but not before my men followed my lead and finished what I should not have begun.”
In her wide eyes the fire’s embers glowed.
“I led, they followed,” he said. “Thus, his death is upon me.”
After some moments, Nicola said, “Have you sought the Lord’s forgiveness?”
He lowered to his back and, fixing his gaze on the blue-black sky, said, “Much forgiveness I have asked for my sins, and I believe I have been granted it, but Sigward… Many things I learned from my sire’s priest ere he sent me to Wulfen to be raised into a man and trained into a warrior, and two are these—do not insult the Lord by asking for forgiveness of sins you either do not regret or for which you have too little regret. The other thing—one’s regret should be for the wrong done, not the consequences borne by the offender.”
“Then?”
Though out of the corner of his eye he caught the streak of a star traveling the heavens, he did not move his gaze from above. “I do not believe the world worse for Sigward’s absence, Nicola. If anything, ’tis better, just as I believe it will be better when those who killed Zedekiah follow in Sigward’s footsteps. Now sleep.”
Chapter Sixteen
What think you of my kisses?”
Vitalis halted, slowly came around.
The words Nicola cast at him were not without thought. Much she had turned them in her head and heart since last they kissed. Their speaking would undo some of what her proper behavior had remedied these two days, but she had reasons for calling to mind the girl who threatened to kill him, one of which was more and more he distanced himself as if soon he would pass her to her family. And never again would they see each other.
So why not ask and, even if only for a few moments, draw him back to her?
“What say you?” he rasped.
Once again he did not speak her name as he had been inclined to do when displeased or trying to stress the importance of what he told.
She stepped forward, tipped up her face, and keeping her arms at her sides, tapped her fingertips in her palms lest they search out the rough of his beard. “I say what I said. Now pray, give answer.”
A muscle jerked in his jaw. “You sound the girl again,” he said and started to turn away.
She snatched his arm. “I speak of what caused this man to return this woman’s kisses.”
He stepped nearer, doubtless to look down upon her like a father over a child who must be impressed with the seriousness of a situation. “We shall go there no more.”
Still he would not speak her name. “I do not suggest we return there. As I have not had great experience with intimacy, I but wish to know if…”
As if feeding patience, he breathed deep. “You wish to know if I found pleasure in your kisses? Be assured, where they began they would have ended had I not liked them, Nicola.”
His use of her name easing some of her angst, she said, “I thank you.”
He removed her hand from him. “I must tend our mounts ere departing for town.”
Here the greatest reason she voiced that question. An hour past, the sound of horses riding on Thetford had penetrated deep into the wood, evidencing they were of great number and speed. There could be little doubt the riders were Normans, but were they dangerous or deadly? Either way, she wanted Vitalis to stay with her.
When she started to follow to where their horses grazed, he turned back.
Before he could send her away, she said, “I am aware ’twas unseemly to ask it, but I wished to know because you are not the first one I have kissed.”
Another fill of the lungs. “I am guessing Bjorn was given that honor.” It was not said unkindly, and she realized he was thinking ahead of her—that the one she referred to would never again kiss a woman.
She looked down. “Not him. I mean, he was the first man I kissed but not my first kiss. There was a stable boy at my sire’s home in Normandy.”
“Was there, indeed?” he drawled.
Was that a smile in his voice? Hoping it was also on his lips, she raised her gaze.
It was not much of a smile, but more than she had seen in a long while. Though the tale would not reflect well on her, if it further lightened the air between them and held him here, more she