“Do not move from me, Kestrel,” he pleaded. “Stay just where you are. For you are mine. I will give you everything you have ever wanted if you will stay where you are.”
“I’ll stay,” she breathed against him. Where else would she go? What other man in the fifteenth century might have done the unthinkable to her, knowing she had no family, no one else here? What other man in any century was like her knight?
“I want to stay where you are, Nicholas.”
He loosened his hold and smoothed back her hair. “The last few days without you have been agonizing. I cannot remember what I did with my days before you.” He slipped his fingers beneath her chin to tilt her face to his. “I don’t know how I would live without you if you left. But I would figure out a way to live.” He kissed her mouth softly. “I will do everything I can to help you find a way home, until or unless this becomes home for you.”
She closed her eyes and parted her lips to receive him when his mouth covered hers. His tongue pushed through the barricade of her teeth and swept inside her, stroking and caressing, branding her like a hot iron.
She was his. Yes. This was what she wanted. To be swept off her feet by a knight. She wanted him and nothing else.
Chapter Seventeen
“Nicky!”
Nicholas smiled and stopped on the wall, overlooking the village and the water beyond to wait for Elizabeth. He was glad she was here at Scarborough Castle. He missed her. He missed her father, her family…her brothers.
“Nicky, are you off to think and brood, or would you mind some company while your lovely Miss Locksley helps Cook prepare berjes.”
“Burgers,” he corrected gently and held out his arm to her. Although she’d grown to a woman of nineteen years, he would always see her as a pudgy-faced little girl with golden hair and inquisitive dark green eyes. She’d always been out of breath from running here or there and her cheeks were always red against her alabaster skin. In that, she had not changed.
“Is something on your mind, Lizzie?” he asked her as she took his arm.
“I received a letter from mother last night. I thought you should know. Henry Tudor has landed in Wales. He is amassing forces.”
“How many men?” Nicholas asked. Heart pounding. Battle. It was what he lived to do and did well. His blood coursed quick through his veins.
“Mother says five thousand men.”
“With our reinforcements in Nottingham and Leicester we outnumber them.”
She quirked her perfectly shaped brow at him. “You will remain loyal to Richard then?”
“Of course.”
“He has lost many supporters.”
“I know,” Nicholas told her.
“He is fortunate to have you, Nicky.”
Nicholas didn’t want to tell her that Richard didn’t have him. Let her think someone remained steadfast to the man she loved.
“Henry plans to hit hard and fast.”
“You would use your mother’s information against her?”
Her large olive eyes grew rounder and filled with tears. “I cannot help that I care for the king, Nicky.”
“I do not condemn your heart, Lizzie. I just want you to be happy.”
“But Henry is my betrothed. He pledged himself to me when my father died.” She swiped tears from her eyes. “I haven’t seen him in quite some time. Two years actually. He was kind to me, but shy. I cannot help feeling like prized cattle awaiting the winner.”
“I know, Lizzie.”
He could imagine how difficult this was for her. She’d been around Richard often. The king was able to charm her and win her heart. She barely knew Henry. Now her fate was about to be decided. It was frightening being so out of control.
“Your life is difficult, Lizzie,” he said, looking into her eyes. “But you are up to it. Aye?”
“Aye,” she agreed with a smile. “So what are you going to do about Richard’s enemy?”
“I have yet to decide,” he lied. He wasn’t about to tell her how he would be victorious in the battle at Bosworth Field. “And let us not tell Richard any of this news yet. Let me take care of it.”
She nodded but tried to hide her disappointment over getting no answer by looking away.
Nicholas decided to drop the matter. She’d given him valuable information. Now the rest was up to him. He could spare time to those he loved.
“What do you think of Miss Locksley?”
She grew exuberant instantly. He felt her powerful intake of air against his side just before she moved away. “Oh, Nicky, I adore her! There’s something so, I do not know, genuine about her. Do you know that since you brought her here yesterday, instead of learning to embroider with her teacher, she was finding ways of being helpful to the staff?”
He wasn’t shocked by this behavior. Since her first arrival, she’d been doing things to help the servants. They loved her. They loved her more than the man who did little for them, if anything. Soon, maybe even now, she would have power here.
“She has also turned one of the storage rooms into an exercise room. We ladies are to strip down to our chemises and do what Kes does. Like touch her toes and jumping up and down while spreading your legs and clapping over your head. Kes says it helps keep us in tip-top shape.”
“Tip-top shape, eh?”
“She is unlike anyone I have ever met,” Elizabeth continued excitedly. “Where did you say you found her?”
“Outside of Bridlington. She’d been wandering around hurt and remembered little about who she was. I brought her here to convalesce.”
“Dear Nicky, ever the knight, always stopping to help a poor soul.”
“’Tis my duty.”
She smiled and leaned her head on his arm. “Have Miss Locksley’s memories returned since she’s been here?”
“Some of them have,” he answered as if it were all true.
“Is she wed
