Through The Leaded Glass Read online

  “Savor later, Nicholas. For now, banish these thoughts, these fears. Make me forget. Make me not even think about them. About him.”

  The one thing able to incite him to more than passion was jealousy. He hauled her against him, her mouth even with his, noses touching, gaze burning into hers. “Trust me, Issy, there will be no thoughts of any other man between us.”

  He kissed her, his tongue plundering the sweet, hot recesses within, sparing no mercy. The thought of any other man touching her drove him to burn his touch, his body, into her very soul. She was his.

  She speared her hands through his hair, giving every bit as fiercely as he did. He ran a hand over her gown, pulling at the ties that would reveal her to his gaze, fumbling with them in his haste. The damn things might as well be in knots and he didn’t have patience to wait.

  He set her before him, their chests rising as they stared at each other. He kissed her again, then gripped her bodice. “I’ll buy you another.” The rending fabric tore through the chamber like the crash of thunder in their heated silence.

  It also tore through the mood.

  At least, it did for Issy. Nick knew it instantly. She stood there in her slippers, the dress gliding down her slender body as it shimmered in the moonlight and he felt her stiffen. Saw reality come back to her.

  “Issy—” He held out his hand.

  “No.” She grabbed the puddle of fabric at her feet, her fingers fumbling with it as she tried to cover herself. “No, Nicholas. You can’t. I can’t.” Issy pulled the crumpled blue dress to her chin, and combed her hair forward to cover herself as her tears tore out his heart.

  “Why, Issy? Why is it different?” He struggled through the haze of passion to understand, to know why she denied them. Why she fought against their marriage. She granted him her bed, but denied him this.

  “I can’t, Nicholas. What you want, what I—” She turned her head away.

  “What you what?” He grabbed the dress.

  Issy tugged on the gown, refusing to yield. “Go, Nicholas. Before we do something we’ll regret.” She turned her back to him.

  That magnificent back, with its hollows and softness, the tiny shoulders, those soft dimples in her lower back, the rounded cushion of her derrière… He had kissed every inch of her back, every inch of her. She couldn’t turn away from him and expect him to leave. Not now.

  “I’d never regret it, Issy.”

  “But I would.”

  Her words, spoken so softly he wouldn’t have heard them if he hadn’t been listening for his very life, cut him in two. In hundreds. Thousands of shards of pain.

  “Why?”

  “Your words… the dress… They reminded me...” She looked over her shoulder at him, her profile perfect in shadow.

  “Reminded you?”

  “Don’t you see, Nicholas? Don’t you see what I am? What I’ve become?” She flourished her dress. “You’d buy me another. Once we made love, you’d buy me another gown. How is that different from Wexham? He would buy me jewels, clothing, provide dowries for my daughters, all after I lay with him. Alex, too. Provide him an heir and the glories of the Shelton vault are mine.”

  The tears streamed down her face, creating a tiny pool in the hollows of her collarbone. Nick struggled to understand.

  “What does this make me, Nicholas? What?” She’d be screaming, if her anguish hadn’t turned her voice to choking sobs, her shoulders shaking as if she were cold but for the blaze in her cheeks. “A whore. A prize to the highest bidder. All for a moment of passion. Don’t you understand?”

  “You aren’t a whore, Issy.” He yanked her to face him, her slight shoulders safely guarded in his scarred hands. “That’s the last thing you are! You’re—”

  She put a finger to his lips. “You’ll never say it, but it’s true. Marston was the first. I tried to fool myself that it could be different, that it could be more with you. But don’t you see, Nicholas? I must go to the highest bidder. There’s no other choice. The king and my daughters’ futures demand it.”

  “Then I shall bid.”

  Her smile was sad and she backed away from him, gathering the blue gown around her. “Goodbye, Nicholas.”

  He reached for her, but she ran to her solar, stopping to turn in the doorway. “Don’t delude yourself, Nicholas. We both know that, for this king, you don’t have enough to offer.” She closed the door behind her.

  She was wrong. So wrong. “I have everything to offer, Issy, if only you’d see it.”

  He would prove it.

  Chapter Nine

  “You look like hell.” Alex grabbed Nick’s arm when he stumbled into the hall the next morn, wearing the same clothes he’d been wearing last evening, though more disheveled for their trials. He reeked of wine and stale flesh, and his eyes were redder than his hair.

  Alex led him to the chamber beyond. “What happened last night, Nick?”

  Nick’s laugh as he lurched into the room was a sound to be pitied. “Happened? Not a bloody thing happened. I merely accompanied Iso—Lady Marston to her home so she wouldn’t disrupt your evening.”

  Alex closed the door behind them. “The fact that you didn’t return to your rooms here—”

  “Is none of your damn business, Alex.” Nick slurred as he missed a step and fell onto the table, his sword clattering against the legs. “God, my head.” He fought with his scabbard to sink into a chair, then rubbed the offensive body part.

  Sunlight filtered through the tracery window, the cut glass dancing in slashes and diamonds over the polished tabletop and Nick’s soiled cloak. Mud caked his boots, a sizeable portion of the heel scraped off. Marks like lashings peppered his hose.

  Alex let the sounds from the great hall beyond the door underscore his silence; the growling of the dogs as they fought for last night’s scraps, the placing of the trestle tables and benches for the morning meal, the steady progress of men as they entered to break their fast. Nick would talk when he was ready.

  Finally, with a shuddering sigh, Nick peered through his matted hair, one blue eye glaring through the dirt and grime covering his hands.

  “I took a nice long ride throughout your fair lands and got myself stinking sotted. Happy?”

  “Hardly. I have other things to worry about. I don’t need a drunken friend mulling about.”

  Nick pinched the bridge of his nose. “Far be it for me to cause further worry. Don’t concern yourself with me, Alex.”

  Alex pulled the chair across from him. “But I do, Nick. I wonder why you never told me. I was about to do you a disservice, one to Isobel, to our friendship, and you didn’t say anyth—”

  Nick shoved back from the table, wincing as the chair grated across the floor. “For the love of God, Alex, let it go.”

  “When you admit you love her.”

  “Have your senses left you?” Nick stared at him. “I don’t love Iso—Lady Marston.” He heaved himself from the chair and staggered to the door.

  “Then why the drunken ride through my land?”

  “I don’t love her,” he said again, pulling at the door. Unfortunately for him, he needed to push it.

  Alex fought to keep the smile from his face. He remembered when he’d finally admitted his feelings for Jeanne.

  “Very well, you don’t love her. Last night was, perhaps, an aberration? The moon urging you to drink beyond all reason?” Alex walked to the window and pushed open the pane. The day’s rays warmed his face. Horses trotted below with their bridles jingling amid the swordplay of his men training in the yard. He caught a glimpse of Kate as she followed Beatrice to the well. He’d speak with her about that. Servants drew the water, not future countesses.

  She was sure to have an opinion on that.

  He turned back to Nick. “Then you won’t mind when I tell you Henry has heard of my betrothal and is making a move toward Wexham for Isobel.”

  Nick rolled against the wall, his chin and legs sagging. “It can’t be true.”

  “I�
�m afraid it is, Nick.”

  “He’ll kill her.”

  Love was a double-edged sword as Alex well knew. “Wexham won’t, Nick. Not this time. Henry needs his money and Wexham needs the king’s favor. One more death would be too much scandal for even Wexham to overcome.”

  “If there were some way to prevent this. Some way…”

  “I thought you didn’t care for her.”

  Nick’s look would have flayed the flesh from his bones if his drunken state didn’t make the thought laughable. “Don’t mock me, Alex.”

  “Then don’t lie to me. Had I known of your feelings, I wouldn’t have considered her. I could have asked Henry—”

  “I don’t love her, Alex.” Nick straightened his shoulders and thrust a hand through his hair. “So, when shall we bring Farley to the king?”

  Fine. Nick didn’t want his interference. “I don’t know that he’s guilty, Nick.”

  “The man threatened you before witnesses.”

  “True, but he doesn’t have a reason to harm William.”

  “Revenge is a good enough reason, Alex.”

  God knew, Alex had thought so last night, but when he’d checked the hidden items and found deeds of greater value still there, it didn’t make sense. “But what else does he hope to gain? The land wouldn’t be his, nor the income. Certainly not the king’s favor. To threaten murder, an offense punishable by hanging, there would have to be more to it than mere jealousy.”

  “Think about it, Alex. No one resents you more than Farley and whoever is doing this, is after you. This is personal.”

  Chapter Ten

  “Alex!” Kate ran across the bailey toward him, of few auburn curls slipping from her cap to fall beneath the neckline of her goldenrod gown.

  Alex’s fingers itched to trace their path.

  Christ.

  He pulled his gaze off her, staring, instead at the children herding the flock of geese. At the man dripping water from his buckets across the ground. The cart carrying firewood to the forge. The metal smith’s hammer as it struck the anvil. Anywhere but at Kate and the memory of how close he’d been to having her. And how much he still wanted to.

  He’d just spent a disastrous hour with the messengers his men had sent back. No one had seen Kate’s window. And his guards could shed no light on who’d had access to his rooms, nor how. ‘Twas as if both the window and the culprit didn’t exist, yet he knew that they did. And it frustrated the hell out of him.

  As Kate did with her bouncing breasts and big, beautiful smile, and that form, God that form that he’d held in his hands and rutted against.

  “Alex, have you—”

  “No, Kate, I haven’t found your blasted window.” If he had, he’d be holding it to shield the evidence of her effect on him.

  The corners of her mouth twitched. “Hmmm. Somebody got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.”

  No side would be wrong if she were there when he awoke.

  “Merely a conversation that ended inconclusively. What do you need?”

  “What do I need? Hmm, let’s think. How about a burger, a hot shower, and oh, I don’t know, maybe the means to get all of them?”

  “Is that scorn I hear?” She put her hand on her hip and blinked at him.

  Alex sighed. “All right, Kate, what is it you sought me out for?”

  She took his words for the thinly veiled apology they were meant to be. “I need your help. Cook is refusing to try some new food preparation methods and I’d like your intercession. Apparently, my word is not law in the kitchen.”

  “Your word’s not law anywhere.”

  “Fabulous. You enjoy your little power trip while I muddle through with the peons. I was aiming for dinner, but that option is long gone. However, if you want supper tonight, I suggest you order Cook to give my ideas a shot, otherwise I won’t be responsible for maggot-ridden meat, tasteless soppy veggies, and non-nutritious bread. ‘Kay?”

  Her slender fingers gripped her hips in her anger, but Alex could only think of how those fingers had felt gripping his arms yesterday, the feel of her nails in his flesh. How narrow her hips had been in his hands, how they moved against him, as her heat had scorched his skin—

  “Hello? Alex?” She waved those delicate, graceful fingers before his face.

  He captured one and restrained the urge to bury his lips against her palm. “You wear the ring, but your words have no meaning.”

  She snatched her hand back. Alex felt its lack immediately.

  “I just want to show her a few new ideas. Some sanitary practices for her kitchen. Is that so difficult? Because if so, I’m still willing to ride into town to ask around for the window. Better yet, I’ll head off into the sunset to find Alicia and her merry men. It’s up to you.”

  “Kate, I understand that you think your ways are better, but people aren’t accustomed to them. They’re distrustful. Cook knows her trade. Leave her to it. You need to learn our ways to fit in here. For instance, not drawing water from the well. There are others to do th—”

  A woman’s scream shrieked through the bailey. The wood cart ceased moving, the children turned to stare, and even the geese were silent as everyone and everything stopped.

  The scream came again, now spurring everyone to action. Kate grabbed her skirts and looked at him. “Where?”

  “This way.” Alex ran toward the postern gate. That cry had come from the river.

  Others followed. Those in the fields joined the growing crowd as they sped down the incline toward the river’s edge where a woman ran, flailing her arms, shrieking at the rushing water.

  Shouts, calls, pointing fingers—there—bobbing in the current toward the shallows.

  Alex reached the woman just as she fled down the embankment into the river and reached for—

  A child.

  Alex’s heart clenched as he ran past the woman. “Kate, keep her back!” he yelled, hauling the boy from the reeds, frigid river water streaming from his clothing.

  The child, Rory, was turning blue, not breathing. Flashes of memories of Jeanne… his son… still… on the bed—

  No. Not again. He couldn’t live through that pain again.

  Alex trudged through the reeds to the bank and laid Rory gently on the ground.

  The boy’s hands were bound.

  This was no accident.

  Anger, white-hot, surged through Alex. “Rory!” He shook him. By God, he’d not have it!

  He shook Rory harder until Jane, the tanner’s widow, fell upon her son, sobbing, calling his name, her tears drenching him more than the river had, and Alex had to sit back.

  Nick was right; this was personal, for the madman would know what a child’s death meant to him.

  He closed the boy’s eyes and blinked against the sting behind his own as Kate barreled through the crowd to fling herself on her knees beside him.

  “Alex, help me. Get her off him. I might be able to help.” She yanked his arm. “Alex, come on! Untie him! Time’s our enemy here. Let me try to save him!”

  “What can you do, Kate? He’s gone.” But he did as she asked, plucking Jane from her son and giving her into her sister’s care, then untied the ropes.

  Once Rory’s arms were free, Kate rolled him to his side and pounded on his back. Water trickled out, but not enough to reverse the effects of the river.

  Rory was gone, couldn’t she see that? “Kate—”

  “Come on, come on!” Kate rolled Rory onto his back, knelt at his side, and put her hand on his chest. She pressed. Twice.

  Nothing happened.

  “Kate—”

  Then she did the oddest thing. She tilted the child’s head, pinched his nose closed, put her mouth over his, and blew into it.

  Jane went silent at the sight. As did the rest of his people.

  The swift flow of the deadly river was the only sound as Kate alternated between Rory’s head and his chest, repeating her actions, over and over. She was breathing into him. For him.


  It just might work. Alex moved beside her. “Show me what to do.”

  A low murmur started among his people as he worked with her. After a few compressions, he paused for her to breathe into Rory again. After two breaths, she put her hand on the child’s neck.

  And she smiled.

  “Here.” She placed his hand where hers had been.

  There was a beat.

  And another.

  Then Rory coughed and the crowd gasped. Alex did too, sitting back on his legs as the boy coughed again and river water gushed from his small body.

  Kate rolled him to his side, smiling through her tears. “See, Alex? Sometimes new ideas are worth trying.”

  He couldn’t deny that now. “I see. Perhaps you could—”

  “Witch.” A murmur, half-whispered, caused Kate to go still.

  Alex put a finger to her lips, and stood. It wouldn’t take long to fan the flames of distrust. Witch riots could incite a crowd to a frenzy. With Kate’s life hanging in the balance, he needed to stop this before it went further.

  The crowd averted their gaze when he stood before them. A few women wrung their hands; others crossed themselves as they looked between Kate and Rory. Even Jane’s eyes narrowed.

  He didn’t have long.

  “The good sisters of Lady Katherine’s convent have discovered this extraordinary skill for saving lives,” he said. “When she told me about it, I’d hoped never to see its demonstration. But we should all learn it so the river won’t claim its victims.”

  No one moved. And they all stared at Kate.

  Kate sat back, crossing her legs and met the stares of the townspeople. Great. Just great. They didn’t look convinced. If anything, they crossed themselves even more. Here, she went and saved one of their own and they wanted to stone her. Alex might be their lord, but apparently superstition was stronger—and she wasn’t about to hang around to give him time to prove her wrong about that.

  She grabbed her skirts, ready to run for it. No way was she going to die as a witch in the fifteenth century. Not if she had anything to say about it. She’d rather take her chances in the river than with a pitchfork-wielding horde.