Kestrel smiled and took another bite. “I’m surprised they came out this good. I wish there were potatoes to make French fries.”
They all gave a her a confused look.
“Potatoes?” asked Cook.
“French fries?” asked Elizabeth. “Are you friends with the French?”
“They’re not really French,” Kestrel explained. “At least I don’t think so, but I’m no culinary chef.”
Nicholas took his second burger and cut a half for Lizzie. No one else wanted seconds, so he was free to eat the rest.
He watched her talk and laugh with the others. For a moment, he didn’t think anything could be better than this. He was here with her and others he loved and cared for.
When they were done, he took Kestrel’s hand and pulled her out of the kitchen.
“Come. I want to be alone with you,” he said in a low voice, while entwining their fingers.
She smiled. “Dessert?”
“Aye.” He stopped before they left the castle and pulled her into his arms. “Something decadent.” He gave her a quick, passionate kiss then flung open the castle doors.
They hurried to the stable and saddled Nicholas’ horse. They would ride together. They weren’t going far. He knew of a secluded inlet about a mile west of the beach.
He was tired of there being someone around every single time he tried to speak to her. Scarborough Castle was crowded. Everyone meant well, but they all wanted time with Kestrel. He didn’t blame them. She was spirited, more vivacious than most. She helped everyone with one thing or another. She had told him, even though he hadn’t questioned her, that treating the people who worked so hard in his castle fairly would benefit him in the long run. But he believed Kes, as Elianora called her, liked when folks around her were content and happy, and treated fairly.
Nicholas thought he was fair, but she still had grievances. He didn’t mind hearing them. If making others happy made her happy, he would see to it that whatever he was doing wrong, he corrected.
“Now I see why Elizabeth was so loved,” she said softly, leaning back against him.
He loved riding with her this way and tightened his arm around her waist.
“She is kind and thoughtful,” she continued. “Nothing like I expected royalty to behave. Who raised her?”
“Her mother, three nursemaids…and me.” He smiled remembering little Elizabeth following him everywhere.
“And you,” she echoed with what sounded like a smile. “I thought as much.”
“She was a pest. She cried if she saw me and I left her vision without her.” He laughed and shook his head thinking of it. He’d put it out of his thoughts, as he’d put everyone out since Edward died.
But since meeting Kestrel, he felt the emotions he’d suppressed, unless he was on the battlefield, boiling to the surface. She made him want to speak to her of things no one else knew about him.
“Edward’s wife, Elizabeth Woodville—who was, in fact, his true wife, despite what Richard had the judges believe—she did not like that the king had taken in his captain’s son and his nurse and was raising the boy as his own.” His voice grew deep with melancholy. “But Edward would not give me up. He gave me every advantage he gave his children and I used every one and became who I am, who I became for him, for my true father, and for myself.
“Once, when I was about ten and four and thought I knew all there was to know, I snuck out of the castle—we lived at Windsor at the time—to pay a visit to a certain pretty milkmaid, called Bridget…or Emily…” He paused, shook his head as if to get the names out of it, and continued. “She sought my attention and I intended to give it to her.”
Kestrel turned and looked up at him. She lifted her brow and the corner of her lips beneath but remained silent and let him continue.
“Edward’s daughter Lizzie was five summers old. She had spotted me sneaking away and followed me. Unaware of her presence, I didn’t know she’d taken a wrong turn and was lost.”
“Oh, no, Nicholas,” Kestrel uttered.
“We did not find her for two days. Her mother did not sleep but wept every day. Her father searched for her. I was allowed to go with him. I thought it might have been me she was after, so we went in the direction of the milkmaid’s house. We branched out in every direction. ’Twas I who found her. She had fallen into a ditch and was crying when I came upon her. She never wanted to be out of my sight again after that.”
“You do give off a certain feeling of safety,” Kestrel told him, then looked around.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Making sure Elizabeth isn’t following you again. Where are we going anyway?”
“Just around that bend and you will see,” he told her.
They rode a little farther and when they rounded the bend, he felt her gasp at the sight of the waterfall just off to the left. It wasn’t anything very high or leading into the ocean. It was more like a secluded pool, almost as blue-green of Kestrel’s eyes, and surrounded by trees and brush and blooming vines.
“Nicholas, this place is…”
“I know.” He hadn’t been here in years.
“Have you brought many girls here?”
He shook his head. All at once, he wanted to tell her everything about himself. “None. I had no time for courting. There were never-ending battles to be won. Edward and Elizabeth had had more children, so when I came home, I spent much of my time with them. What was the point in losing my heart to someone when I had to leave again so soon?”
She nodded, looking worried. “You’re leaving in a few days,”
“Aye.”
“I will miss you,” she told him then sat up when he did.
He swung his long leg over her and dismounted close to a huge basking rock.
He squinted his eyes and then held up his arms to
