“What is a mature Chatwyn?”
Nicholas leaned back to where the remains of their breakfast now lay strewn. “Nothing unusual,” he told her. “Wealthy, respected, ambitious, greedy, conceited, arrogant. Most of us drink too much, and that’s largely due to boredom and a need not to think too deeply. Think too hard, and along come the doubts, conscience and uncomfortable memories. So my father drinks. I drink too. But I also discovered other opiates.”
Emeline frowned. “What opiates?”
“What I once called adventure. Working for the king. Berwick during the siege, helping break the stand off from the inside. I acted as a casual tutor to the young Princess Cecily. Working undercover to negotiate with the dowager and get her and her daughters out of sanctuary. To explain what had happened to her sons, tell her Tyrell and Brampton were the occasional and financial custodians while her boys stayed safe abroad. The king uses many of his more able courtiers for such work. A common practise. Fulfilled my need for adventure. Keeping old memories at a safe distance.”
“And Peter’s opiates?”
Nicholas laughed, lying flat on his back on the mattress, the covers dishevelled beneath him, his hands clasped behind his head. “Peter?” He was smiling up at the beams and the bed’s small faded tester. “Seductions and rapes. Secret violence and the spoils of story mongering and tale spreading. Watching the ensuing misery of others.”
Emeline sighed. “There’s so much to tell each other, but so little of it is pleasant.”
He turned his head, looking at her. “I’ll take you back to the castle later this month, once I’ve seen the king. My father will stay at court. Then I’ll teach you pleasure, my love.”
“But you don’t know if we’ll ever get there. Perhaps you have some special charm so you don’t get sick. But that won’t work for me.”
Nicholas paused, frowning. “You’ll live, because I need you,” he said quietly. “What point in my survival, if it has to be alone?”
“You mean it?” Emeline sat up, staring back wide eyed. “That’s what you said last night and I was hoping you’d say it again. But you don’t mean it, do you! You’re saying what you think I want to hear, because you’re sure I’ll die.”
“When I’m telling you the opposite?”
“You’re lying.”
He smiled, sinking back against the pillows “Then clearly I must speak of the mundane, and of subjects where I shall be believed. There is, for instance, some small leggy creature up there, busy with its web and no doubt a hoard of spider children bursting from their eggs. Or whatever else spiders do to pass the time. Eat flies. There’s flies and beetles enough up there to choose from.”
Emeline laughed. “All right. You don’t want to tell me to my face that I might be dying. And the hints about caring – about some growing affection – that’s best not discussed either.”
“Shall I tell you what I’ve been doing for the past few weeks?” He closed his eyes, slumped on his back, hands again behind his head. His voice softened. “Shall I describe all the wretched days of creeping in the shadows, wearing clothes that itch with fleas, and not caring to comb the lice from my hair? Attack, defence, knives from the mist. Days in shadows and nights in the dark. The boy was killed. I should have protected him, but it never occurred to me the boy would be a target, and I was too busy protecting myself. So, the bastard guilt and knowing he died for me.” Nicholas opened his eyes suddenly and gazed up at Emeline who was staring down at him helplessly. “Oh, don’t feel sorry for me, my sweet,” he said, smiling. “It was one of the easier jobs I’ve taken on. I took no wound, and one part of the task was achieved successfully enough. Adventure after all, and I’ll not complain about the life I chose myself. But this time the pleasure faded. Most of it seemed simply tedious.” His smile widened. “And through it all, I kept thinking of you. I didn’t ask to. It didn’t help. But your face slipped constantly into my thoughts, your voice whispered into every silence. Your face pushed out Peter’s whispers. Your smile stayed always at the back of my eyes. I missed you.”
“You really missed me?”
“Quite horribly. And then, half mad with a dozen problems on my mind, I arrive at the hostelry where I intend staying in more comfort than usual, and come face to face with your sister.”
Emeline put her hand over her mouth. “I’d love to have seen your reaction. You swore, didn’t you?”
“At length. Then I demanded to know where you were. Avice told me everything. So I left at once, and rode out to find you.”
“God was kind. You took the same lane I was on.”
“I’d tried a dozen other lanes already.” Nicholas watched her as the sun outside the window brightened, slanting abruptly across the bed and turning his eyes brilliant. “And now,” he murmured, “the missing you and the thinking of you has grown into something deeper. This time alone with you in my arms – and the moments of fear when I imagine the loss of you – all leading to the words I use – which you doubt – but are now quite true.”
“What words?” Hardly even a whisper.
“Words of love.”
Emeline drew a deep breath. “It would be worth – the pestilence – to hear that.”
He shook his head abruptly. “And now knowing Adrian’s a traitor, is it easier to believe he’s a murderer?”
“No.” She sighed, accepting the change of subject. “There’s a list. Sissy thinks it’s Jerrid.” Nicholas smiled and Emeline hurried on. “My mother thought it was some silly secretary of Papa’s, but it can’t be. She also thought it might be the boy you say was killed in your care.”
“I know. Absurd.”
“But, actually,” another deep breath, “it could have been my mother. I mean, she really had a horrid life with my father and she’s having such fun – and freedom – and spending – since he’s gone. And now I know she guessed some things about Peter, and didn’t really want me to marry him. But with father insisting, there wouldn’t have been any other way to stop it except killing Peter. I mean, I can’t actually suspect my own mother, can I? But she’s strong, and determined, and she had more motive than others.”
“Equally absurd.” He had closed his eyes again. “Jerrid is too damned disinterested and never even knew your father. Your mother wouldn’t have known where to find your father, since he was closeted with his mistress. As for finding Peter, that would have been even more impossible. Peter was also killed at the home of his mistress. A local woman living in Desford, a few miles from the castle. No one knew about that woman, certainly not Sissy or your mother. Nor Jerrid, who rarely leaves Westminster.”
“The woman could have told –”
“She died in the fire that followed Peter’s slaughter. The same story.”
“It could even have been Sissy herself. What if she discovered this other woman?”
“But hardly to slaughter your father.”
“Why not? Another man cheating on the woman who trusted him?”
“Absurd.”
“And my old nurse Martha. She adores me and Avice and my mother. She knew what Peter was like. She knew what my father was like. She always wants to protect everyone. And she’s – clever. She knows things I don’t know how she knows. She knew about Sissy before we did, because Sissy’s maid told her. Everyone always confides in Martha. She could have known about my father in the same way.”
“The servants always know more than their masters. But these killings weren’t done by a woman. To set the fire, perhaps. But not the rest. Slashing a man’s throat with a knife or sword? Neither man was killed from behind.”