Historical Romance – The Best Of The Year. Кэрол Мортимер
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in the dark tumble beneath the covers she had not seen him.
Not like this.
Now, she could see those legs. As long and straight as she had imagined, and yet the thighs...well, now she knew. The strength it took to sit on a horse.
And the curves she had caressed on his shoulders and arms, smooth like the worn steps of Canterbury, now she could see the blue of his veins, strong as a river, coursing beneath his skin.
She would remember this, exactly. Later.
‘Thank you,’ she said.
He opened his mouth and shut it, for once without words.
She felt, now, that her foot was naked and she sat up, looking frantically for the sock to cover it. ‘Don’t look,’ she warned, before she pulled her foot from under the covers, and he sighed, but turned his head.
Covered again, she tried to swing her leg around, suddenly awkward, all the freedom and grace of last night gone. Immediately, he was there, settling her with a touch, as if he knew just how to help without making her feel clumsy.
Oh, the tenderness in just that simple gesture. Equal to every passionate touch from last night.
He sat beside her and turned her face to his. ‘Anne...’
She jerked away from his hands. ‘No words. What are words compared to what happened last night? Nothing.’ Weak, worthless things.
‘But everything has changed.’
‘Nothing has changed.’ All gone. All the joy of the memory. Not to be visited again until she was safely away from him. ‘Everything will be as it must.’
He rose, pacing again. Ah, how she envied him those simple steps. ‘As it must? Or as Lady Joan wills it?’
Anne gripped the bedpost and pulled herself to her feet. ‘Or the Prince or the King or the Pope.’
‘What about what Anne wants?’
The sad smile came before she could stop it. ‘I know what Nicholas wants. Nicholas wants freedom. Nicholas wants to roam the earth of France or Italy or Castile or even Cyprus. Nicholas wants to roam unfettered.’ She bit her lip.
And so did she.
‘So Nicholas,’ she continued, ‘will do as he said he would and take me to Holystone to rest. Then, he will be free.’
Oh, the ache that word put in her throat.
She could not read his face clearly, but she saw a struggle there. Some tug of war between what he wanted and what he...desired.
‘I am not a man who falls in love.’
‘I know.’ And now for the lesson Agatha had taught her. ‘I am not a woman who expects love.’ Wants it, yes. Oh, yes. But she had known, always, there would not even be marriage, let alone passion. ‘This was one night. A gift.’ A memory to be taken out and relived when the cold walls of her sister cell closed in on her like the short, dark winter days.
And then his eyes warmed. ‘Not just one. We will have more nights to come.’
So they made their way north, not hurrying, pretending to each other that the journey would not end.
And if they went a few miles afield to see a cathedral or enjoy a market day, what was the harm? Anne refused to dwell on it. Refused to think of anything beyond the day. And the night.
And if she had a child? She would not think of that, either. She would be safely locked away, the babe cared for in the convent, and no one beyond those walls would ever know.
With no one to stitch for, her hands were empty, so in the evenings Nicholas taught her to juggle. Or tried to. She learned to toss two balls, and the other guests at the inn applauded the night she finally succeeded with three.
And afterwards they went up the stairs together, letting the others think they were married.
Eustace and Agatha kept their secret.
* * *
‘We will be in Lincoln tomorrow,’ Nicholas said, late one night a week later, as they lay together, sated and warm.
She snuggled closer. ‘Beyond the scent of the tannery, I hope.’ She had not seen it, but the stench had hovered in the air most of the day.
Beside her, he went still and quiet. ‘Yes. Well beyond.’
She nodded and drifted toward sleep. Then, something he had said, long ago, tickled her memory. ‘Is your home near? Would you show me?’ He had no family left, she remembered that, so there would be no awkward explanations to make.
She rolled on to her back and tapped his nose with her finger. ‘I’d like to picture you there as a little boy.’ She giggled. ‘Learning to juggle. Show me where you learned to juggle.’
Abruptly, he turned away and sat up on the edge of the bed. ‘Why would you want to see that?’
‘Because I care about you.’ She trailed her fingers down his bare back.
He moved again, standing, out of reach of her hand. ‘Because you are trying to trap me.’
‘Trap you?’ She shook her head, thinking her sleep-fogged brain must be confused. ‘How... Why... What...?’
Nicholas was pacing now, as if he wanted to escape the room. ‘Yes. Trap me, force me into marriage.’
Something cold, as if she were frozen, trickled under Anne’s skin. ‘How can you think—?’
‘Isn’t that what you want? You would be saved from the convent and I’d be weighed down with a wife.’
She could not speak, then, for the pain that gripped her.
Weighed down. Cannot move.
And if she had ever, in the moments before sleep, dreamed of tomorrows with Nicholas, she had known it was impossible. For her, but most of all for him. How could he accuse her when she had tried so hard?
She lashed out, speaking no more sense than he. ‘You were the one who insisted that you come with me.’ A worse thought now. ‘Did you do it only because you could take what you wanted? No one would know or care what happened to me, would they?’
And everything she had cherished seemed about to turn to ash and bitter words.
* * *
Nicholas saw Anne’s stricken face, suddenly sharp and clear, and it brought him back to himself. What had happened? One moment he had been holding her tight, grateful that more than half the journey still lay before them, wishing he never had to leave her. The next—
The next he was a child again, wanting to escape a home that did not want him, resenting a father who had let a woman deceive him.
Trapped. It was his stepmother he spoke of. He had been running from his father’s fate all these years and not realised it until now.
He knelt by the bed and raised a hand to Anne’s cheek. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—’
She swatted it away. ‘Spare me your apologies.’
He grabbed her hands back. ‘Please. Let me tell you.’
Silent, she glared at him, trying to hide the hurt behind a defiant stare. Finally, she spoke, slowly, each word with a weight of its own. ‘I...don’t...care.’
But he would not let her go. He could see what held her back, but something had weighed him down, too. Something she could not see.
He began to speak, as if she had said nothing, keeping her hands in his so she could not cover her ears. ‘My father was a tanner.’
There,