“Aye,” he remarked, filling his vision with her. “’Tis glorious.”
He could have stood there staring at her for the rest of his life, but the bishop was waiting to be announced and Elias was restless.
He took his son by the hand and crooked his other arm to her to escort her to the great hall. Was this truly happening? Was he walking with Julianna Feathers freely, openly, unafraid of her father’s unforgiving eye? How many times in his life had he thought about walking, just walking with her without fear?
He turned his head and smiled at her. He didn’t care if Molly and the others were behind them.
“What are you planning to do with the women?” he asked her close to her ear. Her hair brushed against his nose, his lips. He wanted to take her in his arms and tell her he loved her. He’d never stopped wanting that.
“Margaret,” she said, turning to the seamstress behind her, “is Miss Margaret Allerton, sister of the Viscount of Newton.” She waited while Margaret curtseyed and Nicholas bowed in response, and then did the same for the rest. “Agnes is Lady Agnes Huxley, daughter of the Marquess of Cartington, and Molly is Lady Burton, widow of the Baron of Newbridge.”
Nicholas smiled indulgently at Julianna as they continued walking. “I see you have this all thought out.”
“Oh, perfectly!” She tucked her arm through his again. “My friends will be ladies for the night.”
“And who are you?” he asked her with a teasing slant of his mouth.
“Why, I’m your son’s governess.”
He laughed and almost did not recognize the sound of himself. It had been many years since he laughed. “They will never believe that is all you are to me.”
Nicholas didn’t think she was even aware of how the soft flush of her cheeks worked like a sorceress’ spell on his senses, his thoughts. He wished her friends weren’t so close. She’d be in his arms by now if they weren’t.
“But ’tis true, my lord. Until I am something else, I am your son’s governess.”
Something else. Was that what she wanted? What kind of guarantee did he have that she would not change her mind and leave him and Elias?
“Oh, look what I have done.” She patted his bicep with her free hand and then kept her hand there. “I have brought a cloud over our conversation. Forgive me.”
He gazed at her, sorry that his inner thoughts were so plain to read on his face. “There is no cloud.
“Papa, me walk!” Elias tugged on his hand. He wanted his father to let him go. Nicholas did, and watched him run down the long, torchlit hall. “Stay close,” he called out then smiled, feeling lighter than he had in years while he watched his son circle back, running with all the stamina of a hundred well-rested men.
“You have not told me how you know the bishop,” Julianna remarked, walking close to him.
She tempted him to tell her everything. What he had discovered about his life—discovered about himself. He wanted to open his arms to her and hold her so bad it made his body ache.
“Being a personal friend of Robert, King of Scots, has many advantages.” He shrugged one shoulder. “The bishop is one of them. Most of the rest are curses.”
She looked up at him. How was he supposed to think when her beauty mesmerized him? “How do you know the king?”
“My brothers fight for him. They are renowned warriors. Cain kept me with him after he found me and I met the king through him. Robert is a good man. I respect him. He does not just order his men to battle. He fights with them.”
“Have you fought for him?” she asked softly, sounding as captivated by the story as he was by her.
He shook his head and then dipped his nose to her hair and inhaled. “Though Cain taught me to fight well,” he said, lingering for a moment before moving his head away, “for the first two years I was here, the only battles taking place were the ones in the great halls of the noblemen. The men who made decisions about peace. ’Twas where I won battles at the diplomatic table as shrewdly as his best warrior. ’Twas why Robert made me earl.”
“So, your tongue is your best weapon?”
He looked down at her, lost in the deep, sable depths of her eyes. “Not my best.”
“Oh?” She smiled playfully, teasingly, slanting her eyes at him. “What is your best then?”
He quirked his mouth and returned his long, smoky gaze back to Elias. “We would have to be married for you to find out.”
What the hell was he doing? His wife? Was he trulysomad to put himself through that, and with Julianna? Terror gripped him. Love was torment. He didn’t want to love her. He didn’t want to die again if he let her claim what was left of his heart. She said she had always loved him. That meant she was able to deny her heart in the past. What was so different now?
Now, he was an earl.
