Her Christmas Knight

by Nicole Locke

  A knight to protect her—this Yuletide

  By order of the English king, Alice of Swaffham searches London nobility for the traitor dealing information to the Scots. Little does she know that the mysterious spy she seeks is the man she once loved and thought she’d lost forever...

  If Hugh of Shoebury felt unworthy of Alice before, as the Half-Thistle spy he can never claim her heart. Now he must fight to keep not only his dark secrets—and Alice—safe from a vengeful king...but also his burning longing for her at bay!

  “Do you want to dance?”

  Alice stopped tapping her foot, and turned to Hugh, who’d caught her unawares.

  And he did catch her unawares, his appearance startling to her every sense. It still seemed impossible that he had returned to Swaffham. And after all this time, it should have been impossible to be so affected by him. And yet, she was.

  Tonight his clothes were as fine as any nobleman’s. None of which softened the hard slant of his jaw or his piercing storm-filled gaze.

  “Which dance?” Her eyes strayed to the lock of hair that fell loose and soft over his forehead.

  A quirk to his lips. “The one that’s beginning right now.”

  Aware of eyes on their exchange, Alice carefully chose her words. “Yes, I would like a dance.”

  “Then let’s begin this,” Hugh said, taking her hand in a sure grip. His palm pressed to hers and their fingers entwined, his calloused tips brushing her wrist. He drew her closer as they joined the other dancers, holding her longer than the dance provided. A dance she knew well, but, for the first time, somehow didn’t know at all.

  Author Note

  Finally, Hugh’s story is being told! How could he possibly be book six, when he first appeared in The Knight’s Broken Promise, which is book one in the Lovers and Legends series? Well, I’m not writing these stories chronologically. In fact, as stand-alones, the books can be read in any order.

  But that doesn’t explain why it took me this long, so I’ll tell you. Hugh’s past is so tormented that his story was difficult to write. Add in the fact that at the end of book one he’s committing treason, and I wondered what heroine could possibly understand him?

  That’s when I found Alice, who has been valiantly trying to save Hugh since she was six years old. The only problem? Alice has the king of England threatening her life...

  NICOLE

  LOCKE

  Her Christmas Knight

  Nicole Locke discovered her first romance novels in her grandmother’s closet, where they were secretly hidden. Convinced that books that were hidden must be better than those that weren’t, Nicole greedily read them. It was only natural for her to start writing them—but now not so secretly.

  Books by Nicole Locke

  Harlequin Historical

  Lovers and Legends

  The Knight’s Broken Promise

  Her Enemy Highlander

  The Highland Laird’s Bride

  In Debt to the Enemy Lord

  The Knight’s Scarred Maiden

  Her Christmas Knight

  Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com.

  Get rewarded every time you buy a Harlequin ebook!

  Click here to Join Harlequin My Rewards

  http://www.harlequin.com/myrewards.html?mt=loyalty&cmpid=EBOOBPBPA201602010002

  To my Brother—

  Thank you for teaching me the value of kindness, the virtue of perseverance and the worthy ability to tie my shoes. You’re the absolute best.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from Captain Grey's Christmas Proposal by Carla Kelly

  Chapter One

  October 1296, London

  She wasn’t going to make it.

  Heat prickled down her back. Her hands, clutching a seal to her chest, grew damp. Alice stopped running, pressed her back against the stone wall and let out a steadying breath.

  She was going to make it. She had to. She had come too far. It was the labyrinth of passageways that was making her anxious. She didn’t know where she was going.

  It was the dark...which was more heavy and cold than the stone she rested against.

  How long had she been running? She should never have agreed to the game—never agreed to visiting Court in the first place.

  As if she’d had a choice. King Edward needed gold and her family—wealthy wool merchants—were being heavily taxed for it. To soften the blow, the King often invited her family to Court. Beyond delighted, her father had always taken the trips alone. This time round, however, the King had formally invited her. And one could not avoid a direct royal command.

  But she could have avoided the seal-seeking game. Noting that the King wasn’t in residence, she had tried to avoid the game. But someone had put her name in the bowl and it had been pulled. Then she and the others had been shoved into various darkened hallways to find a seal and solve the riddle.

  Which should have been easy. Even if she didn’t know and couldn’t see where she was going, she’d thought she could depend on her ears to hear the lapping of the Thames or the running of the other seal seekers. But her ears had failed her. All was dead silent.

  She rolled the seal in her hands, hoping the unusual shape would distract her from her thoughts. The seal was neither round nor square, and it was much too large for her hands, but it had to be the correct seal. She was sure that she’d understood the riddle: Find the door that holds the light.

  A door couldn’t hold a light unless there was a light behind that illuminated it, and yet she had opened so many doors and there had been only more darkness.

  Her breathing hitched. She mustn’t think about her fear of darkness. She must consider only the light and where she hadn’t been. If she concentrated on the riddle maybe she could forget the dark. Maybe.

  Laughter. High-pitched and suddenly snuffed out.

  Where had it come from? It had burst out and disappeared too quickly for her to tell. Was it the other seal seekers or someone hiding in the shadows?

  She pushed away from the wall and walked to the left. She might be going in circles, but she had to move. The riddle had hinted at additional seals. The others might be ahead of her.

  Not daring to run any more, she quickened her steps. If the other seekers were close and she slipped and the seal fell she would never find it again. But she couldn’t be too cautious. If she was quick enough she’d have the prize—she’d be out of the dark.

  Another step and another—until the floor dropped.

  Stairs?

  She swiped at the dark with her hands and feet until the corridor curved into a staircase. Keeping a hand on the stone wall, she shuffled her way down until she found her way to a heavily latched illuminated door.

  There were more sounds, too—murmurs and whispers of a crowd trying to be quiet. This was the door! She brushed her free hand against the smooth wood until she found the latch.

&n
bsp; Other noises were reaching her ears—more laughter, and footsteps behind her. No time to waste. She placed the seal beside her feet, and used both hands to lift the latch. It held, as if someone on the other side was preventing it from opening. Did she dare call out?

  No, the footsteps behind her were too close.

  She jumped and used her body to press down on the handle. The latch broke free, but the clank echoed in the quiet corridor. The footsteps behind her changed direction.

  No time to lose.

  Grabbing the seal, she rushed into the too-bright room. Images of people and flames flickering in elaborate wall sconces distracted her. She collided with a wall wearing chainmail and started to fall backwards.

  Thick arms wrapped around her waist and lifted her. Clutching the seal against her chest, she felt her feet leave the ground as she was pressed against the unmistakable curves of a trained warrior. Winded, and blinded by the sudden light, she felt his flat abdomen against her own, her breasts rubbing abrasively against interlocked steel, and still the warrior pulled her up...and up.

  She was being held much too closely. She breathed in to catch her breath, to protest, and smelled leather and metal, and a scent that was this man’s alone. A scent that hovered on her memory...elusive, familiar. It filled her with such a sudden wanting that she clamped her mouth shut.

  Images blazed in her mind. It couldn’t be him. It shouldn’t be him.

  Another feeling assaulted her, more powerful than the embarrassment of being held too closely. It was even more deeply pitted in her stomach than her sudden inexplicable wanting.

  She felt fear.

  She blinked her eyes to focus and was caught by the bluest eyes she’d ever seen. No, not the bluest eyes she’d ever seen, because she’d seen these eyes before. Years ago. The fear went down her back all the way to her heels before it raced hot and fast to the top of her head.

  She blinked again. No, these eyes were not the same—even though they were the crystal blue of a summer sky, so bright and too piercing to be real. These eyes had had that light taken from them. They were as clear and stunning a colour as to be almost impossible, but these eyes held something else—some darkness—as if an unseen storm was about to break.

  Other features of this warrior were different, too. His blond hair did not wave around his shoulders, but was cut short, its curls tamed to just behind his ears. His skin was not pale from the clouds and mists of a small town, but was sun-baked. Underneath the torchlight his face was all hard, lean planes and too fierce for softness. There were lines, too, around his eyes—not from laughter, but from determination. His lips, which curved sensuously and were made for smiling, were instead turned down deeply.

  None of this seeming harshness hid the sheer beauty of his features. No, this man’s perfection was marred by a nose that crooked a little to the left.

  The seal slipped in her suddenly damp hands. She knew that nose. She had broken that nose. Reluctantly, against her will, she raised her eyes to his again. He was still studying her.

  She felt permanently latched to him. She could not move even to let air into her lungs. Oh, she didn’t want to, but she knew those eyes. And they knew her. There was no confusion in their blue depths, there was only...waiting.

  But he couldn’t be the man she knew. She hadn’t heard from him or seen him for more than six years. She’d thought him dead. She wanted him dead.

  ‘Hugh?’ The name escaped before she knew she still had a voice, and the corner of his lips lifted.

  She knew that crooked smile. She knew that smile all too well.

  The bright room blurred. Her body felt like a whirling spindle. She felt the instant tightening of his hands against her back and his body bracing itself against her sudden lack of strength.

  She was fainting.

  A sharp pain in her back, a sudden shove forward, and Hugh shifted to keep their balance. It was all she needed to break eye contact. The dizziness left; the room turned bright again.

  They were surrounded by heavily perfumed people. The courtiers’ dress of—multiple colours along with the copious amounts of gold and silver—glinted and glared in the torchlight. They were all staring at her. Their mouths moved, but she couldn’t hear their words above the roaring in her ears.

  She pushed away, but Hugh did not immediately release her. Instead he slowly lowered her to the ground. If possible, the chainmail was more abrasive and his body was harder than a stone wall. Her breasts tingled inside her chemise; swathed in her heavy skirts, her dangling legs entwined with his.

  It was all too intimate, too heady. When her feet touched the floor it felt as if he’d dropped her from that imagined cliff.

  Unsteady, she pressed her hand against his chest. Her body shook with the rise of his breath, the strong beat of his heart. Hugh’s hands returned to her sides, and they were all too familiar, too proprietorial. He didn’t have a right to such touch. He had refused her offer to have a right to such touch.

  ‘Release me,’ she said, not looking in his eyes.

  He stepped away. The crowd moved into the space before her. Their voices finally reached her ears. The circular room was clanging and echoing with cries of protest, outrage, laughter, loud talk.

  The courtiers stared and pointed at her chest. Embarrassment warmed her skin. Had the ribbons around her dress loosened as Hugh held her so tightly? Had she become undressed—here, in public, at Court?

  She looked down, but nothing was indecent. The light green ribbon that wound round her chest and sleeves still held her blue linen dress together. She was intact; there was nothing to cause her shame.

  And she still had the seal clutched to her body.

  The seal. She had the seal.

  How could she have forgotten the game? How long had she been held by Hugh, staring at him as if she...as if she wanted to see him again? Embarrassment did more than warm her skin. This time she knew she turned red. Something she couldn’t control. But what she could control was what she did about it.

  Putting as much coldness into her features as possible, she looked up. He wasn’t there. The crowd had surrounded her and was pushing her forward. Digging her heels into the flooring, she struggled against the crowd until they suddenly opened before her. With a last shove she was released into a small opening.

  She righted herself, running one hand down her crumpled dress, and turned to glare at the courtiers—but a glint of red and gold at the corner of her eye shocked her into stillness.

  Disbelieving, she turned towards the red and gold of the King’s throne. It wasn’t empty. Instead there was a very tall, very thin, bearded man reposing on the ornately carved chair.

  Fighting the instinct to hide, she dropped in a deep curtsey. King Edward had returned to the Tower of London and he was staring right at her.

  ‘Rise, my lady. It appears you have something of mine.’

  She rose, her knees unsteady, her hands trembling. In fear of dropping it, she pressed the seal to her belly. King Edward barely glanced at it.

  She was suddenly acutely aware of falling very short of Court decorum. Hair tangled from running, purple dress crumpled by the crowd, cheeks flushed with bewilderment. Even her mind was in disarray.

  But none of this was fair. She’d neither seen nor heard any formal announcement of his arrival. Literally, she’d been in the dark.

  As if conjured by its name, darkness swirled around her chaotic thoughts. Was she about to faint?

  No!

  She raised her chin. Damn the dark and—if she could—damn the King, too, for making her feel inadequate. After all, it was his stupid game she’d been playing. What did he expect? And whoever had heard of a king taking so long to gaze upon someone’s appearance?

  But he wasn’t looking at her appearance. He hadn’t noticed the crumpled silk or the tendrils
of hair that strayed out behind the silver circlet around her head. The King hadn’t noticed her physical appearance. The King seemed to be assessing her.

  She was going to faint.

  ‘Who are you?’ King Edward’s deep voice echoed in the unnaturally quiet room.

  She desperately wished her mouth wasn’t so dry. ‘Alice of Fenton, sire.’

  ‘From Swaffham?’

  ‘Yes, Your Majesty.’

  He chuckled. ‘Well, it seems you have won a prize.’

  Alice didn’t know how to answer. Despite the King’s laughter his brow remained furrowed, and it gave him a troubled look.

  She chastised herself. Perhaps he could not rid himself of worry when there were such heavy matters to deal with in the north. But with such concerns, why was he bothering with a courtly game?

  His chamberlain was suddenly on her right. In his hands was an elaborate ivory hunting horn. Even in the great glitter of Court the horn glimmered bright, its three bands of carved silver sparkling like stars. If this was her prize for such sport, every extravagance her sister had told her about Court was true.

  She bowed her head. ‘Thank you, Your Majesty.’

  He inclined his head, but looked beyond her shoulder. She would have looked, too, but the chamberlain was handing her the horn. His manner was overtly stiff, his arms barely extended. It forced her to bend low and forward to retrieve it, or look as if she was refusing the prize.

  She was practically wrapped around him when she heard his message, whispered so softly only she could hear.

  ‘You will go to the antechamber when the third song starts.’

  Startled at the words, she didn’t react as the chamberlain grabbed the seal, shoved the horn into her hand and disappeared.

  When she looked up from the horn the King was gone. She had not acknowledged a king leaving the throne. What was wrong with her?

  Courtiers swarmed around her, but her ears and eyes were numb to their excited chatter.

  She heard music faintly in the background. Had she missed a song?