LITMIR.BIZ

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in a few minutes. Walking gives us time to talk.’

      A conversation amongst friends?

      A part of him wanted to toss Louve to the ground and demand to know why he hadn’t stopped Matilda’s marriage. Why he hadn’t at least written to him, warn him. No, it was too soon. He would make them reveal their game first, before he revealed his.

      ‘I’ve written you letters almost every month for the last six years.’

      ‘True, but I notice the lack of any letter informing us of your return. We’ll probably never hear the end of it from Cook. But I have to admit the coin you sent was convenient.’

      ‘Was it?’

      He was too far away to see the village or his home. Mei Solis was an open field manor. In the centre of his land was the manor itself, with a small courtyard and some buildings for his own private use, such as his stables. A simple gate kept his property separate from the village and from the tenants that encircled the manor for their own protection. Surrounding everything were fields for livestock and crops. All he could see so far was this road, which was narrow and rough, and useless fallow fields.

      It stung to return here and be so brutally reminded of his failed past. He might have lost his eye, but while he’d been gone he’d gained balance, and a sense of worth as a mercenary. He’d gained friends—and wealth as well. And yet he was not even a furrow’s length on his land and the weight of his past burdens cloaked him again.

      ‘Your coin was quite handy. I’d be pleased to show you how,’ Louve said. ‘You are staying, I presume?’

      Was Louve’s game to pretend to be friends? Maybe he thought to put Nicholas at ease so he would return to his mercenary life and leave them alone.

      A dark, insidious thought came. Matilda had married Roger, but maybe she’d had Louve as well. What did he know? He’d thought she was true to him, as he had been to her. But her marrying Roger had proved she was as faithless as his stepmother had been. And Roger’s and Louve’s lack of correspondence depicted men without honour. All were without honour.

      As such, if he did nothing else he would put no one at ease and tell nothing of his intentions. ‘Since I can barely feel my legs, I will stay until they can carry me again.’

      Louve shot his gaze over to him, but Nicholas pretended not to see it.

      ‘I suppose that’s more information than we’ve had in the past,’ Louve said, after several more moments.

      ‘Not good enough?’ Nicholas said.

      ‘You’re as surly as a wolf in winter, but I understand why.’

      So he should, thought Nicholas.

      ‘She’s out in the fields now,’ Louve remarked.

      She. Matilda. It was late harvest time, and he could envisage her there. Her red-gold hair shining brighter than any crop. Her hazel eyes lit with more colours than a field of green. Matilda—who at one point in his life had meant everything to him, who had been his very soul.

      Then she had broken her promise to him and betrayed him in the cruellest of manners. He’d returned to Mei Solis to fix his past. He intended to meet it head-on and bury it.

      But he kept his head turned away from Louve, though he could feel his former friend’s gaze. ‘Let’s take the horses to the manor,’ Nicholas said.

      * * *

      Matilda should have heard their voices or the extra commotion in the yard. She should have heard his voice. But she couldn’t seem to hear anything through the roaring in her head. Not even her own thoughts were clear to her.

      She realised that Bess, who walked beside her, hadn’t been as affected as her. Bess had understood that Nicholas was within a few paces on their path and hadn’t steered them in another direction.

      But it was too late for her, because Nicholas was suddenly there before her. Already handing his reins to a boy, with whom he shared a few words.

      He faced away from her, and his back afforded her a few moments to watch him while he exchanged greetings and soothed one of his horses, who stamped his hooves as the satchels were removed.

      Nicholas. How had she forgotten how formidable he was? His brown hair was much longer, and tied back in a queue which emphasised his shoulders, so much broader than when he’d left six years ago. From being a mercenary; from swinging his sword and killing.

      Such a dangerous and unscrupulous profession had given him the strength she saw in his arms, in the tapering of his waist to the defined legs that had walked the many lands he’d once written to her about.

      The horses he’d chosen were huge, but they didn’t disguise what a giant of a man he was. How had she forgotten the immensity of him?

      Bess went still at her side, neither pushing her forward nor turning her away, while others offered shouts and greetings. Not all the voices held joy. There was a tenor of dismay that she couldn’t understand.

      Surely sounds of distress had no meaning when the prodigal lord of the manor had returned. Now was a time for joy and much celebration. If Nicholas had returned, it meant he’d fulfilled his vow to his people. It meant he had enough funds to make Mei Solis all he’d envisaged and promised.

      Or perhaps he had simply returned without coin. How was she to know? He had once been so honourable in his vows...and then he had broken the vow he’d made to her. To make her his wife.

      He turned then, deliberately, as if her accusations had struck his back. When he fully faced her, even Bess’s hand at her elbow didn’t steady her.

      She swallowed a gasp as she noticed his left eye was covered by a brown leather patch. But otherwise, how could she have forgotten how he looked? The angles of his jaw softened only by the fullness of his lower lip. The broadness of the nose he’d boasted no one could ever break? How his steady brown gaze had riveted her?

      She remembered their kisses. The way he’d smelled and felt when he’d held her. And his gaze...the way he’d looked at her. But she’d forgotten the feeling of breathlessness from just his look. It was this that had captured her when they’d been only friends. It was his gaze that had made him see into her soul and she into his as they fell in love.

      What did he see in her right now? Almost eight months pregnant, her skirts saturated with mud, wheat stuck in her hair. Shock in her eyes, trembling in her limbs, and her breath coming short.

      Shorter yet as she comprehended why her heart pounded so desperately until her breath wouldn’t come. Why her nerves jarred her inside as if trying to wake her.

      Nicholas had a scar across his face. A thin slice that went from his left temple across his left eye, and down his cheek. Then there was a gap at his neck, before a broader gash revealed itself on his collarbone and disappeared under his loose tunic. He’d tried to cover his eye with brown leather, but she could see it. As if in a nightmare, she could see all of it.

      All these years she’d imagined the swing of a sword gutting him. Imagined him spilling his life’s blood in a field too far away for her to reach him. He was here—alive—but he had lost his eye. What he must have suffered...

      And she hadn’t known. He’d never told her. Hot rage roared through her, until her first and only instinct was to hit and rail at him and never stop. How could he have done this to himself? How could he have done this to her?

      His brows drew in and his mouth grew fierce. His gaze, as open as hers must have been, grew cold. What did he see in her eyes?

      Too much. She had purposely forgotten how he could see too much. How he knew her. And she’d thought she’d known him. Until the day he’d left Mei Solis. Until the moment he’d stopped writing to her and forgotten her completely.

      She’d held on until her mother’s death, when she had realised how fleeting life was and that

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