milo tilted his head toward the front of the stable. “There’s some hanging near the door.”
As Milo struggled awkwardly to his feet, Nicki tied Gaspar’s hands and legs, taking her time and making sure the knots would hold. As an added precaution, she shoved him into the aisle and tied him to a thick oak post.
Hooking her arm under Milo’s shoulders, Nicki helped him out of the stable, then returned for Zurie and led her out. She closed the stable door and slid the big iron bar across, locking Gaspar inside.
Leaning on his cane, Milo extended a quavering arm and drew her into his embrace; she felt every bone in his chest. “You’d better hurry if you want to catch up with Alex.”
“Are you all right?”
He smiled in that careless way he used to. “Never better.” He meant it, she realized. He’d redeemed himself, to some degree, and for the first time in years he felt a measure of pride; she saw it in his eyes.
She saddled up. “Don’t let anyone into the stable. When I get back, I’ll have Gaspar transported to the ducal prison. Go back to bed. Have Beal bring you some porridge, and try not to drink too much—”
“I’m sick to death of that bed. I’d rather stay out her for a bit. Don’t worry about me.” He took her hand. “Find Alex and marry him.”
“I’m already married, remember?”
His expression sobered. “Look at me, Nicolette. How much longer do you think I have?”
“Milo—”
“I’ve been denying it. So have you. But I’m dying. We both know it.”
“It could be years, Milo—”
“Find him.” Milo gripped her hand almost painfully. “And marry him, and be happy. I owe you that much.”
“Milo—”
“If you delay much longer, he’ll be halfway across the Channel by the time you get to Fécamp.” He released her hand and made his halting way to a nearby shade tree. Lowering himself wearily to the ground, he sat down with his back against the trunk, his eyes closed. “Go. And ride fast.”
“I’ll be back as soon as I can.” She flicked the reins and rode away swiftly.
Chapter 28
Nicki rode Zurie hard on the road that led north through the woods—too hard, for as they passed a particularly rough stretch, the horse stumbled, tossing Nicki to the ground. Leaping to her feet, she grabbed the agitated mare’s reins and murmured soothingly to her until she quieted.
With a sense of dread, Nicki bent down to inspect Zurie’s legs and hooves, hoping she’d merely picked up a stone that could be pried loose. She moaned when she saw see that the back of the animal’s right front leg was sharply bowed between the knee and fetlock. Touching it gingerly, she found a pulled tendon, but no bones broken; thank the saints, for she couldn’t bear to think of delivering the mercy stroke, and she needed this horse.
The leg swelled quickly, but some horses were rather sanguine about su
ch injuries. Marjolaina would have cheerfully continued on three legs, and Nicki prayed that Zurie was as accommodating. Retrieving her eating knife, she reached beneath the skirt of her tunic, sliced a strip from her linen undershift, split the ends, and wound it around the leg, tying it off tightly. Once they were back at Peverell, she could stand Zurie in the bracing water of the stream to ease the swelling, and then rub her down with lineament; but until then, she’d have to keep going.
“All right, girl.” Nicki saddled back up and flicked the reins. “Let’s go.” Zurie took a step and then stopped. “Zurie, please.” Nicki did everything she could think of to urge the horse forward, wasting precious time in the process, but in the end she had to admit defeat.
Her only hope at this point was to leave Zurie here and continue on foot. She had money in her purse; she could buy another horse and send someone back for Zurie.
Dismounting, she tethered the mare to a tree on the side of the road. No one would steal an obviously lame horse, and she had to leave her where she could be seen by whomever she sent back for her.
Nicki walked on as swiftly as she could, peering through the autumn-hued trees for signs of a cottage. If she didn’t get another horse soon, she’d never catch up with Alex. She began to entertain the hope that he’d slowed his journey by stopping at a tavern for a bite to eat. Perhaps he would spend the night in Rouen at the ducal palace; she hoped so.
She’d gone several miles when she heard the soft rumble of hoofbeats from behind. Alarm tightened her belly before she recalled Alex’s observation that bandits usually traveled on foot. Perhaps she could ride north with this group, at least for a while. They might even be willing to sell her a horse.
Nicki turned toward the riders just as they came into view. One of them pointed. “There she is!”
“Sweet Jesus!” It was Gaspar and his men, thundering straight toward her. Nicki lifted her skirts and fled into the woods, running with all her might, her hair flying behind her. Dear God, it was Gaspar! How did he get out of the stable?
Lords of Conquest Boxed Set Page 135
