“You look tired,” Alex said, studying her in that all-seeing way.
“Aye. That pallet is lumpy, and I keep waking up, thinking Milo needs me. He doesn’t anymore, of course. After the first couple of nights, he’s slept quite soundly. But I wake up anyway, and then I can’t get back to sleep.”
Alex frowned. “Has it been like that all week?”
“Aye.” She yawned again. “Pardon me.”
“You should have asked me to take over for you,” Alex scolded.
“He’s my—”
“He’s your husband.” Alex smiled wearily. “Yes, I know.”
“Well,” Gaspar said, “there’s no need for you to be putting up with all that anymore. His lordship’s resting well—you said so yourself. If you don’t mind my advice, you should go back to sleeping in your solar. ‘Tis nice and quiet up there, and you’ve got your own bed with a feather mattress on it.”
Alex cast a wry look in Gaspar’s direction. “I hate to say it, but he’s right.”
Nicki nodded. “Milo’s been saying the same thing. I suppose you have a point. There’s nothing to be gained from lying awake all night if Milo doesn’t need me. I’ll return to the solar tonight.”
“Good,” the two men said simultaneously.
Nicki arched her brows. “How very novel to find you two so agreeable.”
Alex and Gaspar moved away from each other. Nicki chuckled. “Good day, gentlemen,” she said as she guided her mount toward the drawbridge.
“Good day, milady,” they called after her.
* * *
Gaspar reined in his mount at the edge of the woods and watched Lady Nicolette ride up the dusty road toward the Abbey of St. Clair. She waved to someone as she approached the entrance in the stone wall surrounding the neat cluster of low buildings.
So. Her ladyship was doing some marketing, eh? Gaspar had followed her—at a discreet distance—all the way from Peverell, and she hadn’t so much as ridden through St. Clair. She’d taken the road that led around the town, not even slowing down.
The funny thing was, she visited the monastery frequently, to see that half-mad old prior, Brother Matthew. No one had ever tried to stop her. Why the deception now?
No one had tried to stop her, but she’d always been given an escort—and she’d never objected to it, that Gaspar could recall. Whatever her purpose for coming here was innocent or not, she was going to some pains to keep it a secret.
A secret it might be well to unearth. If he was clever, Gaspar thought, turning his horse around and retracing his route through the woods, he could get his answer tonight, while Nicolette was under the influence of the valerian. She’d be bereft of her senses, of course, but that might make her all the more malleable. He could wheedle the truth out of her if he did it right.
And then he’d do the rest of it.
Gaspar smiled in anticipation all the way back to Peverell, thinking of tonight.
Chapter 15
“I...have...a...horn,” Alex said slowly, frowning in concentration over the primer as he lay on his stomach beneath the gnarled old oaks. “My horn is...shiny. I have a...” He mouthed the word as he squinted at it, stringing the sounds together in his mind. “Drum. My drum...is...red.”
He scanned the rest of the page; almost done. At least it was musical instruments now. He’d hated the part about the dolls and toy soldiers. “I have a...I have a....” Shit.
He turned the book toward Nicki, lying next to him. “I’m sorry, but I haven’t the faintest...Nicki?”
She was asleep, facedown on the blanket with one arm cradling her head. Her back rose and fell slowly, her breath fluttering a few stray hairs that had sprung loose from her braid and fallen over her face. Alex reached out tentatively, lifting the errant strands and smoothing them back.
No wonder she was exhausted. Not only had she slept poorly all week, but there was that trip into St. Clair this morning.
He scooped a finger under one of the earrings she’d bought there, a delicate, dangling confection of gold and pearls. A soft sigh—almost a moan—rose from her as his fingertip grazed her throat. He stilled, hoping she didn’t wake up.
She didn’t.
He could kiss her, he thought, laying the earring back down carefully. Now, as she slept. It might be his only chance for a while, the way things were going.
By rights, he should be filled with happy anticipation, inasmuch as she’d be returning to her solar tonight. It would help, having private access to her. But the notion of bedding her with her husband sleeping downstairs felt so fundamentally wrong that he knew he couldn’t do it.
He could tup her anywhere, of course—even out here on this blanket. He’d imagined it many times as they bent their heads over their lessons. The real problem wasn’t finding a place, but finding a way to breach that inviolable wall of propriety she’d built around herself.
Alex rolled onto his left hip, swallowing a gasp as his old wound—reawakened this morning by Gaspar’s viciousness—pulsed with sudden pain. Flopping back onto his stomach, he caught his breath and then sat up slowly, searching for a comfortable position.
A week ago, he’d resolved to be patient, to make her trust him, to win her over with subtlety. He’d done his best to be attentive without scaring her off, but it didn’t seem to be working. Although in general she seemed wonderfully relaxed in his company—much like the old Nicki when they used to meet in their cave—she turned prickly the moment his touch became too familiar.
Perhaps he was doing it wrong. Alex hadn’t had much practice wooing women subtly. The laundresses who trailed around after the king’s retinue would raise their skirts if he but smiled at them. Some of them had a few years on him, but he liked the older ones, because they were at ease with themselves. His favorite, Margery, was nearly twice his age, but he savored her husky laugh and her stout thighs, and the way she’d lightly scratch his back while he took his pleasure with her.
Now and then he’d get bored with the laundresses and want a fresh face. No matter where he was camped, there was usually a willing wench somewhere in the vicinity; rarely anymore did he bother with whores.
According to Luke, women liked him because he like them. He did. He liked them enormously, all of them. Plump ones, with bodies like warm bread dough. Slight young things with firm bottoms and dainty little breasts. Old ones, young ones. He was particularly fond of the plain-faced women. Oftentimes they had cultivated some interesting quality—a whimsical sense of humor, a beautiful singing voice, sometimes even a repertoire of erotic antics—to compensate for their lack of comeliness. He adored them all, wholeheartedly, and they rewarded his devotion with that most treasured of offerings, their bodies—a gift he strove to repay by coaxing from them the pleasure they so generously gave him.
His comrades envied his success with women, and he was not unappreciative of it himself. Women were plentiful, and if he was forced, from time to time, to store his seed longer than he would like between bed partners...well, that only made the tupping better when it came. For years, his sexual needs had been met with a minimum of fuss and a great deal of unabashed pleasure, a boon no man should take for granted. And, although he’d genuinely liked every woman he’d ever lain with, there had never been one who’d felt special to him—which, of course, was all for the good.
Sexual frustration, if not unknown to him, was enough of a rarity to be disconcerting. And frustration of the type he’d known this past week—interminable, overriding need with no end in sight—was completely foreign to him, and absolutely maddening.
It had become too much for him last night. He’d awakened soaked in sweat, as he had most nights since his reunion with Nicki, but this time his loins throbbed with the fiercest cockstand he could remember. It actually pained him; he was desperate for relief.
He briefly considered seeking out the red-haired dairy maid who’d taken to flirting with him. But, although she was pretty in an earthy way, he found the notion of releasing his se
ed in her no more attractive than releasing it into his own hand. In the end, he opted for his hand, because it was less trouble and because he didn’t want the dairy maid; he wanted Nicki.
He’d hated himself for resorting to self-abuse, a sin which his father had always counseled him to avoid, and which, for the most part, he did. In an effort to mitigate the sin, he was quick about it, concluding the deed with a few swift strokes of his fist as he imagined it to be the snug embrace of Nicki’s body.
Afterward, he reached onto the floor for his money pouch, pulling out the white satin ribbon and winding it around his hand, as had become his habit when he awoke during the night. For some reason it felt comforting, and he always fancied that it helped him to get back to sleep.
Lying on his back, he’d held his hand up to the shaft of bright moonlight from the arrow slit above his bed. The ribbon glimmered softly in the silvery beam.
Never had there been one woman, alone among the rest, whom he thought of day and night, dreamt of, contrived to be alone with and touch, whose scent transfixed him, whose laughter made his heart swell with joy, who made him ache with longing...
Except for Nicki. His feelings were overwhelming his reason. No attachments, remember? His passions had gotten the better of him, just as they had nine years ago. He ought to have learned his lesson. He ought to remember her duplicity, and the fact that she was married to his cousin, and that he’d sworn to impregnate her then never see her again.
He damn well ought to seize control of the situation, do what had to be done, and ride away.
Lying in bed last night watching the moonlight play over the white satin ribbon, he’d made himself a promise. Before midnight the next day—today—he would kiss Nicolette de St. Clair. It was just a promise, of course, not a solemn oath to God, of which he’d been making entirely too many lately. But Alex de Périgeaux did not take promises lightly, even to himself, and he meant to keep this one.
But how? She bristled every time he came near her.
Alex gazed down at Nicki as she dozed beneath the cool shelter of the trees, oblivious to his roiling emotions and secret vows. He could kiss her now, while she slept unawares. Her mouth would be a bit of a challenge, given her position, but he could kiss her cheek. It would fulfill his promise, if somewhat ignominiously. It had been a rash promise, as are most that are made in the middle of the night. She’d never let him kiss her, not yet. His only hope was to do it before she awoke.
Alex leaned over her and slowly lowered his mouth to her cheek. He breathed in her scent, heady and sweet on this warm afternoon, imagined how soft her cheek would feel beneath his lips.
She twitched, and he saw that a lock of his hair had fallen from behind his ear to brush across her temple. It must have tickled her, for she stirred, growling in a kittenish way that sent a hot little spark of desire crackling through him.
He backed away slowly as she blinked and yawned. “I must have fallen asleep,” she murmured in a voice all soft around the edges, but a little rough.
“I told you.” Alex patted the cushion of ferns through the woolen blanket. “Soft as a feather bed.”
Smiling blearily—God, he couldn’t take his eyes off her—she sat up, absently smoothing her rumpled tunic. Her face was ruddy where it had rested against the blanket, and imprinted with little creases. Alex’s gaze was drawn to her lips, which had become suffused with color. They would feel soft, he thought, leaning toward her, just slightly. Softer than her cheek, soft as warm silk, and hot...
She turned her head to drape her braid over her shoulder—probably a deliberate ploy to evade him. Alex cursed inwardly.
“‘Twill rain soon,” she said, glancing at the overcast sky. “We really ought to go back.”
“It’s not raining yet,” he said, stalling for time. “And our lesson’s not over.”
She lifted the open book. “Did you finish all the pages I’d asked you to read?”
“Aye. Well, almost.” Taking the volume from her, he pointed to the word that had stumped him. “What does this say? I have a...”
She leaned over the page. “Gigue.”
Alex blinked. “Gigue? It says gigue?”
Nicki laughed, clearly recalling King William’s advice to Alex on how to busy himself during his furlough. The sound was so sweet and silly and unrestrained that it touched off his own laughter.
“It makes a most mellifluous sound,” Nicki intoned, in an uncanny imitation of Berte.
“I’m quite sure it does,” Alex said, chuckling. “And I’m quite sure I haven’t got the slightest interest in learning how to play it.” Sobering, he said, “I’m sorry about all the idiotic things she said to you that day. All that blather about...men’s work disrupting your vital humors.”
She nodded, her own mirth subsiding. “Thank you, but I’ve learned to disregard most people’s theories about...” She shrugged with contrived indifference. “It didn’t bother me.”
He fingered the end of her braid as it rested on the blanket. “You do want children, though.”
Her voice, when she answered, was low and raw. “More than you can possibly imagine.” She cleared her throat. “But it wasn’t meant to be.”
“But if you could—”
“‘Tisn’t possible. Milo...” She looked away deliberately. “He doesn’t want me that way.”
He doesn’t want me that way. Not He can’t. He won’t. She was concealing Milo’s inadequacy, a kindness that Alex found quite unexpected and moving.
“If I were your husband,” Alex said softly, his hand closing around her braid, “I would have been eager to see my child grow in your belly.”
“I thought you disliked children.”
He shrugged noncommittally.
She watched his hand as it caressed her plaited hair. “Do you have many of your own?”
“Me?” He released the braid in surprise. “I’ve never been married.”
Her arched eyebrow spoke more clearly than words. Most men who’d been with many women had many illegitimate children.
“The last thing in the world I want is for the women I bed to bear my bastards. There are...techniques,” he said, heat rising in his face, “to prevent a woman from quickening.”
“Those vile potions that expel babes from the womb?”
“Nay. I mean before. That is, during...”
“Ah, yes. Edith told me about them. A woman can wear against her skin the womb of a she-goat that’s never conceived. Is that the sort of thing you’re talking about?”
“Aye, well, not that precisely.”
“She also told me about certain herbs a woman could wear in a bundle around her neck, or preparations she could put...inside the opening to her belly, that will keep the man’s seed from curdling into a baby.” Nicki laughed delightedly. “You’re turning quite purple.”
“Let’s talk about something else.”
“Nay.” She sat cross-legged with the book in her lap and addressed him squarely. “I want to hear about the techniques.”
“‘Tis hardly a proper topic of conversation.”
She laughed again. “And you think I’m priggish. Come. Tell me. Are those the types of methods you use?”
He turned away from her, incapable of discussing this while looking her in the eye. “Nay. There are...other means.”
“Such as?”
He sighed in resignation. “The man can...uncouple. Before.”
“Before?”
“Before.”
“Ah. Is that what you do?”
“Sweet Jesus.” Alex rubbed his neck. “Sometimes. Most of the time.”
“And the other times?”
He cleared his throat. “It’s possible to make love...using portals, two in particular, other than the one intended by nature.”
She was quiet for a long moment. “The mouth?”
God help me. “That would be one.”
“And...hmm...”
“That would be the other. Can we stop talking abo
ut this now?”
“Aren’t those forms of sodomy?”
He looked away again. “I don’t think of them as such.” Not the first one, at any rate; he rather liked that one.
“It sounds terribly sinful to me. Not the uncoupling necessarily, but the other. Do you actually enjoy—”
“You know, I think you were right.” Alex made a show of peering at the sky. “It’s going to rain soon.” He stuffed the tablet, stylus and book into her saddlebags and rose, offering his hand. “We should really be getting back.”
She baited him some more as they gathered their things, and enjoyed great laughter at his expense while they rode back to the castle. He shared in the laughter once his embarrassment receded, ridiculing his own chagrin and teasing her for her unladylike curiosity.
It reminded him a little of being with Faithe, and it occurred to him with a small shock that he and Nicki were talking and laughing like friends. But then, hadn’t they been friends in Périgeaux, when they’d shared their afternoons together in that little cave? Not that his feelings for her had stopped there—they’d become far too complicated—but the notion that they could actually be friends in addition to everything else struck him as extraordinary and wonderful.
It could be like this between us, he thought. If she were my wife, we could laugh together every day, and make love in the afternoon beneath the rustling trees, and grow fine, fat babies, lots of them...
If she were his wife and not Milo’s. And if he hadn’t sworn that blasted oath.
Fool! No attachments, remember? He should be coldbloodedly seducing her, for pity’s sake, not dreaming of laughter and babies.
As they dismounted in front of the keep Alex realized he’d hustled them back without kissing her. How would he manage it before matins in that crowded castle?
You won’t. Give it up. And don’t make any more middle-of-the-night promises to yourself.
“Are you all right, Alex?” Nicki took his hand, the first time she’d done so since Périgeaux. It filled him with a ridiculous sense of elation.
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