LITMIR.BIZ

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thought she’d forgiven him, too. Yet, here she was with him in a graveyard at night. She was supposed to have changed, but turmoil roiled inside her. Anything between them was supposed to be dead.

      ‘And you’re here now expecting what?’ She gestured at him, at their surroundings.

      ‘Answers!’ He pulled himself away then, as if he hadn’t meant to say that word or put any emphasis on it.

      Answers. In that she would agree—it was why she had written to him.

      ‘Then you should have replied to my letter.’

      He hadn’t because he didn’t truly want answers. He was a mercenary—had fashioned himself to be a trained killer. He’d wanted to leave this home that she loved, and he’d wanted never to return. Now he made demands for no reason.

      ‘Your letter?’ His expression turned mutinous. ‘Damn your letter. How could I have answered that? Do you know when I received your precious letter?’

      His hand went to the back of his head, as if to brush through his hair, but his fingers stopped at the strap of the eye patch.

      Biting out another curse, he jerked his hand away before locking his venomous gaze with her. ‘Too. Late. That’s when I received your letter.’

      Nicholas was like a berserker, crying for blood across the field, and everything in her wanted to answer. To raise her own sword and strike the killing blow.

      He was a madman, a mercenary with no conscience. He should be mourning his friend’s death. Should be apologising for not answering their letters. He should have been here when her mother died.

      He’d done nothing.

      And Louve had sent her out here to provide comfort. There was no comforting madness and cruelty.

      They stood here in this graveyard, shouting on matters that had no bearing in the present. Right now it wasn’t about them, or the past and their arguments. Those had been long decided by his absence, by his deeds. All that mattered now was that she was the one who’d married Roger; she had been there at his death. And she’d go to her grave making sure that Nicholas, who had abandoned them all, knew why.

      ‘Stop making this into something it’s not. You don’t care about what happened to us. Roger’s dead. And I refuse to let you ignore that.’

      He huffed out a breath as if she had hit him. ‘I’m not ignoring his death.’

      A strike to Louve’s jaw...standing in the night surrounded by graves... Maybe he wasn’t ignoring Roger’s death, but he wasn’t acknowledging it either.

      ‘You refuse to talk about him.’

      ‘It’s pointless.’

      The pain in her belly was so sharp she was certain it was physical. ‘Pointless?’ she gasped as she locked gazes with him.

      There was so much there in his face as his brows drew in, as his lips parted. He wanted to say something, but then his face shut down again. The hard angles of his jaw, the slash of his cheekbones. The strip of leather along his left cheek. His scar. His eye. Why did she see it now, and not when he’d struck Louve, or when he’d gripped his father’s memorial?

      To see beyond his injury must be a weakness in her. For it was the wound of a man who killed for a living. She must remember to look at that silvery bisecting jaggedness to remind her that this man had no heart.

      ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘It is pointless. Louve told me to come here and tell you, and you don’t care.’

      ‘Not now. Not yet.’ His words were clipped, as if he’d forced them out.

      ‘Is this too soon?’ she mocked. ‘Did you want to wait a few days? Get some rest? Have Cook prepare huge meals?’

      ‘It is too soon for this.’

      ‘Because today you returned? If you didn’t want to hear any of this you could have kept away—like the coward you are.’

      ‘Coward?’ he growled. ‘You want to hear what I want to know? I want to know if that child you bear is even Roger’s. Or is it Louve’s?’

      Something colder than ice sliced through her. ‘Louve’s?’

      He waved his arm. ‘He was standing by you so protectively this evening. Roger isn’t here. What am I to guess?’

      What was he to guess? He should have known. Known never to accuse her of going from him, to Roger, to Louve. She could hate him in this moment.

      ‘You’ve changed.’

      He gave a mocking exhalation. ‘Not enough.’

      Too much. So easily she could hate him. So easily she could turn the shame and the sting to her pride when he’d left her begging into something darker and more bitter. Turn the emotions into being more like him. A mad mercenary.

      Everything about Nicholas was as sharp as a sword. Bitter. Cold. Hurting.

      And yet agony was there in his voice. Everything in her fought to acknowledge it, yet she couldn’t when the heart of his question was more significant than her pride. In a way, without asking about Roger, he was.

      ‘You need to know,’ she said.

      ‘I don’t,’ he mocked. ‘But you’ll tell me anyway, won’t you?’

      She wanted to throw more dirt at him and walk away, but she’d changed since he’d left. She could face his anger...and his agony. For Roger’s sake, she’d force him to listen to her.

      ‘This child is Roger’s, Nicholas,’ she said. ‘He died mere weeks ago, knowing he’d be a father.’

      Nicholas shook his head—once, twice. Then he pivoted suddenly, took a step away from her, then another. His shoulders rose and fell with great gusts of breath.

      She waited, but he remained silent and didn’t turn again. He didn’t walk away. Maybe he knew if he did, it would be she who silently followed him on this graveyard path. She who would stand close so that when he turned he’d be surprised.

      She would be cleverer than him and let none of her emotions show. With his back turned, she could tell nothing of what he felt now, but she didn’t care. He stood still, and for Roger’s sake she’d make sure Nicholas heard every word.

      ‘Roger died by a scythe wielded by a mere child who, though it was not his fault, carries great remorse. He was training the children as he used to. It was only a cut, and yet it wouldn’t heal. It wouldn’t heal and he died. Yet here you are, asking about my children, and what burden they’ll mean for your estate.’ She forced this last word through her constricted throat.

      Roger’s death had been senseless and horrific. He’d been in such pain, and utterly incoherent as his leg turned black. Death’s pungent odour had filled their home and blanketed the cradle newly built for their child.

      When his condition had worsened she’d feared for Roger, felt the grief of knowing he would never see their child, would never grow old with her.

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