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Authors: Linda Needham
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been the man's home for some time. His solitary refuge from his own secret tragedies, it seemed.
"Where do you sleep, sir?"
He took a long measure of her and then tapped the back of the chair. "Here."
"You can't sleep in a tiny chair. I'll send Dickon with a pallet."
"No. Send me nothing."
"But you'll be aching by—"
"The chair will do." She couldn't possibly have softened his abruptness with any amount of argument or eider ticking. He seemed bent on his discomfort—a mendicant monk in the guise of a soldier.
Who are you, Nicholas Langridge? But it was far too late in the evening for that kind of question; tomorrow would be soon enough.
"Where have you been sleeping these months since you arrived here? Surely in the keep somewhere. If you have a chamber there I can bring—"
"It doesn't matter, madam. I am fine here."
Fine? Sleeping among the chains and gears? An ordinary man would have quartered himself in royal splendor, given an entire castle full of appointments, would have gathered together the riches of the late lord's bounty and reveled in them. Or packed the lot off to the nearest town and sold it all. But her steward seemed as spare in his living as he was grand in his honor—a far better man than the one she had been so briefly wed to.
He'd been protective when he could have pillaged at will. A steward in fact, if not by title.
Oh, my—she'd been a complete dunderhead not to have realized from the start what he'd been doing here all alone at Faulkhurst. "You've been steward for months, haven't you, Nicholas?"
"What do you mean?" The question was asked quickly, ripe with suspicion of her motives.
"First in my husband's absence, and then in my own." No wonder he'd taken possession with such vengeance.
Nicholas's heart was thudding again against his chest, his pulse again under siege from her innocent arrows that forever hit him dead on target and pierced deeply.
"I lodged here only, madam. For a few months, because it has been convenient for me. Make nothing more of it than that."
She settled closer to him, a hand on her hip, puzzling over him, over some bit of unlikely logic. "Whether you meant it so or not, your skulking has kept Faulkhurst from being picked clean."
Ah. "By your enterprising outlaws?"
She laughed generously, as though he'd caught her in a misstep, and touched the hollow of her throat, exposed in that sloping, alabaster breach above her night shift. "Aye, sir. You saved me from those very outlaws, locked everyone out until I could come. Why?"
Blasted woman. He would never be ready for any of her stunning questions. He hadn't thought ahead that far into his story—the whys of his being here, of his staying. And he sure as hell couldn't judge—at the mercy of her gaze, of her fingers smoothing the edge of his cuff—what this falsehood or that would mean in the coming months. Would a simple detail eventually trip him up when he least expected it?
"Why? Nothing I had planned," was all he could manage. For that smallness of spirit he got another of her enigmatic smiles. And his privacy, his distance.
"Well, sir. How can I ever thank you for all you've done for me thus far?"
She put out her hand for him to shake, which scared him brainless—because he couldn't stop himself from taking it, any more than he could stop himself from raising its slim paleness to his mouth and pressing a kiss to the back of her fingers and between.
Yes, fresh dandelions and lavender and soap. A new fire in his cold hearth.
"Oh, my." She watched his dangerous, forbidden courtship with open fascinations with eyes that sparkled with curiosity and invited much more exploring than he dared imagine.
"Well. Thank you, Master Nicholas," she said, with a magnificently erotic hitch of her breath that flushed her cheeks and her throat, and made his skin ache, his chest burn.
He let go of her hand, regretting few things more in his life. "You will thank me most effectively, my lady, by keeping yourself safe
"Where do you sleep, sir?"
He took a long measure of her and then tapped the back of the chair. "Here."
"You can't sleep in a tiny chair. I'll send Dickon with a pallet."
"No. Send me nothing."
"But you'll be aching by—"
"The chair will do." She couldn't possibly have softened his abruptness with any amount of argument or eider ticking. He seemed bent on his discomfort—a mendicant monk in the guise of a soldier.
Who are you, Nicholas Langridge? But it was far too late in the evening for that kind of question; tomorrow would be soon enough.
"Where have you been sleeping these months since you arrived here? Surely in the keep somewhere. If you have a chamber there I can bring—"
"It doesn't matter, madam. I am fine here."
Fine? Sleeping among the chains and gears? An ordinary man would have quartered himself in royal splendor, given an entire castle full of appointments, would have gathered together the riches of the late lord's bounty and reveled in them. Or packed the lot off to the nearest town and sold it all. But her steward seemed as spare in his living as he was grand in his honor—a far better man than the one she had been so briefly wed to.
He'd been protective when he could have pillaged at will. A steward in fact, if not by title.
Oh, my—she'd been a complete dunderhead not to have realized from the start what he'd been doing here all alone at Faulkhurst. "You've been steward for months, haven't you, Nicholas?"
"What do you mean?" The question was asked quickly, ripe with suspicion of her motives.
"First in my husband's absence, and then in my own." No wonder he'd taken possession with such vengeance.
Nicholas's heart was thudding again against his chest, his pulse again under siege from her innocent arrows that forever hit him dead on target and pierced deeply.
"I lodged here only, madam. For a few months, because it has been convenient for me. Make nothing more of it than that."
She settled closer to him, a hand on her hip, puzzling over him, over some bit of unlikely logic. "Whether you meant it so or not, your skulking has kept Faulkhurst from being picked clean."
Ah. "By your enterprising outlaws?"
She laughed generously, as though he'd caught her in a misstep, and touched the hollow of her throat, exposed in that sloping, alabaster breach above her night shift. "Aye, sir. You saved me from those very outlaws, locked everyone out until I could come. Why?"
Blasted woman. He would never be ready for any of her stunning questions. He hadn't thought ahead that far into his story—the whys of his being here, of his staying. And he sure as hell couldn't judge—at the mercy of her gaze, of her fingers smoothing the edge of his cuff—what this falsehood or that would mean in the coming months. Would a simple detail eventually trip him up when he least expected it?
"Why? Nothing I had planned," was all he could manage. For that smallness of spirit he got another of her enigmatic smiles. And his privacy, his distance.
"Well, sir. How can I ever thank you for all you've done for me thus far?"
She put out her hand for him to shake, which scared him brainless—because he couldn't stop himself from taking it, any more than he could stop himself from raising its slim paleness to his mouth and pressing a kiss to the back of her fingers and between.
Yes, fresh dandelions and lavender and soap. A new fire in his cold hearth.
"Oh, my." She watched his dangerous, forbidden courtship with open fascinations with eyes that sparkled with curiosity and invited much more exploring than he dared imagine.
"Well. Thank you, Master Nicholas," she said, with a magnificently erotic hitch of her breath that flushed her cheeks and her throat, and made his skin ache, his chest burn.
He let go of her hand, regretting few things more in his life. "You will thank me most effectively, my lady, by keeping yourself safe
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