Her Christmas Knight

by Nicole Locke

  Why was he talking of her clothing? He was close enough that she should have been able to know what he was thinking, but his eyes were like opaque glass—reflective, revealing nothing.

  She didn’t need this confusion.

  ‘Why are you here?’ she demanded. ‘I know it wasn’t to talk of my dress.’

  ‘After we had run into each other in the hall, I thought we could meet once again—but then you spent time with the King.’

  ‘Are you following me?’ she asked.

  ‘Only enough to see you.’

  His eyes held hers and his lips curved almost sensuously, almost as if he wanted her.

  She couldn’t take his looking at her like that—not now, not when she was too tired to keep her defences up. Why was he acting as if he cared? She knew that he didn’t, and never had.

  Treacherous tears were building. She would embarrass herself if she stayed.

  But he wasn’t going to let her pass. He was going to stand there with his beautiful smile and his confusing words. A thought occurred. Something... No. Someone had brought him here.

  ‘It is the King, isn’t it?’ she asked, although she knew she was right.

  ‘The King?’

  ‘You want to know what the King wanted of me. You don’t want me.’

  Some emotion flitted across his eyes like a jagged cloud. His intensity towards her vanished and he shrugged. ‘You cannot blame me for trying.’

  Oh, yes, she could. If she hadn’t already wished him to hell, she was doing so now. Callous, cruel, arrogant... She was glad his words had cut so quickly into her softening feelings. Her tears had dried and she could leave without another embarrassing scene.

  ‘I owe you no words, no explanation,’ she retorted. ‘I owe you less than that—I owe you nothing.’

  ‘Oh, do you?’ he replied. ‘In front of all those courtiers you would have fainted from exertion if I had not been holding you up.’

  Let him think it had been exertion and not his presence that had caused her to feel faint.

  ‘You cannot keep me here for ever.’

  His stance changed, became more relaxed. He had that air of boredom she had seen in the other courtiers. But Hugh didn’t fool her.

  Oh, he was dressed as ornately as any courtier. The green of his tunic, woven very fine, lay perfectly over his chest and tapered slightly at his waist. His tan leggings fitted seamlessly over his legs and his boots gleamed new. Yet none of his frippery hid what he had become. He was too unyielding, too rugged to look like anything but what he was: a warrior.

  She had never thought of him that way, although he had trained for knighthood all his life. She had watched him broaden into a man, but he had always been Hugh...a girl’s infatuation.

  Now he was something more. Something she didn’t understand.

  ‘I do not need for ever,’ he said. ‘I need enough time for you to tell me what you did with the King.’

  ‘Did?’ she repeated. ‘What I did with the King? Don’t you mean “spoke of”?’

  ‘Do I?’

  He would not let her avoid this conversation. She had wanted—no, needed to confide in someone. And here was Hugh, asking her to do so. As if she would ever confide in him again.

  ‘He congratulated me on my winning,’ she said.

  ‘Something more happened; the King doesn’t just share pleasantries in his private chamber.’

  ‘Nothing of importance.’

  ‘Your blushing gives you away. You were never good at lying.’

  She’d have to get good at it. Her sisters’ lives were at stake.

  ‘It is of little consequence for you.’

  His eyes narrowed and he abandoned his appearance of nonchalance. ‘Maybe you haven’t changed. I see you have kept your stubbornness.’

  She’d have preferred to keep her pride, but it hadn’t take long in Hugh’s presence for her to know that it was still in tatters.

  ‘I do not see how it concerns you.’

  ‘The King and his friendships always matter to me.’

  ‘I am hardly his friend.’

  He eyes hardened with a heat that slid along her face, taking in her eyes, the slant of her jaw, and resting on her lips. She felt his eyes there, felt his words as he answered.

  ‘No, I suppose friend doesn’t quite capture your role in the King’s life, does it?’ His eyes were back on hers and the heat was gone. ‘But I refuse to think you’ve changed that much. Whatever the King wants of you, you won’t be able to do it.’

  Shock caused her to ask, ‘How do you know what the King wants of me?’

  ‘It isn’t hard to guess. You were in his private chamber for over an hour.’

  He had been watching her—maybe even listening behind a door or a tapestry. The King had made her think it was a private conversation. There could only be one reason why Hugh would be privy to this secret: the King did not trust her.

  Well, she’d show them both.

  ‘What do you know what I can or cannot do? It’s been six years. Long enough for both of us to change.’

  ‘Not long enough. Not to betray your family like this.’

  ‘It’s not a betrayal. It’s an honour!’

  Colour left his face. ‘To hell with this pretence. What has he done to you?’

  He moved to grab her.

  She jerked her arm away. ‘Do not delude yourself into thinking I would welcome your touch again.’

  Anger blazed in his eyes before he could hide the emotion from her. She fought the instinct to step back. Hugh wasn’t pretending he was angry; he was acting as if he hated her.

  ‘No?’ He dropped his arm. ‘Or maybe it is the King’s touch you prefer.’

  The insult seized at her thoughts. This wasn’t a conversation about her spying. Hugh didn’t know what the King had asked of her. He thought she was whoring.

  Rage whipped and tightened her throat. ‘I’d prefer anyone to you!’

  ‘Then you have changed from the girl I once knew,’ he said. ‘What happened after you threw yourself at me and I refused? Did you throw yourself at another? Did he refuse too? Or were you simply waiting for the King to notice your...charms?’

  She clenched her skirts so she didn’t strike him. ‘If I was, that would be my affair.’

  His mouth curved cruelly. ‘An interesting choice of words.’

  Her fingers bit into the cloth. It didn’t matter what he thought. He didn’t deserve the truth.

  ‘I don’t have to listen to this.’

  She stepped over the plants, not caring when her skirts snagged on some rosemary.

  He shifted away and let her pass. ‘There is no need to ruin your gown in order to escape from me. I will go, but I will stop whatever has been started here.’

  ‘Only if the King wishes it.’

  She smiled and knew it didn’t reach her eyes. Let him make what he would out of her words. She was beyond caring.

  His hands flexed at his sides and he loomed over her before he settled back on his heels.

  ‘He will wish it,’ he bit out as he pivoted away. ‘I’ll make sure he wishes it.’

  He was out of her sight before she could take two breaths.

  She felt rooted where she stood. Rooted. And she was standing amongst the herbs.

  A tight rumble rose involuntarily from deep inside her. She bit her lips to seal it in but the sound burst out of her. Then there were more—too fast, too quick to control—until she was laughing and crying in the garden. Hysterics amongst the herbs.

  She clamped her hands over her mouth and wiped furiously at her tears. Frustrated at herself, she brushed at her skirts until she could take large gasps of air.

  By the time the sun had risen and the opening of shutters ec
hoed in the courtyard, she could breathe again and felt lighter. Better.

  Better than she’d thought she would after seeing Hugh again. Maybe all she had needed was those hysterics to settle her thoughts.

  She strolled further into the garden and picked an apple from the arbour.

  When she had first come to the garden she had thought being alone would sort out her thoughts, but it was her outpouring that had made two things painfully clear.

  The first was that she knew herself better than Hugh did—and in more ways than she had ever guessed.

  She could do what the King commanded. Spying was no more than discovering information and lies. It was no more than seeking the truth. Her worries over betraying her friends were misplaced.

  She would find a way into their homes. If someone she knew was a traitor then searching through their belongings would not be a betrayal of friendship. If treason against her King had been committed, she had already been betrayed.

  She couldn’t believe she had ever wondered if she could spy. A wrong had been committed. What did she always do when there was an injustice? She made a plan and corrected it. If there was a wrong, she’d set it right. She couldn’t believe she had ever questioned herself.

  It had to be the surprise of seeing Hugh again that had muddled her thinking about spying.

  Her thinking always became ensnared when it came to him. Their conversation today was proof of that. Over the years she had imagined many conversations with Hugh, but in her imaginings the conversations had made sense.

  This conversation certainly didn’t. He had never given her an honest answer as to why he’d sought her in the garden. The flattery about her dress and wanting to see her alone had been a lie. He might remember differently, but she would never forget his rejection of her.

  She bit hard into the apple. It was mealy from the cold, but she didn’t care. He believed she was the King’s mistress. He thought she whored with other men. He had come to the garden to find the answer for himself. Maybe he’d thought she would lie with him as well!

  Hurrying her pace, she revelled in the crunch of the pebbles beneath her feet, but it didn’t ease her heart. And that was the second pain-filled fact she had learned from her crying.

  She was still in love with Hugh.

  For six years she had fooled herself into thinking she no longer cared for him. How wrong she had been. She might as well be sixteen again, with all her wild longings.

  But she didn’t feel sixteen around him. There was something more now. She felt...

  She took another bite of the apple. What good would it be to delve into what she felt around him? Hugh had ridiculed her youthful declaration of love. And now he thought she whored with the King.

  What manner of man was he?

  She knew the answer to that: the wrong manner of man.

  Anger rushed through her limbs and sent heat to her face. She had been wronged for many years by Hugh. And, no matter how much of a wrong it had been, she could never set her heart to rights.

  Pivoting, she strode towards the exit. She had lost in the battle of love, but there was more to her than her heart. There was her loyalty, her honour, her determination.

  Throwing the apple core onto some shrivelled clippings, she made her decision.

  To hell with Hugh and her heart. No more distractions, deliberations or confusions.

  She had a traitor to catch.

  Chapter Three

  November, 1296

  Of course, making the decision to be a spy and knowing how to do it were two different matters entirely.

  Alice walked purposefully through the town square to the widest house in Swaffham. Icy rain pelted against her. She clutched her green cloak tighter. It was a futile gesture. The rain had already found gaps around her neck and cuffs, and her dress lay coldly sodden against her trembling skin.

  She sped up her walking, aware of other unfortunate drenched souls jumping out of her way.

  Two weeks of wasted time at Court and travelling to Swaffham and she only had vague ideas of what she could do to find the Seal. It wasn’t as if she could ask anyone how to spy. She was sworn to secrecy.

  At least she knew what she had to do first. She needed information about the people in town—which meant she needed to be around them and invited into their homes. And there was only one place to go for those types of invitations.

  Pushing open the door, she walked quietly into the building that held many town meetings. The hall was a simple large room, filled with chairs and tables. The walls were covered with plain unembroidered panels of green linen cloth. A fire blazed in the hearth under the hood of a huge chimney, and showed light that the narrow windows fitted with oiled parchment could not.

  Fresh rushes crunched under her feet and alerted the men whispering in different corners to her presence. Some of them looked up, but most kept to their heated conversations and ignored her.

  She pulled her hood tighter around her face and walked briskly to the stairs leading to her sister’s living quarters.

  When she reached the landing, she knocked on the large wooden door. The moment the servant had ushered her into the private solar her sister Elizabeth flew down the narrow stairs at the back of the room.

  ‘Oh, Alice! I am glad you returned. You would not believe what I have been through in the last few days.’

  Alice tried to untangle her wet cloak, but her fingers were swollen and red from the cold. The maid who had let her in concentrated on the knot and Alice gratefully lowered her trembling hands.

  ‘What has happened now?’ she asked.

  Elizabeth took the remaining steps. ‘The town council will not listen to John.’

  This was a familiar argument to Alice. Her brother-in-law might not have the respect of the town, but her sister had the respect of her husband. ‘Do they ever?’

  ‘They should!’

  ‘Because he’s your husband or because he’s the mayor?’

  Elizabeth shook her head and gave a tiny exasperated grin. ‘Both.’ She strode across the hall, her slippered feet slapping against the bare wooden boards. ‘He is trying to initiate a law so that householders and shopkeepers are required to clean the streets in front of their houses and shops.’

  The maid removed the cloak and herself from the hall.

  Alice rubbed the cold from her arms. ‘That seems like a reasonable request, given previous laws that have cleaned the inside of the businesses and moved others farther away from residences.’

  ‘I thought so—since it is their own waste they wade through in the streets! With all this rain it makes everything slippery and dangerous. It is a wonder more children do not drown when they fall.’

  ‘You and John have done so much to clean this town, you would think they would listen to this.’

  Elizabeth shook her head. ‘That is the penalty of working with the bureaucracy of officials and magistrates. Great for regulating guards to watch the ramparts and patrol the streets by night, but if they have to actually do something, like clean their own homes, they argue and fight.’

  ‘What will you do?’

  Elizabeth winked. ‘I have some ideas—but John says they could land me locked in irons.’

  ‘Doesn’t that make them good ideas?’

  ‘Oh, I have missed you!’ Elizabeth grabbed Alice’s hands and a frown marred the smoothness of her brow. ‘You are freezing!’

  She pulled Alice’s hands away from her body and looked in earnest at her gown.

  ‘And you are soaking wet. Where have you been?’

  Alice looked around at the house. The servants were trying to be discreet, but they were everywhere.

  ‘Is there anywhere we could go that’s private?’

  ‘Of course—my bedroom has already been cleaned and
—’

  She didn’t wait until her sister had finished answering, but immediately set out for the second and more narrow flight of stairs towards the family’s private rooms.

  These rooms were warmer, filled with thick rugs, bright embroidered linens and cushions. It was her sister’s touch, but Alice didn’t take any comfort in the softness of the room, and she didn’t wait for the click of the door before she started talking.

  ‘I walked from the town’s gates—’ Alice started.

  ‘Why would you do such a thing? It is winter. Is there something wrong with the coach or the footmen? Is it the horses? Father did not order the leaking roof repaired and they are terribly sick! What do you need me to do?’

  Used to her sister’s rapid-fire questioning, Alice walked to the hearth and poked at the fire to increase its heat. ‘No, no, it’s none of those things. I merely needed to talk to you in private and didn’t want my presence to be noted.’

  ‘Something happened to you in London?’ Elizabeth pulled a red and green woven blanket from a chair and draped it over Alice’s shoulders. ‘You should not have gone there alone.’

  She had always been glad that Elizabeth had stayed in Swaffham. She couldn’t imagine confessing about going to dances to their oldest sister, Mary, who married into a family with even more land, and who only liked to talk about sheep. Not that she liked confessing anything. She’d rather depend on herself and not communicate any of her worries.

  Which was probably why, now that she was here, she didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t lie and she couldn’t tell the truth. Her sister was cunning and knew her too well. She would have to talk in half-truths in order not to raise her sister’s suspicion. And she would have to find a reason to get invitations into everyone’s homes.

  As a wealthy merchant’s daughter, she used to receive such invitations, but she had been refusing them for so long she was no longer offered any.

  Now, not only did she need to be invited, she needed a reason that she wanted to be invited. Unfortunately, the only thing she could think of would force her to swallow her pride. But what was pride compared to a king’s order?