“Save for deceiving me, you mean.”
“Nicholas,” she said, refusing to sit down. “One instant, I was in an office building in New York City and then I was here, over five hundred years in the past, in the middle of a battle. You saved me. I will never forget it, no matter how far into the future I go. I quickly grasped what I was in the middle of. Historians call it the War of the Roses. You were from the House of York, and I, I was your enemy because of my name alone. I was too afraid to tell you.”
“Were you ever going to tell me? Or did you think your secret was safe? How could anyone here know your true identity, aye?”
“Yes, but…I would have told you if things between us had grown more serious.”
Her words stung a little. “More serious than love?”
Her expression softened on him. “I didn’t realize it was love. I…” She paused and seemed to try to keep herself together. “I have never really been in love. Love seemed very fragile and I chose to stop believing in it.”
He was tempted to smile at her, but he didn’t give in. “It doesn’t matter what we feel.”
“Why not?”
He gave her a hard look that usually silenced his men but didn’t seem to affect her in the least. “We have been fighting this war for many years now. Our side has almost proven victorious. Am I to forget…” He thought of his family. “…everything, toss it all aside for a Lancaster woman?”
“No one is asking you to forget,” she said gently, making him miss being with her every day. “And is that all I am to you? A Lancaster woman?”
He wanted to go to her and tell her how much she meant to him, to sweep her up off her feet and kiss her senseless.
“Nicholas, I may not even be related to the Lancasters of today, there are so many descendants removed.”
“But you are a Lancaster. I grew up hating Lancasters. It has been the one constant in my life. But ’tis more than that. You did not trust me enough to tell me.”
“What would have changed if what you said before that is true? You hate for the sake of hating. Perhaps you are not the right man for me.” She headed for the door, but he blocked her path.
“Get out of my way, Nicholas.”
He didn’t move for a moment. “Do not go.”
“I must. It’s for the best.”
He did as she asked. What was there left to say?
He closed his eyes when she left the solar and slammed the door shut behind her.
He wouldn’t go after her.
So, that was it then? There was nothing more between them. He covered his face with his hands.
No. No. His heart refused to give her up, but his head forbade his legs to move. “Kestrel,” he lamented. He didn’t want to be without her. She made him smile again.
She came here from the future. She could go back at any time.
She was a Lancaster.
Was she here to make sure Richard died on the battlefield? Did Richard kill the princes or have them killed?
It was the same question he’d been asking himself for almost two years now.
There came a knock at the door.
Still standing in his place, he called out, “Come,” hoping, praying that it was Kestrel.
Elia entered the solar and stared at him soaking wet and miserable. Her golden-hued gaze took him in and then she shook her head. “What is going on in that head of yours, Nicky? You care for her. I know you do. Will you let her go because of her name?”
“How can I not? I will not betray the House of York.”