So he was going to be difficult about it. Nicola braced herself. “Will you please help Tab select a sword?” she asked politely.
To her surprise, he shook his head. “Nay, Madam,” he said. “As you pointed out, he is not my son. It would be presumptuous to make any decisions for him.”
Nicola tried not to become angry at his stubborn stance. She had caused it and she knew it, so she did the only thing she could. She apologized.
“It was wrong of me to say that,” she said, lowering her voice. “Forgive me. But I… I have never had anyone take such an interest in my children. Not even their father. I simply… Sir Kenton, it is my job to protect them. I have tried to be both mother and father to them, as their father would not be bothered with his own children. To see you take interest in my son… mayhap you can understand or mayhap you cannot… he likes you a great deal and he must not become attached to the man who holds him and everything he owns captive. I cannot let you hurt or influence him, yet you have been very kind to him. Ifind it all very confusing and confusion makes me protective. I cannot explain it any better than that.”
Her halting apology took some of the sting out of Kenton. The truth was that he hadn’t thought of it from Nicola’s point of view, only his own. With a pensive sigh, he made his way over to her, slowly, looking at the ground as he walked as if there were a good deal on his mind. He came to stand in front of her, still looking at his feet as if mulling over something great and troubling. When he finally spoke, it was quietly.
“It is not my intention to hurt or influence your sons,” he finally said. “They are young men in need of male guidance and they have none. It was presumptuous of me to try to fit that role.”
Nicola was feeling terribly guilty now. “You are our captor,” she said, bewilderment evident in her soft voice. “How can I allow an enemy to guide my sons?”
He looked at her, then. “Do you look at me as your enemy?”
Nicola nodded. Then, she shrugged. She didn’t seem to know how to respond. “That is what you are, isn’t it?”
Kenton wasn’t sure how to respond, either. God help him, he should have been decisive about it. He was indeed her captor. But he couldn’t seem to bring himself to take a firm stance on it. His confusion gave way to frustration.
“I am,” he said. “But it… Nicola, we have been through a great deal together, you and I. We have seen war and death and we have come out of it somehow oddly unified. When I look at you, I do not see an enemy. I see a beautiful, intelligent, and desirable woman and when I look at your sons, I see three young men desperately in need of someone to guide them. But mayhap there is more to it than that… my own son would have been Tab’s age had he lived and when I see Tab, I see what I would hope my own son would have been like– intelligent and brave and strong.It has drawn me to Tab, and to you, and for that, I am sorry. I have confessed my weakness. But it will not happen again.”
Ashamed by his confession, he started to turn away but Nicola reached out and grasped his arm before he could move away completely. She held him fast even though he could have very easily pulled away from her. He didn’t seem to want to. He kept his eyes on the ground, embarrassed to look at her, as Nicola moved close so only he could hear her.
“I did not know you were married,” she said, feeling great disappointment and even anger towards him and hoping that it didn’t show. What married man would kiss a woman the way he had kissed her? “You never made any indication that you had a wife. In fact….”
He cut her off, suspecting what she was about to say. “My wife died with my son,” he confessed. “I hope you do not think I would have kissed you as I have with a wife at home.”
Nicola was vastly relieved to hear that. “I do not know you very well,” she admitted. “I had hoped you would not make advances towards me if you were married.”
He shook his head, his jaw ticking. “Never,” he said with finality. “Some men with wives think nothing of bedding another woman but I am not that sort. My loyalty, once given, cannot be revoked.”
Nicola believed him without question. She was coming to see the character of the man, her captor, and he did not seem the disloyal type– not to his king and not to a wife. Therefore, she very much believed him.
“Then I am so very sorry for your loss,” she murmured in that sweet, honeyed voice that sent chills up his spine. “I did not know of your loss but I completely understand. I, too, lost a child last fall. I still weep for my baby, the little girl who never even drew a breath. So I understand your loss very well. As for Tab, he has been forced to grow up quickly. You already knowhe is very protective of me, protective enough that he killed his father because of it. I suppose I am very protective over him, sometimes to the extreme. He is such a gentle and thoughtful creature and I do not want to see him hurt.”
Kenton was looking at her by then, his gaze guarded. “He is a fine young man already,” he said hoarsely. “Again, if I overstepped myself, I am sorry.”
Nicola squeezed his arm. In fact, she moved closer to him and ended up holding his big hand. When she squeezed it, he squeezed back.
“If you tell me your intentions with him are honorable, then I shall believe you,” she whispered. “Forgive me for being cruel to you when you were only trying to be kind to my son.”
Kenton’s heart was beating so hard that he felt as if it were about to burst from his chest. His limbs ached and his breathing was painful and labored as Nicola stirred emotions within him that he’d never known before. She had him thinking on his dead son yet again with her confession of a dead daughter. Was it possible that she truly understood the loss of a child? He was letting himself feel things that he had forbidden himself to even entertain; Nicola was bringing them out in him. He was connecting to her as he’d never connected to anyone in his life. Reaching out his free hand, he cupped her sweet face in his enormous palm.
“I will always be kind to your son, Nicola,” he confirmed, “as I will always be kind to you. I hope you know that.”
Nicola laid her cheek against his gloved hand, feeling such sweetness and warmth from the man. He stirred emotions within her breast that she’d never experienced, emotions of thrill and adoration and desire. This man, her enemy, stirred up her very soul but as she gazed up into his face, her eyes twinkled with a delightful hint of mischief.
“You were not kind at first.”
“Neither were you.”
She laughed, as did he. “I suppose we were both to blame,” she said.
He dropped his hand from her face and shook his head. “I will shoulder no blame whatsoever,” he told her. “You were stubborn and belligerent. I was forced to react in kind.”
She frowned at him, although there was jest in her actions. “You subdued my home,” she pointed out. “How was I supposed to act?”
He shrugged, the blue eyes twinkling. “Just as you did, I suppose,” he said. “But you should know that I still live in fear of that stubborn, belligerent woman.”
