Reckless (Age of Conquest #5) - Tamara Leigh Page 0,92

keep the word already given is true.”

“Now if only I can,” she breathed.

He half-smiled, looked to the pallet. “For that, those who love you sacrifice comfort.”

“I am sorry, Dougray.”

He kissed her brow. “We know, just as we understand the heart does not always act in one’s best interest.”

She managed a smile of her own. “Certes, that is the warning it sounds, and yet where my brothers are concerned—and now my cousin—I find encouragement in indulging this heart.”

He narrowed his lids.

“Observation only,” she said, and lowered her smile when she heard a door open.

The prince exited a chamber farther down the corridor. He was mid-yawn when he caught sight of them. The widening of his eyes and bob of his throat evidenced wariness, but not of her.

Privately, he had been schooled in the inappropriateness of his gift to Nicola and the danger in which it had placed all.

Nicola had not been present for the lesson taught him by the three D’Argents who, it seemed, had little care that one day the prince would be a man of power greater than their own. Now Richard was in no doubt that a gift given by one who is worthy does not endanger its recipient, and the better to ensure that, the giver did not seek his bed whilst the receiver unwrapped it.

That was all Nicola’s brothers and cousin had revealed of their meeting—and that the young man had behaved admirably and been grateful that the only way De Warenne would learn of that night was if Daryl amended the lie that his face had been sliced in a tavern brawl which his opponents had seriously lost. Proficient liar or not, that seemed the end of it where De Warenne was concerned.

Nicola did not like the close watch on her, but she knew it was needed. Often she felt Daryl’s harsh gaze and believed he might risk all to harm her.

“Sir Dougray, Lady Nicola,” Richard said as he neared and dipped his head. His tone and gesture was a bit resentful but more respectful, as if a prince should not be rebuked by a lesser but relieved it had been done by some of his sire’s best warriors.

“Prince Richard,” Dougray said, also with acceptable respect.

Nicola smiled. “My prince.”

Then he was past, and she heard his breath of relief.

“I like him,” she said as his footsteps echoed down the stairs. “I hope you, Guarin, and Maël were not terribly hard on him.”

“Of course we were. Albeit well-intentioned, what he did was gravely serious. Also of import is that his clay is very good, meaning it is worth the effort to shape it into something better which De Warenne neglects to do.”

“Why do you think he does not?”

Dougray began guiding her down the corridor. “Either the earl is short-sighted, believing all wealth and power will go to the eldest, or he does not like Richard.”

As they descended the stairs, she said, “Both, I think.”

“Fool,” he pronounced.

“Fool,” she agreed, and when they stepped into the hall and she saw the prince smile at the pretty Saxon who served him at table—naught lascivious about the turn of his lips nor shift of his eyes—she agreed on another thing. “Good clay,” she said.

Her brother chuckled. If he did not entirely forgive her, he forgave her a bit more.

“While we await Maël and his tidings of Vitalis,” she said as they angled toward Guarin who pushed back from his meal, “will you make the time pass more quickly by telling more of your visit to father and mother?”

“I believe I have told all. The good and, unfortunately, the bad.”

The good being his wife was well-received by her in-laws, including Nicola’s second brother, Cyr, and his wife. And just as well-received was Maël’s wife, Mercia. When Dougray retrieved Em from Normandy, he would return his Saxon bride to England and they would travel to Derbyshire where he would accept the title and lands his birth father would pass to his misbegotten son.

In contrast, when Maël returned to Normandy, he would take Mercia even farther from England, possibly so far Nicola would not see them again. She was not to regard that as a bad thing, but she would ache over the loss of her cousin and his Mercia, perhaps even more than the bad thing Dougray had revealed—that Cyr and Aelfled’s second child had been lost early in the pregnancy.

Nicola felt for them, but for her it was harder to lose those she already knew and loved. “I wish to know