Wild Wind (34 page)

“Easy, now.” Alex took her in his arms and led her to a bench in the corner of the prior’s cluttered chamber, hoping she didn’t faint. Sweeping a pile of drawings onto the floor, he sat her down and knelt at her feet. “What is it, Nicki? What’s wrong?”

Brother Martin handed Nicki a cup of his pear wine, which she accepted with a trembling hand. “That document,” the prior told him, “assigns the stewardship of Peverell to Gaspar Le Taureau.”

“Gaspar!” Alex bolted to his feet. “God’s bones!”

“How did this happen?” Nicki asked in a small voice.

Brother Martin shrugged helplessly as he took the sheet of parchment from her. “He visited Father Octavian a few days ago. That’s all I know. I’m sorry, truly I am. I thought for sure...” He shook his head. “Clearly, I wasn’t as influential as I’d thought. I am sorry.”

Nicki stared, hollow-eyed, into her cup.

“Drink that, Nicki,” Alex said. “‘Twill do you good.”

“How did this happen?” she repeated in a toneless whisper.

“Do as your cousin says,” the prior urged her. “Drink that wine. ‘Twill warm your belly and soothe your nerves. And then I think it’s best that you two head back to Peverell. My weather clock says there’s a storm brewing.”

Alex thought that unlikely; it was a clear, pleasantly breezy afternoon. Still, he was eager to get Nicki away from here. Her state of shock alarmed him. He needed to comfort her, to take her in his arms and kiss her and reassure her, but he could hardly treat his “cousin” so affectionately in front of Brother Martin.

“He’s right, Nicki. We should leave.”

“I’d ask you to spend the night,” said the prior, “but Father Octavian won’t allow women on monastery grounds after sunset.”

Alex squatted in front of her. “Drink the wine, Nicki.”

Shaking her head, she handed the cup to the prior. “Let’s just go.”

THEY WERE BARELY
a mile into their journey home when the leaves began to shiver on their branches, surrounding them with an ominous murmur that made Alex’s scalp tickle. Darkness swept through forest with demonic speed. The horses whinnied nervously.

Damn. “What the devil is a weather clock?” Alex asked.

Nicki, riding ahead of him on the narrow track, didn’t respond. She’d spoken nary a word since they left the abbey.

A chill wind whistled through the trees, raising goose bumps through Alex’s heavy tunic. His hip began to ache. “Are you cold?” he called to Nicki, wondering if they should stop and retrieve their mantles from the saddlebags.

She shook her head.

The wind blew harder, tearing Nicki’s veil right off her head. It flew down into the ravine next to which they rode, a streak of white that vanished into the raging waters far below.

The first few raindrops stung their faces. “Hold onto your reins,” Alex said, just as the rain slammed down in earnest, battering them like fists.

“Nicki, take it slow!” Alex shouted over the suddenly hellish storm. Her mare looked skittish.

She yelled something back, but it was swallowed up by the roar of the rain, driven right into their faces by the wind. He saw her pat Marjolaina on the neck, which seemed to calm the frightened animal—but only momentarily.

Thunder crashed overhead, followed by a flutter of lightning. The erratic white light illuminated a horrifying scene in jittery images: the dappled mare losing her footing and toppling sideways into the ravine, Nicki flying after her.

Screams filled Alex’s skull...the horse’s, Nicki’s, his.

Alex leapt from his mount, his feet sliding on the wet gravel. He tumbled down the grassy ravine, propelled by wind and rain, until a tree abruptly halted his fall. “Nicki!” he screamed, struggling upright. “Nicki!”

He half-slid, half crawled down the rain-lashed slope, screaming Nicki’s name, until a dark form materialized below him in the torrent. No, there were two forms, he saw as he scrambled closer—the mare lying on her side, half-submerged in the stream, and Nicki, kneeling over her.

Alex gathered Nicki in his arms. “Nicki! Nicki, are you all right? Are you hurt?”

“Nay.”

“Are you sure? ‘Twas a bad fall.”

“The ground was soft. Alex...” She gripped his arms hard. “Marjolaina, she’s...oh, God, Alex.”

Facing his back to the rain, Alex examined the horse, who stared at him with wide, stunned eyes and flared nostrils. A swift examination revealed that she’d broken a front leg.

Alex unsheathed the sharp little eating knife that hung on his belt. Best to get this over with while the mare was still in a state of shock, before she tried to struggle upright. “Turn around, Nicki.”

“Oh, God. Oh, my poor Marjolaina.”

He drew her to close, kissed her forehead. “You know it’s the only way.”

“I know. I know. I just...I just wish to God you didn’t have to.”

Alex waited, rain hammering, while Nicki bent over her beloved Marjolaina and whispered something in her ear. She stroked the mare lovingly and kissed her on the nose. Then she rose and turned her back, her head down, her arms wrapped tightly around herself.

Alex pushed the wet hair out of his eyes and positioned his knife on the mare’s throat, just behind her jaw. Taking a deep breath, he dispatched her with a single stroke. He rinsed off the knife and his blood-spattered chausses swiftly in the river, then wrestled Nicki’s submerged saddlebags from the dead horse’s back. The saddle would have to wait until he came back to dispose of the body. Taking Nicki by the arm, he led her back up the ravine.

“Do you know of any shelter nearby?” he asked as he lifted her into his saddle.

She nodded as he saddled up behind her. “My uncle had a hunting lodge near here. I’ll guide you there.”

THE LODGE, A
thatched stone cottage enveloped by overhanging trees, looked huge until they stepped inside. The entire front end, Alex discovered, was an enormous byre for the horses and dogs that Henri de St. Clair and his friends would take hunting with them, and here they stabled Atlantes. A single, small room in back was reserved for human habitation, and although it was hard to see much, for night was falling and the storm still raged, it appeared to have been unoccupied for some time.

This back room had one window and a door, both curtained with skins that had come loose and flapped wildly, letting the wind blow the rain onto the muddy earthen floor. Dumping their saddlebags on a rough-hewn table, Alex ducked out into the maelstrom for a rock, which he used to nail down the skins.

As he did this, Nicki built a fire in the clay-lined cooking pit, using wood piled up next to it. When it was lit, Alex breathed a sigh of relief. The openings—except for the smoke hole—were sealed, and the fire crackled reassuringly. Despite the omnipresent rumble of rain, their little sanctuary felt almost cozy.

Taking Nicki in his arms, he found her shivering violently beneath her sodden tunic. “You’ve got to get out of these wet things. We both do.” He reached into her saddlebags for her mantle, but found it to be drenched from its dunking in the stream. Retrieving his own mantle, a long, silk-lined cape of gray wool trimmed in black lambskin, he handed it to her. “You can wrap this around yourself.”

“Wh-what about you?” she asked, teeth chattering.

Alex turned his back to give her privacy and unbuckled his sword belt. “I’ll be fine.” Nicki’s lips were blue. He would have foregone the mantle even if she’d been a man.

His hip, which had ceased to pain him during their mishap at the ravine, throbbed in earnest as he stripped off his wet clothes. His drawers were only slightly damp, having been shielded from the rain by both his chausses and tunic. They would dry quickly if he stayed close to the fire, which was already filling the room with its blessed warmth.

Keeping his back to Nicki, he dragged one of the benches that flanked the table close to the fire, draping his tunic and chausses over it and setting his boots as close to the flames as he thought safe. When he straightened up, he found Nicki struggling to spread her clothes over the bench with one hand while clutching the mantle closed with the other.

“Here.” Alex took over the chore, finding that she’d removed not only her tunic, but her linen undershift, which was nearly as wet. He laid her wet slippers next to his boots, trying not to think about her nakedness beneath his mantle. She was wet and cold and just had suffered two terrible shocks—finding out about Gaspar and losing Marjolaina—and right now she needed his comfort, not his lust.

For the past week, he’d contented himself with her kisses, as he’d promised her he would. She still balked at any hint of further intimacies, and he’d been reluctant to pursue them. At first he’d told himself that his reserve had to do with her petition to Father Octavian. Had she been able to remain at Peverell without bearing the requisite heir, his services in that capacity would not have been required. That was haphazard logic, though, because regardless of the stewardship, he would still have been bound by his oath.

He finally arrived at the remarkable, and somewhat humbling, conclusion that he loved kissing Nicki just for the sake of kissing her, without it being a prelude to seduction. He reveled in it, just as he had reveled in holding her hand those enchanted afternoons in Périgeaux. It wasn’t that he didn’t still desire her; he did, intensely. The feel of her in his arms—the soft weight of her breasts, the cradle of her hips, her scent and warmth—kept him aching with need as their lips caressed. But it was a sweet ache, the same ache he’d felt as a youth, when he’d learned to live with the wanting, to savor it for itself, to dream with breathless anticipation of a release that hovered always out of reach.

Nicki crouched near the fire, obviously seeking its warmth. Thinking a hot drink might soothe her, Alex fetched his tin traveling cup out of his saddlebags, filled it with pear wine from the flask Brother Martin had sent them away with, and set it on an iron trivet at the edge of the fire pit.

He limped over to a stack of pallets in the corner, pulled the top one off and dragged it close to the fire.

“Are you all right?” she asked. “Did you hurt yourself?”

“Nay. It’s just my hip.” Grimacing, he lowered himself onto the pallet and patted it. “Sit here with me.”

She sat next to him, bundled in his mantle. “I hope we won’t have to spend the night here.”

“I hardly think we’ll have any choice. This storm shows no signs of easing up.”

Consternation furrowed her brow. “‘Twill be scandalous, my staying out all night with you.”

“Milo won’t mind.”

She appeared to mull that over. “Probably not. He isn’t like other men. And, of course, our marriage isn’t like other marriages.”

“He’s your husband,” Alex said. “He’s the only one who matters.”

She gazed into the flames, her gaze unfocused and melancholy. They listened in silence to the shrieking wind and driving rain. When the pear wine was steaming and fragrant, Alex lifted the cup from the trivet and handed it to her. She wrapped her hands around it, took a small sip.

Alex moved behind her and pulled her braids out from under the lambskin collar of the mantle, unweaving them and draping the damp tresses over her shoulders so they could dry. He rubbed her arms and back to ease her shivers. “You’ve had a hard afternoon, Nicki.”

“Marjolaina, she—” Nicki drew in a deep breath. “She wasn’t a young horse. I shouldn’t take it so hard.”

“You have every right to take it hard.” He moved closer, tucking her up against him, his bare legs on either side of her. Circling her with his arms, he urged her to lean back against his chest. “Not just what happened to Marjolaina, but...the stewardship.”

She sipped her wine thoughtfully. “I can’t believe Gaspar went behind our backs that way.”

“I can—all too easily.”

“I’d release him from our service,” she said, “but ‘twould serve me poorly with Father Octavian. I mustn’t vex him. There still may be some way to...to convince him to let us stay...” Her voice had a desperate, brittle edge to it that Alex had only ever heard in her mother’s presence.

“Nicki...” He tightened his arms around her and kissed the back of her neck. “Don’t dwell on this tonight, love.”

“If I put my mind to it,” she said shakily, “I can think of a way. I thought of the stewardship—I’ll think of something else.”

There was nothing else, of course—no magic scheme that would save her from homelessness and destitution. There was only Alex—and the oath he’d sworn to Milo. He was her only hope now.

“Yes, love,” he murmured, nuzzling her. “You’ll think of something. I’ll help you. We’ll think of something. ‘Twill be all right.”

“Say that again,” she pleaded. Her shivers were worsening, although it was warm now in the cottage—almost too warm.

“‘Twill be all right,” he whispered, and kissed her ear lightly. “Everything will be all right.”

Her shoulders shook.

“Nicki?” Alex reached around to touch her cheek, damp with silent tears. “Nicki, Nicki...” He took the cup from her and set it on the floor, then rocked her, stroked her hair, her face, her throat. “Don’t cry. I won’t let any harm come to you.”

“You can’t prevent it,” she said in an raw whisper.

“I can help.” He could give her the child she longed for, and save her from ruin in the bargain, if she would let him. And then it wouldn’t matter who Father Octavian had bestowed the stewardship on, because Nicki and Milo would remain at Peverell. He wished he could tell her that. How he loathed the secrecy he was sworn to, even as he recognized its necessity. Despite Nicki’s desperation, he knew she wouldn’t cooperate with his true purpose.

“You help by being here. It comforts me to have you near, to feel your heat, your touch.” Still weeping, she brought his palm to her mouth and kissed it. “I need that now. Just that. I’ve never needed it so much.”

She lowered his hand, moving the mantle aside to press it to her upper chest. He felt the racing of her heart, the uneven rhythm of her breathing. Slowly she guided his hand lower still, beneath the mantle with its sleek lining, and over the trembling curve of a breast.

The room seemed to spin slowly. “Nicki...?”