“Nothing,” she replied, nonchalantly. She smiled, but it wasn’t genuine. She was nervous. Afraid. Why?
“Where have you been, Julianna? Was your marriage good or poor?”
“I would rather not discuss it, my lord.”
Now he wanted to know all the more! He would find out, but he wouldn’t push. He nodded and ground his teeth.
“I’m sorry about your wife,” she went on. “I heard many wonderful things about her from Elizabeth Fitzsimmons while I was at the abbey.”
He eyed her. She was diverting his attention from herself to Mattie, and it was working. Memories of Mattie filled his thoughts and he smiled softly. She believed in him when he didn’t believe in himself. She loved him at his worst and helped him put away Julianna and smile again. “She is greatly missed.”
Julianna’s forced smile faded and she looked away. Was she jealous? Nicholas knew most of her expressions as if they were his own, but she’d never been jealous before. She’d never had a reason to be. He’d seen other things in her eyes, in the face he knew so well. There was something different about her. Her carefree abandon was gone and with it, her sometimes haughty airs. Where had she been these years, who had she been with?
He watched her greet one of his men with a smile and wondered if he was going to have to start fighting the men to keep them away from her. But truly, he had no right to involve himself in her interests. Still, the fire heating his blood flashed across his eyes and the man passed them without another look at her.
Julianna wasn’t his—and yet, she was. Now that she was here, he didn’t want any other man to try to take her.
Hell. He rubbed his palm over his forehead, tousling his waves. How could he fight her? He was already losing. Mattie had taken him out of the past, and now Julianna had come to bring him back to places and times in his life. The times that had been good—because of her.
Finally, her gaze caught his. He let his eyes soak in the glory of her countenance. How easily he could step out onto that ledge and fall into her once again.
“Use caution with the men,” he warned, trying not to sound jealous. “They are…men.”
He’d sworn to himself that he would keep a clear head if he ever saw her again. She had too much power over him. He couldn’t trust her love. She had cast it away once.
“As I said, you may stay,” he announced, snapping to attention. “You will have your own sleeping quarters. Rauf tells me you slept in Avice’s room. You do not have to remain in that room. I can arrange for larger chambers—”
“Where I am is fine,” she told him, smiling and holding up her hand. “Thank you for choosing me to be Elias’ governess, my lord.”
“Aye,” he told her and then grumbled something under his breath even he didn’t understand. He bid her good day then left her sight. He wished he had a physician because something was off with him. He spoke things he hadn’t wanted to speak.
Or perhaps he did.
Elias responded well to her and the castle was quiet and peaceful finally.
He let her stay for Elias’ sake.
It made him feel better when he told it to himself three times.
Chapter Seven
Julianna spent theday with Elias, letting him explore in the snow-blanketed courtyard. They played and tossed snow at each other. Julianna was glad the boy was laughing and having fun instead of hiding under his bed and crying. He was adorable to watch, running on chubby legs encased in extra clothes to keep out the cold. At first, he could barely stand and Julianna couldn’t help but laugh at all the times he fell on his rump or flat on his face in the snow. She hurried to his aid and righted him every time, smiling with him while she dusted snow off him.
He looked almost exactly like his father had looked as a child, but Elias was somehow even more beautiful. His eyes were bluer, larger with innocence of his age. His lashes were so long they reached his brows.
“Is it too cold, Elias?” she asked, not really knowing how cold wastoocold for a two year old.
“No,” he reassured her in his sweet voice. “Lyahs like it.”
All right then. Julianna smiled as he struggled to walk and finally managed it without falling. She felt her heart soften toward him as he joyfully overcame his tightly wrapped legs. He was Nicholas’ son. She loved him on that merit alone.
When she saw the babe’s father exiting the keep, her smile faded. She’d never planned on telling him about Phillip. She couldn’t tell him. She hadn’t meant to even suggest that her life had been difficult. But the old ease of talking to him, telling him everything, had come creeping back in. Still, she couldn’t tell him that she’d married Phillip DeAvoy, his enemy, the boy who had made his life hell. In her dreams, she never told him, but she wasn’t dreaming anymore. She thought she might be breaking through a bit of his icy exterior. How deep did it go? Did he still hate her? If he didn’t, he would once he found out about Phillip. She had to tell him the truth. But not yet.
She watched him approach. He wore a wool coat, cinched at his waist, and padded at the shoulders and around the neck with fur pelts. He navigated perfectly over the snow and reached them in a few strides.
“I think it might be too cold and too soon for him to be out,” he murmured, standing beside her.
Julianna looked up at his ruggedly-cut profile. He had changed. He looked as if he had seen even worse days than being a servant. As if he knew now that whether servant or freeman, one could not hide from sorrow.
