Nick did not know how long he stood there, staring at the spot he’d last seen her in. He also did not know how he had managed to muck up their very last moment together.
He finally headed for the Tower to witness Lord Wallace Bartholomew’s execution, an event that suited Nick’s mood perfectly.
Perhaps if Bartholomew made too much of a fuss, Nick would stick his own head on the block instead.
Simone wanted to be anywhere other than where the king’s servant had shown her to. A rented room in the city, France, even the ruined abbey on the coast. But, oh God, not here.
She stood in the center of the very chamber she and Nicholas had shared when last they were in London.
Oh, the cruel irony of it all.
Simone tried to ignore her surroundings, washing the dust from herself in the small bowl in the corner. She tried not to see Nicholas washing in the same bowl, drinking by the hearth, sleeping in the wide bed they’d shared.
They had been together more in this room than at any other time in their short and soon to be dissolved marriage.
By the time the servants knocked on the door, bearing Jehan’s gifts, she had cried for over an hour.
The soft night rail, robe, comb, and plain gown made her smile though, and after a young maid had set the tray of food on the small table, she requested a proper bath.
Now the fire burned low in the hearth and, her damp hair combed and the light night rail draping her body, Simone approached the bed as she would a gallows. She climbed in quickly, lay down, and squeezed her eyes shut.
Nick had considered passing the remainder of the night at the tavern where he’d been drinking. There were wenches aplenty plying their trade, but the thought of sharing his body with a woman other than Simone sickened him, even as far into his cups as he was. Since he’d been blessed by Simone—yea, blessed, dammit; he was drunk and could be maudlin if he so wished—he knew it would be a lifetime before he could seek another’s bed and not see Simone’s flawless milky skin, hair black as a raven’s wing, her sweet face smiling up at him…
Nick groaned and staggered against the corridor in the guest wing. Bracing himself with his shoulder, he looked around blearily.
This door? Or that? He cursed bitterly.
Like a proper phantasm, the king’s personal servant appeared, a smug smile on his smooth face.
“Good evening, my lord,” the man smirked. “Might I show you to your chamber?”
Nick grunted and pulled himself away from the wall, following the slender man a short distance down the corridor. Nick could not help but wonder which door Simone slumbered behind.
After a short jangle of keys, the door swung open on a dark, glowing chamber. “Here you are, my lord. Good night.”
Nicholas stumbled in, and the door closed softly behind him. He stood in the center of the room and groaned when he realized where he’d been interred.
’Twas the same chamber he’d shared with Simone.
Nicholas struggled out of his tunic and hurled it across the room with a great yell. The garment tangled around a chalice and sent it clanging to the floor.
“Damn her!”
Then he heard a gasp and a single word asked in an unmistakable female voice.
“Nick?”
Simone sat up in bed, clutching the covers to her chest. At first she’d thought the intruder was a dream, and then she’d feared she was being accosted. But when she’d looked closely at the masculine outline, she could have no doubt of the visitor’s identity.
He spun around, quite unsteadily, she noted. He’d obviously been drinking.
Nick seemed to peer into the murky shadows of the bed and then, to Simone’s amazement, he chuckled. “Either this is the cruelest dream I’ve ever had or I am infinitely more pissed than I had intended.”
Simone couldn’t help but smile in the dark, her heart pounding. What did he want?
Oh, please God…let it be me.
She cleared her throat. “I thought you were an intruder—what…what are you doing here, Nick?”
