Handaar sighed quietly. “In her heart, she felt she was freeing you.”
“Freeing me?For what purpose? To be forced to take a stranger for a wife?” Nick’s bark of laughter was bitter and jagged. “Ours would have been a union of friendship and trust. That she would leave me is unforgivable. She never cared for me at all.”
“Evelyn loves you very much, Nick.”
“Nay!” His palm sliced through air thick with tension. “Nay, you do not treat one you claim to be in love with in such a manner as this—with deceit.”
“I said that she loved you, not that she was in love with you. There is a difference.” Handaar looked weary now to the brink of collapse, but Nick’s hurt was not considerate of the old man.
“Love, in love.” Nick waved a hand. “What does it matter?”
“Mayhap that is the very core of why she left—to give you the opportunity to see how much it truly does matter.”
Nicholas stared at the old man for several moments, and Handaar stared back. He had already told his mother, his brother, and several of the other underlords of his plan to take Evelyn as his wife. He’d even told his first man. What would they think of him now, when a woman Nick had known the whole of her life would prefer a convent before him as her husband?
Never had he felt such awkwardness, such humiliation in this place that was as familiar to Nicholas as his own home. He could no longer sit under its heavy weight, and so he stood.
“Very well, then. I bid you good night, Lord Handaar.” After a curt nod in the old man’s direction, Nick crossed to the great hall’s doors.
“Nick, son.” The sounds of Handaar rising and calling out chased Nick’s retreat. “Let us not part on poor terms. Stay at Obny tonight. Would that I could have spared you this hurt, but in truth, I am not certain I can bear it myself.”
At Handaar’s words, Nick paused in his stride.
“Please, Nick.” Handaar’s voice hitched on the plea. “I have no one left now.”
Nick turned, and at the sight of the old warrior, his once broad shoulders stooped with age and sorrow, Nick’s chest tightened. He recrossed the hall and embraced Handaar while the man’s shoulders shook.
“Ah, Nick,” Handaar gasped, “I miss her so already.”
“Forgive me, old friend, for my callousness,” Nick said. “Never would I want to further your grief. But I cannot stay within these walls when every stone carries Evelyn’s memory.”
Handaar nodded, clutching Nick’s arms and drawing away to look at him. His voice was gruff when he spoke. “Of course I forgive you. But ’tis my hope that you’ll not stay from Obny forever.”
Nick shook his head. “I will return.”
Handaar nodded and released Nick, his wide, gnarled hands suspended in the air for a moment, as if reluctant to let him go. Nick saw their tremble. “Safe journey, my son. Godspeed.”
With a final squeeze of Handaar’s shoulder, Nick spun on his heel and departed Obny’s hall, leaving Handaar alone with only the ghosts of his wife and daughter for company.
Chapter 1
September 1077
London, England
Simone du Roche perched upon her gilded stool in the king’s grand ballroom, her rich velvet kirtle puddling in deep, green pools at her feet. Her black mane was intricately braided and twined around her headpiece, held at a lofty angle, and her cat-green eyes beheld the other guests with barely concealed disdain as they pranced about to the twanging music.
’Twas the third and final evening of King William’s birthday celebration, and Simone was infinitely glad. With the conclusion of tonight’s fete, she would finally be freed from the curious stares and hushed whispers aimed in her direction by the petty and spiteful lords and ladies that infested the English court.
Simone ground her teeth into a tight smile as a flabby noble nodded toward her.
He tries to be charming,Simone fumed to herself,and yet the dunce knows not that I understood every scathing word his companion said about me.
“He is too fat, Sister,” Didier whispered to her in their native French tongue. “He would smash you, were he your husband.”
Simone hid a wicked grin behind the veil attached to her headpiece and whispered back, “Didier, quiet! You are too young by far to have such knowledge of a husband and wife.” Keeping her head turned to hide her mouth, she added to the boy, “Would that you had stayed behind in our rooms as I asked. I cannot help but feel you will yet cause me trouble this night.”
Didier merely shrugged his bony shoulders. His elfin face was a younger version of Simone’s, with identical green eyes and a mop of unruly, raven hair.
