Food. He opened his mouth and felt his dry lips tearing. He didn’t care about pain. Only food. And warmth. He tugged at the plaid that was shoved beneath his wrists and tried to cover more of himself with it.
But what the hell was this food? Piss water and rock soup? Nicholas spit it out, not wanting to discover if he was correct. The man grinned at him, exposing a gaping, toothless hole, and then he scratched his dirty face.
Nicholas turned his face away. He was going to starve. He closed his eyes, resigned to his passing and then opened them again when he saw Julianna’s face in his mind. Was she hurt? Had DeAvoy’s man found her?
Nicholas knew he loved Julianna. He might not have knownhow muchhe loved her until now. He couldn’t remember an exact moment that he first fell in love with Julianna, but he remembered seeing her as a babe, cradled in his mother’s arms. He remembered watching her walk to him, her red hair falling over her huge, chestnut eyes. He had memories of her running outside with the sun in her blazing curls and wings on her little boots. She was filled with exuberance and life, climbing trees, running into streams, defying her parents and sneaking off to the servants’ quarters to play with her best friend. Her best,forbiddenfriend. She stayed by his side until she was thirteen. But she never left his heart. He loved her always. He would never stop.
He blinked his eyes and saw Elias’ innocent smile. His son! Where was Elias?
Nicholas had to live and get back to them. If that meant drinking foul water, then drink it he would. He turned back to the toothless man but he’d leaped from the cart and was gone.
Nicholas tried to move. His ribs weren’t having it. Pain shot through him and made him feel ill. The arrow he’d been shot with was still lodged in his shoulder, likely festering by now.
He moved as slowly as he could, inch by inch until he was bent at the center. He tried to sit up and groaned.
“Good morn to you, William,” Phillip said, riding to him.
“How many days have I been captive?”
“Four,” Phillip answered. “We will soon be in York and Lancaster will go before the king with you as his judge.”
“The arrow in my shoulder needs tending to.”
DeAvoy laughed at him “You think I will do anything to make you stronger after you tried to choke me to death? You are a fool.”
Aye, a fool not to kill him when he had the chance.
“Julianna?” He couldn’t help but ask. He had to know.
DeAvoy rode closer. “You have seen her then?”
Good. He didn’t have her.
“In my dreams,” Nicholas told him, not caring what her husband thought.
“Fool,” DeAvoy croaked out a pitiful laugh. “She cannot follow simple orders, and she is cold in bed. Cold as ice.”
Nicholas closed his eyes and clenched his jaw. He wanted to smash DeAvoy’s face with his fists. He vowed then and there to kill the bastard as soon as he had the chance.
“Perhaps I should not have sent the Viscount of Bamburgh to find her,” DeAvoy complained. “The ladies do adore him. If he finds my Jules, he might seduce her.”
He gazed into the distance as if he were hoping to see someone there. “Charlie!”
“Aye, my lord?” A man with no coat, only a thin cloak around his shoulders hurried toward them.
“Prepare me something to eat. I am going back to Alnwick.”
No! What if Bamburgh had found her and Elias and taken them to Alnwick?
“But, my lord, the king expects you,” Charlie reminded him.
DeAvoy let his horse bump Charlie’s shoulder when he spun his mount around. “I have something to see to. ’Tis very urgent. Keep the prisoners alive or you will answer to me.”
He waited for Charlie to get to his duties. When they were alone again, DeAvoy moved closer to Nicholas’ wounded body. “I believe that once she was free of me, she would have found you, Stone. I’m going back to get her. She is guilty of trying to kill her husband. She is a mad vixen who can only be controlled one way.”
He began to sweat and lick his lips.
Nicholas struggled to be free, ignoring the pain of his wounds. He couldn’t let DeAvoy go back and find her or his son. Nicholas pushed against his binds and DeAvoy laughed looking at him.
