something to do between now and dinner. Something to occupy her hands, if not her thoughts.
She had always known this day would come, but she hadn’t been prepared for Nicholas’s injury. His patch hid most of the damage to his eye, but a scrap of leather couldn’t hide the fact that he’d suffered. The fact he’d never see the world as he had when they were children, when they’d first held hands...
There came the sting of tears, and she stumbled in her walk. She refused to think of Nicholas now. If she gave in to her weakness for him she’d never make it through this first night. He deserved no pity. Six years gone, and his friend dead, and he hadn’t even enquired about him.
‘My father will need to be prepared, and it’s best done by me. You know how he’ll feel about this.’
Her father had believed Nicholas would return to Mei Solis and to his daughter. Then her mother had died, and her father...her father hadn’t been the same.
‘He may not remember. It may be a bad day,’ Bess said.
Her mother and father had been very old when she was born, and she didn’t know now if it was his age or if losing her mother had caused the gaps in his memory. But he was a proud man, and he needed care, though all the while they made it appear as if they weren’t caring for him.
‘Regardless, it’s best I check.’
‘You’re doing too much,’ Bess said, her voice low. ‘You should sit. Maybe rest before dinner.’
That was the last thing she needed to do. ‘I’ll be fine.’
Just a few more steps and they’d be beyond the courtyard’s shadow and most of the prying eyes.
Bess sighed. ‘There’s no screeching coming from his home...that is a good sign.’
‘Or Rohesia has bashed his head in with a cauldron.’
‘True...’
There were days when Matilda and her father were more enemies than friends, but even if this was one of her father’s bad days, she’d gain distraction.
Curse Nicholas for returning. Why now? He’d never acknowledged the letter Roger had sent before they’d married, nor hers which she’d written with such meticulous care after they’d said their vows. The days she’d spent on each word...
Matilda shook herself. She’d put the past behind her and changed her ways. She’d put the Nicholas who was here now at Mei Solis behind her as well.
* * *
Too soon, Louve and Nicholas reached the threshold of a room he’d only ever intended to enter again as Matilda’s husband, and Louve gazed at him expectantly.
He had no expectations. The tomblike manor, Matilda’s cold formality...the fact that Roger hadn’t greeted him. He wasn’t welcome here.
Matilda was pregnant.
Again he was blindsided. Again betrayed. The blade swiftly planted between his ribs before he had even seen the glint of steel.
How he’d longed for a family with her. How he’d toiled to provide for his future children so they wouldn’t have to bear the burdens he had. And now Matilda was pregnant with another man’s child.
Boys carrying his personal supplies scampered past him in a race to reach his rooms before he did. But he didn’t need them to remember his way to the rooms that had once been his father’s.
All it took was the achingly familiar shape of the corridors that neither time nor distance could erase from his memory. As a boy, he too had scampered down this corridor. As a man, he had closed the door when he’d left for the last time.
He needed to get out of here. Never to have agreed to this fool’s errand. Never to have believed for a moment that he could have what Rhain had found with Helissent if he simply repaired his past.
There was no fixing this. He’d faced battles and men with rage in their eyes. He’d thought he could face this. Face her and hear her explanation. Hear Roger’s. Even Louve owed him something for not warning him.
Could he stay here just for revenge? He doubted he could stay here for apologies—not after seeing Matilda cradle her belly. Time had passed, and he shouldn’t feel the betrayal all over again like in some minstrel’s song. But she had stood before him and she hadn’t cared that he’d lost his eye. Hadn’t flinched at his return.
‘I need to change my clothing,’ he said, instead of voicing the thoughts roiling through him.
‘I’ll have water brought up.’
Nicholas pointed to some boys who were carrying pails into the room. ‘There are some buckets here.’
‘You’ll need a tub.’
What he needed was some time to come to terms with Matilda’s pregnancy.
‘How many more are there?’ he asked.
Louve gave him a questioning glance.
Nicholas looked over Louve’s shoulder to the flat stone embedded in the wall. The stone he’d mutilated with his first dagger while waiting for his father to emerge from his empty marriage bed.
‘She’s expecting a child. How many children do they have?’
‘That’s the question you want to ask me? I thought you’d want to talk about—’
‘Just answer me, dammit,’ Nicholas interrupted.
Louve’s gaze turned assessing. ‘After six years I thought you’d be prepared.’
It had been only three years since her—their—betrayal. ‘No, you didn’t think that. That’s why you’re here now—to see what scene I’ll make.’
‘Why are you here?’
‘This is my home. I have every right to be here.’ He didn’t have to give explanations to anyone.
‘You may have a right to be here, but you have no right to ask questions of Matilda’s personal well-being.’
‘You lecture me on what I have a right to?’ He knew Louve was as guilty as the others. ‘You, Roger and Matilda owe me!’
‘Roger? You bring Roger into this? You can’t even let—’
Without a word or a message, without facing him like a man, Roger had married the only woman he’d ever loved.
‘God himself would expect his punishment.’
Louve’s jaw dropped. ‘You can’t—’
‘I do.’
But Roger’s reckoning would wait until the coward met him face to face. Nicholas had no intention of sharing words with Louve on Roger’s black deeds.
‘For now, I’m simply expecting an answer to my question. How many?’
Louve’s expression turned mutinous. ‘The Nicholas I knew would have shown some mercy towards Roger...towards Matilda, given the circumstances.’
Mercy? To Roger? Never. ‘Tell me more.’
Louve’s brow deepened, then he looked away. ‘No.’
‘You walked with me up here and now you don’t want to talk?’
‘You’re not—’ Louve shook his head. ‘You’re not asking the right questions, and I refuse to believe you can be such a bastard. Come, let’s order some flagons brought up and we can share them here.’
Nicholas flexed his hands at his sides. A bath, ale, banter amongst friends... Were Matilda and Roger supposed to join them as well? Ridiculous. He had the answer to his question and these people were no longer his friends.
‘I have