Together they sat on their makeshift pallet, backs buttressed by the wall. And there he remained, riveted by the torrent of words that spilled out in a whisper. As though, even now, she feared being overheard.
She wove together threads she’d barely touched before: her mother’s burning, her forced marriage and its misery, her desperate decision to learn the killing arts, her arrest for a murder she hadn’t committed, the torments she’d endured and her rescue by Maximo—the unlikeliest of saviors. Despair hissed in her words as she described the threats he’d used to compel her.
Finally, she revealed his final command: the order to poison Anne and frame Joscelin for the crime, her Devil’s bargain with Lord Rochford, her desperate ploy to find her family. Joscelin stared in amazement when she spoke of the Spanish knight he’d killed in Milan—one of many he’d faced in honest battle, no different than all the rest. He’d never dreamed Maximo Montoya was the infernal man’s brother.
“One truth above all, you must understand.” Allegra hugged her knees, eyes hollow with exhaustion. “I’ve never used the killing arts to murder a man. My mother made me swear, before she died, that I would never become like my Borgia kin. Desperation alone drove me to learn, after Casimiro nearly killed me.”
“Then how do you explain Don Maximo?” Damn, she seemed sincere, and he wanted to believe her. Yet he was wary—desperately wary—of being played for a fool again. “Even if the man is a monster, he trusted you to serve him, and you poisoned him.”
“The don was not meant to die tonight. I planned to give him the antidote, but then he refused to speak! I used a cautious dose, no more than a few drops, and he barely touched it. This is why I feel certain he survives.”
“Say he has survived. What happens to your family now? Even if you’ve discovered their whereabouts, how do you plan to rescue them?”
“They’ll free themselves, for the most part. If I create an opportunity, my father will know how to seize it.”
“But how? He’s a blind man, burdened with two terrified children.” He knew some facet of the truth eluded him, some secret intent she still wasn’t telling him. “How can he escape from the Tower of London, one of England’s best-guarded prisons?”
Her eyes darkened to indigo. “After all I’ve told you, do you still not know?”
“Tell me plainly, and I’ll try to understand.” Instinctively, he knew he wouldn’t like this.
Pale with trepidation, she closed her eyes. “I told you I learned the killing arts from the Hand of God, and that he was a deeply pious man. He never took a life unless he was convinced of the victim’s wickedness. He saw himself as the instrument of God’s wrath.”
“Oui, the man is legend, even in France.” Joscelin steeled himself to learn the infamous assassin had been her lover. “What of him?”
“Oh, Joscelin.” Her face was white as parchment. “The Hand of God is my father.”
Chapter Eighteen
Itching with nerves, Allegra paced the cluttered attic she and Joscelin had rented above a chandler’s shop. Despite her exhaustion after their desperate flight, worn ragged with fear of pursuit, the clamor of commerce over London Bridge doomed any attempt at rest. Below, an endless queue of bundled figures toiled across the icy Thames in the pale sunlight. Any one of them could be Maximo’s man, or a royal courier with orders to arrest her.
If not for her bone-deep weariness, she told herself, she would have fled these shabby lodgings the moment Joscelin left. Her former self, that hunted creature who twisted and burrowed like a fox going to ground, would not have trusted any man. Santa Maria, she still harbored grave misgivings, but she’d yielded to necessity. An Italian lady with her looks would be too memorable—and the guards might have been warned against her.
In the end, she’d compromised by letting him go, then paying the chandler’s boy to follow him. Intrigue was force of habit for her; she could no more avoid it than she could stop breathing. In due course, the boy scampered back to report that indeed, the French gentleman had ridden to the Tower. The boy had left him hunched over a tankard in a nearby tavern, conducting surveillance on the prison.
Still, Allegra could not stop her anxious pacing. She had done everything to drive Joscelin away—to protect him—but he would not be shaken loose. When he’d stayed behind at Richmond, she’d felt certain she would never see him again.
Yet, miraculously, Joscelin had emerged from the lion’s den. She’d confided everything, all her ugly truths, and the disgust in his green eyes had burned her like acid. With all her wickedness stripped bare, she must repel him now.
Then why had he chosen to help her? What other man would not turn her over to the king’s justice—or at least abandon her in disgust?
Perhaps he regarded her as unfinished business, a charge he would gladly unload on the next ship to Venice, where she could no longer jeopardize his prospects. Bleakly, she knew this good man had already given her more than she’d ever deserved.
Indeed, she was grateful for his stalwart company, here where her journey ended. Grateful, though the specter of his promised bride loomed between them.
A man’s tread on the stairs made her scurry to the door, her heartbeat quickening. Any moment now, she expected a hue and cry in the streets, when word flew from Richmond of a murder.
Palming her stiletto, she pressed against the wall, throat dry as she crouched behind the door. When Joscelin entered, she sagged in relief and drank in the sight of him—red cloak swirling around his powerful frame, his tanned face blazing with cold and vigor, a stray beam of sunlight streaming through the window to ignite his copper hair.
“You look alarmed, signora.” He juggled packages as he nudged the door closed. “There’s no need for it. Your family’s there, just as you thought.”
“God be praised.” Closing her eyes, she hugged the knowledge to her heart. Until that moment, she hadn’t been certain. Don Maximo was the Devil himself, lying about where he’d kept them.
With an effort, she forced her brain to practicalities. “Tell me everything you’ve learned.”
“In a moment.” He shot her a concerned look as he piled their purchases on the table and straddled a chair. “Christ, you look exhausted. Couldn’t you sleep?”
“How can I sleep? Tonight, if all goes well, I’ll see my father and sisters for the first time in three years!” And then I’ll bid them farewell forever. “Don’t keep me in suspense, Joscelin. What have you learned?”
“Sit here and eat something first. Here’s mutton pie fresh from the butcher and a pear tart still warm from the oven.”
Her nerves were strung so tight that her appetite was nonexistent, but she recognized the need to build her strength. Besides, he looked stubborn and probably wouldn’t say anything until she ate. Impatient, she unwrapped the pear tart and nibbled. Its grainy sweetness filled her mouth. Suddenly she was famished and tucked into the meal with vigor.
Nodding his satisfaction, Joscelin poured the crisp brown ale and reported what he’d learned.
Over a game of dice, he’d spoken with the porter and guardsmen, asking for news of his wife’s Venetian relations. When he described the blind man and his twin daughters, an off-duty sentry had admitted they were kept in the Beauchamp Tower. They were not allowed visitors.
“I’m telling you plainly, I don’t like the risk.” Frowning, he peered through the window at the bustling street below. “If the don lays a trap, and baits it with your father, you’re walking straight into it.”
“Of course it’s a risk! But the longer I delay, the more risky it becomes.” In fact, she was counting on that.
Together they discussed everything they knew about the prison’s defenses. Joscelin’s observations were perceptive, and she felt a renewed appreciation for his steady head and experience. Still, there were limits to what a brief surveillance could achieve. And, of course, he had not wanted to seem overly interested in the arrangements.
“I suppose you’ve settled on
your disguise,” he said. “Mon Dieu, I don’t like the thought of you going inside the place. Have you thought about how I’ll get in?”
“You won’t be going in.” Her breath clogged in her lungs, fear for his safety clenching her chest. This much, at least, she’d decided for certain. “Apart from the risk of capture, you’d chance being identified and your prospects ruined—to say nothing of your family.” And your promised bride. “I’m going into the prison alone.”
“Merde! The Devil you are.” Outraged, he strode to the table and towered over her. “Allegra, don’t waste your breath. I’m going in with you.”
This impulse toward chivalry was not unexpected, and she addressed it firmly. “Your offer is appreciated, but unnecessary. I’m trained in stealth and subterfuge, do not forget—”
“Forget?” He snorted. “I can hardly think of anything but your damn training. You’re not invincible, whatever your father taught you.”
“I am quite accustomed to acting alone.” She would simply not allow him to risk himself, and she would say and do whatever she must to keep him safe. “In fact, I prefer it. Any companion without my skills would gain me nothing but distraction and weakness.”
He stiffened, color rising in his face. “I know what you’re trying to do. You’re doing your damnedest to get rid of me. I’m a knight and a soldier, damn it, with far more experience in battle than you. It’s my job to protect you—and, by God, I intend to do it.”
“But why?” She tidied the table with anxious hands, anything to keep moving, hold her clamoring fear at bay. “Santa Maria, Joscelin, don’t be so pigheaded. This exploit can get you killed! You’d risk everything you’ve earned for nothing—”
“I don’t consider your safety nothing.” His eyes blazed emerald fire at her.
“Why worry for my safety, when my family suffers on my account, and finally I’m given the chance to help them? Why do you insist on rushing into danger?”
“Why do you insist on leaving me?” Gripping the table until his knuckles whitened, he met her gaze with steel. “Two working together are more likely to succeed. You’re no idiot—surely you must see that.”
“You ask why I keep leaving you? For the same reason I’ve been leaving you since the day we met.” To her horror, her voice broke. The tears she’d been struggling to contain spilled hot on her cheeks. “I will not see you destroyed on my account. Gesù! Everyone who’s ever loved me has done nothing but suffer for it. I could not bear to see you suffer too…not you, Joscelin.”
“Listen to me, Allegra, for once in your life.” He strode around the table and hauled her to her feet. “I’m a better than competent swordsman, well able to protect myself from every danger—except you.”
She gasped as his mouth claimed hers, muffling her reply. Arguments, evasions, strategies spilled from her brain like grapes rolling from a barrel, scattered by the force of his need. His tongue surged against hers, demanding compliance, and she drank the heady brew of his kisses until she was drunk with him.
She rose on tiptoe to press against him, gripping his strong shoulders, feeling this powerful fighting man respond to her touch. With a muttered oath, he snugged her hard against him, his sinewed hips pressing into hers.
“God himself couldn’t keep me from your side tonight,” he said roughly. “Accept the inevitable, Allegra—and no more of this nonsense about leaving.”
His words went straight to her head like wine, but she reminded herself this wasn’t a declaration of love. He meant that his deeply ingrained sense of honor wouldn’t permit him to abandon her, a woman in need of protection, to face her death alone.
“I can’t allow it,” she whispered, rubbing her face against the rough silk of his throat. “Don’t you see? You’re risking everything, even your life! I’m not worth that sort of sacrifice.”
“God-a-mercy, how can you say that? I’ll show you what you’re worth.” He slipped an arm beneath her knees and lifted her, cradling her safe against his chest. Just as he’d done that night in the inn—the night she first began to love him.
This was the last secret she kept: the knowledge that had crept up on her, moment by moment, since he’d started protecting her from Don Maximo’s malice.
God and Mary, she loved him.
She loved his strength and his competence, his fiery devotion to duty, his unflinching honesty, his stubborn resolve to protect her. Here was a man who could keep her safe, if anyone could. A man who’d never raise his fist to her, never put politics first, never scheme to control her.
That night at Belhaven, the night they made love, he’d paid tribute to her body so tenderly—as though she were worthy of love. So rare and precious, that stolen time had been. Could she not have a final hour with him, just to say goodbye?
If she truly loved him, if she would save him from the darkness that swallowed everything she cherished, she must never let him know.
So she said nothing when he carried her to the pallet, the bedclothes patched but clean beneath them. The fire crackled beside them, its heat radiating through her. She clung to him when he would have pulled away, and urged him closer.
“One last time,” she whispered, as if God might overhear. Her hands spread against the hard muscles of his back, beneath his leather jerkin. “Let us only—enjoy each other.” She’d almost said love each other, but she caught it in time. “Let us have each other, once more before the end.”
“I hope you don’t expect me to argue?” he said on a husky laugh, and began to unlace her gown. “I’ve burned for nothing else since the night you danced past me in the king’s arms.”
“I thought you suspected me of mischief that night.” She wriggled free of her skirts. Beneath the goodwife’s gown she wore no corset or stomacher, only a single fine petticoat and chemise edged in Bruxelles lace. He stripped away her garments the way he’d removed her disguises, shedding them one by one until she lay revealed before him. Tenderly, his callused hands cherished her, peeling off her stockings and garters. She herself unstrapped the stiletto from her thigh and laid it aside without fear.
Tingling from head to foot, she floated in a sea of pleasure—the pleasure only he could give her—as he worshipped her with touch and reverent words. Her curves swelled to fill his hands. Currents of sensation sparked through her when he nuzzled her nipples, her core welling with heat. He tasted the flat plane of her belly, leisured as if they had days to love, instead of merely hours. Her body parted before him, and she arched to invite his touch.
He was being so careful not to frighten her. So gently, he stroked the petals of her private self, fingers dipping to find the dew gathered there. The heart of her passion swelled and pulsed, hungry for him, and she moved his hand where she wanted it.
“Patience, sweetheart.” His whiskers rasped the tender skin of her thighs. “When did you become such a shameless lover?”
“When you showed me how it feels to love,” she whispered, burning for his touch. “Per favore, don’t tease me now, Joscelin.”
“I wouldn’t dream of teasing you, or crossing you either.” His breath tickled her damp folds. What a miracle to feel this way, to smell the dark musk of her own desire mingling with his comforting scent. She would never have dreamed she could lie so exposed, naked and aching, vulnerable while her lover crouched over her, still armed, his studded jerkin cool against her heated flesh. Yet she trusted him, body and soul.
Corpus Christi, how she loved him.
When the wet rasp of his tongue flickered over her hidden pearl, a startled cry spilled from her. Shameless, she gripped his russet hair, holding him close. The climax descended like a holy rapture, divine pulses of pleasure rippling through her.
She was still gasping with delight when he unbuckled his sword, but she fumbled to help, pushing aside his codpiece to release his engorged length. Bold and fearless…a miracle…she caressed his taut heat with a marveling hand and thrilled with feminine satisfaction when he surged into her touch. Joined by commo
n need, she guided him home inside her.
He thrust into her welcoming channel, bracing his weight above her as he filled her. Beyond restraint, she gripped the muscled globes of his derriere, drawing him hard against her. Together they fell into the fluid dance of love, honest and tender and hungry as he rode her.
On the brink, she stared into his face, his strong-boned features convulsed, fiery hair tumbling around his shoulders, sinews bulging in his throat as they strove toward rapture. His gold-flecked eyes blazed like wheels of fire as they locked on hers, as if he’d never let her go. She soared high with him and echoed his hoarse shout when his heat spurted.
Afterward, she drifted in drowsy contentment, wrapped safe in his arms. From London Bridge below, the cheerful din of commerce rose. Shafts of sunlight slanted through the window to burnish their bodies like a halo and bathed their humble lodging in a haze of gold, more lovely than any palazzo.
So this is love. She twined her legs through his, savored the contrast between his sinewed strength and her supple skin. To lie with a man in such absolute assurance, not caring at all that her knife lay out of reach—that was love to her. He had every reason in the world to betray her, from self-interest to Boleyn loyalty, even the driving French imperative to bring down the Spanish. Instead, he was helping her, and she trusted him with what she treasured most—her sisters’ precious safety.
She would never burden him by confessing this last secret—she, who was undeserving of a good man’s love. He had already risked enough for her sake. He should return to his new life with a clean conscience and feel no guilt for her fate.
His big hand cupped her head, stroking her tumbled hair. His voice rumbled in her ear, picking up the discussion where they’d left it. “Never say you’re not worth the effort. It troubles me when you malign yourself.”
“It’s the truth.” She closed her eyes as guilt squeezed her heart. “Don Maximo was right about my need for absolution. Why else would I remain with him—the man I feared and despised—for all these years? I’m still striving to do penance for my sins.”
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