The monks bowed and then made the sign of the cross in the air before Nicholas. “God bless you, nobleman, and may His divine mercy comfort you in this time of—”
Nick turned and walked away, dismissing both the swine and their false blessings. He heard Tristan volunteer—quite firmly—to escort the monks to the stables and the hall door close with their departure.
Evelyn still knelt by Handaar’s unconscious body, and Nick crossed the hall to join her once more. That Simone had, for once, obeyed him gave him some measure of relief. Seeing her standing over Handaar, covered in the old lord’s blood, and witnessing firsthand the devastation his inadequacies had brought to those he’d sworn to protect had been more than Nick could bear.
He’d made a grand mess of everything.
He neared Evelyn, whose tears had stopped and who was now sitting quietly on the rushes, smoothing the fur draped over Handaar’s torso. He crouched down.
“The monks have gone,” he said gently. “Not to return for a fortnight. You will have your time with Handaar.”
“I thank you, my lord,” Evelyn replied, her eyes not meeting his.
My lord?Evelyn had not used that title when they were alone for ten years or more. Was it due to the fact that he’d failed her—both as a potential husband and as her father’s liege? “How fare thee, Evelyn?” he asked, willing her to look at him. “I had no wish to leave you alone—I thought my sister-in-law would—”
“She followed Lady Simone,” Evelyn interrupted quietly, and then she did raise her eyes to Nicholas. “Your wife.”
Nick stared at her for several moments, anticipating the pain he would feel at Evelyn’s observation: he had a wife other than her. But the pain never came.
“Yea,” he whispered. “Simone is my wife. We were married in London, only weeks ago.”
Evelyn closed her eyes slowly, and a single tear fought its way from beneath her lashes to slide down her cheek. “After all my letters—why did you not tell me, Nick? Why would you allow me to humiliate myself again and again when you did not reply?” She opened her eyes, and Nick saw a faint spark in their blue depths. She glanced at Handaar and then inclined her head. “Is this my punishment, then? For leaving Obny and you? That my home is destroyed, my father dying?”
Nick felt his chest tighten. “Nay, Evelyn. You bear no responsibility in this matter, nor should you feel shame. I—”
“But each letter I sent—”
“I never read them.” The silence after Nick’s admission hung like a wet blanket, cold and heavy and miserable.
“I see.” Evelyn dropped her eyes to Handaar once again. “I hurt you so much, then?”
Nick could not bring himself to admit to her that he now knew the gargantuan anguish he’d felt after Evelyn’s flight had not been the result of heartbreak but of his badly battered pride at her rejection, his failure to wed and please his mother as Tristan had, to fulfill his father’s legacy.
Nick could not tell her now, as Handaar lay dying beside them, that what he’d fooled himself into believing was love those many months ago was a pale shadow of the emotion he now realized he felt.
For Simone.
Evelyn looked at him, her gaze shrewd and searching. And if she saw the truth in his eyes, she hid it well, or she simply did not care. Her eyes went to the stairs, to where his accounting chamber lay.
“I’d like them returned to me. My letters,” she said quietly. “’Twould not do for your wife to happen upon them.”
“They are destroyed,” Nick said.
Evelyn nodded once.
A clattering on the stairs drew both their attentions, and Nick looked up to see Haith descending. She approached.
Nick rose. “How fares Lady Simone?”
Haith’s lips thinned. “I am calling for a bath to be sent to her. She has want to see to her brother before she returns to the hall.”
“Minerva has come, then?” Nick felt some of the heavy burden lift at Haith’s succinct nod, but it was not to last.
“Yea, Minerva has come. Excuse me, Nick—I have need to seek a house maid and then see to Isabella.” Haith’s words were icy, but when she turned to Evelyn, her tone softened. “I’ll sit with you awhile when I am done if you like, Lady Evelyn.”
Evelyn gave her a weak smile. “Lady Evelyn—I have not been called that in many months. I would like for you to sit with me very much. Thank you.”
And then Haith moved briskly toward the kitchens.
