Even later, when she pretended not to know him when her haughty friends or her parents were near, he hadn’t cared. He loved her. He cherished her, emblazoning her every feature on his heart. He knew everything about her, what made her smile and what made her cry. He and no other lad, noble or otherwise, had seen the way her hair spilled down her back in a splash of fiery curls. No one but him had seen her bare feet, as white as freshly fallen snow—like the rest of her skin, save for her full, coral lips above a delicate chin. Her eyes were wide and almond-shaped, dark brown like fine whisky, and almost cherry red in the light. She wore the crown. She wielded the power. Strong feelings. Aye, much stronger than he remembered.
He had to keep her from coming back to the castle.
“I will cut off my hair,” he promised. “All of it, and then I will win my son’s favor.”
“But then she will know—”
“No. She will not, Rauf!” Nicholas stood up from his seat, whatever warmth was in his eyes a moment ago cooled into crystalline shards. “And do you know why she will not? Because tomorrow, you will go to where she is staying and you will tell her to return to her home. She is not needed here.”
He didn’t wait to know Rauf’s reaction or hear his reply. He was tired. He was going to bed.
He forbade himself to think of her while he entered his chambers, undressed and crawled into bed. He barely closed his eyes when his son woke up crying down the hall. He could have fallen asleep if not for his men shouting and grumbling outside his door.
Finally, he left his bed, dressed, and stormed off to the kitchen to find a sharp knife to cut off his hair.
Chapter Four
Julianna nearly leapedat the chance for someone to brush her hair, so when Molly, Walter’s wife, offered to do it, Julianna did not resist. She sat on a wooden stool beside the hearth in their spacious kitchen, while Molly brushed and answered her questions. She and Walter had been here when Giles d’Argentan was alive. Aye, they knew Aleysia, Giles’ sister. Aye, they’d heard of her private war with the Scots and her surrender. But the war had ended. Their beloved Lady of Lismoor had wed Commander Cainnech MacPherson and Lismoor had been given to Cainnech’s brother, Nicholas.
Molly’s brush flowed smoothly after a while, as did her tongue. She’d heard the name William Stone but she didn’t remember when or where. The Scots were kind to her and the others. Of course, they all loved Mattie, too, for they’d known her and Elizabeth, Giles’ betrothed, for many years.
Mattie, Aleysia’s handmaiden! Julianna remembered her now. Elizabeth had spoken of her often when they spent time together at the abbey two years ago.
The earl had wed Mattie? A handmaiden? She smiled a little. The Scots had at least one thing right, then.
“After Mattie died, God rest her,” Molly went on, “the poor earl went mad and left Lismoor. We all took time with the child, helping to raise him like we had done with Aleysia. But when the earl returned recently, he gave Avice such a fright when she saw him and he demanded to know who she was in that voice of his, with those eyes. Well, she left without even weaning the boy completely. We have all been helping cook for him and feed the little lad, but the earl does not like so many of us coming and going in and out, all day and night long. A governess would solve his problems.”
“Well, he does not want me,” Julianna pouted.
“Do you have any hints as to why not?”
“Not a one. I do not know him. I do not think I do,” she corrected, closing her eyes at Molly’s relaxing strokes. She hadn’t felt so wonderfully good in years. “He is covered in hair.”
Molly laughed. “He did not always look the way he looks now. When Mattie was alive, he was quite the most beautiful man I had ever looked upon. Ask Beatrice. She will attest. He has the most breathtaking gray eyes. Miss, I tell you if I was twenty, well, all right thirty years younger…”
Gray eyes. Julianna opened hers. William had gray eyes. It was the first thing one noticed about him.
Her belly sank and the air suddenly became stiflingly hot. No, of course William was not the Earl of Rothbury! She almost laughed out loud at herself. Perhaps it was crying she should almost be doing. Was she so desperate to find him that she would let herself believe that a slave had become an earl? But what if he had done something to earn the King of Scots’ favor…and a title? Perhaps the earl had married a servant because he was once a servant, too. Her head began to spin. No. The earl was not William. Molly had said he was Cainnech MacPherson’s brother. William had no family.
“Molly!” a rider called out. It was Scarface from the castle. “Ye must come quickly!”
Molly dropped her brush. “What is it?”
“’Tis the lad. He woke with a fever. He is retchin’ up everythin’ we give him. The earl is aboot to go mad with worry! The man has lost much,” he said, shifting his gaze to Julianna as she stood from her stool. “He canna lose his son.”
“He will not lose him,” Julianna promised and smiled at Molly.
Scarface suddenly went a shade paler. “I should tell ye,” he said, avoiding her gaze, “that the earl asked fer Molly and no one else.”
Julianna hated that the earl’s unwarranted dislike for her pricked her so sharply. “Good. You told me.” She waited while Molly ran into the house to get Walter and their horse.
“What are you called?” she asked Scarface when she sat behind him on his horse. He hadn’t had a choice but to allow her to mount. She was up before he could protest.
“Rauf,” he said, trying to sound angry and failing. “He is goin’ to skin my arse fer bringin’ ye. Ye better help the boy.”
Her heart raced while Walter helped Molly gain her saddle then tied the horse to Rauf’s. “Why does the earl hate me?” she asked softly behind him.
“I dinna know.”
