sennight without something hard and hot between her thighs, it would have had to have been because of a grave, life-threatening illness striking her prone. Even then, she would have found better ways to raise a sweat than with hot poultices.
“How do the plans for the wedding celebration progress?” she asked sweetly. “I suppose I should ask, since it was my excuse for arriving early.”
“The preparations go well. William the Marshal has sent his acknowledgment, as have Salisbury and Tavistoke. Prince John should arrive early in the week, as will Fournier from Normandy, and La Seyne Sur Mer from Mirebeau.”
“The queen’s champion?” Nicolaa arched a brow. “You should indeed be honoured that Eleanor of Aquitaine would send her favoured knight as envoy. A pity the wrinkled old sheep’s bladder is too feeble to make the journey herself, but surely a feather for you that she persuaded La Seyne Sur Mer to journey in her stead. Will he participate in the tourney?”
“It remains to be seen,” De Gournay said, the merest trace of pleasure betrayed in his expression. “I suspect he might be eager to establish a reputation outside of Brittany.”
“Saints assoil us,” Nicolaa murmured. “You would share your own laurel wreath with the Scourge of Mirebeau? How generous of you.”
“Wisdom before generosity, my love. The wisdom to see his skill firsthand and judge his mettle by mine own eyes rather than rely solely on the reports of others.”
“It is said he has yet to meet his equal in the lists,” Nicolaa remarked with a sly lack of subtlety.
“He has yet to venture more than a hundred miles from Mirebeau,” Wardieu shot back. “Much less come to England to meet his match.”
Nicolaa shivered deliciously, riding the ripples of a series of small inner fluctuations. Wardieu angry, or Wardieu impugned usually set the stage for an incomparable bout of lovemaking and she felt her thighs slicken with anticipation.
“Then you intend to challenge him?”
“The notion has its merit.”
“But will your bride be sympathetic to the possibility of losing her groom before she has had a chance at true wedded bliss?”
Lucien stared a moment, then gave way to a slow grin. “Ahh, the crux of the matter. I thought I detected more green in your eyes tonight than was normal.”
“Plague take you, Lucien Wardieu. What, by all the saints, do I have to be jealous of? A timid little widow with knocking knees and a sallow complexion? You forget, I have seen her, my lord; I was present at her wedding to Hubert de Briscourt, and a sorrier sight could not be imagined. Three years of laying fallow beneath an invalid could not have wrought much improvement either, and if the gossip-mongers speak the truth when they say the old viper died of the pox, then she is undoubtedly riddled with the disease herself and will appeal to neither your sense of sight nor smell.”
At that, a laugh escaped him. “Sir Hubert died of a sixty-year-old heart.”
“Weakened, I am sure, by the sight of a poxy trull waiting in his bed each night.”
“Nicolaa …” He shook his head slowly, causing sparks of candlelight to glint off the magnificent mane of golden hair. “Is it any wonder poor Onfroi sweats himself into pools when he is near you? Your tongue is sharp enough to flay any man or woman into a cowering shadow of their former self. Now, come. She cannot be as bad as all that.”
“Have you seen her?” Nicolaa asked pointedly, knowing full well he had not.
“Once,” he admitted. “I think. The room was very crowded, and she was standing very far away.”
“There, you see? She was so ugly she was kept well out of the way to avoid giving offense.”
Lucien unfolded his thickly muscled arms and moved away from the window. He set his goblet on a nearby table and crossed over to where Nicolaa stood, stopping in front of her. Reaching out, he placed a hand on either trim hip, grasping the slippery silk of her tunic between his fingers and sliding it upward.
“So what would you have me do?” he murmured, casting the flimsy garment aside and watching the fall of black hair drift back down to cover the lusciously nude body. “Let some other lout petition for her hand and win her estates?”
“Is that truly all you want her for? She is very young.”
“I can have youth anytime I want it,” he said, reaching out again, this time to flick aside a ribbon of hair that had tumbled over