Page 30 of When I Fall in Love (De Piaget #4)

N icholas paused in the passageway. It was the first bloody rest he’d had in three days. Unfortunately, he hadn’t passed those days with Jennifer and that was wearing on him.

He didn’t want to think about it, but the fortnight was finished after another day and he was dreading more with every hour the moment when he would have to tell Jennifer what he knew. If his current subterfuge hadn’t weighed on him so heavily, he would have taken the secret to his grave.

He leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. His chivalry was becoming very inconvenient. It demanded that he entertain his grandmother’s guests. Good manners demanded that he at least speak to the women.

All except Brigit of Islington. He made it a point to look through her as often as possible.

He’d had another morning in the tower chamber with Jennifer, but with not only his sire and his brothers, but his grandmother as well, watching and calling him on the slightest misstep. And damn them all if he hadn’t actually had to work at training with Jennifer.

He hadn’t seen her yet that morning, though he had spent the evening before staring at her, simply breathtaking in a red gown that set her hair and his heart on fire.

She’d looked tired, though. No matter the weapons of her clothes and bearing, it was plain that the company was wearing on her. He would have given much to have simply collected her in the stables and ridden off with her, but even he had come to terms with the wisdom of wooing her where all could see. If nothing else, it would silence those in the company who might have been tempted to disparage her.

He supposed she endured enough of that as it was.

The only thing that had eased him in the past three days was the sight of his family being so kind to her. Anne, Isabelle, his mother, and even his grandmother had rallied around her and protected her. His brothers had been even more protective than the ladies, and his father had watched over her with a paternal eye.

But to have one afternoon of simply sitting with her, without eyes watching them, without someone watching for the first misstep ...

His father’s page, Aubrey, appeared in front of him. Nicholas groaned silently, then fixed a smile to his face.

“Aye, Aubrey? Where am I needed?”

“Your mother’s solar, my lord.”

“So early?” Nicholas asked wearily. “It isn’t even noon.”

“ ’Tis urgent, my lord,” Aubrey said, wide-eyed.

Nicholas took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Of course. You needn’t go with my reply. I’ll go myself.”

Aubrey bowed. “As you will, my lord,” he said, then he scampered off.

Nicholas pushed off the wall and wandered down the passageways to his mother’s solar. He put his hand on the latch, resigned himself to enduring whatever his mother had in mind for him, then opened the door.

Gwen was there, as he had expected. Next to her sat Joanna, dozing in her chair. Anne was there as well, as was Isabelle.

And so was Jennifer.

There was an empty chair next to her.

“Come in and shut the door, Nicky, my love,” Gwen said with a smile.

Nicholas looked at his mother. “I love you.”

“I always suspected you did,” she said pleasantly.

Nicholas shut the solar door behind him, collapsed into the chair next to Jennifer, and smiled. He took her hand and kissed it. “Bliss,” he said.

She smiled. “You’re very sweet.”

“He is,” Gwen said, “especially when he gets his way.”

“Get my way?” Nicholas snorted. “If I’d had my way, I would have spent time with no one but this woman for the past several days instead of enduring the mindless twits downstairs.”

“I chose very carefully,” Joanna said between soft snores.

“Then they duped you, Grandmère,” Nicholas said, “but no matter. We’ll be rid of them soon enough.”

“You haven’t chosen a bride, Nicholas,” Joanna said, opening her eye and looking at him sternly. “And since another lady of breeding has been added to your list, your days of being polite are not over.”

“Another!” Nicholas groaned. “By the saints, what wench now?”

“The one you’re sitting next to, you bad-mannered lout,” Joanna grumbled. “By the saints, children these days are so ungrateful.”

Nicholas looked at Jennifer with wide eyes. “Is that so?”

“Apparently,” she said, with the faintest of smiles.

“And what do you think?” he asked, as casually as he dared.

She reached for his hand and held it very tightly with his own. He was surprised to see her eyes welling up with tears. He leaned forward.

“Jen,” he said quietly, “what ails you?”

She shook her head. “Nothing. I’m terribly flattered that your grandmother would consider me for you.”

“Is that all?”

“Yes. I’m just tired.”

He rose and held out his hands. “Come with me. We’re going to have what privacy can be found. Mother, excuse us. Grandmère, with your permission?” He didn’t wait for an answer, but pulled Jennifer to her feet and led her over to a wooden bench set into an alcove under the window. He sat down, then pulled her down onto his lap.

“Nicholas!” Joanna exclaimed from across the solar. “Such impropriety!”

Nicholas fixed his grandmother with a steely glance.

“Are you not here to chaperon me?”

“Aye, whelp, and that means stopping you from doing anything untoward.”

“My hands will be in plain sight at all times. You may come and check as often as you like.”

She threw a bobbin of thread across the room at him. Fortunately, he had very quick hands and caught it.

“All my work!” she said, shaking her head.

“Has been greatly appreciated, but my lady is very weary. I vow I will be the epitome of all knightly virtues.”

“Save the one that says you should allow your lady her own chair,” Joanna grumbled.

“I’m wooing her.”

“Woo her in her own chair.”

Nicholas grunted at her, set aside the thread, then wrapped his arms around Jennifer. “Well?”

“Shocking,” she said with a small smile.

“I know,” he said, with an answering smile, “but the last few days have been endless and my patience for the niceties of wooing anyone but you is completely exhausted. I’ll play for you later. I’ll read to you. I’ll wind your yarn. For now, just allow me to hold you.”

“You don’t think I’m going to argue, do you?”

“You look like you might weep instead,” he said with a sigh.

“Oh, Nicholas,” she said, pressing her face against his neck. “I can’t help it.”

“The fortnight isn’t over,” he whispered.

“I wish it would never end,” she murmured.

“My thoughts exactly.” He tipped her face up and kissed her.

And once he started, he couldn’t seem to stop.

He didn’t want to stop.

“Nicholas!”

He held his hands out.

“I cannot see Jennifer’s.”

Jennifer opened her eyes and looked at him. She put up one hand and waved.

“And the other?”

“He’s pinning it to the wall behind him, my lady.”

“Nicholas, release her!”

Nicholas smiled ruefully. “Forgive me, love. That can’t be comfortable. Here, come and sit beside me instead.”

Jennifer rose, then sat down next to him. She slipped her hand into his and leaned back against the wall. “Did I thank you properly for the dresses? And everything else to go with them? Nightclothes, shifts, shoes. I don’t think I’ve managed to get to the bottom of that trunk yet.” She smiled. “It was too much.”

“In truth, it was nothing.”

She looked down at their hands together, then brought his hand up and kissed it softly. “It was something to me. You made me feel beautiful.”

He suspected that over the course of his very long, very weary existence, he had never once had a woman kiss his hand.

He thought he just might weep.

And he wasn’t one to weep.

He turned, slipped his hand under Jennifer’s hair, and leaned forward to kiss her. He felt her arms slip up around his neck. He was almost certain, at some point, that he felt her tears on his cheek. He opened his eyes, pulled away but a handsbreadth, and saw that he had it aright. He wiped away her tears with his thumbs, then kissed her again, softly.

“I have never wanted a fortnight to pass so desperately,” he whispered, “but I dread its ending. I fear what stands between us.” He managed a wan smile. “How do we survive it?”

She hugged him tightly. “I don’t know,” she whispered against his ear. “I don’t know.”

“More kissing?”

“I don’t think that will help.” She paused. “I don’t think it will hurt, either.”

He smiled at her. “Do you think?”

She reached up and stroked his cheek. “I try not to,” she said with a smile. “It lands me in the cesspit every time.”

“Did I say that?”

“I think you might have. I’m beginning to agree with you.” She settled herself back against the wall and rested her head on his shoulder. “Forget the future, Nicholas,” she said softly. “I’m tired enough today to do just that.”

Forget the future.

He couldn’t have agreed more.

He propped his feet up on the opposite bench and took her hand in both his own. “Are you too weary to talk?”

“I’m not. Especially if it has nothing to do with the future.”

He smiled faintly. “Then tell me of the past. Your past. What did you do each day? What did you love? What made you smile?”

“I loved my family,” she said quietly.

He looked at her quickly but she shook her head.

“I won’t cry. I miss them, but I won’t cry.”

“You may, if you like.”

She shook her head. “I won’t. But I will tell you of them, if you like.”

“I’d like it very much. I should have asked you about them sooner.”

“I don’t think I could have talked about them sooner,” she said quietly. “But I’d like to now.”

He closed his eyes briefly. He could hardly bear the grieved tone in her voice. By the saints, he didn’t want his days of bliss to be over. When she learned the truth ...

She told him of her father and mother whose lives had revolved around their children. She told him of her grandmother who sounded a great deal like his own. He discovered she had two older sisters and an older brother, and a niece and a nephew. Her brother built things, her sister and her husband were players, and her next-oldest sister was married to the son of an earl.

He wanted desperately to ask who that earl might be, but he didn’t dare—though he was somewhat relieved to know that they still had nobility in the Future. There had to be someone to see to the upkeep of a well-preserved castle.

“And what of your life day to day?” he asked. “You saw what I do; tell me what you did.”

She shrugged. “I played music and designed and sewed clothes for babies with my mother.” She smiled up at him. “It doesn’t seem a very exciting life, does it?”

He squeezed her hand. “And mine is? I tramp about in the mud half the day with my sword, and spend the other half brawling with my brothers.”

She laughed softly. “Point taken. Then, since we both have lives of simplicity, let’s trade likes and dislikes.”

“Agreed. You begin.”

“All right,” she agreed. “I love children, but I don’t like snakes. I love firelight on a cold evening, but not the intense heat of summer. I love the shore, but I’m not very fond of a hall filled with too many people.”

“Aye, well, I can agree with the last,” he said with a smile. He considered her list for a moment, then cleared his throat. “Is there anything else you love?” he asked casually.

She looked up at him. Then she put her free hand around the back of his head and pulled him down where she could kiss him.

“Hmmm,” she murmured against his mouth.

He supposed that was all the answer he deserved.

“Your turn,” she said, leaning her head back against the wall and smiling at him. “Likes and dislikes.”

“I love the rain, but hate soggy lists,” he said. “I like a sharp sword, hot porridge, beautiful music, but not roofs that leak, boats that leak, and boots that leak.”

“I can understand that. And?”

“I love sitting here with you, dancing with you, knowing that ’tis only just after noon and my day with you might potentially stretch far into the evening, but not anything that pulls me away from such a day.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” she said softly. She rested her head against his shoulder. “Please let this day never end.”

Nicholas sighed deeply, then leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes.

Aye, he wished the same.

F ortunately for his heart, the day lasted as long and was passed as happily with Jennifer as he could have wished.

Save the fact that he feared that it might be the last he would enjoy.

He didn’t think on that often. Instead, he played for her. He read to her and the other women in his family as he sat on the floor next to her chair. Periodically he looked up at her, and each time he found that she watched him with a small, intimate smile, as if she loved him.

He wound yam that didn’t need to be wound. He combed Jennifer’s hair despite vociferous protests from his grandmother. He braided it for her not because he especially liked it that way but because it allowed her to sit in front of him, captured conveniently between his feet, and it meant he could touch her for a few more moments.

At one point, he leaned forward with his arms around her shoulders and rested his cheek against her hair. He held her as she talked with his mother, his grandmother, his sister, and his sister-in-law. Kendrick eventually wandered into the solar and found Jennifer to his liking, for he put his two-year-old self into her lap and fell asleep.

Nicholas supposed it was unkind to loathe a small boy, but he couldn’t help himself.

He straightened finally, only because his back would have broken otherwise. He unbraided Jennifer’s hair and simply ran his fingers through it, marveling at the deep fire of it and the fact that it curled around his fingers of its own accord. He leaned over.

“I’m jealous of Kendrick,” he whispered into her ear.

“Why don’t you push him onto the floor and let me take his place?”

“That’s awful,” she whispered in return.

“Can you blame me?”

She reached up and stroked his cheek, then put her hand over his. “No, I can’t.”

“If I pinch him, will he wake up and move?”

She laughed and simply held his hands crossed over her. “I’m sure you don’t mean that.”

“I’m sure I do,” he grumbled, but he refrained.

In time, though, he had to sit back in his chair, Kendrick woke and wanted his mother, and Joanna noted that the afternoon had waned.

Nicholas looked with alarm at the shadows forming in the chamber. He looked at his mother. “Is there any hope of hiding in father’s solar?”

“Impossible,” Joanna said.

“Grandmère,” Nicholas said evenly, “when is it you will invite your ladies to depart? You know I’ve no interest in any of them.”

“The only thing that will save you is a plighting of your troth to someone,” Joanna said.

Nicholas cursed silently. He couldn’t. He couldn’t ask Jennifer to wed with him until she knew the truth and he wasn’t ready to tell her the truth.

“I brought women with the stamina to eat through your father’s entire larder. They won’t leave until there is a reason to and a mere nay from you will not do it.”

“I think I feel a fever coming on,” Nicholas said. He wasn’t opposed to lying at this point. He was at his wits’ end.

“Rubbish,” Joanna snapped.

“Is there dancing?” he asked wearily.

“A play,” Joanna said. “You may thank me later for providing such fine entertainment.”

His next-to-last night with Jennifer, taken up with foolishness he couldn’t have cared about, with women he never wanted to see again. He picked Jennifer up off the stool in front of him and pulled her into his lap. He wrapped his arms around her.

“I can’t bear the thought of it,” he whispered into her ear. “I just can’t.”

“I know,” she murmured. She sighed, then got to her feet and held out her hands for him. She pulled him up, then curtseyed to him.

“Until tonight, my lord,” she said with a grave smile.

Nicholas watched her leave with Joanna, Anne, and Isabelle. He sat down with a gusty sigh, then looked at his mother to find her watching him.

“Aye?” he asked with a weary smile.

“Why don’t you propose marriage to her?” Gwen asked gently.

He sighed deeply. “Because she is of Jake’s ilk, Mother.”

“I know.”

Nicholas blinked. “Did Father tell you?”

“No one told me, love,” Gwen said. “I just knew.”

Nicholas looked at his mother with a new respect. He’d known, of course, that she was quite possibly one of the most perfect women ever created. She had, after all, given birth to Amanda and Isabelle and managed to endure five sons as well. All his chivalry, all his love for beauty, all his delight in fine things had come from her. But that she not only believed Jake but could recognize someone from his particular world, well—

“I’ve been at Raventhorpe quite often this past year,” she continued with a smile. “And I had no reason to dislike Jake, nor disbelieve him.”

Nicholas smiled. “You could have told me I was being a fool about him, you know.”

“I assumed you would come to that realization on your own,” she said with a deep smile. “Perhaps I was too gentle.”

“Perhaps you were.”

“Interesting, isn’t it, that you should love someone from his time.”

“Interesting doesn’t begin to describe it,” Nicholas said dryly.

“I would like to hear her entire tale at some point,” Gwen said. “Though she has no title, she carries herself like a noblewoman. Perhaps in her time titles are done away with and a woman is judged on her merits alone.” She paused. “It must be wonderful.”

“I fear it is,” Nicholas said. “I fear many things, actually.” He paused and looked at her gravely. “She thinks she cannot return home.” He took a deep breath. “She doesn’t know about Jake’s gate, or that I know about Jake’s gate, or that I know where she comes from.”

“Oh, Nicholas,” Gwen said, looking grieved. “My love, why haven’t you told her?”

“I didn’t want her to leave.” He paused. “I fear that when she learns she can go home, she will go home.”

His mother said nothing. In time, he finally gathered the courage to face what he was quite certain would be a look of disappointment on her face. Instead, she merely regarded him fondly.

“You know that she loves you dearly, don’t you?” she asked.

“At first, I hoped that would be enough. Now ...” He took a deep breath. “Now, I don’t know. I’m competing against the bloody Future, Mother.” And it wasn’t just the Future, it was her family as well. That thought was awful enough that he couldn’t even give voice to it.

Gwen smiled, rose, and walked over to lift his face up. She kissed his forehead.

“What can the Future have that could possibly be more desirable than the love of a wonderful man? I think you underestimate yourself and your lady both.”

Nicholas only sighed. “Perhaps.”

She released him. “Come downstairs. Even if you cannot touch her, you will know she is there. Perhaps that will be enough.”

Nicholas nodded. “I’ll follow.”

One last night.

It wouldn’t be enough. He supposed if he had an eternity full of nights and days it wouldn’t be enough.

He dragged his hand through his hair, then rose with a sigh. One last night then he would tell her the tidings he’d been dreading.

He could hardly bear the thought of it.