As Lord Chesleigh and his daughter glowered at Nicholas, he serenely met Percival’s heated stare. “You have proof of this accusation, this stain upon your cousin’s reputation?”
Percival blinked, then flushed. “I’ve seen her enter your chamber at night.”
“If that were true, why didn’t you stop her? Why didn’t you ask her what she was doing?”
Beads of sweat dampened Percival’s forehead.
“Perhaps you didn’t ask these questions because she didn’t come to my chamber at night, or any other time.”
“Eleanor will confirm what I say!” Percival fiercely averred.
“Are you sure?”
Fear, doubt, dismay—all appeared in Percival’s face. “Of course she will,” he stammered. Then he straightened his narrow shoulders. “You know it’s true. If you’re an honorable man, you’ll marry Eleanor.”
“He can’t,” Joscelind declared. “I’m the one everyoneknowshas been in his bed. Hehasto marry me. My family’s honor—”
“Perhaps you should have considered our familyhonorbefore you acted like a harlot,” her father snarled. “But youwillbe married to this knight.”
Joscelind pointed at Nicholas. “He seduced me! He told me he’d marry me. That I was his choice. Why wait until Lammas, he said.”
“That’s not true,” Nicholas countered. “I made no attempt to seduce your daughter, my lord, and she wouldneverhave been my choice even if I had.”
Percival suddenly looked less upset. “Because you’re going to marry Eleanor, aren’t you?” he asked with more than a trace of desperation.
“The hell he is!” Lord Chesleigh declared. He marched up to Nicholas until they were nearly nose-to-nose. “Whether you’vetaken my daughter’s maidenhood or not, youwillmarry her. Otherwise, I’ll see to it that you lose this fine castle you’ve built and everything that goes with it—wealth, influence, the soldiers you command. I’ll have you reduced to nothing more than a common soldier again—and you know I have the power to do it.”
“Hecan’tmarry Joscelind,” Percival protested. “He’s got to marry Eleanor. She might be with child.”
Silence fell and everybody stared at Percival as if he’d turned green.
Nicholas wasn’t sure if he should believe Percival or not—yet it ifwastrue, whose child was it?
Looking at the vain man standing before him, mindful of the man’s threats, he feared he knew. “Eleanor has never been my lover,” he repeated coldly. “If the child resembles its father, won’t it look like you?”
“I’ve never laid a hand on her!”
“No?”
“No! I thought she was the woman sleeping with you. But if she wasn’t…” His eyes widened and his mouth fell open. “It was that Scot—that Riona!”
“Did somebody mention my niece?” Fergus Mac Gordon asked, peering around the door frame.
As he took in the sight of the irate Lord Chesleigh, an equally upset Sir Percival, a very undressed Lady Joscelindand Nicholas’s state, his brow furrowed. Then his expression changed, to one of shock, dismay and disappointment.
Nicholas suddenly felt like the scoundrel these other men claimed he was, but for a different reason. However lonely and unhappy he’d been, and however happy Riona had made him, he’d sinned a great sin against the jovial little man and his niece. He’d treated Riona as if she were his whore, worthy of only a few fleeting nights of pleasure in his bed. She deserved more. Much more.
Sick with remorse, he cursed himself for his stupid, greedy, ambitious plan. His vanity. His arrogance. All the trouble he’d caused. And the trouble to come.
“I think we should leave this chamber and allow the lady to dress,” he said, grabbing his sword belt as he headed for the door. “We’ll assemble in the hall, where we shall settle this matter once and for all. I will decide today—now—who will be my bride.”
RIONA HURRIEDto her chamber door in answer to a flurry of knocks to find Uncle Fergus standing there, although standing was not precisely accurate. He was fairly jumping from foot to foot as if he were on hot coals.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” she asked, fearing that there was some new trouble with Fredella.
“You didn’t hear all that noise from Sir Nicholas’s chamber?”
“I was asleep.” Because she’d been exhausted after last night.
