Nicole Locke - Reclaimed By The Knight

Or perhaps he had simply returned without coin. How was she to know? He had once been so honourable in his vows...and then he had broken the vow he’d made to her. To make her his wife.

He turned then, deliberately, as if her accusations had struck his back. When he fully faced her, even Bess’s hand at her elbow didn’t steady her.

She swallowed a gasp as she noticed his left eye was covered by a brown leather patch. But otherwise, how could she have forgotten how he looked? The angles of his jaw softened only by the fullness of his lower lip. The broadness of the nose he’d boasted no one could ever break? How his steady brown gaze had riveted her?

She remembered their kisses. The way he’d smelled and felt when he’d held her. And his gaze...the way he’d looked at her. But she’d forgotten the feeling of breathlessness from just his look. It was this that had captured her when they’d been only friends. It was his gaze that had made him see into her soul and she into his as they fell in love.

What did he see in her right now? Almost eight months pregnant, her skirts saturated with mud, wheat stuck in her hair. Shock in her eyes, trembling in her limbs, and her breath coming short.

Shorter yet as she comprehended why her heart pounded so desperately until her breath wouldn’t come. Why her nerves jarred her inside as if trying to wake her.

Nicholas had a scar across his face. A thin slice that went from his left temple across his left eye, and down his cheek. Then there was a gap at his neck, before a broader gash revealed itself on his collarbone and disappeared under his loose tunic. He’d tried to cover his eye with brown leather, but she could see it. As if in a nightmare, she could see all of it.

All these years she’d imagined the swing of a sword gutting him. Imagined him spilling his life’s blood in a field too far away for her to reach him. He was here—alive—but he had lost his eye. What he must have suffered...

And she hadn’t known. He’d never told her. Hot rage roared through her, until her first and only instinct was to hit and rail at him and never stop. How could he have done this to himself? How could he have done this to her ?

His brows drew in and his mouth grew fierce. His gaze, as open as hers must have been, grew cold. What did he see in her eyes?

Too much. She had purposely forgotten how he could see too much. How he knew her. And she’d thought she’d known him. Until the day he’d left Mei Solis. Until the moment he’d stopped writing to her and forgotten her completely.

She’d held on until her mother’s death, when she had realised how fleeting life was and that she should not wait a moment longer. So she’d agreed to marry Roger, and now she carried their baby. A daughter who was now more important than ever.

She briefly closed her eyes to Nicholas. Heard the horses being led away and Louve’s chatter regarding the weather. She focused on Bess’s clenching grip on her elbow, on the calls of children and animals, the smell of freshly cut wheat.

She was here on Mei Solis, the home that had remained her home because she had stayed, and she drew strength from it.

Nicholas was standing, waiting. It seemed the whole courtyard was waiting.

For her to throw something at him? To yell? To burst into hysterics or give a cutting remark because she was a woman scorned?

In their youth she had been mischievous and he reckless. They’d appeared a perfect match in every way. They’d shown no caution in their courtship because they’d seen no need to. And then he’d left because of his restlessness and his ideas of grandeur, even as she had begged for him to stay.

Six years. And now not only her but the entire courtyard held its breath for this reunion.

But she wouldn’t rail or hit out—though that had been her first response. Between that breath and now she had found strength from her home. She had purposely changed herself over these last few years and was no longer the woman he had left. No longer the girl he’d grown up with, when they had been friends.

Friends . They had been friends first—before they’d held hands, kissed and promised to marry each other. Before she’d given him her heart and almost her body. Before he’d left and broken her trust.

Friends since childhood. And he had meant the world to her as they’d run and raced and jumped and laughed.

If that boy stood before her now, what would she do?

Striding over, she lifted herself on her toes and gave him a brief embrace before stepping back beside Bess. ‘Welcome home, Nicholas,’ she said, pleased that her voice did not break on his name. That her gaze stayed steady with his. ‘Are you hungry?’

He stood as still as the manor behind him, while she placed her hands on her belly as if to comfort her baby. Only she knew the truth of who truly needed comfort.

His gaze took in her movement and held there for only a moment. Her gown was heavy, and hid most of her pregnancy, but the protective cupping of her hands and their weight against her gown showed to anyone how far along she was.

‘It’s wonderful to be here again,’ he said, just as evenly. ‘And I am famished. But even I know this isn’t the time for food, and I don’t wish to inconvenience anyone.’

She only just held back the shudder that went through her. Maybe it wasn’t his gaze that had made her fall for him, but the deep roundness of his voice. The rich tone was fitting for a man of his stature, but somehow it had always made him seem more of a giant among men.

But the sound of his voice was something he had no control over. What he said, however, he did. Cold. Formal. As if they were strangers and he was merely visiting.

A slice of anger scored through her at the injustice of his carefully crafted words. Did he think he was putting her in her place? That she was merely someone from his past...perhaps only a servant?

She was more than angered now, but she kept it in check. She wasn’t the same Matilda he had so carelessly thrown away.

Rising above her emotions, she said, ‘You’ve returned to your home. It’s more than time for food—it’s time for a feast.’

Chapter Three

He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t hear or see. Whatever words he’d uttered had come from somewhere else, because he couldn’t recall what he’d said.

Matilda was more beautiful than he’d ever seen her. The autumn light played warmly against the havoc of gold in her hair. The sun’s glow gleamed a beam across her eyes so that they showed more green than brown, and made shadows of her lashes across her reddened cheeks.

Stunned at seeing her, though it was ridiculous to be so surprised, his only response was to stare like a fool and helplessly track the fluttering movement of the hands that had landed on the swell of her belly she so lovingly caressed.

Matilda carried a child not their own.

Whatever agony he’d experienced before was nothing to this. Nothing .

And it was made more cruel as Matilda embraced him as if they were long-lost friends. He could feel the weight of her against his chest, smell the scent she carried of fresh-cut wheat. No matter the year, she’d always smelled that way to him—like the promise of abundance.

Pain. Too much. And he wanted to draw his sword against it.

Enough. How much more could she take away from him? He had thought she’d taken it all and left him only the coldness that he’d honed until he was the most lethal of mercenaries.

And yet a mere heartbeat, a glance at her swollen curves, mocked this belief. He wanted to howl against the pain—but an audience surrounded them and she stared expectantly at him.

Did she expect an offer of friendship? Surely everyone here wouldn’t expect it? After all, he’d left here as her betrothed, and had toiled for years to make a home worthy of her. When she had decided she’d had enough waiting, she’d married his closest friend and written him a letter.