Shading her eyes with her hand, she couldn’t help but traverse his tall, strong physique from foot to crown.
She’d known he was cut from stone when she’d touched him but seeing him was a feast for her eyes. His long chiseled torso glistened with drops of water dripping from the hair slicked away from his face. Droplets fell from his sparse beard to his hard belly, where a thin rivulet flowed beneath his breeches.
She wanted to fan herself.
His mouth quirked into a scandalous smile when he saw her staring at him. She felt his gaze rove over her lounging on rocks in her bra and panties. His smoky gray eyes were almost chilling as they pierced hers. She lowered her lids to break the power they had over her.
In her century, they would have likely acted on their desire by now and been intimate. Many other guys would have tugged the barrier of her panties and tried to get inside. But not him. He’d stopped when she asked him to stop—though it wasn’t what she wanted to do. It was what she had to do.
But, oh, to kiss those wet muscles…
“Do you want your kirtle?” he asked, breaking his spell.
She shook her head. “I thought I would work on my tan.”
He chuckled lightly. “What?”
When she sat up and explained, he looked just as perplexed.
Her heart felt as if it had burst and flown off into all directions when he sat down next to her. She didn’t know how to get it back—or if she even wanted it back.
“I forgot how much I missed this place,” he said, looking around.
He said he had come here with Edward’s family. Did he want to talk about them? He brought up Henry Tudor instead.
“So you are definitely going back to fight?”
“Aye,” he told her softly and lay back on the rock. “I must.”
She looked down at him strewn across the rock. She swallowed and fought the visions in her head of leaning down and kissing him. “Why must you?” she pressed instead.
He opened his eyes and looked at her staring at him. “What have your history books told you? Do I die? Is that why you do not want me to go?”
“I don’t know what happens to you, Nicholas. You aren’t mentioned that I can remember, but then again, I didn’t study this period in depth.”
He looked so insulted she almost felt sorry for him. But this was serious business.
“You would rather me tell you that you died in battle?”
“’Tis a good way to die.”
She let out a sigh and collapsed beside him, close beside him, like half her body was on top of his. She pressed her cheek to his chest.
“I don’t want you to die, Nicholas,” she breathed against him. “Richard is the last of the House of York. You are fighting for him if you are fighting for York. If you no longer trust or value his authority, then you should not possibly give your life for him.”
He was quiet while birds called out to one another around the echoing white noise of the waterfall. Then he said, “I never thought to go against the House of York. The men of my family have fought for it for centuries. How can I be the one who turns?”
“And if he had something to do with the death of the princes?” she asked. “How can you be the one who doesn’t?”
She knew what she was doing. Changing history. She didn’t care. Not when it came to Nicholas. She didn’t want to lose him. He was all she had.
“Does he win or lose, Kestrel?”
She sat up. “You said you wouldn’t ask.”
He sat up next. “I will know if I live or die by if Richard wins or loses.”
He gave her the slightest of smiles, but she was sure he wasn’t happy about what she was asking him to do.
She hadn’t planned on it, well, not until Mr. Simeon had advised her that the brooch was impossible to steal and could not be transported.
She hadn’t wanted Nicholas to return to fighting when she’d had hope of going home. Now it was worse. The two sides were about to meet at the Battle of Bosworth Field, the famous battle that ended the War of the Roses.
“He dies,” she told him on a whisper. Would she be punished for telling? Did she just eliminate her entire family line or someone else’s?
“I see,” he said, his voice sounding like a hollow drum. “So ’tis the end of the House of York.”
“No, Nicholas,” she corrected gently. “There is Elizabeth.”
“She doesn’t want to marry Henry.”
“He will make her happy.” She might as well tell him everything.
“And me,” he said, breaking through her thoughts. “I die then.”
She shook her head and ran her fingertips across his jaw. “No. Maybe you don’t fight for him and that’s why he loses.”
They sat together, silent for the most part. Kes knew what she was asking Nicholas to do was difficult, seemingly impossible, but she believed it was the only way he would stay alive. Because as he said, if Richard died, and Nicholas remained loyal to him, Nicholas would have to be dead also.
She wouldn’t think on it. That’s what she told herself. But she couldn’t help it. Especially since he was being so quiet. “What is it?” she asked.
“Nothing. We should be going.”
She was sorry she’d upset him. They were leaving and soon it would be the end of another day with him home. Was that it? Would he not even talk about it with her?
Before, he had no one who was waiting at him for him…well, not including Elia. But now he had a woman who—who what? Was in love with him?
Had she let her feelings go so wild and rebellious over him that she hadn’t guarded herself? That was the worst thing. Not guarding against something you should have seen
