Wild Wind Read Free Page A

trestle tables beneath the canopy.
    Pink-stained sunlight filtered through the striped cloth above their heads, suffusing Nicolette with a rosy glow; she might almost have been blushing. She should blush, Alex thought, at the prospect of facing him again.
    “Lady Nicolette,” Alyce said, “you’ve met my sons, Victor and Regnaud” —the well-trained boys bowed— “and I trust you know my sister by marriage, the baroness Berte de Bec, and her husband, Lord Landric.”
    Cordial greetings were exchanged.
    “Do you remember my husband’s brothers?” Alyce asked. “Luke and Alexandre. You met them in Périgeaux that summer you came—”
    “I remember,” Nicolette said, in a voice so soft Alex could barely hear her, her hands tightly clasped. Stiffly she inclined her head toward the two men in turn. “Sir Luke...Sir Alexandre.”
    “My lady,” Luke responded with a small bow.
    “My lady.” Alex forced a polite smile, but she turned away too quickly to see it.
    “And this,” Alyce said, “is Luke’s lady wife, Faithe of Hauekleah, and their children...” She hesitated, clearly struggling to recall their names.
    “That little devil” —Faithe nodded toward her son, picking bits of spiced bread out of his trencher and stuffing them into his mouth, something Alex was tempted to do himself— “is Robert.” Faithe introduced Hlynn, propped up next to her with unfocused eyes and her thumb in her mouth, and the infant Edlyn, nursing at her mother’s breast. Faithe had drawn her mantle over the babe, a gesture of modesty lost on Berte, who looked away in disgust.
    Nicolette did not appear shocked. Indeed, she smiled with seemingly genuine delight at the sight of the children and insisted on sitting between Hlynn and Robert—which placed her almost directly across the table from Alex. He hoped he wouldn’t be forced to engage her in strained conversation.
    She leaned close to Hlynn. “Tired?”
    The child nodded, her eyes half-closed.
    “Me, too. ‘Twas a long ceremony—especially for a wee little girl like you.”
    “I’m a big girl,” Hlynn said groggily without removing the thumb.
    Nicolette smiled. “My apologies, Lady Hlynn. Are you as hungry as your brother?”
    Hlynn shook her head. Her mother said, “I brought some bread and fed it to the children a while ago. Luke warned me it might be a long and trying morning.”
    “I wish someone had warned me,” Nicolette said. Did Alex just imagine it, or did she glance uneasily in his direction? Returning her attention to Hlynn, she whispered conspiratorially, “I would have tucked some bread into my sleeve if I’d known.”
    Hlynn giggled drowsily, again without extracting her thumb.
    The obvious joy Nicolette took in Hlynn came as a surprise to Alex. He wouldn’t have thought her the nurturing sort, yet she displayed a warmth and ease with the little girl that couldn’t have been feigned. Seeing her like this reminded Alex that there were two Nicolettes, or used to be—the cool, formal public Nicolette, well-trained in decorum by her mother, and, hidden beneath that facade, the spirited young woman he’d once lost his heart to. Unfortunately, her more decorous—and calculating—side, incapable of real human affection, seemed to be dominant.
    Robert paused in his methodical decimation of his trencher. “Will we eat soon?”
    “That one’s always hungry,” Faithe explained, “regardless of when he last ate.”
    “Alas, we must all strive for patience,” Nicolette counseled the boy. “King William hosts grand and wonderful banquets—often twenty courses or more—”
    “Twenty?” Robert said excitedly.
    “But there are some matters of ceremony to attend to first.” She nodded toward the high table, at which the king and queen sat with the four-and-twenty newly dubbed knights. The king’s banquet master made a show of presenting an ornate salt dish to the royal couple and their guests.
    Robert sighed. “Now can we