The Raven's Revenge (26 page)

A thrill ran through her as the day came back to her in a rush. She and Nicholas were married! She had pledged herself to the man of her heart. Katherine smiled, remembering the unintelligible singsong ceremony. At least, she hoped that’s what she’d done.

“My lady awakens,” he said, his deep resonant voice curling into her heart. “She deigns to smile upon me. ’Tis like the sun when it rises in the morning.”

“Good afternoon, dear husband,” her pulse quickened when she said the word. “I did not intend to sleep through my wedding day. Or have I dreamt it all…?” Katherine’s voice trailed off. She leaned forward, and reached a finger to Nicholas’s cheek. Warm and scratchy from the day’s growth of beard, he was real and not imagined. “I did not dream, you, did I? Standing by my side? Saying you will be my husband?”

Nicholas smiled and took her hand in his warm grip. “Nay, ’twas not a dream. You are my wife; I am your husband. And as such, I would ask a boon.”

“Whatever is in my power I would grant.” Katherine smiled.

“’Tis a simple request.” He relinquished her hand. “Give me your Chinese coin.”

Surprised, Katherine reached inside her neckline, noticing that Nicholas had loosened her clothing while she slept. An unaccustomed familiarity, but it spoke of the new intimacies in her life, and she felt touched by his care for her. She pulled the ribbon over her head and handed the coin to him.

He held it cupped in his hand for a moment, examining it as if he could read the foreign characters.

“A token to seal our troth,” he said and opened his other hand to reveal a fine gold chain.

“A gift?” Katherine asked. Her heart rose and then fell. “But I have naught for you.”

“
You
are my present.” Nicholas leaned toward her. She raised her lips to meet his; a light gentle kiss, but its warmth reached her heart.

Katherine made a contented sigh and watched his big fingers struggle with the knot on the ribbon, finally getting it undone. He strung the Chinese coin on the delicate chain and clasped it behind her neck. When he had it fastened, he ran his fingers along the links where they rested on her skin.

She threw her arms around his neck. She was not ready to tell him she loved him, but she could tell him some of how she felt. She put her forehead against his. “You make me very happy. I did not know what ’twas to be happy until you came into my life.”

Nicholas gave her a half smile and stroked her hair. “Ah lass,” he said. “Then I am happy too.”

* * *

Over the next days, Nicholas and Katherine shared the fine details of their lives like children exchanging confidences. Nicholas had many opportunities to divest himself of his lie, but he let each one go by. Often Katherine’s giggles would fill the room, a sound so joyous he did not have the will to make it stop. He told himself he didn’t want to ruin this honeymoon period, to see Katherine’s smiles turn to frowns, but he knew in his heart it was because he was a coward. He had wedged himself into a tight spot, and he could not extricate himself with grace.

Or honor.

Although for most of his life he had been able to shrug off his worries, he now found it impossible. So he hid them as best he could behind a wall of hot sensuality. Late at night, he’d lie awake watching Katherine sleep, realizing he had been hoist by his own petard.

He enjoyed this time with the bittersweet appreciation of a man awaiting the hangman. They could not stay cocooned in this room forever. Sometime they would have to venture out. Sometime he would have to tell her the truth, before she found out from someone else.

On the afternoon of their third day as husband and wife, Nicholas found himself in bed watching her as she stood by the small window wearing nothing save his lucky coin on the gold chain he had given her. Her hair, unbound and gloriously tangled from love-play, hung long and silky down her back.

He eyed the square set of her shoulders, her firm derrière, the elegance of her small bare feet, while he again told himself
it is time
.

The words floated through his mind, disjoined. He opened his mouth to speak, but shut it quickly before any of the words could slip out. He did not want to bungle it. There had to be some explanation she would understand. He had just not thought of it yet.

“Nicholas?”

He propped his head on his hand. “Hmmmm?”

“I have come to the realization that you did not tell me the truth.”

A flash of alarm, like hot fire, ran through him. How had she found out? She had not been from his sight in days. Had he spoken in his sleep? Had she been reading his mind?

He cleared his throat. “I truly did not mean to cause you any pain,” he said.

“Oh no,” she reassured him. “You have not hurt me, although I confess to having a slight soreness.” Her smile trembled. “You have shown me the greatest bliss.”

Relief washed over Nicholas like a wave of cold surf. A chill ran through him with the dawning realization that causing Katherine pain would pain him as well.

He patted the spot, still warm, next to him.

Katherine walked toward him and sat down.

“What did I do?” he asked, not sure he really wanted to know.

“You did not tell me the truth,” her voice quavered. She put a warm hand on his cheek. “Mating ’tis not the most pleasant thing a man and a woman can do together. ’Tis so much more than that, Nicholas. When I eat a comfit, or my stitches turn out right,
that
is pleasant.” She turned away from him, but he could still see a light stain of pink touch her cheeks. 

“When we join as man and woman ’tis the greatest joy. Yet I cannot believe it is usually so.” She frowned. “I heard talk, servants’ talk, that made me think that some find it not even pleasant at all.”

“No, ’tis not always so,” he agreed. “Although I cannot tell you why. There is some special alchemy between us. Together we make gold.” Light goose flesh ran down her arms, and he rubbed them before pulling her into his embrace.

Katherine snuggled into his warmth. “What would have happened to my life had I not walked into that storm and found you in the cottage? Would I now be married to Finch? Would you have survived?” Katherine shivered. “How frightening to think that had the storm started just a few minutes earlier, or father delayed our meeting by even half an hour, I would not have left my home. I would never have found you.”

Nicholas tightened his arms around her. “It cannot be chance that we met, dear Katherine.”

Katherine smiled. “I shall never feel the same way about thunderstorms again. I shall always find them romantic.”

Nicholas laughed. “I find you romantic. The way you bite your lip, the way you make little noises when you sleep, even the way you look at me when I have done something that annoys you.”

Katherine giggled.

“’Tis not funny,” Nicholas protested. “Ah lass, I fear I am losing my reason—whatever reason I did have. All I want is for you to be here beside me, and for me to be inside you.” He gave her a last squeeze before he sat up and covered her with a blanket. “But, we must give your tender parts a rest now.”

“I would like a bath and my supper.”

“Then I will brave the dangerous outer reaches and find us provisions. And some hot water.”

Before his body could convince his mind to stay, Nicholas pulled on some clothes.

When he returned with food, and attendants delivering the tub and water, Katherine was hiding under the sheets.

“You can come out now,” Nicholas called to her as the door shut, and he latched it behind them. “Shall I feed you as you bathe? How very dissolute that would be, eh?” He smiled. “I think you would like it.”

He helped her into the tub and found that, instead of feeding her, he could not keep his hands off her. He lathered and rinsed her as if she were a great lady and he her servant. He washed her hair, her shoulders, her breasts, her feet, leaving her tender parts to soak.

“Will you not get in?” Katherine made a playful splash.

He would have liked to join her, but that would be folly. His breeches had already become uncomfortably tight, and his breathing ragged, from the exquisite process of bathing her. He trailed kisses across the slippery expanse of her forehead and down her nose before he came to her lips, pliable, waiting for him, opening to his tongue, so unlike their first kiss, and yet so similar in that it left him stunned and winded. He reluctantly pulled away.

“Ah, sweet Katherine, perhaps ’tis best I stop and eat some of the food they have brought, else you find yourself my dinner.”

Katherine giggled. Her face a dewy radiance from the heated water, he wondered how he could have ever thought her plain. Her newfound sensuality called to him like a siren.

“If you will not join me, then, perhaps ’tis time for me to get out,” she said, rising from the bath and pulling a linen towel around her to dry. He wondered what it would be like to watch Katherine grow heavy with child. His child. Suddenly a great yearning rose up in him for something he had never known he wanted.

She pulled her muslin shift over her head. The loose fabric fell in a curtain to her ankles.

“I have not been outside this door in so many days I have lost count,” she smiled and walked to him, the outline of her small figure clear through the translucent fabric.

Nicholas felt a prickle of unease. 

“I know there is much to do in London. I have never seen a play,” she said somewhat wistfully.

He reached his hand to hers, and she took it. He pulled her to his lap. Rubbing his head against the soft muslin fabric, he inhaled her scent of woman and lavender. Her wet hair trailed against his shirt. “I have forgot there is another world besides this room and the kitchen.” He nuzzled her neck. “I have seen several plays, and I have found them to be greatly overrated,” he said, wishing the lie were true. He could not keep Katherine cocooned in the room much longer. They were both becoming prisoners of his deceit. 

“Katherine, I must tell you something.”

“Yes, Nicholas?” She readjusted herself in his lap.

Another rush of desire coursed through him. He wanted her again, god help him. Nicholas ran a hand up inside her smock, along the silky skin of her leg up her thigh to her nest of curls.

“I…I…” Nicholas took a deep breath and was assaulted by her sweet smell. He swallowed and took the coward’s way out, yet again, as the wrong words spilled forth. Words that did not tell her the truth. Words that postponed the telling until another painful moment. “I am more and more reluctant to attend to the business that brought me here to London. I am finding it hard to attend to anything but you.” That, at least, was true.

Katherine made an indrawn breath and opened her legs to him. She put her arm around his neck. While he teased her with his finger, she made the most wonderful little sounds. He raised his mouth to her, and she kissed him, a strong powerful joining of souls. He wanted to lift her in his arms and take her back to the bed.

She rested her head against his shoulder, breathing heavily. “I think I cannot eat with your hand there. I cannot think of food. But I do think I must eat. I am hungry for you, my husband, and for my dinner.”

Husband
. A strange sounding word. Certainly one Nicholas had never thought to hear himself called. But it sounded so right when Katherine said it. A warm, pleasant word. An endearment.

Nicholas reluctantly pulled his hand away and picked up a piece of bread. “Yea, wife, I will make sure you have energy to match mine anon. But tonight we shall rest.” He took a bite and then handed the bread to Katherine to eat. They sat companionably cozy and fed each other a sensual meal of bread and cheese and kisses.

When they had eaten their fill, Nicholas carried Katherine to their bed. They lay in each other’s arms, tired and sated from the meal.

Katherine ran her hands over him. He knew he could have her, but that she needed rest, as her body needed rest from his. He had never slept the night through with a woman without physically joining with her. The prospect was a novelty, and it moved him almost as much as Katherine’s innocent joy in sexual discovery.

They lay together, Katherine’s back to his front, her head nestled on his good arm. Her breathing was hypnotic, and Nicholas found himself floating off sleep.

“I love you.”

The words were a sigh, so soft that at first he thought he had not heard her correctly. No one had said those words to him in a very long time. Not since his mother died.

They warmed him.

Then they chilled him when he realized that telling Katherine the truth would destroy more than the precious happiness they shared.

It would destroy her love.

And that might destroy him.

* * *

Early the next morning, Nicholas emerged from their room. He had not slept well that night, so afraid of losing something he did not fully have. Katherine had slept, snuggled beside him, the sound of her even breaths giving him some relief from his recriminations. He left her sleeping in a tangle of bedclothes. He needed to get away from her. All resolve fell away in her presence. In his own company, he could muster his will to beseech her forgiveness.

Sending Jeremy up to guard the door, he joined Henry in the common room.

His old friend nursed a mug of ale. His eyes were bloodshot, and his swollen jaw made his face appear lopsided.

“A good morning to you,” Nicholas greeted him.

“Nay, I think not,” Henry said. His hand shook as he reached for his mug. “Me tooth hurts fierce, it does. I didna sleep a wink. I would be drinking the laudanum if it didna make me so puking sick. If I were a horse, ye would do me the favor to take me out and shoot me.”

“That I could not do,” said Nicholas, sitting across from him. “But I could find a barber to pull the tooth.”

Henry put his mug on the table with a clunk. “Shootin’ me would be much kinder.”

A serving maid brought Nicholas his breakfast and the two men sat in silence. While Nicholas ate, Henry nursed his mug.

“Lady Ashton is well?”

“You well know my mother has been dead these twenty years,” Nicholas pretended to misunderstand him.