"What did Master Nicholas say to you?"
"Didn't have to say anything, did he, ma'am? I can feel him watching me from clear across the bailey. Like a great flying beast, he is, ready to pounce on my back and tear me to a skeleton."
"I assure you, Mullock, he'll not harm you." But it would be good to reiterate that fact to "His Lordship," to find him at the armory. "He's only looking out after my interests."
"Can't blame him there, my lady. You've quite a cache to lose, if a fellow had a mind to steal. Which, o'course, I don't. But look at this here chest of silks, for one."
Mullock might have been a wily merchant thief, liable to steal her blind, but he did seem to know his goods—or else he spun a palatable tale of the value of Faulkhurst's potential.
A man well worth nurturing.
It was late afternoon by the time Eleanor could spare a moment to speak with Nicholas—a double errand to also draw water from the gatehouse well, to test its taste against the kitchen cistern and the well in the keep. She had dipped a ewer's worth and was just rounding the picket wall of the stables—to speak to Nicholas about Mullock, when she was struck by a sight that rocked her to her bones and that changed the direction of her pulse.
Nicholas—standing high up on the ridge beam of the armory, his legs braced astride two rafters at the gable end a full three stories above the bailey, as beautiful and glistening and as near to naked as a man could be while still wearing his boots and long breeches.
Bedazzling, he was—gold-sinewed and sunstruck indigo, his too-long, wildly thick hair lashed by the wind, his broadly muscled shoulders braced by nothing but the blue sky as a backdrop. His effortless movements at guiding the huge windlass and the crane were as fluid as the pull of the sea, a part of the shifting sunlight and the wheeling gulls.
Everything that had made her the very opposite sex to the man gave her a tremendous surge forward, toward him and his enticingly flat belly and the compelling shapes and shadows just below that.
He straightened suddenly, leaving her helpless against the sight of him as he swabbed his forehead with his arm, then scanned the bailey for an instant.
She ducked behind the roof post, because he was utterly magnificent and she wanted to unabashedly stare. More, to reach up and touch him, to shape her hands over his corded muscles, to follow that darkly sleek tapering of hair that plunged from his stomach into the narrow waist of his breeches and beyond, toward all that wondrous male equipage that would be crowded in there by the handful.
Great heavens! Where was she getting these thoughts? From her plan—that ridiculous worry over the status of her marriage, her pesky virginity. She blinked hard, but the full, virile image of him was as clear as ever, as though she held him in her hands.
That part of him.
Christ, Eleanor, what are you doing?
It was his voice inside her head, Nicholas's. Dark and whispering, as though he knew the course of her thoughts and was as astounded at them as she. As pleased, as intoxicated.
She sat down hard on a stump, consumed with him, exhilarated, her skin on fire, thinking of counterpanes and Nicholas and wedding nights not yet begun—
"Oh, my!" She closed her eyes and stuck both hands into the ewer of well water. She splashed her face and throat with its coolness, trying to remember why she had wanted to speak with him—Mullock, yes, and Nicholas's lordly ways. Finally she dared a look at the man and his labors, but only through her lashes.
"There, Dickon," he shouted. "Slowly, lad. Lower it a foot now."
"Aye, sir!" Dickon stood below him in the armory yard, as red-faced and straining at keeping the tension on the rope between the windlass and the tie down at his feet, as Nicholas was at ease supporting the entire weight of the crane arm and the battered ashlar block that dangled from it.
"Steady, lad." Nicholas's great arms glistened as they flexed and shifted, guiding the block onto a bed of mortar with the ease of a master mason. "There, Dickon."
He released the claw clamp and the block seated itself beside its twin. A perfect fit.
Amazing. She had watched the architects and masons expand the nave of the abbey church at St. Catherine's, a fascinating work of precision and science, employing dozens of tradesmen and a tangle of large, quaking machines. Nicholas's methods were more simple, but his lines were every bit as clean, and completely unexpected.
But then, she would never have expected him to be so skilled at carving eccentric little bears out of oak, or taming Dickon's loyalty.
"Milady will be pleased, sir. Won't she?"
Pleased wasn't nearly the right word. Toppled was closer. Enchanted. Dickon shaded his squinting eyes with his hands, his enthusiasm for his new mentor obviously having grown in the last few hours.
"Ask her yourself, lad. She's sitting there by the picket."
Found out! Eleanor's heart took a shameless tumble. She looked up and directly into the naked interest of Nicholas's gaze. Though she should have blushed to the roots of her hair for spying on him, she felt altogether wanton under all that sizzling heat.
"Well, madam? What do you think?"
That you are magnificent, sir. That he was light and dark, that he was wooden bears and iron locks. That he would deflower her grandly and with great passion.
Aye, and that he was waiting patiently for her to answer him.
"You were right, Nicholas." She went to stand beneath the gable.
"Was I?" He flicked a brow, his amazement a complete charade, and utterly charming. She would give him this victory; she had no intention of bridling his ingenuity or his skill. Just that unacceptable possessiveness of his.
"Aye, Nicholas. You were right to begin with the armory as you did."
"Milady!" Dickon shouted. "Do you see the roof? Isn't it fine?" The boy was part of the machinery now, his weight and brawn keeping the next block aloft until Nicholas swung the arm into its place.
"It is that, Dickon." And so much more. Success seemed so possible, so fragile. She'd be a fool not to recognize how much she would have to depend upon Nicholas in the coming days, the years. His knowledge and his rippling strength.
"Lower the block now, lad." The lordly voice that could surely bellow across a battlefield also guided and cajoled. "Slowly, to the left."
Dickon grunted and steamed as he lowered the block an inch at a time, an encouragement at a time. When at last it settled into the mortar, he let go of the rope and collapsed spread-eagled and panting on the cobbles.
"Here, Dickon." Eleanor, waiting happily with the ewer, helped him sit up and held back his hair. "Drink."
He gulped until he fell back again, still gasping. "Thank you, my lady."
All the while she was aware of Nicholas on the roof above her, watching carefully, making his stern assessments. Her hair must look like a badger's nest. And here she was, mooning after the man—making impossible bargains with him in her mind—her apron green-stained and askew, her kirtle and linen sleeves littered with bits of straw and cobwebs.
Chiding herself for letting the mere sight of the man stop her in her tracks again, in the midst of a very busy day, she turned warily toward him. Still, her heart leaped and skittered when she found his eyes glittering, and knew that she must sound completely dull-witted when she asked, "Are you thirsty, steward?"
Parched for you, wife. Nicholas had seen her long before he'd spoken, keeping careful watch over the bailey, over his wife and Mullock while he wrestled with the armory. She was a fascination of shapes and sounds and sunlight, grace in her movements and in the lyric of her voice. She had extended her arms skyward toward him, lifting the ewer; irresistible, because he was dusty and parched, and she was the shady coolness that he craved.
"Aye, madam, if you please."
She met him at the bottom of the ladder. He took the pitcher and drank deeply, letting some of the rock-borne chill stream down his chest, dousing his hair and the back of his neck with the last of it.
"There's plenty more in the well,
sir, if you should need a bath."
"I'll remember that, my lady." He ought to tell her about the grotto of steaming water in the catacombs, the place he bathed in peace each night, simmering away the knots and the tightness. But she was smiling too softly at him as he scrubbed at his hair, her unblushing gaze following the rivulets down his chest and, bolder still, curious as hell, toward his waist and his dagger belt, until she inhaled in a light, sharp gasp, then raised her wide, unwary eyes to his.
"I approve, Nicholas."
"Of?" He held his breath, hoping for … he didn't know what he was hoping for.
"Of … of—" she swallowed, blinked twice, and then waggled her hand toward the sky. "Of all this industry. You and Dickon. And Fergus?"
"He's in the carpenter's shed, oiling the saws, counting nails. That's far safer than letting him loose with a hammer."
"Thank you, Nicholas." She ducked inside the dimness of the armory, then started up the ladder to the ridge beam, allowing him an unobstructed view of her trim ankles, of lean calves of golden honey, that must have somehow seen sunlight in her travels. Lying spread-limbed in a high meadow, perhaps, her skirts hiked to her thighs, or higher, or bare entirely.
Sweet, holy hell. His wild imaginings caught him soundly in the groin and raised a sudden sweat that had nothing to do with the labors of a mason.
"We were fortunate, my lady. It lacked but a half dozen large stones to repair the gable." He cleared his throat the way he'd very much like to clear the molten desire from his veins, but she was there inside him like his pulse. "There, you see—where the ridge beam had been shaken off the peak."
She ran her hand along the nearest rafter, climbed a few more rungs, then looked down at him as he held both stiles of the ladder. He tried not to make too much of her smile, or listen to the nuances of meanings in everything she said to him. Madness came of that way of thinking.
"Are you sure it will all fit back together again?"
Every piece but you and I, wife. His heart emptied of the fullness she'd become. "Like a child's wooden puzzle, madam. It will soon be sound enough to carry the full weight of the roof and the rafters."
"Then we'll need a source of rushes soon."
"There are plenty to be found on the banks along the millrace, madam."
"I should have guessed that you'd know exactly where to find the reed beds." She started down the jouncing rungs, too quickly for him to step away from the ladder before she was caught up inside the cocoon of his arms. She turned her round, ripe bosom and the fullness of her dazzling smile on him. Her mouth was only that far from his, and damp from her tongue.
"I don't suppose that you thatch too, steward?"
Bits of lightning splintered inside his head. Oh, my lady wife, would your thatch be scented as your plait is? Shaded with cinnamon and damson, hiding your treasures from me while I sought them attentively? Would you moan and writhe and call my name gladly if I kissed you there?
And here. He could so easily brush his mouth lightly across her temple, against the damp little curls there. He wanted her. Wanted his wife.
And all her trappings.
"Do you," she asked, "thatch?"
"I—" He managed a deep, steadying breath to clear his fevered mind of her sheltered delights. But she was still here, inside his arms, creating bright images of sunlight on her honeyed thighs, of glistening auburn, of sniffing where she would be most fragrant.
He was drowning in his lust for her, and the woman hadn't even been in his care a full day. If she had any idea that he was burning for her like a summer wildfire crossing the Steppes, she would turn him out of her life—wisely.
"Perhaps, Lady Eleanor, you should pray fiercely tonight for a better thatcher than I."
She tilted her head like a robin disappointed in the spring. "Well then, sir. If you think you can't—"
"I'm sure I can't." Won't. Shouldn't. Christ! Her disbelief was obvious, and made him ache with willful pride that she had gifted him with such extraordinary powers to provide. "Then I shall pray, sir."
As will I. Desperately.
"Good," he said roughly, ready to send her safely on her way.
"Nicholas?" She set her cool fingertips into the center of his bare chest, then the flat of her palm, and every thought he'd ever had sizzled out of his brain. His erection strained against his sword belt where her thigh rested against the length of his.
"Yes?"
"Uhm…" She rocked on one foot, then the other, shyly, wholly out of her nature. "I just wanted to say … to assure you…"
"About?" She flushed, the high color on her cheeks, in the rose of her lips, hinting at secrets.
"About … well, the kiss I gave you. Last night."
His stomach lurched, shoved a noisy breath out of him. "What about it?"
"I just wanted you to know that I meant nothing by it."
"Nothing?" His heart plummeted, splintered as it hit bottom. "Nothing at all?"
She caught her lower lip with her teeth, watching his eyes, his mouth. "Barely anything."
Crushed. Stepped upon—that's what he felt. Staggered that she could flatten him, when he'd taken her boldness for so much more. "What the devil does 'barely' mean?"
"Barely means that it was … a kiss of peace between us. There." She shrugged, flipped her wrist. "That's all. I promise it won't happen again."
"Well, I can't, madam." He cupped her chin like the sinner he was, and with every ounce of will banked inside him, he brushed the very edge of her damp mouth with his—only there. And then her soft cheek. But lightly, chastely, because there would be no turning back from the pleasure if he stayed longer.
It would be dangerous if he let her little sigh mean too much. If he dwelt upon the thumping in his chest, the rush of ecstasy when she brushed at his nape with her hot little fingers, at the rim of his ear.
"You missed, Nicholas." She'd kept her eyes open the whole time, seeming astonished.
What the hell did she mean, that he'd missed?
Don't ask. Don't. He only clicked his tongue and shook his head.
And he would have been just fine if he hadn't lifted her gently off the last rung of the ladder, if his fingers hadn't fit so perfectly around her small waist, if his thumbs hadn't met so perfectly just beneath her breasts to make tender cups of his hands.
If her eyes hadn't flared, if her request hadn't been so privately made against his cheek, so thoroughly sultry as he stood her on her feet.
"Will you meet with me tonight, Nicholas? After supper, after everyone is abed?"
"What, madam?" He roared like an injured lion, set her squarely down and stepped back, shaking off the dangerous scent of her, purposely conjuring images of walking barefooted across a bed of shimmering embers. "What the devil are you asking me?"
Her soft brows winged deeply, and she looked at him openmouthed, as though he'd just taken leave of his senses—not that he had any left to leave. "I thought you were interested in hearing all of my plans for the castle."
"I am. But you can't expect me to—"
"Only last night, Nicholas, you demanded that I include you in my every last thought on any subject regarding the castle. Aren't you still?"
"Interested?" What a driveling, besotted fool he was—for not keeping her at arm's length, for kissing her, for Christ's sake. For missing—whatever the hell she meant by that.
He said evenly, so that he wouldn't growl, "Yes, of course."
"Then you'll come tonight?"
"Yes." God help me. He felt stripped of his will, exhausted. Tested to his limits and beyond, when all he wanted was to serve her justly and then be gone as quickly as possible.
"After supper then, at my husband's office."
He caught himself before he answered. "Which is where?"
"In the tower keep, Nicholas. A solar, really, and my new bed chamber." She beamed at him, triumphant against her husband once again and nearly crowing in her pride. "I found the estate office."
"And
the manor records, my lady—did you find them, too?"
Did I leave any damning evidence of myself for you to use to impeach me?
But she only harrumped at that other man in her life—the wicked-hearted one who'd died and left her all this misery.
"So far, I've found everything but the last four years. But I'm not going to give up. I'll find the other records, somewhere. And then you and I can study them before we decide on which crops to plant and where to plant them."
Christ, he'd forgotten that she'd need forecasts to grow a sturdy crop that would feed her tenants. Which fields had been marled, which had lain fallow.
"And I did wonder, Nicholas—do you read?"
He nodded at the worry in her eyes, disgusted at himself for putting it there. "And I write as well."
She sagged happily back against the ladder, her whole face brightening. "I was hoping that you could, though I am surprised." Not surprised at all, if he read her rightly, but damned suspicious, cocking a doubtful brow at him. "You were a foot soldier; how did you come by such learning?"
It had been knocked into his head at Balliol and then at Merton, when he wasn't carousing in the taverns or bedding some willing wench. "A soldier gets bored when the battling is done."
He didn't deserve her smiling approval. "You're a marvelously fine man, Nicholas."
He'd never in his life been called fine or marvelous, and wanted desperately to know why she thought so. "In what possible way do you mean, madam?" he asked as cooly as he could manage.
"Soldiers usually hie themselves off to the nearest village and find themselves a barrel of ale and a … well—" she touched the tip of her tongue to the arc of her lips, left them glistening, inviting him "—you know what I mean. So I applaud your dedication."
God, she was beautiful and blushing. And absolutely his. "I'm not a saint, madam."
Her eyes widened, and then she smiled, fanned at the bright spots on her cheeks, and picked up the forgotten ewer. "Neither am I, Nicholas. Neither am I."
She left him with that enigmatic call to arms. Not a saint? What the devil did she mean by that? She'd damn well better be a saint.
The Maiden Bride Page 11