Wild Wind (28 page)

Milo swallowed hard, imagining the sour sweetness in his mouth, in his belly, anticipating the dull warmth that would spread throughout him once he’d drunk enough. As if there could ever, truly be enough. “That’s preposterous,” he managed, mindful of how badly Gaspar would take it if he found out Milo had chosen Alex to sire a son for him.

Gaspar leaned toward him, still holding the goblet to the side. “My guess is he’s been poking her every afternoon, out there in the woods, while she was supposedly teaching him how to read. Only now that she’s back in her solar, he can do her in a regular bed, with plenty of privacy, while you’re sound asleep down here. He sneaked up there last night, you know. He was up there the whole blessed night.”

Milo fumbled with the quilt, his hands shaking even worse than they usually did upon awakening. “I...sent him up,” he said. “Edith said she wasn’t feeling well, and I can’t very well make it up those stairs so I asked Alex to—”

“Don’t you ever,” Gaspar whispered fiercely, his teeth bared, “ever, think you can lie to me.”

Rarely had Milo seen Gaspar vent his wrath, and never at him. Christ, but he needed a drink. “I...that is...”

“There can be only one reason for you to invent such a pathetic fabrication,” Gaspar said. “You’re trying to keep me from discerning the truth, which is that you enlisted your cousin to do the job I was unworthy of.”

How Milo craved the numbing cocoon of drunkenness. “Gaspar, listen to me...”

“Does she know he’s just servicing her as a favor to you, or did he actually have to sweet-talk his way under her skirts?”

Milo licked his lips. “Give me the goblet, Gaspar.”

“Does she know?”

Across the hall, soldiers turned to stare, then returned their attention to their breakfasts.

“For God’s sake, Gaspar, keep your voice—”

“Does she?”

“Nay. Of course not. She’d never go along with it. You know that.”

“Not if it was the lowly apothecary castellan doing the deed. But her husband’s highborn cousin—”

“Not if it was anyone. She has no idea why Alex really...why he...”

“Seduced her,” Gaspar spat out.

Was it true? Had Alex already managed to coax Nicolette into betraying her precious marital vows? Milo hadn’t expected such quick acquiescence. Part of him felt absurdly disappointed that she’d yielded to him so easily. Another part felt relieved, for the sooner they consummated their liaison, the greater the chance that a pregnancy would result from it.

“For the love of God, Gaspar,” Milo begged, despising himself. “Give me the wine.”

Gaspar stared at him for a few long moments, and then handed him the goblet. Milo gulped its contents breathlessly.

“This complicates things,” Gaspar murmured, gazing in an unfocused way across the hall. “This changes everything.”

“Changes what?” Milo asked.

Gaspar blinked, as if a spell had been broken. “Oh, naught that concerns you, milord.” Grabbing the jug, he refilled Milo’s goblet. “Drink up. That’s right. There’s plenty more in the buttery.”

NICKI WATCHED ALEX
with lazy satisfaction as he hunched cross-legged over the slender volume in his hand, reading aloud from the letters of St. Jerome.

“I...gather the rose from the...thorn,” Alex said, little frown lines etched deeply between the black slashes of his brows, “the...gold?” He tilted the book toward Nicki, reclining next to him; she nodded. “The gold from the earth, the pearl from the...well, I suppose it must be ‘oyster.’ What else would one gather a pearl from?”

He showed her the book again. “Oyster,” Nicki said.

A warm breeze fluttered his hair and made his shirt ripple over the solid planes of his shoulders and chest. There was something about this virile, scarred soldier concentrating so diligently over his studies that made her ridiculously happy. He’d shown uncommon progress in the three weeks since their lessons had commenced. Nicki ached with pride for him.

“Shall the...plowman?”

Nicki nodded.

“Shall the plowman plow all day? Shall he not also enjoy the...fruit of his...labor?” Looking up, Alex caught her eye. “Are you sure this is about sex?”

She laughed. “Read on.”

Grinning, he said, “You misled me just to make me read it. It’s about...roses and pearls and—”

“Read. On.”

Sighing grumpily, he stretched out on his side facing her. “Where was I? Ah. Wedlock is the more...” He spun the book around, pointing.

“Honored.”

“...honored when the fruit of wedlock is the more...loved. Why, mother, grudge your daughter her...virginity?” Alex cocked an eyebrow. “What the devil is that supposed to mean?”

Nicki took the book from him and picked up the train of St. Jerome’s thoughts a few lines down. “Are you vexed with her because she chooses to wed not a soldier but a king?”

Alex’s amusement seemed to vanish. “Don’t tell me this is a treatise about the folly of marrying soldiers. Well, of course, if one could have king instead—”

“Milo’s right,” Nicki said, giggling. “You’re so terribly literal.”

“You mean ignorant.”

“No!” She sat up. “No, I mean exactly what I said. You’re literal. You see things for what they are, right there on the surface, instead of digging for all kinds of hidden meanings and secret messages. You’re so honest and forthright yourself that you expect everyone else to be the same way.”

“Once I did,” he said quietly. Before Nicki could respond to that, he picked up the book. “So, what did St. Jerome mean about being vexed because your daughter chooses to wed a king?”

“The king,” Nicki elaborated. “The king of kings. Christ.”

“Ah.” Alex sat up, his eyes sparking. “He’s saying you should rejoice if your daughter becomes a nun—a bride of Christ.”

Nicki nodded. “Because she’ll remain a virgin. He discouraged marriage for the same reason.”

“He must have been mad,” Alex said. “Marriage is a sacred union.”

“Not to St. Jerome—unless the husband and wife don’t sleep together.”

“Who’d put up with a marriage like that?”

Nicki felt heat rising in her face. “Sometimes one has no choice.”

“Sorry,” Alex murmured. “I meant voluntarily. It may be heresy, but if this is the type of thing St. Jerome believed, he sounds very much like a raving lunatic.”

“His views were extreme, I suppose, but I see his point. One should learn to master one’s...baser drives, not be forever at the mercy of them.” If only Nicki could put into practice what she espoused. Her mother was right; she was weak about matters of the flesh, as demonstrated by her ill-fated affair with Phillipe. If further proof was needed, there was her adulterous love for Alex, a passion so unruly that she ached with the strain of containing it. Every day she rejoiced in his nearness, his warm scent, his all-seeing gaze, his raspy-deep voice. And every night, God help her, she lay awake consumed by unholy yearnings, imagining him on top of her, inside her, one with her.

Alex was shaking his head. “Sex is a joyous act—or it should be, especially between husband and wife, because then it’s sanctioned by God. And were it not for sex, no children would come into the world, and then where would we be?”

Nicki plucked at the blanket on which they sat, contemplating the predicament her own childlessness had landed her in, and the scheme she’d come up with for remaining at Peverell despite the lack of an heir. Last month, when Alex first came here, she would never have dreamed of confiding in him, but since her illness a fortnight past, she’d felt differently. They’d grown closer, although Périgeaux still weighed heavily between them and she suspected they would never regain the emotional intimacy they’d known then. But then, such intimacy would be wrong, given that she was wed to another. Alex had heeded her wishes—her threat, really—and suspended his amorous attentions, a relief inasmuch as she doubted her ability to resist him indefinitely.

She cleared her throat. “Has Milo told you we may lose Peverell?”

For some reason, Alex hesitated uneasily. “Aye.”

Nicki nodded; she thought so. “Did he tell you why?”

Alex rubbed the back of his neck. “Aye.”

She touched his hand, the first she’d done so since Gaspar caught them holding hands two weeks ago. “Can I trust you, Alex?”

He closed his fingers over hers. “Of course.”

“If I tell you something in strictest confidence, you won’t reveal it, even to Milo?”

“Not if you don’t want me to.”

She took a deep breath. “Because what I’m going to tell you would make Milo very angry. He’s forbidden me to...” She shook her head. “I’m getting ahead of myself.”

“Does this have to do with keeping Peverell?”

“Aye.” Nicki tightened her grip of his hand. “We’re to be cast away from here in fourteen months unless I produce an heir—which, of course, is impossible.”

To her surprise, Alex withdrew his hand from hers, raking it through his hair. It almost seemed as if he wanted to say something, but he didn’t.

“So, we’re bound to relinquish the castellany. I can live with that—Milo hasn’t ever really been a true castellan—but I can’t give up Peverell. You may think the castle is old and gloomy, and I suppose it is, but it’s my home, mine and Milo’s. We have nowhere else to go.”

“You have a plan?” Alex asked.

“I want the Church to appoint Milo and me stewards of Peverell. Father Octavian, the abbot of St. Clair, would have to sign a document granting us the stewardship, and he’s...a bit difficult to deal with. The only person who seems to get along with him is my friend, Brother Martin, Octavian’s prior. I visited him two weeks ago, against Milo wishes—”

“The day you went marketing in St. Clair.”

“Aye—my true purpose was to talk to Brother Martin. I had tried to arrange an interview with Father Octavian to discuss the disposition of Peverell, but he wouldn’t even see me. He said a woman had no business meddling in such affairs. So I went to Brother Martin and asked him to present my case to Father Octavian. He said he’d see what he could do, but that it might take time to get Octavian accustomed to the idea, and that I should come back in a fortnight to see if he’d had any success.”

“So you’re due for a visit to the monastery.”

“I’m going tomorrow morning. I thought perhaps you’d consider canceling your swordsmanship lesson and accompanying me.”

His gaze turned penetrating. “Why?”

She shrugged. “It does make me uncomfortable to take long trips unescorted. Bandits prowl the woods.”

“Is that the only reason?”

She looked away, suddenly overcome by shyness. “I suppose I wouldn’t mind your company.”

When she looked back at him, he was smiling. “I don’t suppose I’d mind yours, either.”

THAT EVENING, A
pair of traveling minstrels stopped at Peverell on their way to the ducal court at Rouen. Milo offered them supper and sleeping accommodations in the great hall in return for the evening’s entertainment, which they cheerfully agreed to, erecting a little portable stage at the far end of the hall from Milo’s bed. Alex and Nicki sat on a bench near Milo, while the soldiers, including Gaspar, watched from the tables at which they had supped.

Alex was grateful for this respite from his usual routine of draughts with the soldiers after supper, and at first he found the two performers—brothers from Brittany, one enormous and one small—diverting enough. The big fellow had a tiny dog that jumped through hoops. His brother juggled knives and ate live coals out of the hearth—or appeared to. But their musical offerings—a series of interminable
chanson
s de geste—left much to be desired. The smaller man played the harp passably well, but his brother sang like a wounded bear. One
chanson
—about King Artus of Brittany and his Knights of the Round Table—struck Alex as curiously similar to a tale he’d heard many times in England. Others—about the Trojan War, Charlemagne, and of course, Roland—were long-winded and uninspired, a fact lost on most of the soldiers, who applauded each song enthusiastically.

The only benefit to Alex of enduring this tedious performance was that he got to sit right next to Nicki—to breathe in her fragrance and listen to her occasional laughter, and sometimes to look at her. She wore a white silken gown embroidered with gold tonight, her hair concealed by an airy veil secured beneath a golden circlet. Sapphires dangled from her ears, encircled her slender throat. She was luminous, exquisite.

He shouldn’t take such pleasure in her nearness, shouldn’t idealize her like some dreamy, lovestruck youth. He wouldn’t, he’d decided, if he weren’t so blasted randy every hour of every blasted day. All this thinking about seducing her, combined with the difficulty of following through, had escalated his sexual frustration to a level he’d never experienced before.

Alex’s impetus to bed Nicki had as much to do now with his own ungovernable needs as with that damned oath Milo had made him swear. He needed sex, and he needed it with Nicki. His desire had taken on her image, her scent, her shape. No one else would do.

Seducing her had proved to be a heroic challenge. With some measure of grim humor, Alex contemplated the conundrum that had ensnared him. He couldn’t hope to win Nicki’s affections—and favors—unless he spent time alone with her. But if he became too familiar with her during their isolated afternoons together, she would refuse to be alone with him.

On the one hand, this past fortnight had been rather maddening, with Alex struggling to keep his distance from Nicki while trying to reawaken the intimacy they had once shared. On the other, he could not remember ever having been as carelessly content as he was in her company. There was something about being near her that set him at ease, even while it stirred his blood.

You shouldn’t let her stir your blood, for pity’s sake. You should do whatever it takes to get her to raise her skirts for you, and when it’s done, you should ride away grateful to never see her again. Nor should he waste tears of penitence over the matter. Nine years ago she had used him to snare Milo. Now, he would use her—to assuage his lust and fulfill his oath. Where was the evil in that?