Page 17 of When I Fall in Love (De Piaget #4)

N icholas sat in front of the fire and looked at the gray dress in his hands. It had been Amanda’s, but given that he’d found it in his mother’s mending pile, he supposed it was something she intended for Isabelle and wouldn’t mind if he took for his own use. The gown would have suited either of his sisters, for they shared the same dark hair, fair skin, and aqua eyes of their mother, but he wasn’t sure it would do for Jennifer.

He wasn’t unaccustomed to marking the color of a woman’s gown. He was, especially when it was of such a vile hue that it made her look like a corpse. It would take a truly horrible color to make Jennifer look like anything but an angel.

He rose and held the dress up to himself. It was too short. He hadn’t truly thought about how much taller than his sisters Jennifer was until that moment. He leaned over and saw that the hem hit him just below the knees. It would need to be lengthened if it was to serve her.

“It looks lovely on you, truly.”

Nicholas lifted his head. “It isn’t for me, as you well know.”

“A pity,” Robin said with a grin. “The color sets your hair off to perfection.”

Nicholas contemplated stabbing his brother with his mother’s scissors, but decided against it. They were her prized possession and very rare. He’d found them in Rome himself and brought them back to her several years ago. Nay, he would have to settle for a glare, which he indulged in thoroughly as he resumed his seat. He looked through extra bits of material he’d brought with him and tried to decide what he thought might look best at the bottom of the dress.

He decided on a swath of gold silk and set to measuring it so he could cut it.

“That doesn’t match.”

Nicholas glared at Robin. “Did I ask your opinion?”

“I thought you might be afraid to,” Robin said, rubbing a finger over his mouth as if he strove to fight his smile. “So I offered it freely.”

“I think I’ll manage on my own, thank you just the same,” Nicholas said. He cut the material to the right length, then threaded a needle and started to sew.

“Miles told me about your roof,” Robin remarked finally. “A pity.”

Nicholas nodded, but continued on with his work. “At least it was only one life lost. It could have been worse.”

“Aye, it could have been,” Robin agreed.

Nicholas soldiered on. He knew he couldn’t have been so fortunate as to have Robin decide to go to bed. He steeled himself for the onslaught he knew was coming.

It came, of course, only after Robin had cleared his throat pointedly several times, shifted in his chair an equal number of times, and crossed and uncrossed his legs until Nicholas suspected he might need a rest.

“So,” Robin said, drawing the word out for an inordinate amount of time, “what other mischief have you been combining this past month whilst you’ve been away?”

“Nothing of interest.”

“Nothing?” Robin echoed in mock disbelief. “No sword fights? No enemies routed? No abbots tormented?”

Nicholas looked at him from under his eyebrows. “What has Miles already told you?”

“Unfortunately very little. He said he’d revealed too many of your secrets of late.”

Well, at least Miles had found sense. Nicholas despaired of Robin finding the same.

“So you went to Seakirk Abbey,” Robin continued. “How did you find it?”

“As I always do.”

“And the abbot?”

“The same.”

“The weather?”

Nicholas sighed and looked up from his work. “It rained. Now, what is it you want?”

“Is it not enough simply to want to converse with my younger brother? Can I not be interested in his life? In his doings—”

“Let me be interested in yours instead,” Nicholas interrupted him. “I take it Anne and the lads are at Fenwyck?”

Robin looked momentarily baffled at the reversing of the attack, but he seemed to recover soon enough. “Aye.”

“You didn’t go with them.”

“Would you?” Robin asked with a shudder. “I can scarce bear Anne’s sire’s vile self when I leave her there and yet again when I return to fetch her. You’ll note, however, that I left my entire collection of lads to guard her. Geoffrey of Fenwyck is incapable of protecting his larder, much less my wife.”

“Then I wonder that you left her there at all,” Nicholas mused. “Surely you’ll want to hurry back and see that she is well.”

“I will, after my curiosity is satisfied about you.”

“What of the rest of the family?” Nicholas asked. “Mother? Father? Isabelle?”

Robin frowned, obviously frustrated. “They escorted Grandmère back to Segrave.”

Nicholas sighed in relief “At least I am safe from her ministrations for a time.”

“Don’t breathe too easily,” Robin advised. “You know she only left to drop off the current crew and take on another. She intends to return as soon as she can collect them all.”

“Surely not.”

“Oh, aye,” Robin said, rubbing his hands together with enthusiasm. “I daresay she will outdo herself this time. I understand ’tis quite a powerful band she will bring. You should also know that she vows to see you wed by Michaelmas.”

“Or?”

“Or one of you dies.”

Nicholas blinked in surprise. “In truth?”

“Aye,” Robin said happily. “Either you or Joanna will be dead before the Yule log bums, unless you wed. She has sworn it.” He paused. “I daresay you don’t want to test one of her vows. Then again, perhaps you will have solved the problem for her before that time.”

“How so?”

Robin threw up his hands in frustration. “The wench, Nick! By the saints, you are tight-lipped about her!”

“So I am.”

“Aren’t you going to tell me anything ?”

Nicholas looked at him evenly. “Aye, here is something: mind your own affairs.”

“Your happiness is my affair.”

“It isn’t.”

“She was wearing interesting garb.”

Nicholas set his stitching down in his lap. “You won’t relent, will you?”

Robin smiled in a genuinely affectionate manner. “I’m curious, Nick. You leave for a pair of fortnights, then return with a gorgeous woman, a woman, I might add, who is wearing clothing that should likely be fed to the fire this very night lest someone look at her askance.”

“Hence my labors upon her gown.”

“Burn her clothes, Nick,” Robin said seriously.

Nicholas grimaced. “I fear she will need them again.”

“Is she going home?” Robin asked.

“What do you mean?”

Robin looked at him levelly. “You know what I mean. I’ve seen clothing like that before and I know exactly where it comes from. When I say home, I mean the Future and you know it.”

Nicholas started to speak, then shut his mouth. He considered, then sighed. “If you must know, she did try to go back.”

“Go forward.”

“That’s what I meant,” Nicholas growled.

Robin only looked at him calmly. “And?”

Nicholas looked down at the gown in his hands. It didn’t look dreadful with that strip of gold at the bottom, but it wasn’t wonderful, either. His sisters wouldn’t have worn it. His mother, that woman of tremendous patience, might even have hesitated. Obviously, he would have to have new clothes made for Jennifer. Robin had that aright; her Future clothes would have to be burned.

“Nick.”

Nicholas looked up. “Aye?”

“Tell me all.”

Nicholas hesitated only briefly. Robin knew his most atrocious secrets and only laughed at them. He was as ready with his fists as he was with his manly backslaps. Nicholas knew that whatever he told Robin would go no further, not even to Anne. Well, perhaps to Anne, but she was an even better secret keeper than her husband.

He sighed. “She came through a time gate in Ledenham’s abbey.”

“The abbey he’s building?” Robin asked incredulously.

“Aye.”

“I can scarce believe it. Of all places.”

“Aye, I know.” Nicholas sighed. “I rescued her from being burned as a witch. By Ledenham, of course.”

Robin whistled softly. “ ’Twas fortunate you were there, then. So, you rescued her, then you noticed her clothes.”

“Aye.”

“And you knew what sort of traveler she was.”

“Aye.”

Robin looked at him for a moment, then he laughed.

Nicholas gritted his teeth.

Robin continued to laugh. He laughed so long and so forcefully, that he had to stand up and lean over until he caught his breath. Finally, he sat back down and wiped the tears from his eyes.

“Ah, Nick,” he said with a gasp. “You, of all people.”

“Trust me, I’m still shaking my head over it,” Nicholas grumbled.

“And after all your snorts at Raventhorpe, all your ill treatment of Jake Kilchurn, all your unwillingness to believe anything he said—”

“Aye, I know!” Nicholas exclaimed. “Trust me, I’ve been living with the irony of it for a month now.”

Robin grinned. “Did she fall in love with you right off, or take one look at you and immediately try to return to her time?”

Nicholas scowled at his brother. “She tried to return home, of course, as she should have.” He continued with his work. “She tried three separate places. None of them worked.”

“But what of Jake’s—”

“She tried all the places she knew,” Nicholas said, cutting him off. “And that is enough.”

Robin gaped at him.

“She’s weary,” Nicholas continued, bending back to his work. “She needs to rest. After she rests, she can try again.” He sewed for a moment or two. “If she wishes to.”

Robin was silent for so long, Nicholas couldn’t stop himself from looking up. Robin was looking at him in complete astonishment.

“But you know where a gate lies that does work.”

Nicholas looked away. “Rumor. Rumor and hearsay. Who’s to say if Jake is telling the truth or not?”

“Nick!”

“Perhaps it only works for him,” Nicholas continued. “Besides, ’tis best that she stay here for a time. Until she is rested.”

He continued to stare into the fire. Finally, he realized that Robin was silent. He didn’t want to, but he knew that he would eventually have to face his brother. He sighed, finally, and turned to look at Robin.

Robin wore an expression of profound pity.

“You poor bastard,” he said.

“I despise that word,” Nicholas said.

“Why? I’m a bastard, too.”

“But your mother and father are now wed.”

“They certainly weren’t when I was conceived and you bloody well know it’s more complicated than that. Besides, I didn’t mean the word that way. Bloody hell, Nick, when are you going to let the past go?”

“Ha!” Nicholas exclaimed. “You’re a fine one to talk. It took you years to come to terms with quite a few disagreeable bits of your past. Such as how you keep running into children without fathers who look so damned much like you—”

Robin attacked with a growl.

It was the growl that saved them both from being stabbed by a needle. Nicholas had time to set aside his stitching before his brother took both him and his chair backward onto the floor.

It was a glorious brawl. It was lovely to not have any sense of responsibility or restraint preventing him from fully taking his frustrations out on Robin. It was a pleasure, and nothing but.

Half an hour later Nicholas sat on the floor next to his brother and winced as he put his hand to his eye. Robin looked worse, so he couldn’t complain.

“I left you with your teeth intact,” Robin said, “though you deserved to lose several of them for your cheek.”

“You don’t want to saddle yourself with me as the eternally unwed uncle to your children,” Nicholas said. “Self-serving, as you usually are.” He reached over and picked up his stitching.

“You like her.”

Nicholas sighed, set the gown in his lap, and looked at his elder brother. “Unfortunately.”

“She could prove to be a most disagreeable wench.” Robin pointed out. “Feisty. Of a complaining and dissatisfied nature.”

“Perhaps.”

“And yet you are unafraid.”

“As always.”

Robin was silent for far longer than was no doubt good for him, then he sighed. “So, you’ll let her rest.”

“Aye.”

“And then?”

Nicholas sewed in silence for several moments, then forced himself to look at Robin. “As I said before, she tried all the places she knew. I have no proof that there is anywhere else she might try. You didn’t see her standing for hours on a bloody clutch of rocks that was nothing but a clutch of rocks. Another disappointment is more than I can watch her endure.”

“So you will keep her here.”

“I will offer her the hospitality of my father’s hall,” Nicholas corrected. “I will clothe her properly, feed her well, and make certain she sleeps in a comfortable bed.”

“And hope to hell she falls in love with you before she learns what you know.”

Nicholas felt his jaw drop. He wished he could predict when Robin would spew forth those sorts of unerringly accurate assessments. It was so difficult to regain his footing when his brother had things aright.

“Um,” he said, casting about for something to say.

Robin only shook his head and crawled to his feet. “Feed the fire with her gear, Nick. You daren’t do aught else.”

“Rob?”

Robin paused and looked down at him. “Aye?”

Nicholas got to his feet and stood there, Amanda’s gown in his hands. “She doesn’t realize I know.” He paused. “About where she comes from.”

Robin looked at him in silence for a moment, then nodded. “I won’t say anything.”

“I appreciate your discretion.”

“You cannot keep this secret forever.”

“Which secret?”

“You have many. Choose one.”

Nicholas pursed his lips. “Go to bed.”

“I will. Happy mending. If ever you tire of the sword, you can hire yourself out as a stitcher. I’d learn to choose my colors with more care, though,” he threw over his shoulder as he walked across the hall.

Nicholas resumed his seat and finished his work. He examined the hem, then gathered his mother’s sewing things together and left the great hall. He returned his mother’s gear to her solar, then made his way to stand outside Jennifer’s door. He listened, but heard no sound.

At least she wasn’t weeping.

He returned to his own chamber, grateful that his mother still left him such a place to return to. Perhaps she despaired of his ever finishing his own hall—or of finding a woman to share it with. Whatever the case, he was grateful. He set Jennifer’s new gown over the back of a chair, then sought his own rest.

He lay awake for quite some time, thinking very seriously about what he was doing.

Aye, he suspected there was another gate. If anyone knew where it was, it would be his brother-in-law. But if he himself didn’t know, he couldn’t tell Jennifer. And if he couldn’t tell Jennifer, perhaps she would want to stay at Artane. And if she stayed at Artane, perhaps she might find him to her liking.

And perhaps by the time she learned the secret he didn’t want to reveal to her, she wouldn’t want to go.

He couldn’t bear to think on what she might do otherwise.