Wild Wind (29 page)

Last week, Milo had asked him point blank if he’d lain with Nicki yet. When Alex admitted his lack of success, his cousin informed him that Gaspar knew of the “arrangement” and was mightily displeased about it—one more vexing complication.

Of course, there was always the chance that Nicki’s petition for stewardship would meet with Father Octavian’s favor. She seemed to think there was a chance of this, and Alex had no reason to doubt her. If she and Milo could remain at Peverell without producing the required heir, there would be no need for Alex to seduce her—a mixed blessing. No longer would he have to deal with his uneasiness over finessing her into bed at her husband’s behest, but nor would he get to make love to her. And making love to Nicki was simply all he wanted anymore; he longed for her with an intensity that staggered him. Sometimes he thought he’d go mad if he didn’t have her soon.

Everyone was applauding, so Alex joined in. Nicki yawned as she clapped. The larger of the two minstrels noticed this. “I see milady grows weary of battles and bloodshed,” he intoned across the hall. “What say you to a tale of the heart—a poignant romance which has brought tears to ladies’ eyes for generations?”

Milo groaned, muttering into his goblet, “Not Tristan and Isolde.”

“The timeless legend of Tristan and Isolde,” the minstrel announced, “has been told a thousand times...”

“And I’ve been there every single time,” Milo grumbled, handing the goblet to Nicki and struggling to sit upright. “I say,” he called out feebly, his voice thick with drink; the great hall quieted so that he could be heard. “If it’s a tragic love story you want, my lady wife has penned one herself that rivals any in your repertoire, I’ll wager.”

“Milo, no!” Nicki whispered, grabbing his arm.

“‘Tis a poem called ‘The Thorny Rose,’” Milo said, shaking Nicki off. “And I daresay my men would enjoy hearing it again.”

“No, Milo, please!” she begged, but her husband ignored her. If Alex wasn’t mistaken, ‘The Thorny Rose’ was the poem she’d torn out of his hand that first evening in the solar.

“No doubt it’s an exquisite piece of verse,” the big man said, “but alas, I don’t know it.”

“Our Sir Marlon can sing it.” Milo nodded to the troubadour knight, a tall fellow of middle years who rose and strode toward the stage. “I’m sure you and your brother would appreciate the opportunity for a bit of rest and a cup of claret.”

The minstrels bowed. “As you wish, milord.”

“Have him sing something else,” Nicki whispered to Milo. “I don’t want to hear that one.”

“But it’s my favorite,” Milo said. “Shh...he’s about to start.”

The only sound in the great hall was the popping and settling of the logs in the hearth behind Alex. No one moved or spoke as Sir Marlon closed his eyes and began to sing. He had a beautiful voice, smooth and deep and melodious. “Within the earth’s most secret womb, A maiden and a soldier meet, While far above them roses bloom, Trembling in the summer heat.”

Alex turned to find Nicki staring rigidly ahead, her hands fisted in the skirt of her tunic.

“Hand in hand, like bride and groom,” Marlon sang, “Two souls unite with joy replete, Sheltered in this holy room, This ancient cave, so cool and deep.”

Nicki closed her eyes, as if in pain; her throat moved. Alex’s heart swelled in his chest until he could barely breathe.

“The maiden’s love is so complete, A perfect rose with fair perfume, To treacherous thorns she pays no heed, They’ll do their damage all too soon.”

Abruptly Nicki rose, mumbled something to Milo, and strode swiftly toward the turret. Milo met Alex’s gaze and shrugged, as if to say, “What’s gotten into her?” Gaspar, sitting with his men, watched Nicki disappear into the stairwell, glanced briefly at Alex, and returned his attention to Marlon.

Alex fought the impulse to follow her, knowing how it would look and cursing the need to bow to propriety at a time like this. Marlon sang on, describing the maiden’s love for her young soldier. She thought of him when the sun rose in the morning and when it set at night. Frequently her sleep was disturbed by dreams of longing for him, although he had never more than held her hand. While they were apart, she was an incomplete girl pretending to be whole. Perhaps she was mad to be so consumed by love for a man who could offer no marriage vow, no home, no future, but it was a sweet madness, and one she was powerless to resist.

“Christ,” Alex whispered. For nine long years, Alex had assumed Luke was right—that Nicki had merely used him to capture Milo. He couldn’t have been more wrong.

“Alex?” Milo frowned in evident puzzlement. He glanced at the doorway through which his wife had departed, and back at Alex.

Alex listened in a daze to the rest of it—the shameful secret the maiden harbored, her betrothal to another, the young couple’s anguish, the soldier’s desperate but futile plea for her to run away with him...the things she wished to God she could tell him.

In the song’s final verse, a bride and groom stand on the chapel steps under a harsh morning sun exchanging vows, both deeply in love with others, but compelled for reasons of their own to wed. The bride has tucked a dainty little wild rose—one of several the soldier had picked for her their last afternoon together—beneath her bodice, next to her heart. Its petals caress her flesh, recalling a passion that will forever burn in her breast, while its thorns serve as a bitter reminder that the one great love of her life is lost to her. From this day forward, her very soul will be incomplete.

Deeply shaken, Alex did not join in the thunderous applause that filled the great hall when the song was over. Nicki hadn’t wanted him to hear her bittersweet tale, he realized. She’d fled in mortification, ashamed of the feelings she’d unwillingly exposed.

Milo studied Alex with a remarkably astute gaze, given his inebriation. He opened his mouth to say something, and then closed it, looking very sad.

“Milo...” Alex began, but no words came to him.

Milo nodded. “I should have known.”

Alex stood. “I have to go to her.”

“Go.” With a quavering arm, Milo reached for his goblet.

Mindful of how tongues would wag if he went racing up the stairs to the solar, Alex descended to his own chamber and then sprinted up the service stairwell. His chest was heaving by the time he reached the topmost landing.

He opened the door, finding the solar completely dark. At first he thought she must not be here, for surely she would have lit a lantern. But then he saw her, a dark form standing in front of an open window, facing the night sky, her veil clutched in her fist. Her hair spilled in a river of gold down her back.

He crossed to her, his heart pounding. She didn’t hear him until he was directly behind her, and then she spun around to face him.

Her eyes were enormous in the moonlight. Tears glistened on her cheeks, making his heart constrict. “Nicki...”

She ducked her head and tried to turn around, but he seized her shoulders and held her still. “I love you, Nicki,” he whispered hoarsely.

She stared up at him, her eyes shimmering wetly. Her veil fluttered to the rushes.

“I loved you then, and I love you now, to the depths of my soul.”

She closed her eyes, fresh tears spilling from them. “Oh, God.”

“Don’t cry.” He took her damp face between his hands. “Please don’t cry. I swear to God, Nicki, I love you. I do.” He pressed his lips to her cheek, salty-sweet. “Don’t cry. Don’t cry.” He kissed her forehead, her eyelids. An agonizing gladness welled within him; it squeezed his throat, stung his eyes. “Don’t cry.”

“You love me?”

“Always and forever.” He rubbed his cheek, wet now with his own tears, against hers, the oath Milo had extracted from him echoing in his ears...You’ll endeavor to sire me a son....You’ll keep your true purpose from Nicolette, and when it’s done, you’ll leave here and never contact her again. “Oh, God, Nicki.”

“I never stopped loving you,” she whispered, her hands in his hair. “But it was wrong. It still is.”

“This can’t be wrong,” he breathed against her mouth. The only good thing to come out of this mire of deceit and intrigue was the love that had been born anew between them. How could a love so pure and powerful be wrong?

“I’m married.”

“You were mine first.” His brushed his lips over hers, tasting her tears. “We belong to each other. We always will.”

“But—”

“Shh.” He kissed her gently, his hands cradling her head, his mouth gliding over hers slowly, so he could savor this charmed moment. Her lips were salty and hot and sweet, and they felt like wet satin against his, and they were hers, and he was kissing her, and kissing her, softly, over and over again, and oh God, she was kissing him back.

“Nicki...Nicki...”

Her hands were cool on the back of his neck, her breath warm against his lips. She kissed him, sighing. She was kissing him. Nicki was kissing him!

Alex groaned, his joy as acute as pain. Banding his arms around her, he pressed her back against the window sill and kissed her deeply, wanting to prolong this delirious pleasure, to make it stretch out forever and ever.

She held him as tightly as he held her, her breasts crushed against his chest, her thighs firm against his. He felt the delicate bones of her hips, and her womanly softness. Arousal pulsed in his loins, and he stepped back from her, breathless, wanting her terribly, but not here, not now.

Her gaze was knowing, her smile tender as she raised a hand to caress his face. He captured her wrist and kissed her palm. She smiled and closed her eyes, and her expression of sweet rapture undid him. He gathered her in his arms again and closed his mouth over hers and lost himself in her.

They kissed in silence, endlessly, as if time had ceased to exist...or as if they could make it stand still if they just kept kissing and kissing...

Sometimes they kissed softly, their lips barely grazing, sometimes more deeply. He kissed her temple, the exquisite curve of her cheekbone; he lightly tongued the delicate rim of her ear, making her gasp. She kissed his scratchy jaw, tipped his head back to press her lips to his throat.

A knock at the turret door startled them. “Milady?”

“Edith,” Nicki whispered shakily. “I’m all right, Edith,” she called out. “I’ll get myself ready for bed. I don’t need you tonight.”

“Are you sure, lamb?”

“Quite sure.” Nicki rested her head on Alex’s shoulder as the old woman shuffled down the stairs. “She may come back.”

Alex kissed her hair. “I should leave,” he said grudgingly.

“Aye.” She looked up at him, her eyes begging him to stay. He lowered his mouth to hers, not wanting to leave, not wanting to lose her, dreading the notion of a future without her. They kissed with violent desperation, clinging to each other, his moans merging with her soft cries.

She broke the kiss, murmuring, “Alex, this is mad.”

Sire me a son...leave here and never contact her again...

“Life is mad. We’ll have to deal with it.” Tilting her chin up, he bent his head to hers. “But not tonight.”

“ARE YOU SURE
you’re allowed to be here?” Alex asked Nicki as she led him through the abbey’s large public square, bustling with servants and lay brothers, to a smaller, quieter courtyard off of it. Monasteries had strict rules regarding the presence of women within their walls.

“This is still considered part of the abbey’s public precincts,” she said, guiding him toward an oaken door in a low stone building. “If I were to venture into the cloister, Father Octavian would ban me from here permanently.”

Alex had been disappointed this morning to find Nicki dressed so demurely for their visit here, in a heavy gray tunic and wimple. She looked very much like a nun—a stark contrast to the Nicki who had kissed him so passionately, and at such length, in her solar last night. It had been well past matins when Alex finally returned to his chamber, and far later than that when sleep finally claimed him.

Nicki knocked on the oaken door.

“Be off!” cried the voice of an old man from within.

“‘Tis I, Brother Martin,” she called through the door. “Nico—”

The door flew open and an old, tonsured man in a black Benedictine robe drew Nicki into his arms. “Nicolette! My dear! Why didn’t you say so?”

“I...”

“Is this him?” the old monk asked, squinting at Alex. “The one you told me about?”

Nicki’s cheeks pinkened. “Yes, Brother. This is Alexandre de Périgeaux, my cousin by marriage. Alex, this is my friend, Brother Martin, whom I’ve mentioned to you.”

Brother Martin ushered his two guests through the door and shut it behind them. Alex gaped at the astonishing clutter that filled the prior’s quarters. It occurred to him that the old fellow might be quite mad.

Scores of small-scale wooden models and strange devices—some recognizable, some not—were scattered over tables, lined up on shelves and piled up on benches amid stacks of drawings and diagrams. A table-top calculating board stood in one corner, a water clock in another, a small furnace in yet another. The walls of the sizable chamber—save for the windows and shelves—were festooned with maps, calendars, drawings of strange machines, architectural renderings, tables of the tides and suchlike. There were many representations of odd-looking ships, bridges, canal locks and dams. One whole wall was devoted to astrological charts and sketches depicting mystifying arrangements of interlocking circles.

Brother Martin noticed Alex scrutinizing one in which the circles were labeled—if he was reading it right—Earth, Sun, Mercury and Venus. “Ah! You’re interested in the motions of the planets, I see.”

“Well...”

“This is a particularly interesting chart.” From the pouch on his belt, Martin withdrew a small horn case, and from that a curious contraption fashioned of two glass disks connected by heavy gold wire. Perching the strange apparatus on his nose, he peered at the chart through it, the curved glass making his eyes look as if they might pop right out of his face. Dear God, he is mad. Alex glanced toward Nicki to gauge her reaction to this remarkable eye mask, but she was examining the contents of a shelf with her back to him.