LITMIR.BIZ

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been here last night for your welcome home meal.” He turned a reproving glance on Constance, who also remained standing by her chair. “You should have sent word, my dear.”

      Nicholas frowned as his mother bit her lip in embarrassment.

      “As you can imagine, Baron,” he said stiffly, “the tidings that greeted me upon my arrival did not exactly put us in the mood for company.”

      The baron gave Nicholas a hearty clap on the shoulder and stepped past him up on the dais. “Precisely, lad. I should have been here to deliver the news of your father’s death. Women are over-maudlin about these affairs. No doubt you had all manner of tears and carrying on to contend with.” Once again he looked at Constance, who dropped her gaze to the floor.

      Nicholas struggled to keep his temper, reminding himself that the baron had cared for his mother in her bereavement. “My mother’s heart is too tender not to mourn her husband’s passing, Baron Hawse. I do not count that as a fault.”

      He followed the baron up on the dais and began to motion him to the bench on the other side of his mother, but the older man stopped at the center of the table, pulled out the lord’s chair and sat. Nicholas’s mouth fell open in astonishment. The previous evening when his mother had urged him to be seated in the master’s place, it had felt sad and odd, but to have his father’s old chair occupied by a stranger seemed nearly intolerable.

      He looked at his mother. Her soft brown eyes pleaded with him not to create a scene. Baron Hawse had occupied this chair before, Nicholas realized. As the baron pulled a trencher forward to share with Constance, Nicholas wondered exactly how much of Arthur Hendry’s former life had already been taken over by his neighbor.

      Giving his mother a smile of reassurance, he took a seat on the bench to the baron’s left and pulled his own trencher forward. He’d not share a board with this man.

      Once the head table was seated, there was a sudden bustle in the room as the other diners sat and the serving girls began to move among the tables with dishes of stew and plates of roasted rabbit with wild berries.

      Nicholas ate in silence, speaking only when the baron asked him a direct question. He scarcely noticed the carefully prepared dinner, which his mother had been supervising in the kitchen much of the afternoon. Watching the baron carve off succulent bits of rabbit and offer them on his knife to Constance’s mouth was making Nicholas lose his appetite.

      “I’m sure he’ll be pleased to, won’t you, son?” His mother’s soft voice broke through his gloomy thoughts.

      He looked from Constance to the baron, who both appeared to be waiting for him to speak. “I beg your pardon,” he mumbled. “I would be pleased to what?”

      “To visit us at Hawse Castle two days hence,” the baron supplied. “If you’ve fully recovered from your journey.”

      “I’d thought to begin seeing to the estate here. I’ve a meeting with the steward on the morrow to go over the accounts and—”

      “Well, then, that’s perfect,” the baron interrupted. “You can join us at Hawse the next day and we’ll see where we stand on this matter of the estates. I have all the papers your father signed before his death, of course.”

      Nicholas’s eyes narrowed. “Papers that he signed thinking me dead.”

      The baron’s hearty voice did not waver. “Of course. Which is why we have much to discuss, you and I. We’ll discuss your father’s plans for this place.”

      Nicholas pushed away his board, leaving the rabbit mostly untouched. “My father’s plans for Hendry were to pass it on to his only son. No amount of discussion will alter that.”

      Hawse smiled. “Indeed.” He reached out a big hand and gave a painful squeeze to Nicholas’s forearm. “I have some plans of my own to discuss with you, lad. I believe we can work our way out of this unfortunate tangle. Come see me the day after tomorrow.”

      “We’ll both go,” Constance said quickly. “It would be churlish to refuse my lord’s hospitality after all you’ve done for me.”

      Hawse turned toward Constance and gave her a smile that even to Nicholas looked almost tender.

      “’Tis not within your power to be churlish, Lady Constance,” he told her, his voice softening.

      Nicholas pushed back his bench and stood. “In two days hence, then. We’ll attend you at Hawse Castle. Now if you’ll excuse me, I am still, as you say, fatigued from my journey.”

      Without taking further leave of them, he turned and made his way out of the room.

      He sat in the dark looking out the deep window of his bedchamber into the moonlit yard below. It was early for sleep, but he didn’t feel like talking to anyone, not even the servants, so he had retired to his room and had not lit the wall torch near his bed.

      The knock on his door was so soft, he almost didn’t hear it. For several moments, he resolved to let the caller go unanswered, but then he thought that perhaps his mother needed him, so he reluctantly got to his feet and crossed over to open the door. The visitor was a woman, but definitely not his mother.

      Mollie had changed little in the four years since he’d last seen her. If anything, her breasts spilled even more voluptuously from the scanty, thin blouse. Her sparkling green eyes glinted even more wickedly with invitation.

      “So, ye’ve come back, ye naughty boy,” she laughed, twining her arms around his neck with such energy that it pushed him back into the room.

      In spite of himself, Nicholas felt a flare of desire course through him as the serving maid’s soft contours wriggled against him. He dropped a light kiss on her lips and gently pried her hands loose. “Hallo, sweetheart,” he said.

      She took a step back and thudded her small fist into his chest. “For shame, Nicky. I’ll not listen to yer ‘sweethearts’ after ye ran away like that without so much as a farewell buss.”

      Mollie had been one of the most good-natured of his lovemaking partners. A full five years older than Nicholas, she’d had a string of lovers herself and understood that their friendship was nothing more than the mutual satisfaction of shared passions.

      Nicholas grinned at her and captured the hand that continued pounding him with little effect. “You’ll always be my sweetheart, Mollie. You know that.”

      She pulled her hand out of his and laid it tenderly along his cheek. “Aye, Nicky. We were fair eager for it in those days, weren’t we?”

      Unexpectedly, Nicholas was suddenly eager once again. He put a hand at Mollie’s waist and pulled her toward him, but she pushed away. “Aye, we were,” he murmured.

      “Ah, Nicky. I’ve not come for that.” She pushed him away. “I’m a proper goodwife now.”

      Nicholas dropped his hands from her as if he’d been burned. “Wife?”

      “Aye, these three years past. Got meself two young’uns.”

      He blinked in astonishment. “Babies?”

      Mollie laughed and gave him a friendly pat on his chest. “What did ye think comes of all that gallivanting in the corn, Master Hendry? Ye were always a careful one, but not all are like that.” A brief shadow crossed her face, but then she giggled and added, “I knew I’d end up round as a herring barrel some day.”

      Her words added to his gloom. Merry, passionate, carefree Mollie. A wife and mother. It was hard to believe. “Are you happy, Mollie?” he asked finally. “Is your husband a good man?”

      She smiled and nodded. “Aye, Nicky, he is. Ye do know him. ’Tis Clarence, the baker.”

      Nicholas had a vague memory of a big, quiet man, perhaps twenty years his senior, who ran the bake shop at the edge of the village and sent fresh bread to the manor each day. A pleasant yeasty odor always seemed to cling to the man.

      “Then

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