LITMIR.BIZ

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      “I bid you welcome,” she said, her voice so soft he could scarcely hear the words. Her eyes were on Constance and only darted nervously to Nicholas for a moment.

      Nicholas had always had a natural affinity for putting even the shyest of women at ease. He took her cold hand and raised it toward his lips. “It’s good to see you again, Winifred,” he said gently. “You’ve grown into a beauty in my absence.”

      Winifred blushed with pleasure and let her eyes meet Nicholas’s at last. Baron Hawse beamed at the two younger people and took Constance’s arm. “Let’s be out of this wind,” he said. “The table is ready with Hawse Castle’s finest fare for our honored guests. Winifred has seen to it.”

      “’Twas kind of you,” Nicholas murmured. He gazed down at her with the seductive smile he had always reserved for females of a proper age to be bedded, and he received the usual response. Her eyes softened, her lips fell open slightly.

      Nicholas shook himself. His actions came as natural to him as breathing, but he’d best be wary. Winifred Hawse was not a barmaid, and he had no intention of bedding her. Indeed, if he was to become the reformed man he’d sworn to become on the field of battle, he’d do well to save his smiles for grandmothers and holy sisters.

      His concern at the moment was resolving the tangle over the Hendry estates. He’d banish all thoughts of women from his mind until the matter was settled. Unbidden, he had a sudden vision of Beatrice Thibault, as she’d looked just inches away from him at the cemetery.

      “I may still call you that?”

      Nicholas looked down, startled by Winifred’s soft voice.

      “I beg your pardon,” he said.

      “I may still call you Nick, as I did when we were young?” she repeated.

      He had no recollection of Winifred Hawse calling him anything at all, but he smiled at her and said, “I’d be injured if you didn’t.”

      He offered his arm to her as they turned to follow his mother and her father across the yard and into the castle keep.

      “I’m only saying that you should consider the baron’s suggestion,” Constance told her son gently. Nicholas sprawled at the foot of his mother’s pallet, as had been his custom when he was young. She sat up against the cushions, a shawl wrapped around her against the morning cold. “Winifred is a lovely girl.”

      Nicholas sighed. “Aye, Mother. But I’m not interested in taking a wife. I’ve barely returned home. I just want to settle this matter and take my rightful place as master of Hendry.” He sat up to throw another blanket over his mother, who had begun to shiver. “We need to build fireplaces in these chambers.”

      Constance smiled. “You’ve inherited that trait from your father, at least. He was always wanting to make some change or other to this place.”

      “Little good it will do me to inherit his character traits if I’m not to inherit his estate,” Nicholas grumbled.

      “It’s more than generous of Baron Hawse to make this offer, Nicholas. You will not find a better match than Winifred in all England. Some day you could inherit all the Hawse lands.”

      “The baron is still virile enough to remarry and father a son,” Nicholas observed, watching his mother carefully.

      His remark elicited no reaction. “Aye,” she replied evenly. “But he has remained unwed these many years since his wife’s death. Another heir does not seem to be a matter of high importance to him.”

      Nicholas could not say why the idea of taking Winifred Hawse to wife seemed so wrong. She was not unpleasant to look upon. Her demeanor was graceful and ladylike. She was, as his mother pointed out, heiress to a considerable fortune. But somehow the idea of marrying her seemed impossible. For one thing, she was so fragile, he couldn’t imagine sharing with her the lusty games he’d played with his former partners such as the curvaceous Mollie.

      “I’m not ready to marry, Mother. And I shouldn’t have to marry in order to inherit what is rightfully mine.”

      Constance swung her feet to the stone floor. “Take some time to think about it, my son. You’ve just arrived home and all of this has come at you too quickly. We’ll invite the baron and his daughter to a dinner here next sennight and see how you’re feeling then. Now run along and send my maid to help me dress.”

      She stood and crossed the room toward the private garderobe, another of his father’s improvements. Nicholas uncurled himself from the bed and left the room to go find her handmaid.

      The red-haired servant was in the scullery with two other young girls of the manor. They stopped their chatter when Nicholas entered the room, but all three looked him over from head to toe, their blushing faces glowing with eager smiles. Nicholas had a moment of longing for his earlier, heedless days when he would have taken full advantage of the girls’ shameless admiration.

      “Good morrow, ladies,” he said with a slight bow. “I’d thought the sun was the brightest thing about this morn until I saw your smiles.”

      They giggled and one of the girls, whose name he didn’t know, ventured a sally in reply. Then he told his mother’s maid that her service was needed and bid them good day.

      Their laughter floated with him as he made his way out to the courtyard, but it did not make him want to turn back and choose one on which to work his wiles. To his surprise, he realized that all his protestations that he was a changed man were very much the truth. He was changed. He wanted something more in life than a quick romp in the hayrack with one of the scullery maids.

      He wasn’t sure exactly what that something was. But, by the rood, he was certain that it was not marriage to Baron Hawse’s only daughter.

      Chapter Four

      At the risk of encountering former lovers who might not be as forgiving of past transgressions as Mollie, Nicholas vowed to spend the next few days getting reacquainted with both the Hendry lands and the people he still thought of as his tenants. He put Baron Hawse’s offer of marriage to Winifred out of his mind and asked his mother not to bring the matter up again until the Hawse’s scheduled dinner the following week.

      Spring was blossoming in earnest, and riding in the rolling countryside around Hendry Hall lifted Nicholas’s spirits. His big destrier, glad to be roaming free after the difficult journey, pranced along like a frisky colt. He’d purchased the bay stallion in the Holy Lands when his own had been killed by an Arab’s lance.

      Nicholas laughed out loud and bent over the animal’s neck. “Aye, Scarab, ’tis easier without three stone’s weight of armor and bloody heathens running at you like crazed devils, is it not?”

      As if in reply, the horse settled into a long, smooth gallop. Nicholas threw back his head. The sun on his face and the wind in his hair made him feel truly at ease for the first time since he’d returned to England.

      He pulled Scarab up as he reached the top of the hill that looked down upon Hendry. The Gilded Boar Inn stood slightly apart from the village, out on the main highway that led back to Durleigh. Nicholas’s good humor faded as he surveyed the modest inn. With a sigh he reined his mount to the north to skirt around it. Much as he’d like to see Phillip Thibault, Flora’s sister had asked him to honor their grief and stay away. He felt duty-bound to comply with her wishes, at least for the time being.

      Eventually, when he’d reestablished himself at Hendry and the ownership of the estate was no longer in dispute, he’d seek Phillip out in private. He’d always liked the old man, and he felt the need to assure him that, in spite of Beatrice’s bitter accusations, he had never meant to do Flora any harm.

      He steered a path straight into the village itself, heading for the third in the row of humble wooden homes. Here, at least, he would be assured of a welcome. Growing up he’d spent as much time in the Fletchers’ humble cottage as he had

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