Lords of Conquest Boxed Set

by Patricia Ryan

  “The hell...” Milo muttered, waving a hand in front of his eyes. “I’m seeing double.”

  Nicki looked toward Gaspar, who observed all this with an expression of inexplicable alarm, his face ashen. Curious; one would think he’d be used to this sort of thing by now. “Gaspar,” she said, “my husband is ready for bed, I think. Would you please help him to—”

  “Damn!” Milo lurched to his feet, his eyes wild. “What in bloody hell—”

  “Milo?” Alex stood up, his brow furrowed with concern. “What’s the matter?”

  “He’ll be all right.” Nicki rose and put her arm around her husband. He was shivering. “Milo, Gaspar’s going to help you to—”

  “Something’s wrong,” Milo said in a quavering voice as his hands began to shake. “Can’t you see something’s wrong? I’m sick, damn your eyes! I think I’m dying.”

  “Come along, sire,” Gaspar coaxed as he helped Milo over the bench.

  “I’ll help him.” Shouldering Gaspar aside, Alex put an arm around him. Gaspar looked on stonily as Alex led his cousin across the hall, with Nicki following closely. The soldiers ignored them, for the most part, accustomed to seeing their castellan being helped to bed.

  “I’m dying!” Milo wailed, squirming against Alex’s grasp. “You’re trying to kill me.”

  Nicki patted her husband’s back. “Alex doesn’t want to kill you, Milo.”

  Milo peered at his cousin, evidently struggling to focus on his face. “I thought you were Gaspar. Gaspar’s trying to kill me.”

  Nicki’s heart sank; she’d never seen him so bad. “Nobody’s trying to— Milo?”

  Spasms racked his body, head to toe. Alex called his name as he eased him down onto the rushes, where he convulsed for a few moments before going limp.

  “Milo?” Nicki took his face in her hands. “Milo! Milo, talk to me!”

  “Let me get him into bed.” Alex lifted his insensate cousin as if he were a rag doll and carried him to his bed by the hearth. His concern for Milo was touching.

  Every soldier in the hall, and all of the staff as well, watched in wide-eyed silence. Thank the saints for Gaspar. He cupped his hands around his mouth, bellowing, “Supper is over. Everyone back to the barracks.”

  As the men filed out amid a buzz of murmurings, Alex pulled off Milo’s boots and tunic. Milo’s head whipped back and forth, a guttural groan rising from him. He clutched at the bedcovers as shudders coursed through him.

  “Milo.” Nicki stroked his hair with trembling fingers. “Milo, look at me. Milo!”

  She didn’t hear Alex saying her name until he grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her to face him. “Nicki, did you hear me? He needs a physician. Tell me where to find one.”

  “There’s a barber-surgeon in St. Clair.” She gave him directions to the home of old Guyot. As he turned to leave, she seized his arm. “What do you think is wrong with him, Alex?”

  “I don’t know.” He looked toward the high table at the other end of the hall, empty now save for Gaspar, studying them with his arms folded. For a moment, she thought he was going to say something, but he just shook his head as if to clear it. “I really don’t know. It could be...anything. Some sort of fever, probably.” He squeezed her hand. “I’ll be back soon, with the surgeon. Stay with Milo.”

  * * *

  “That’s it, then,” said Maître Guyot as he set his little knife in the bucket of blood and bandaged the vein he’d opened in Milo’s arm. Guyot nodded to Alex, who’d taken on the unpleasant task of holding his cousin down for the procedure. “You may release him. There’s naught to do now but pray.”

  Nicki, kneeling next to her husband’s bed, closed her eyes and murmured another in a long string of prayers as Milo tossed and moaned. The praying served a dual purpose—to influence God to release Milo from this dreadful infirmity and to keep her mind off what the surgeon was doing to treat it. Her husband’s sudden attack had thrown her into a kind of panic, but now that his stomach had been purged and he’d been bled, she had to believe that the worst of the virulent humors had been expelled from his system.

  When she opened her eyes, she saw Alex kneeling on the other side of the bed and crossing himself. He looked at her, his gaze dark and sober. “Are you all right? You’re so pale.”

  “I’m fine, I just...”

  Alex cocked an eyebrow. How useless, to lie to the one man who could see into her soul. “Nay,” she admitted. “I loathe bloodlettings. I feel faint just thinking about them, and to have to be present at one...” She shook her head.

  “‘Tis true,” old Guyot interjected, untying his blood-spattered apron. He wore a green coif over his sparse white hair; Nicki always thought of a lizard when she saw him. “She’s quite irrational about them. Won’t submit to them herself. Once, I had her tied down so I could bleed her for a fever, and she fought so hard against the ropes that they cut into her wrists. Her husband made me release her.”

  “I would have, too,” Alex said quietly, his gaze still trained on her.

  “‘Twas a mistake.” Guyot unrolled the sleeves of his tunic. “And one that might have cost her her life. Bleedings can be critical. Take his lordship here. He would have died for sure if we hadn’t drained the tainted blood from him.”

  Gaining his feet, Alex said, “What do you think the problem is?”

  “I know what the problem is,” replied the old man testily as he packed up his satchel. “His lordship is suffering from a cephalical ailment.”

  Nicki and Alex exchanged a look of puzzlement as she rose from the floor.

  The surgeon made a face that implied only the barest toleration of their ignorance. “His brain has been afflicted with hot vapors.”

  “Ah,” Nicki said. “So, does that mean he’s—”

  “Being situated at the top of the body, the brain—which is by nature temperate—is exceedingly vulnerable to overheating.” Guyot lifted his bloody knife from the bucket and wiped it off on a rag. “Since it is the seat of sense and reason, when the brain is overcome by heat, the afflicted party may experience such dementia as his lordship displays.”

  “But what caused this overheating?” Alex asked. “Is he ill, or...is it something else?”

  “Of course he’s ill,” the old man snapped. “‘Tis a contagion brought on by a flux in the atmosphere. ‘Twill strike others, mark my word—especially if they stand close enough to his lordship to breathe in the malignant vapors as they’re driven out of him.”

  Nicki and Alex both backed away from the bed.

  “Will he be all right?” Nicki asked.

  “That’s for the Almighty to decide.” Guyot pinned his mantle over his shoulders.

  “Isn’t there anything more we can do?” she asked, dismayed at the notion of just sitting around and waiting for fate to take its course.

  The old surgeon nodded. “Boil a red onion in a mixture of verjuice, honey and mustard. Hold it under his nose twice a day, while it’s hot, and make him smell it. Do you need me to write it down?”

  “Verjuice, honey and mustard,” Nicki said. “I’ll remember.”

  “Very well, then.” Maître Guyot cleared his throat and held out his withered old hand, palm up. “Then all that remains is the matter of the—”

  “Oh, yes.” Nicki dug in her pouch for the requisite payment and pressed the coins into his hand.

  “Twice a day,” he barked on his way out. “While it’s hot. I won’t be responsible for the consequences if you forget.”

  Nicki and Alex stood in silence over Milo’s bed as he writhed and muttered.

  “I’ll sit up with him tonight,” Alex offered, his old instinct for gallantry having reasserted itself. She almost wished he would avoid any such chivalric gestures; it would help to dampen her feelings for him.

  “Nonsense. I’ve already ordered a pallet made up for me right here, next to the bed. I’ll stay with him.”

  “You shouldn’t be anywhere near him. You might catch his illness.”<
br />
  “So might you.”

  “I’m a man,” Alex protested. “I could withstand it better. I should take care of him. He’s my cousin, after all.”

  “He’s my husband,” Nicki said, quietly but firmly.

  Alex looked at her. She saw a muscle jump in his jaw. Softly he said, “Won’t you let me do anything for you, Nicki?”

  “I won’t let you do this. It’s not your place. It’s mine.”

  He rubbed the back his neck. “Promise you’ll summon me if...he becomes difficult to handle.”

  “I will. Good night, Alex.”

  “Good night.”

  * * *

  “Where are you? Christ, woman, where are you?”

  Nicki sat bolt upright on her pallet, her heart racing. “Milo?” It was dark; the candle must have burned down. She hadn’t meant to fall asleep, only to rest her eyes, but she must have been more tired than she realized.

  “Are you there?” Milo’s voice was groggy and breathless.

  Nicki stood up and saw the dark shadow of her husband sitting up in bed. “Here I am, Milo. Lie down.”

  “Thank God.” He sank back down onto his pillow. “You’re here. You’re here.” Nicki smoothed the damp hair off his forehead. He’d been sweating; that was probably good, because it would cool the hot vapors ravaging his brain. Most likely he’d slept, as well, for if he’d been consumed all this time by the delirium he’d suffered earlier, she never could have fallen asleep. That had to be a good sign.

  “Go back to sleep, Milo. You’ve been sick. You need your sleep.”

  He reached for her, pulling her onto the bed. “Lie with me. Please. It’s been so long.”

  It had been a long time—years—since they’d lain together in the same bed. Neither of them had much missed that physical intimacy, but now he was ill, and in need of the comfort of another warm body next to his. And surely comfort was all he was after. He was incapable of anything else.

  “Take this off,” he said, tugging at the wrapper she wore over her night shift. “I’m cold. I want to feel your warmth.” She slipped it off and laid it at the foot of the bed, then got under the covers next to her husband—who was shivering, despite the balmy night—pulling the bed curtains closed around them lest she doze off here. Servants slept in the rushes nearby, and soldiers would start straggling in around dawn. It wouldn’t do for them to see her in bed in a sleeveless shift.

  Milo gathered her in his arms, and she cautiously returned the embrace. Maître Guyot would disapprove of such close contact, but if God intended for her to be stricken with this malady, she would be stricken with it. Regardless of the course their marriage had taken, Milo was her husband, and he needed her.

  “You were always so warm,” he murmured, his shivers abating. “So soft. How it pleased me just to hold you.” It frightened Nicki to hold Milo, and she did so carefully. She could feel his ribs through his shirt, and the bandage on his arm where he’d been bled. He smelled of wine and sickness, and his skin was clammy to the touch.

  Closing her eyes, she remembered him as he’d been back in Périgeaux—the charming, funny, erudite older cousin of the boy she loved. Alex had adored Milo, and for that reason, so had she. He was immensely likeable; who could help but be fond of him? When he’d proposed, she knew she could have done far worse.

  Of course, she hadn’t known how he would deteriorate. It made her ache inside to think what had become of him. He’d lost the best part of him. And she...she’d lost Alex.

  “I’ve missed this.” He stroked her hair with a palsied hand. “I’ve missed you. Do you remember the last time we made love?”

  She shook her head. Their couplings had been all too forgettable, and they’d ceased so long ago. She did recall trying to talk him into bedding her after he’d lost interest, for the sake of an heir. And she remembered the night he’d finally admitted the truth—that the problem lay not with her, but with him, and that they’d never have children and she’d best accustom herself to the idea.

  “‘Twas in your father’s shop,” he breathed into her ear, “after your family had gone to bed. I came and woke you up in the middle of the night, remember? You all slept in that one room, so we had to go in back, where he made the saddles.”

  Oh, God. Nicki closed her eyes. “Milo...”

  “I remember the smell of the leather.” He pressed his lips to her temple so tenderly it made her eyes sting. “And the smell of you, and the little sounds you made, and the way your breasts felt through that rough homespun shift of yours. You made some silly jest in the middle of it, and giggled—I felt it deep inside you. You asked why I didn’t laugh.”

  He kissed her hair, her forehead. Never, even when they were first married and trying to make a go of it, had he been so gentle and loving. She hadn’t known he had it in him. To discover it now, in this way, consumed her with sadness.

  “I couldn’t tell you,” he murmured hoarsely, “what I came to tell you that night—that I’d be marrying someone else in the morning. I’m sorry, Violette. ‘Twas weak of me, and cruel, to let you find out afterward. I know you never—” His voice caught. “You never forgave me,” he finished in a quavering whisper.

  “God, Milo.” Nicki’s throat felt as if a fist were squeezing it tight. “Milo...”

  “Shh.” He kissed her eyelids, damp with unshed tears. “Let me tell you now what I couldn’t bear to tell you then—that I had to do it, or thought I did. I thought it was my only chance for happiness.” His little rasp of laughter was grim. “God, what a fool I was. And you paid the price.”

  She stroked his face—skin stretched over bone. “It’s all right, Milo,” she managed as hot tears spilled down her cheeks. “You did what you thought you must. I forgive you.”

  “How can you?” he whispered.

  Nicki thought of Violette, who’d sacrificed her life rather than go on without Milo. “Because I love you. I always have. That hasn’t changed.”

  “Oh, God, Violette.” He held her tighter than she would have thought possible, given his frailty. “I love you so much. I love you. I love you. I’ll always love you.”

  “I know.” She was weeping now, and holding him as tightly as he held her.

  “I’m sorry. I’m so—”

  “I know. It’s all right. You can go to sleep now. I’m here.”

  “Will you be here in the morning?”

  She took his face in her hands. “I’ll always be here. We’re together now.”

  He smiled in the dark, and for a moment he looked like the old Milo again, the jocular, carelessly agreeable fellow who was everyone’s friend.

  She kissed his cheek, snuggled up against him. “Good night, Milo.”

  “Good night, my love.” His breathing grew steady, his arms around her heavy. As he drifted into the darkness, so did she.

  Just as sleep was claiming her, she thought she heard him whisper, “Thank you.”

  * * *

  “Damn!” Daybreak glowed through the narrow slits that served as windows in Alex’s tiny chamber. He’d overslept.

  He grabbed his chausses off the floor and pulled them on, berating himself; he’d meant to check on Nicki during the night. That is, he meant to check on Milo and see how Nicki was doing with him.

  He threw on his shirt as he leapt up the turret stairs. Servants were setting up trestle tables when he strode into the great hall. A few soldiers loitered about, waiting for breakfast. The hall was vast and dim, lit only by a few shafts of dawn light squeezing through the arrow slits.

  Nicki’s pallet was empty. Milo’s bed curtain’s were closed. She must have arisen early and gone up to the solar to wash up and get dressed.

  Hoping Milo had managed to get to sleep, Alex stepped silently over the pallet and pulled the bed curtains aside. In the dark, womblike shelter of the bed he saw that Milo was, indeed, sleeping.

  With Nicki, also sound asleep, curled in his embrace.

  Alex stared, shaken on some level he hadn’t know
n existed. Nicki and Milo asleep together, their arms around each other.

  Like lovers.

  Like husband and wife.

  She had her back to Alex, but her face was tilted up. Her mouth was slightly open. A strand of golden hair was stuck to her cheek, in the salty trail of what could only have been a tear.

  Would she have cried for him, he wondered, if he’d been the one who’d succumbed to this mysterious affliction? For it must be an illness of the brain, caused by atmospheric upheavals, as that withered old surgeon had insisted. Alex had briefly suspected Gaspar, but the pieces didn’t fit. Gaspar’s scheme had been to dose Nicki with a sleeping draft, not a poison that caused lunacy and convulsions.

  Nicki’s incredible hair spilled off the side of the bed, cascading to the floor. Her bare shoulder and arm looked creamy in the semidarkness.

  Alex wondered how it would feel to wake up in the morning with Nicki’s arms around him. At that moment he would have given anything to trade places with Milo.

  No attachments, remember? He was here to plant a babe in her belly, nothing more. He’d sworn an oath to do it, so he’d damn well do it—and without wasting any time about it. The sooner she quickened, the sooner he could get away from here—which he was suddenly very eager to do.

  He started to draw the curtain closed, when Nicki’s arm moved. She shifted restlessly, as one does upon awakening.

  And then she opened her eyes and looked at him.

  Chapter 12

  Nicki was taken aback to find Alex staring at her, standing over the bed with the curtain held aside. His gaze was steady, his eyes very large and dark.

  With the poor light, she couldn’t see his hard edges, the faint scars. He looked almost boyish, or would have were it not for the morning stubble that shadowed his jaw.

  Alex looked toward Milo, still sleeping peacefully, and back at her. It felt strange for him to see her this way, in bed with Milo’s arms around her. But for the immodesty of it, it shouldn’t. Milo was her husband, after all. And yet...

  She’d loved Alex. If the truth be told, she loved him still—a sinful love, given her marriage to Milo, and foolish, given his lack of regard for her, but there it was. To have this man for whom she harbored this illicit, barely-suppressed passion looking on as she awoke in another man’s embrace confounded her utterly.