Reckless (Age of Conquest #5) - Tamara Leigh Page 0,94
likely soon she would have no cause to set more of her heart on this rebel.
“Lord,” he rasped. “No convent for her. Rather, someone she respects and loves well enough to allow him to protect her from the fire in her veins.”
Putting her from his mind, he turned his thoughts to the one come unto Red Castle. Soon he would be here, his face at the grate. Soon he would be the one playing David of the Bible, his enemy at his mercy. But unlike Vitalis, he would not walk away, leaving this rebel whole and free. A price would be extracted to ensure never again did the usurper have anything to fear from Vitalis.
“Mayhap you were right that I should have slain him in the cave, Zedekiah,” he murmured. “Though the flux was upon me, better my life spent on that effort than no effort this.”
He closed his eyes. William’s death would not have saved Saxons who would then answer to another barbaric Norman, but it would have spared Nicola this and possibly Zedekiah his life. And of course there was the prince who would surely benefit from the loss of his father’s influence.
As thought, Richard feared his sire, though surely not as much as Nicola did. No herald was sent ahead to announce the king’s arrival. The warning was given by De Warenne’s patrol who distantly caught sight of the royal entourage and had only a quarter hour to alert the earl before the king guided his magnificent destrier beneath the outer bailey’s portcullis.
Nicola and her kin were there to greet him with others of high nobility, and she loathed him as she bent the knee and he granted permission to unbend the knee by speaking her name.
That was all he said to her—as if she had not been abducted by Danes with the Abbess of Lillefarne, as if she had not been rescued by Zedekiah and Vitalis, as if she had not been recovered by her family when the former leader of the Rebels of the Pale yielded to Maël.
Were it not for Vitalis, she would be well with that since falling heavily to William’s notice could cause his mind to turn toward matching her with one of his favorites. Rather, least favorites—a Norman he believed could tame her without bringing the D’Argent wrath down upon the man’s head.
As she was determined to keep her word to her brothers and cousin to allow them to speak and act on behalf of Vitalis, she could not herself seek an audience with William to plead for mercy on the Saxon who rescued her. But were he to engage her and ask the right questions…
“Nicola,” Guarin warned after William acknowledged the Baron of Wulfen, “I know what you are thinking. Do not.”
“It is only thought,” she whispered and shifted her regard to the king’s son who had minutes earlier ridden across the drawbridge to welcome his sire. “No harm in that.”
“True—were you not Nicola.”
Feeling her nose tingle and eyes sting, she said, “I am trying hard not to be her.” Voice cracking, she raised her chin higher in an attempt to quiet this fear that no one would be able to do anything good for Vitalis, not even the prince whose purse held the cloth his father desired likely more than the one who took it from him.
Richard sought to look confident in the presence of the conqueror whose blood was in his veins, but because it was so obvious to her how hard he tried, she knew he was anxious not to disappoint his sire.
“Have courage,” she whispered to he who could not hear her. But Guarin heard. As if believing she counseled herself, he enfolded her hand in one made more for gripping weapons than offering comfort, and yet was as capable of the latter. If not that Dougray on her other side was missing that hand, doubtless he would do as his brother did.
Nicola was glad Maël was not here, though only because he was with Vitalis preparing him for his audience with the king.
Unbeknownst to her before this day, Maël and her brothers had made good use of the time spent awaiting William’s arrival by having new garments sewn for Vitalis since his own were worn and greatly fouled by imprisonment. He would present as the nobleman he was.
As all knew, William’s belief the nobility were closer to God made him reluctant to take the lives of those who became his enemies—be they Norman or Saxon.