The Rogue

“I’d thought to begin seeing to the estate here. I’ve a meeting with the steward on the morrow to go over the accounts and—”

“Well, then, that’s perfect,” the baron interrupted. “You can join us at Hawse the next day and we’ll see where we stand on this matter of the estates. I have all the papers your father signed before his death, of course.”

Nicholas’s eyes narrowed. “Papers that he signed thinking me dead.”

The baron’s hearty voice did not waver. “Of course. Which is why we have much to discuss, you and I. We’ll discuss your father’s plans for this place.”

Nicholas pushed away his board, leaving the rabbit mostly untouched. “My father’s plans for Hendry were to pass it on to his only son. No amount of discussion will alter that.”

Hawse smiled. “Indeed.” He reached out a big hand and gave a painful squeeze to Nicholas’s forearm. “I have some plans of my own to discuss with you, lad. I believe we can work our way out of this unfortunate tangle. Come see me the day after tomorrow.”

“We’ll both go,” Constance said quickly. “It would be churlish to refuse my lord’s hospitality after all you’ve done for me.”

Hawse turned toward Constance and gave her a smile that even to Nicholas looked almost tender.

“’Tis not within your power to be churlish, Lady Constance,” he told her, his voice softening.

Nicholas pushed back his bench and stood. “In two days hence, then. We’ll attend you at Hawse Castle. Now if you’ll excuse me, I am still, as you say, fatigued from my journey.”

Without taking further leave of them, he turned and made his way out of the room.

He sat in the dark looking out the deep window of his bedchamber into the moonlit yard below. It was early for sleep, but he didn’t feel like talking to anyone, not even the servants, so he had retired to his room and had not lit the wall torch near his bed.

The knock on his door was so soft, he almost didn’t hear it. For several moments, he resolved to let the caller go unanswered, but then he thought that perhaps his mother needed him, so he reluctantly got to his feet and crossed over to open the door. The visitor was a woman, but definitely not his mother.

Mollie had changed little in the four years since he’d last seen her. If anything, her breasts spilled even more voluptuously from the scanty, thin blouse. Her sparkling green eyes glinted even more wickedly with invitation.

“So, ye’ve come back, ye naughty boy,” she laughed, twining her arms around his neck with such energy that it pushed him back into the room.

In spite of himself, Nicholas felt a flare of desire course through him as the serving maid’s soft contours wriggled against him. He dropped a light kiss on her lips and gently pried her hands loose. “Hallo, sweetheart,” he said.

She took a step back and thudded her small fist into his chest. “For shame, Nicky. I’ll not listen to yer ‘sweethearts’ after ye ran away like that without so much as a farewell buss.”

Mollie had been one of the most good-natured of his lovemaking partners. A full five years older than Nicholas, she’d had a string of lovers herself and understood that their friendship was nothing more than the mutual satisfaction of shared passions.

Nicholas grinned at her and captured the hand that continued pounding him with little effect. “You’ll always be my sweetheart, Mollie. You know that.”

She pulled her hand out of his and laid it tenderly along his cheek. “Aye, Nicky. We were fair eager for it in those days, weren’t we?”

Unexpectedly, Nicholas was suddenly eager once again. He put a hand at Mollie’s waist and pulled her toward him, but she pushed away. “Aye, we were,” he murmured.

“Ah, Nicky. I’ve not come for that.” She pushed him away. “I’m a proper goodwife now.”

Nicholas dropped his hands from her as if he’d been burned. “Wife?”

“Aye, these three years past. Got meself two young’uns.”

He blinked in astonishment. “Babies?”

Mollie laughed and gave him a friendly pat on his chest. “What did ye think comes of all that gallivanting in the corn, Master Hendry? Ye were always a careful one, but not all are like that.” A brief shadow crossed her face, but then she giggled and added, “I knew I’d end up round as a herring barrel some day.”

Her words added to his gloom. Merry, passionate, carefree Mollie. A wife and mother. It was hard to believe. “Are you happy, Mollie?” he asked finally. “Is your husband a good man?”

She smiled and nodded. “Aye, Nicky, he is. Ye do know him. ’Tis Clarence, the baker.”

Nicholas had a vague memory of a big, quiet man, perhaps twenty years his senior, who ran the bake shop at the edge of the village and sent fresh bread to the manor each day. A pleasant yeasty odor always seemed to cling to the man.

“Then I’m happy for you, Mollie. You deserve a good man and a good life.”

“As do we all, Nicky,” she agreed softly. “Well, I’d best be getting back before the wee ones start howling for their mum.”

Nicholas shook his head, still trying to reconcile the picture of Mollie caring for two youngsters. “I’m glad for you, Mollie,” he told her.

“And I to see ye back here and not a ghost, ye great lug.” She grinned. “I said a mass for ye, now there’s a tale’ll spin yer head.”

“A mass?”

“When they said ye was dead. I went into the church, proper like. That and me wedding are the only two times I’ve ever gone inside.”

Nicholas smiled. “I’m obliged to you, Mollie.”

“Take care, Nicky,” she said quickly. She stretched up on tiptoes to kiss him full on the mouth, and she was gone.

It was late. All activity in the yard below had long since ceased. But Nicholas was still not ready to stretch out on his pallet and sleep. Mollie’s visit had left him even more restless than before. Jovial, generous Mollie. Married and a mother. At least she was happy, and to all appearances her dalliance with Nicholas had not done any damage to her life. Some of the other women he’d loved and left might not be so forgiving.

How would Flora have greeted him, he wondered, if she were alive? He could not imagine that her reception would have been anything like the one given to him by her sister. Flora had been the soul of sweetness.

He sighed and paced the length of his room. When he’d thought all was lost on the Crusades, he’d sworn that if he ever got back to England, he’d lead a better life. He would make it up to the women he’d wronged. He would show his father that he was the kind of son Arthur Hendry had always wanted. Now his father was dead. At least one of his lovers was happily married and had all but forgotten about him.

But there were still amends to make. And he intended to begin the process immediately. He’d start on the morrow. With Flora.

Chapter Three

No one knew the origins of the little village formerly called Hendry’s Lea and now simply Hendry. The old ones told tales of ancient times when spirits walked about and the druids held ceremonies out on the wide meadow to the north. The name predated the current Hendry family, they claimed, and certainly was around long before Hendry Hall. But since there had now been several generations of Hendrys connected to the place, ending with the returned-from-the-dead heir, most of the villagers took it as natural that it was to Nicholas that they owed allegiance.

There was little resentment over the system. The Hendrys had always been magnanimous landlords. If a family found itself a bit hard-pressed when it came time to collect the twice yearly rents, it never occurred to them that they would be turned off their lands for nonpayment. Indeed, it was not unusual for the Hendrys themselves to see that a few extra coins appeared at the needy household.

After Arthur’s death, there had been some consternation in the village as the rumors spread that some new land baron from the court would appear and undo several generations of Hendry generosity. However, as the months went on with no apparent change, the rumors subsided.

Nevertheless, the sudden appearance of Nicholas was a cause for rejoicing in the village, at least in the households where there was no irate father waiting to nail Nicholas’s hide to the door for having enticed his willing daughter.

Nicholas had awakened before dawn with his head throbbing from the ale with which he’d finally drunk himself to sleep the previous evening after Mollie’s visit. But the bright spring day and the villagers’ hearty greetings as he rode through town lifted his spirits. He was pleased that he remembered many of their names. Little by little the life he had left four years ago was returning to him. Only this time, he would live it more honorably than he had in his thoughtless youth.

The stone church at the far end of the village had not changed. No doubt more graves had been added, but the mossy ground of the churchyard covered the new as well as the old, camouflaging any recent arrival.

He tied his horse to a newel on the sunny side of the church and walked the worn path around the building to the graves. The stone column in the center of the yard said Hendry, but Nicholas gave it only a passing glance. The monument was old. Recent generations of the family, including his father, were buried in a small crypt at the back of Hendry Hall itself.

The morning sun didn’t reach this place, and Nicholas shivered as he walked among the headstones, scanning the names. He knew Phillip Thibault would not have seen his daughter laid to rest without proper marking.