more about mother and father,” she said. “And…”
Handing her into the seat beside Guarin, Dougray bent his head alongside hers. “Father accepts I shall take the name of Roche. He prefers I keep his name, as would I, but this is the way of it. And Michel Roche is a good man.”
She looked around. “I know he is. And Mother? She is well with it?”
“She is, and grateful for the aid given by the man who fathered me. We will still be a family, Nicola—shall always be, whether our names change, whether we are near or far.”
“I know, but Maël—”
“He comes.” Dougray jutted his chin in the direction of the cellar. “And see how changed he is from months past.”
It was true. And for that she would ache more to lose him.
“Now smile, little sister. He brings word of Vitalis.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
He is here. Mayhap this the day I die.
No word was spoken that could be heard when one of the guards was summoned from his station, no word spoken when the guard returned. But the man was anxious, and when he saw the face near the grate, he slammed and latched the hinged door.
Now greater darkness, but appropriate. Lacking even a sliver of light in this place that had thus far claimed twelve days of his life, Vitalis lowered to his pallet and set his back against the wall. He did not mind the stones being chill and damp, at least not in this moment with his body taut and heated.
The same as Guarin while that D’Argent was a rebel captive, this captive of Normans subjected his muscles to all manner of exercise. Should he find no opportunity to make use of greater bulk and capacity for breath, still it passed the time and kept his mind from dwelling on all that had passed since Nicola’s arrival upon Ely when everything went from shades of grey to black with Zedekiah’s death.
The loss of Vitalis’s friend had been worse than painful, though no one could know it as well as the woman who had held him behind the falls.
Remembering her hands and arms, her own tears shining light amid his darkness, feeling her here with him now, he raised his face to a ceiling as black as a moonless night, breathed in stale air, and breathed out a single word. “Aye.”
Nicola was reckless—a termagant, a vixen—but he felt what she wished him to feel. Not that he would admit it to her, nor her cousin who turned watchful when their exchanges moved toward Nicola. Only once following her venture into the cellar had Maël D’Argent trespassed further. With the knowing of one who himself has discovered a capacity for love, he had asked what his captive felt for his cousin.
Now that she is your problem, relief no longer must I feel anything for her, Vitalis had said.
That had silenced the chevalier, but not his eyes. Just as he had learned to love, he understood the denial of it ahead of the yielding.
Now in this place that seemed the entrance to hell, Vitalis accepted how great the lie he had told. This was love for Nicola, the same and yet different from what he had felt for Hawisa. Same in that it was the heart’s greatest depth of emotion, different in that it was fresh and more exciting for being returned—and likely in greater measure than he was capable of feeling. Same in that it was love without hope, different in that he had been given a taste of its physical side. He had held Nicola, touched her, tasted her lips, at the time unaware of how great the gift she gave him, though dwelling on it made its impending loss more painful than comforting.
Then cease, he silently rebuked. Do not be one who drinks much and, though he knows the danger of it, puts the wineskin to his lips again with the promise he will take only one more sip.
“Where is your warrior’s training?” he muttered. “When death is at your door, you do not go soft. Even have you little chance of beating it back, you set your mind on survival.”
And yet he rubbed the knuckles of his left hand, not in anticipation of using a fist against those who would soon come for him but in memory of re-injuring it when Daryl threatened Nicola and all he could do was shout and pound on the door. Like Hawisa, she deserved far better. Thus, the good of William’s arrival was