The Lady Series (25 page)

Even as he raised a scarred hand to wave it beneath his nose, his green eyes glowed with laughter. “Only the fact that I gave my word is keeping me from dumping it out the window and into the river. Thus her chide, for she knows I’m counting the hours to eventide. Give it a moment. It gets easier as you become accustomed to it.”

Already breathing more freely, Kit smiled at his brother. Never had he seen Nick look happier. Indeed, contentment etched itself into every line of his brother’s thin body as he sprawled in his chair. Nor had Kit ever seen Nick look healthier. He had good color where his skin wasn’t scarred; his eyes fair glowed with health.

A tension Kit didn’t realize he owned eased from him. He sighed against its departure, his heart lightening. All in all, this was turning out to be a most surprising and marvelous trip home.

“It’s good to see you looking so well, Nick.”

“I am well,” Nick replied without hesitation then surprise darted through his gaze. “I didn’t hear you shout last night, Kit.” This was a careful reference to the dream.

“That could be because I didn’t shout.” Wonder swept over Kit again, just as it had when he’d awakened this morn. For the first time in forever he’d slept through the night here at Graceton without a single dream, much less that nightmare. “I suppose travel in the wet left me tired enough to sleep like a rock.”

“Aye, and our Lord Jesus tells me He returns on the morrow,” his brother retorted, eyes narrowed in scorn. “What’s happened, Kit?”

The urge to speak of Nan and how her love had changed him filled Kit’s mouth. He swallowed the words. How could he tell Nick he was finally ready to wed, but certain death followed his marriage? He couldn’t, not when the only woman Nick wanted was barren and beneath him.

“I wish I knew,” he finally lied.

“Well whatever it is, I’m glad for it,” his brother said. “Aye, and I’m just as grateful Jamie wasn’t here. Why, he could have sat for hours upon that landing waiting on your appearance.”

Kit smiled at the thought of Jamie sitting in the dark. The image brought with it long-forgotten memories of their school days, before the accident. He leaned back in his chair, fingers laced behind his head. “Do you remember Father Roger and how he made us sit?”

Amusement bubbled from Nick’s scarred lips. “God’s love, but I haven’t thought of him in years. Do you know he once wrote our lord grandfather suggesting we’d be better off drowned as we were certain to bring dishonor to his name?”

Vindictive pleasure filled Nick’s gaze. “When I found that letter, I added him to my prayer list, knowing my words would annoy him no matter in what realm he now languishes.”

Mention of their Catholic tutor brought with it the reminder of Kit’s reason for returning. He glanced at the massive crucifix hanging on his brother’s wall. As always, illegal candles burned upon Nick’s private altar, their twining streams of smoke bearing heavenward Nick’s even more illegal prayers. “Nick, the queen sent me to you.”

“Let me guess why,” Nick interrupted, his eyes bright with intelligence. “She sends you to probe my loyalties, hiding her intent behind the guise of you helping me count Graceton’s men and weaponry.”

This set a curl to Kit’s lip. “I tried to assure her there’s no reason to doubt you, but she heeds no one. She fears Norfolk yet intends to wed with the Scots queen and that leaves her shaken.”

His brother’s scarred brows rose to their limit of mobility. “And shaken she should be,” he said, the words carrying far more than their simple meanings.

Kit moved to the edge of his chair. “What is it you know?” he demanded.

“Do you mean beyond the fact that Norfolk has sent the Scots queen a diamond as a token of his promise to wed her?”

Kit grimaced against this bit of news. “I’d not heard that. Who says so?”

“I’ve had letters,” Nick said with a shrug. “It’s for the good of the country, or so they say, that our duke must wed the sweet”—he gave the word a sarcastic edge—“Mary Stuart. Much mention is made of our own queen’s heretical and Protestant advisers, evil men who steal from the nobility, by which they mean themselves, their hereditary positions and honors. England must purge its government of these men so our misguided Elizabeth can be returned to the Pope’s fold.” Nick almost managed a scornful look. “Or else,” Kit bit out, “they’ll put their Catholic queen and her English consort upon our throne.”

Kit truly hadn’t thought Norfolk and the recusant barons would go so far. So repugnant was the idea of civil war that he came to his feet and strode to his brother’s window, needing to see that the world beyond it hadn’t already been laid waste.

Below him the willows swayed in the breeze. From the rushes along the bank, a family of swans appeared, gray cygnets caught between their white parents. Kit watched them float gracefully downstream until he could see them no more.

“Who was it that wrote to you?” he asked without turning.

“Well now, that’s the strangest thing,” Nick replied. “The ink ran, obscuring the author’s name.”

Kit whirled to stare at his brother. “You protect traitors?”

Even before he spewed the question, he knew his brother wouldn’t answer. Nick couldn’t, not trapped as he was between his deeply held faith and his belief that God, Himself, had set Elizabeth upon England’s throne.

“I protect dreamers, not traitors,” Nick replied with a sigh. He rose and came to stand beside his taller brother at the window, laying his scarred and bony fingers on Kit’s arm as if to comfort. “Kit, leave it be. No man should be judged by his dreams any more than a queen or priest should peer into a man’s soul to discover what beliefs he holds there. On that issue our Protestant princess and I are in accord.”

“How can you be so certain there’ll be no war or usurping of the throne?” Kit asked.

“Because these plotters cling to a time when men asked no questions, only followed their sworn lord in battle because he bid them go,” Nick replied. “I think me those days died before our grandsire did. Shall I tell you how I replied to my correspondent?”

At Kit’s nod Nick’s eyes narrowed with amusement. “I asked him why I should replace this fine Tudor queen, a woman who’s given me ten years of peace in which to prosper. I reminded him that Catholic or not, Mary Stuart has already proved she can start a war on one side of the border and looks to be fomenting another on our side. Me, I’m hungry for ten more years of peace and all the wealth that might bring.”

As Nick read the astonishment in Kit’s face, laughter rumbled from him on a cough. Turning, he retreated to sit in his chair, looking more prince than prisoner as he stretched out his legs before him and clasped his hands atop his chest.

“What? Did you think I was one with our grandsire, ready to defend the true faith unto death? Nay, as long as our sweet Elizabeth leaves me in peace and none of those Puritan preachers again befouls my village with their tripe, I couldn’t give a farthing for the rest. You”—he pointed a bony finger at his brother—“do not come home often enough if you thought anything other of me.”

Kit grinned. “Then, I shall assure her majesty you will not rise against her.”

Nick snorted. “You can tell my dearest, fairest, sweetest majesty that she owns my loyalty, along with all the pikes, poles, men, and arquebuses I own, for as long as I continue to profit under her rule.”

With a laugh Kit returned to sit in the chair opposite his brother. “You’re right, I don’t get home often enough. I’ve never seen you so at ease.”

“I am no different today than I’ve been in years,” Nick said, his words dying away into a quiet gasp. “God’s love, but you’re looking at me,” he whispered, his tone almost awed.

Kit shot him a puzzled look. “Of course I’m looking at you. I’m sitting across from you in a chair and cannot help it. Why do you always go on about this?”

“Because, until this moment, all you’ve seen were my scars. At last you look at me, the man beneath what the fire and steam laid upon my face.”

His words twisted in Kit but where there’d once been horror, there was now only sadness. What had festered for so long was well on its way to healing.

“I’ve never told you how sorry I am over what happened,” Kit said quietly.

His brother groaned then coughed. “Kit, you’ve begged my pardon so many times that I’m heartily sick of hearing it, especially when it was I who did this to myself.”

That shocked Kit. “How can you say so when it was my foot that sent you tumbling?”

“Think,” Nick insisted. “Do you not remember my anger? I was furious that our lord father was sending me away while you were allowed to stay. I set out to hurt you in that battle of ours. When I couldn’t, I cheated. You were but trying to even the score between us.”

Sorrow glowed in Nick’s eyes. “I’m the one who should beg your pardon. No one would heed me when I tried to explain what I’d done. Instead, our lord father, our lady mother, the others, they all turned on you. So heavily did they ladle their blame and hatred upon you that your every night came to be tortured with that dream. By the time I came into my own, with knowledge enough to see what they were doing, it was too late. You’d taken up where they’d left off, castigating yourself for them.”

Kit frowned. From his memory rather than the dream this time, he felt again the ache where Nick had struck his shoulder. His mind’s recesses provided the angry echoes of the child Nick’s words. Horror paled then the memory sank deep into him, shrouded as if for burial. Kit loosed a bitter breath. Aye, who had time to think on the past, when the future loomed and it promised nothing too kind?

Nick shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “So now that I’ve told you we’re prospering, you’ve no questions over the status of our accounts?”

“Why should I?” Kit asked, startled by this odd change of subject.

“I thought perhaps you might be at last ready to ask me for that loan.” Nick’s tone was cautious, his gaze considering as if he had more to spill, but hesitated to share it.

“Nay, I need nothing. I managed to satisfy my debtors, at least for the time being,” Kit said with a shrug, staring at his folding hands. Not that Nick could give him anything to satisfy his debtor. Lady Montmercy wanted his blood in return for what she’d loaned him.

Silence woke between them, growing until it was beyond uncomfortable. Kit looked up. “What is it, Nick?”

An uneasy laugh rumbled from his brother. “I hadn’t meant to tell you but now that I see this change in you, I find I have no choice. Among other things I’ve sent Jamie to the queen to ask that our title be restored. This is to be done on the condition you be recognized as my heir and serve as my proxy.”

The breath whooshed from Kit’s lungs. He leapt from the chair. “You’ve done what?!”

Nick held out his hands as if to stave off attack. “Now, Kit. Even if you rode day and night, you’d be too late to stop him.”

Kit stared at his brother, not certain whether to murder him or hug him. On one hand, this put him on near an equal footing with Deyville, freeing him to attack the nobleman if need be. On the other, he now bore the responsibility for Nick’s lordship. Not that he’d live long enough to be of any use to Nick as a proxy.

As the weight of it settled upon his shoulders, Kit dropped back into the chair. Bracing his elbows upon his knees, he stared at the floorboards between his feet. “Why now?”

“Well, there’s quite a story in that,” Nick replied, the cadence of his words slow and careful. Kit glanced at him. Nick was leaning his head against the chair’s back to stare up at the plastered ceiling.

“Only two weeks ago a gentleman tapped upon our gate. He had the oddest following, one man a clubfoot, another missing a hand, still another with a slit ear.”

This brought Kit upright in shock. “You received these men? In person?”

Nick turned his head to offer his brother a scoffing glance. “I know when it’s to my best value to open my door. After all, it’s not every day so important or irresistible a bit of business drops into my hands. At any rate, the transaction they presented to me had as one of its conditions the restoration of our title. Jamie suggested I shouldn’t do so without speaking to you first.”

With a sigh Nick straightened. “I knew he was right, but truly, the offer was beyond my resisting. I fear I set my name and seal to their paper and sent Jamie riding for Greenwich to present it and my request for the resumption of our title to our queen. If I’ve hurt you in doing this, then I beg your pardon.”

Kit waved away his brother’s apology, more than a little confused at Nick’s odd manner. “What sort of contract would require you to reclaim your title?”

“Ah well,” Nick’s brows rose to the limit of their mobility, “it’s a sort of merging of two properties, one over which I claim control and the other belonging to the second party, at least to some extent.”

Odder and odder. “Who is the second party?” Kit asked.

His brother shook his head. “I’d rather not say until the matter is completed to our satisfaction. There’s reason to believe an outsider who claims some ownership of the one property might work to prevent this merging, unable to see it’s in the best interest of all to allow it.”

“Nick, none of this makes any sense,” Kit protested.

“It did to me,” Nick said, somewhat stiffly. “Only promise me you’ll not go do something rash and idiotic because of this.”

Kit smiled. Nick’s request came too late. “Dear brother, if you deny me rash and idiotic there’s naught left for me to do.”

His jest made Nick cough in laughter. “God knows that’s true enough. So”—his voice took on the tone of casual conversation—“tell me of court and your doings.”

Ah, here was a safe subject. Kit blinked, only now realizing he’d never spoken to his brother about his life at court. It wasn’t for lack of trying. It was just that they never got this far before the arguing started.

“If gossip is what you want, then Elizabeth once again beams at the earl of Leicester, having toyed with Sir Thomas Heneage long enough to punish her earl for fathering a bastard on Lady Sheffield.” Kit gave a derisive snort.

“Old news,” Nick said, waving away his words. “The gossip I get through Jamie’s uncle. I want to know of you. What have you been doing these last months?”