She opened her eyes, petrified. When he reached out to touch her, she leaped and tried to laugh but Nicholas was almost certain he could hear her heartbeat.
Maybe it was his own. It didn’t matter. “Julianna,” he said in a comforting whisper. He moved off her and lay on his side beside her. He took her hands in his. He’d never seen her like this. She was struck with pure terror for at least twenty-five breaths.
“My love.” He spoke gently, kindly. “Julianna, my fire. You are safe.” He touched his fingers to her and she bolted into his arms.
“Oh, Nicholas!” She came out of it just as quickly. “I cannot forget what he—’tis difficult to focus completely on you.” She turned over on the bed and let him see her back. When he saw the scars, he wept for her and vowed to kill Phillip with his bare hands.
He held her in his arms and did not try to make love to her again. He didn’t think he could take hearing it but he asked her if she wanted to talk about it with him.
“No.” She shook her head, facing him. “I have not waited my whole life for you to let him ruin it.”
He looked into her eyes and smiled. “We have the rest of our lives to be intimate. I want you to feel at ease and happy and safe.”
She kissed his dimpled chin. “You are making it easy for me to feel that way.”
They talked and kissed and laughed a little, entwined in each other’s arms. She told him about her dreams and wanting to find him to show him she had changed from a cowardly, selfish girl, to a thoughtful woman. He told her he’d noticed and admired her for who she was. After a while, Julianna fell asleep.
Restless, Nicholas rose from bed. He sat in a chair that was uncomfortably small and watched Julianna sleep. What kind of torture had she suffered at DeAvoy’s hand? He didn’t care that she had chosen Phillip as her husband. She hadn’t deserved the life he’d given her as his wife.
He wasn’t sure he could ever forget the fear on her face tonight or the sight of her back. She wasn’t seeing him. She was seeing Phillip. Nicholas was going to destroy him in Julianna’s life and in her mind. He was going to see to it that Phillip never hurt her again. He was going to show her every day that his love could be trusted and that she was safe. He never wanted to see that kind of fear in her again.
He didn’t only want Phillip dead, he wanted to be the one who killed him.
He dressed and left the chambers. He grabbed a torch from the wall and headed down the stairs—and down some more.
Quietly, thoughtfully, he made his way to Edlingham’s dungeon to speak to a man he’d hated all his life. A man whose family was responsible for taking his mother. A man who used his strength and force against the woman of Nicholas’ heart. A man responsible for killing Molly and the others at Lismoor and the villagers.
If Nicholas killed him in secret, could he keep it from his mother?
He had two more stairways down to ponder it.
The first thing to hit Nicholas was the smell then the heat. There were no windows down here, no fresh air. The light was low. He almost didn’t see the old dungeon keeper rising from his chair, and almost hit him in the face with his torch.
“What do you want?” the old man asked.
“I want to see Phillip DeAvoy. I am the Earl of Rothbury.”
Nicholas took a step back when the old man drew a long spear and blocked his way.
“I do not care who you are, Pup. ’Twill be ten shillings to pass.”
“Do you care who the Viscount of Bamburgh is? He is your master, is he not? Does he know you are taking money from people wanting to speak to his prisoners?”
The old man stared at him with cloudy eyes. His skin was sallow and dry enough to look like dust. It was also covered in brown spots and shadows.
Coming to some conclusion he didn’t like, the dungeon keeper lifted his rod and muttered, “Pass.”
Nicholas scowled at him and stepped into another short corridor. There were two cells at the end set into the wide wall.
The doors were made of solid metal.
The dungeon keeper appeared at his side and placed a key in the door. He pushed the door open then moved aside. “You have five minutes.”
When Nicholas saw Phillip bolting to his bare feet, his ankles cuffed to chains hammered into the stone ground, he knew he was going to need more than five minutes. “I will pay you a shilling a minute.”
“Very well,” the old man said, looking and sounding as if he could care less either way. Nicholas knew better.
“Do you have that many shillings, servant?” DeAvoy asked with a snarl as Nicholas stepped closer.
