Her Christmas Knight

by Nicole Locke

  Her heart eased a little, but not enough. She had to face the truth.

  It wasn’t this morning with William that was weighing on her, nor the fact she was shopping when she’d rather be helping with the spinning project. Nor even the fact that Hugh had returned to Swaffham or that it’d been a fortnight since she’d talked to him.

  Her feeling out of sorts had everything to do with the fact it’d been weeks, and she no closer to finding the Seal.

  The King had been specific on the size of the Seal, which was quite small, but other than that she had no idea if it was made of metal or wood...if it came with a handle or not. So she had to search everywhere, for anything. She was blind—searching for something she’d never seen.

  He had said he wanted the information as soon as she knew it, but how long would the King give for her search? It was winter now, and freezing, which made travelling almost impossible. Would that be a valid excuse for her delay—?

  ‘Isn’t it a bit early for shopping?’

  Alice didn’t need to turn to know it was Hugh. But she did pause to brace herself. Every meeting they had was full of confrontation when she needed matters to be easier.

  Glancing over her shoulder, she arched her brow. ‘It’s almost noon—hardly early.’

  Whereas she knew the crisp air did nothing for her but make her skin hurt and her nose red, Hugh stood proud, strong, and as unfailingly beautiful to her as always. The harsh winter air had coloured his skin, accentuating his jaw, his nose and brow. The wind had ruffled his short blond hair, loosening the curls she had thought lost. The sun highlighted the depth of the eyelashes that framed his blue eyes.

  His cold, unreadable blue eyes.

  He stepped until he faced her. ‘True, but in the past when it came to Twelfth Night you always shopped the day before.’

  She didn’t want to be reminded of those times when she had begged Hugh to shop in the market with her. She also didn’t want to talk about herself. Not when it seemed Hugh was always underfoot.

  ‘Is that why you’re here?’ she said. ‘To shop?’

  ‘Why else would anyone be here?’

  Again, he hadn’t answered her question. ‘When it comes to you—’

  ‘Are you paying for that?’ The vendor’s reedy voice interrupted them.

  Alice looked at the ribbon tightly wound in her hand. Sighing, she nodded to Cranley, who followed her today, and he released the coin the vendor asked for. Though it was customary, she didn’t negotiate. She’d already crushed the merchandise. She also didn’t want to play games with Hugh. Not when she had work to be done.

  ‘We should continue,’ she said to Cranley.

  ‘Allow me to accompany you?’ Hugh said, as if she wasn’t pointedly ignoring him.

  She opened her mouth to disagree, but then realised she’d tried to ignore him on St Martin’s Day and every day since then. He was still here.

  Why was he?

  She could not shake the feeling that it had to do with her. Or that the King had sent him here because of the Seal.

  The Seal... She had distracted Elizabeth from making further enquiries, but despite her best efforts to hide what she was doing, her sister was suspicious.

  Hugh inclined his head. ‘Your endeavours with gifts could help me.’

  His words were laced with cynicism, displaying more differences from the way she had known him to be. All through his childhood he’d tried to curb his father’s drinking, had worked tirelessly to save what little land they owned. He had come to her rescue when those boys had lowered her into the empty well.

  Despite his efforts, his father had died from drink and his land had been sold to her father. From the proceeds he had purchased armour and paid for his travel to Edward’s Court.

  Over those years while he’d trained, he had returned for only a few days or weeks to Swaffham. During those times, she had noticed him achieving a warrior’s build and assurance with the sword. Had watched him train with Eldric, who would often return with him. Her childish hero-worship had quickly turned to admiration. And a sort of ache as she’d watched him train as if he still had something to prove.

  It was the memory of one of those times...that last time she’d seen him...that made her ache all the more. With embarrassment, with her own shame, with anger...

  It had been her own fault. She’d approached him as he was slicing his sword against nothing. But she’d strode too close. She hadn’t been thinking about the sword—only him. It might have meant his sword slicing through her, but his training had required control, precision. He had stopped, the tip skimming her belt.

  But he hadn’t controlled his temper when he’d stopped the lethality of the sword and exploded towards her.

  She didn’t remember the words he’d used as he cursed. Only remembered his anger—his anger and his incredulousness because he hadn’t known she was spying on him. The mutinous embarrassment in his expression.

  But that wasn’t what had caused her to ask the question. That wasn’t what had brought her steps closer to him. No, it was the emotion Hugh had displayed that had made her take those steps, had made her ask him to kiss her. It had been terror. He’d almost killed her and it had terrified him. He’d felt something—for her.

  So she had asked him to kiss her. And Hugh, who had always protected her, had looked as if he wished his sword had struck true. Until, upon a shudder, he’d taken that last step, put his leg between hers, one hand cradled her jaw and his eyes locked on her lips.

  The warmth of his hand, the living, breathing hardness of his body had contrasted with the cold, unyielding sword he’d still clutched in his hand. And then it had been only Hugh, his head lowering, and her standing on tiptoe to meet him before...

  Before Hugh had raised his eyes to hers and stopped. Hugh had stopped. And it hadn’t been anger or worry or terror in his eyes. He had simply...gone from her.

  When he’d stepped away she hadn’t needed his words. She’d already heard them in the impassiveness of his gaze. ‘Run to your home, Alice, before you do something you’ll regret.’

  To her shame, she had.

  He had left days after that confrontation. She had hid on her family’s estate and helped with the residents. And had vowed she’d never run again.

  Yet here she was, standing in the town square and trying to avoid Hugh. No more.

  Inclining her head, she addressed Cranley. ‘I should be safe if you want to return home now.’ She met Hugh’s steady gaze. ‘Shop with me if you like.’

  ‘Then it will truly be like old times.’

  ‘Some things should not be repeated.’ She watched Cranley’s retreating back and hoped she wasn’t making a mistake.

  ‘If we aren’t to repeat the past,’ Hugh said, interrupting her thoughts, ‘then why allow me to walk with you? You’re not even looking at the merchandise surrounding you.’

  She stopped between stalls and the heavily laden bystanders bumped along beside them. ‘Because I have no interest in the merchandise, but I do have an interest in why you are here.’

  ‘Bertrice insists on cleaning my home. Since I was unable to sit by a roaring fire, I found myself at a loss for anything to do this afternoon. The market provides entertainment.’

  Again, he hadn’t divulged an answer.

  ‘Is it the King again? Is that why you’re here with me now?’

  He raised a brow. ‘The King?’

  ‘That day in the garden you said you’d talk to the King. Was the conversation not to your liking?’

  There was a knowing curve to his lips. ‘You remember that day very well.’

  So did he—and she was tired of his games. ‘The talk didn’t go well, then?’

  Crossing his arms, he widened his stance. She felt the market crowd at her back, and she avoided their enq
uiring eyes.

  ‘What makes you so sure?’ he said.

  So many questions he asked, and she had too many unanswered. But there was one certainty. He wasn’t who he had once been.

  It wasn’t only in the years that had hardened his body and in the brutal way his hair was cut, so close to his head, the light blond almost destroyed. It was also in the harshness of his blue stormy gaze, the cynical tilt to his lips. The knowing way he held himself. He was a man, a warrior. One who had seen the world...and found it unworthy.

  ‘Because you didn’t stop what was started there and because you’re here,’ she said.

  Still the same casual stance, but she sensed an alertness in him.

  ‘What didn’t I stop?’ he said, his tone still conversational. ‘Your status as his mistress obviously had come to an end. You are here, and he is elsewhere. I assumed the King tired of you as he did the others.’

  She ignored his words and listened to their meaning. ‘Yet you still hound me with it, which serves no apparent purpose. Just as your presence here makes no sense. You don’t shop; you don’t ever visit Swaffham. I can only conclude that you’re here because the King sent you.’

  He glanced around. ‘And why would the King send me here?’

  Alice almost stumbled into answering him. If it was possible he didn’t know she spied, then she would be revealing too much. Even now people might be listening.

  ‘What would I know of the ways of kings and knights. I’m only a wool merchant’s daughter.’

  He released his arms. ‘Why do you think the King sent me here?’

  Cold sweat slid down Hugh’s back. He could never remain detached when it came to Alice. All the more a fool him, to think he ever could. And losing his composure in front of Alice in the middle of the town square on market day was hardly the behaviour of an accomplished spy.

  On the surface, his mission was simple. All he’d been ordered to do was to keep an eye on the Fenton family and find the traitor who sold sovereign secrets. He assumed the King thought the Fentons had something to do with the Seal, even though he knew they didn’t. He merely kept watch so he could report honestly and give an accounting of what they did. He had learned long ago to keep more truths in his tales than lies.

  Now, however, Alice acted as if there was something more. As if the King had talked to her about stately matters and lies and schemes. In truth, there had been the opportunity when she’d spent time in the King’s chambers, but he had dismissed that notion. He’d never met a woman spy.

  And she hadn’t denied she was the King’s mistress. She hadn’t denied it.

  Despite his having no right, he felt jealousy burn through him. Even now he could not quell the frustration and need. Especially not this morning, with the bright sunlight revealing all the colours hidden in her hair and the depth of grey in her eyes.

  All his life he had compared other women to her, and now a king had had her. Under the heat of another man’s caresses did her cheeks flush red as beautifully as they did now? Did her curling hair fan across the bed linens as wildly as it blew in the winter wind?

  How many nights, days, years had he tortured himself with thoughts of the way her lips would part, the way her breath would taste before his lips claimed hers? How many nights, alone, had he wrapped himself and given in to imagining the softness of her skin, the give of her generous hips. Even now he craved to know the way she would meet him. Finally to know, from the very way she held herself, how she would change as she rode him.

  Alice...a king’s mistress tossed away as all the others had been since Eleanor. But every hair on the back of his neck warned him. Alice, King’s mistress or not, wasn’t safe. Her actions today were not merely those of a lady shopping. Her questions to him were not simple enquiries.

  ‘What did the King want of you that day?’ he asked. ‘Why do you have interest in my being here?’

  Abruptly, she strolled on, her eyes observing the wares in the market stalls. ‘It’s been a long time since you were here. Surely others have asked you the same?’

  He kept pace with her, kept his voice low, but his heart hammered in his chest and his mind raced at the possibilities. Maybe he had thought wrong that day at the Tower.

  ‘You refused him, didn’t you? Despite his being the King.’

  ‘What would I refuse?’

  He went to grab her, but she turned too swiftly for that. They had stepped away from the thickest crowd of shoppers and it was time to lay this conversation to rest.

  Alice’s heart thumped in her chest and her breath caught. This walk had been a mistake. She hadn’t uncovered anything about Hugh, but she had revealed too much regarding herself.

  Now they stood in the quieter part of the market, away from the stalls around the fountain. Now it seemed as if Hugh would not let her run.

  Not when he stepped closer, his posture mimicking that time six years ago when she had recklessly asked for his kiss. Why could she not forget that day? Why was she plagued with memories of this man she could never have?

  ‘Don’t. No more. Whatever is between us—’ he began.

  ‘Whatever’s between us...?’ she asked.

  He looked away, shook his head. ‘There’s nothing that can be done about that. Not now. Not ever. But this—’ He waved his hand. ‘Your shopping early for Twelfth Night. Your asking questions of the vendors. If there’s something more going on, I need to know.’

  Alice could not think beyond his words. His eyes roiled with emotions she could almost catch. Regret. Embarrassment at words he hadn’t meant to say. Words that were an acknowledgement of his feelings for her.

  Equally alarming—he knew she’d questioned the vendors. It was as if she had been picked up and placed somewhere else in the world. She couldn’t make sense of it.

  She didn’t have time to make sense of it now. She thought she’d been careful, believed she could lie and no one would notice. Hugh had noticed.

  ‘How long have you been following me?’

  ‘Answer me,’ he said.

  She had given a vow to the King. ‘There’s nothing going on.’

  Anger. Menace. Whatever confusion or roiling emotion there had been in his eyes after his revealing words was gone. Now he looked every stitch a knight—and one who would cut her down.

  ‘Is it true, then? You slept with the King?’ He lowered his voice, deadly soft. ‘Or is it false and you’re protecting something...someone? Tell me. Is it you or the King?’

  What did she care for the King? She wouldn’t risk her family. ‘Wasn’t it made clear to you that day in the garden? I was in the King’s private chambers. Why else would a woman be in his chambers?’

  He shook his head, as if warning himself against thoughts or words, before he bit out, ‘No matter what you are doing for him, he won’t take you back to his bed. He never does.’

  Humiliation scored through her, but she didn’t hold back her taunt. ‘Maybe it’s another’s bed I’m wanting.’

  ‘Enough! There’s more going on here.’

  She agreed—and she could be as angry about it as him. Again he leaned over her, as he had all those years ago. This time, he accused her of being a whore. She had enough of his confrontations. Instead of standing on tiptoes, she ground her heels into the earth, ready to tell him to step away, but there were more words.

  ‘Tell me this,’ Hugh continued, ‘when you were there in the King’s bed, while you were under him, what did he command you to do?’

  Her first instinct was to slap him. Her second was to deny.

  Instead she gave a mere twitch of her lips as she replied, ‘When I’m in the King’s bed it’s I who command him.’

  Chapter Eight

  Words. Only words. But they ripped through Hugh’s defences so quickly he knew he couldn’t erect them
properly again.

  Alice turned then and walked away. He let her.

  Too much at risk. Too much at stake. How much was true and what could he believe?

  He breathed in raggedly, watched her retreating back, her steps quick but short given the crowds. Her skirts were swinging around her hips, her back straight. Pride. Determination. But at that pace she wouldn’t get far.

  She needed to get far. At least until he’d reined in his emotions.

  Think.

  The King knew of the Half-Thistle Seal and believed it to be in Swaffham; he had also demanded Hugh to spy on his mistress. Was it possible those two orders weren’t connected?

  No, otherwise nothing made sense. Edward had never spied on his mistresses before because he’d never kept his mistresses for long. So he had to take the information Edward had given him. Such wrong information.

  Hugh was the spy, and the Half-Thistle Seal hadn’t been in Swaffham until Edward had sent him here.

  Could Edward suspect him and be setting him up?

  It was possible Edward did suspect. So why send him here to pay close attention to his former mistress?

  Alice...a mistress, who commanded men? He could see it even now. Her petite curves free of her clothes’ restraint, her eyes heavy-lidded with desire. Her lips plush and wet from kisses.

  He’d held her against him only a few times in his life. Still he was seared with the memories of how she had felt.

  And other men had known her thus?

  Breathe. Look away.

  Jealousy’s blade pricked at his heart and he longed to stab back. Never worthy—neither in the present time nor in the past.

  Now she bedded the King. Edward had been devoted to his wife Eleanor, but he was a man and had had a few discreet mistresses since her death. Alice held no title, held no country—she would be quickly dismissed if she hadn’t been already.

  So why request that Hugh spy on her?

  Too many questions. He had people to protect in the schemes he played. Though everything in him told him to walk away, he needed more information.