Her Christmas Knight

by Nicole Locke

  ‘Then let’s begin,’ Hugh said, taking her hand in a sure grip.

  His hand shouldn’t have felt possessive, nor familiar, and she almost yanked it away. It wasn’t that she wasn’t above making a scene when it came to Hugh. She had done so many times in the past. However, tonight was her only chance to search Lyman’s house, and she couldn’t argue or have more delays.

  So she allowed his hand to stay, and it held hers longer than the dance provided. The dance that she knew well, but for the first time somehow didn’t know at all.

  It was because Hugh was holding her hand. His palm pressed to hers, their fingers tangling, his callused fingertips brushing her wrist. The fact that he drew her closer as they joined the other dancers.

  It was a polite dance, with simple steps, but the revelry had started long ago and drinking had blurred the lines of formality. Already the dancers were bumping into each other, and parts of the circle were too tight. But Hugh arranged them in a space, and Alice attempted to concentrate on the other dancers and not the man still holding her hand.

  But for every step she took he was there beside her. For every nod and smile to the dancer on her left, she had to give a nod to Hugh. And while one movement was mere polite formality, the other felt like something else. A dance, surely, but one she didn’t know the steps to.

  And with every precise turn of the bodies within their large circle she became all the more aware of every precise step that she took with him. As if she did two dances. One with the circle of people around her, and one that encompassed only him.

  ‘You talk much with Mitchell,’ Hugh said, inclining his head in order to be heard without shouting.

  ‘As you know, there is much for us to talk about.’

  Alice turned, released Hugh’s grip, turned again and he took her hand.

  ‘The barn restoration is on your property.’ Hugh stepped forward again. ‘And yet you spend a lot of time in each other’s homes.’

  They kept their voices low, and this wasn’t a conversation she wanted heard by anyone. It seemed the dance agreed with her, for the music and the circles changed.

  Hugh released his hand and crooked his arm with hers. Locked as they were, their swaying brought them closer. She felt the pull of his sleeves against hers, his scent, the warmth of his body. The pressure and strength of his arm linked with hers. With the raising of their right arms, his left tightened to hold her for the turn. She knew the deadly strength in his arms, felt the keening need to know more.

  The turn was successful, and she released her breath and her arm.

  He had sounded almost jealous—but he’d sounded like that before, in the garden. When he’d followed her there to find information regarding the King.

  ‘You are following me.’

  ‘It’s a small town,’ he said.

  Which made her all the more suspicious.

  ‘One you’ve returned to though you have no ties here.’

  He locked his arm with hers again, tensing it more than required by the dance steps. It brought her closer to him.

  ‘No, I wouldn’t have ties to the merchants here, now would I?’

  What did the merchants have anything to do with anything? He was from nobility, and far above her station.

  ‘Your father was a knight.’

  This time he purposely brought her closer. ‘Do you think I’m an outcast and should have remained one? I wasn’t born here, so therefore don’t belong?’ A quick turn of their bodies and their backs were to each other before he was at her side again. ‘Sorry to disappoint you, but I have a right to be here as much as you.’

  She stumbled. His arm linked with hers and supported her until she matched his step again. He didn’t say any more and neither did she.

  She couldn’t. It hadn’t mattered to her that he wasn’t born here. But it was clear it mattered to him.

  All those years he’d helped his father, fought the boys in the town who had made fun of his poverty, of his father’s drunkenness.

  She had only seen it as heroic, had only ever seen the decency and the goodness in him. Never had she seen his childhood and his actions as a source of shame. And yet his words cut with embarrassment, with pain.

  Run away, Alice, before you do something you’ll regret.

  She had run away, only thinking of his rejection, never thinking of the meaning behind his words that day. Yet now, here, with him in this dance, whirling around with the candles happily lit, and laughter and cheer surrounding her, she saw his past in a darker light. As something filled with anguish and shame. Did he think she would regret him?

  Another step and he was beside her. His face implacable, his jaw tense. His arms held her at just the right angle, holding her assuredly, but no longer possessively. They kept circling...circling.

  Her life with him might have always been this way but those few words had revealed something else. Something in the heat of anger, in the sweep of the dance, that he hadn’t meant to say.

  The dance sped up and no words could be said. It brought their bodies closer together as they stepped in and out. Her full gown and sleeves trailed in the sweeping movements, looking like waves crashing to shore.

  She felt like those waves, and Hugh was her shore. She vowed she wouldn’t run away again. She was only now realising where she should run to.

  When the dance ended, they parted without words. The mummers’ dance would start soon, and she would begin her duties to the King.

  She watched as Hugh walked away, saw the breadth of his shoulders, the assuredness of the way he held himself, parting the crowds as if it was his due.

  He didn’t look back, almost as if he hadn’t asked her to dance, as if he hadn’t commented about her being with other men or whoring with the King.

  That day in the market, in the heat of his words, he had let slip that there was something between them. Was it possible? Was it true? She was beginning to believe it wasn’t only her. But if so, he held himself away still. As if it was he who was running.

  Circling. Circling. She felt no more or less than wool on a Great Wheel.

  But tonight she could do no more.

  * * *

  Frustration, anger, and need warred within him. Hugh stormed through the Great Hall, looking for a reprieve or a distraction. Eldric was nowhere in sight.

  Why had he danced with Alice? It could never be simply a dance with her. Stupid to think otherwise, but he’d been consumed with jealousy.

  He’d had no right, and yet he’d taken it. Given her no choice although she had noticeably tried to escape his request.

  Instead he had taken her hand, which had held some of the strength he ached to feel. Taken her hand, brought her as close as the dance allowed. Brought her closer when even that was too far away. Had seen her eyes display every emotion in their short exchange. Umbrage. Pride. And the last. The last...

  Why had he said the words he had? They revealed too much about himself to her. And he had seen every aching awareness and understanding flaring in her steady gaze.

  He had just laid every hurt he’d ever felt at her feet as if she would care. She couldn’t care.

  And yet...her grey eyes had watched him carefully, so he hadn’t dared to speak again. She fixed things. If she saw a wrong, she set it to rights. She’d done so all her life.

  The one shining light in his life was that she had never tried to fix him. Never pitied him. When all the others in Swaffham had given him handouts or disdained him, she had acted as if he was unflawed.

  That fact was the one untarnished part of him. Now he had revealed the shame from his past as if...as if begging for her to remedy him.

  Angry at himself, he grabbed a flagon that was thankfully still full of ale and looked for a goblet.

  The moment the King had ordered him to spy
on the Fenton family he’d dreaded it. He’d avoided even thoughts of Alice since that day in the field when he had almost killed her...kissed her. He should have kissed her. Maybe then the ache of those years away would have been less.

  There was only one remedy tonight, and that was what was in his hands. The King’s orders be damned. There would be no spying tonight, no more observation. He would steal this drink and return to his own home.

  Who was he to her? He had the wrong background, the wrong family. Her father, delighted with nobility, completely ignored Hugh’s lineage. His father had seen to that disgrace.

  He should ignore Alice now. He didn’t know her, there were questions with her involvement with the King, with her asking questions, her projects, and kindness to others.

  Too many questions, and too many traps to be caught in. Eldric did watch him regardless of his glib remarks. And yet...

  Almost out of the room, he turned as if unable to help himself. One last glance saw Alice approach her sister, Mitchell and Lyman. Others were there as well, but his eyes were only on Alice as he looked for some trace of pity still lingering. Some glint in her eye to show that she intended to arrive at his door tomorrow to remedy a wrong.

  None of that was there. Instead Alice craned her neck around her would-be suitors. She tapped her foot impatiently as Mitchell laughed.

  This wasn’t the woman he had observed earlier in the evening. The one who had laughed too brightly. This wasn’t the woman he’d observed over the last month, partaking of all the festivities and wearing ribbons in her hair.

  Right now there was a hint that she was the Alice who didn’t care for such lavish banquets because it didn’t help those less fortunate. His lips curved at her impatience and disapproval.

  Maybe when this was all over and he returned to the King, he could forget the Alice at Court who laughed too loud and wore extravagant dresses. Maybe he could continue to remember her as he had always done. Helping children, and frowning at banquet waste.

  She gave another glance over her sister’s shoulder. He saw her more clearly now. Her eyes were wide, with a line deeply drawn between her brows. Her mouth was downturned, her bottom lip clamped by her teeth. This wasn’t impatience...it was something like worry or...fear.

  He shook his head and put the goblet down. This wasn’t right. Her tapping foot no longer looked impatient. It looked restless with nerves.

  This wasn’t the Alice with her projects either.

  Alice was not as she should be, or what he thought she should be.

  Maybe...she put on a facade. Perhaps he saw the contrasts with her because one wasn’t her. But which one, and why the contrasts?

  He had nothing to go on but her conversations regarding the King in the garden and at the market. Her questions regarding his presence and neatly not answering his own. Her disappearing at every party and in every home they attended together.

  He had dismissed all those moments because he hadn’t seen her in six years. Dismissed their connection, his awareness of her, because he hadn’t wanted to look too closely. Hadn’t wanted to feel the ache. Because he had been jealous when he had no right to be.

  But now he did. Now he saw her nervousness, the façade slip. Now he saw her craning her neck to observe the mummers approaching the stage.

  When she slipped away he couldn’t dismiss anything.

  She was up to something, and he aimed to find out what it was.

  Chapter Eleven

  ‘I thought I’d find you here,’ he said.

  ‘Spindles!’ Alice jumped, the candle in her hand sputtering, sputtering. She watched in horror as the flame bent again and went out.

  Utter darkness.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  Hugh’s voice...coming from the far corner. The one behind the desk she had momentarily and gratefully spied when she’d entered the room before closing the door behind her.

  Hugh was here, in a room where he had no right to be. But then neither did she.

  ‘I was looking for...’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I was looking for the garderobe.’

  ‘When you poked your head in here and raised your candle you knew it wasn’t the garderobe because you entered it and closed the door behind you.’

  And then the light went out, and she couldn’t see.

  Don’t think about the darkness.

  ‘You’ve been caught, Alice, it’s best to be truthful now,’ he said silkily. ‘What did the King say to you that day?’

  ‘Why are you asking me about the King now?’

  ‘Because you never answered my question.’

  Don’t talk about the King... Don’t think about the darkness. What was she left with? Hugh and his voice which seemed closer.

  ‘There was never anything to answer.’

  ‘Enough games,’ he said, low and no longer from the corner.

  She found her voice. ‘I could say the same to you.’

  ‘It isn’t safe to go into other people’s rooms when you’re not invited.’

  She knew it wasn’t, but she’d gotten this far without getting caught. She wasn’t caught now, since she had said nothing and she could leave.

  Except it was dark, and somehow she’d lost the direction of the door. Already she could feel her heart racing, the spent candle in her hands slipping.

  Don’t think about the darkness. She had to distract herself.

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘How do I know what?’

  ‘That my being here isn’t safe,’ she said, swallowing against the tightening her voice.

  If she could keep talking maybe he would too. Then the darkness wouldn’t matter.

  ‘I’m merely a guest,’ she continued. ‘and I wandered in here by accident. You wouldn’t know it’s not safe. Not unless you know something. Who exactly is playing games here? Tell me, how do you know?’

  Absolute silence. Darkness closing in.

  ‘I’m the one asking questions...’

  Strong arms grabbed her. Alice gasped. The candle fell to the floor. The familiar scent of pine, snow and steel enveloped her. A moment of struggle before she realised it was futile. When she stilled, he let out a sound—half-surprise, half-satisfaction.

  ‘You’re trembling. Scared? Good—you should be. So which is the true you? Are you about the dresses now or helping the children?’

  Not these questions. Not lies. Not in this darkness. ‘Let go of me.’

  ‘All those parties you’ve attended, all the times you disappeared—is this what you’ve been doing?’

  ‘Let go of me!’ She lashed out until he did—easily, as if he had never held her—then stepped back.

  Without Hugh’s arms, without his hands on hers, the darkness surrounded her. She bit her lip, held back a cry, reached out in the direction he was. To find some safety from the darkness.

  Alice’s hand suddenly gripped his tunic sleeve. Her fingers, like daggers, felt the full length of his arm, and pulled him towards her. Her gasps were nothing more than desperate pants for air. Her trembles were now shudders. Hugh pulled her in tighter and felt the fast thumping of her heart. She was terrified—but not of him.

  ‘My God, Alice. After all this time?’

  Hugh cradled Alice in his arms and her trembling body shook him. He hadn’t thought at all about the darkness when she’d entered the room. When he’d laid the trap, and said the words. He never would have done so if he’d known the candle would go out.

  Then as he’d talked to her, he heard the fear at the edge of her voice. The stridency of her tone as she gathered herself. He had encouraged her fear. Those who were afraid often confessed.

  Had he made it worse for her? He held her, but it wasn’t enough. Her body was rigid with
fright, her trembles turning to shivers and back again. He heard her sniffle, give a great hiccupping gasp.

  He held her closer. Held her as he had always meant to hold her. With all his body, his arms tightly wound around her back.

  ‘I’ve got you,’ he whispered against her hair. ‘You’re safe.’

  He brushed at her hair, her cheeks, felt the evidence of her tears. He brushed them away too.

  ‘There’s light here, Alice. See it between the slats of the floorboards? There under the door?’

  He felt her move her head, her breath hitching softly as she made each discovery.

  ‘You see it?’ he repeated.

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered.

  She gave a ragged sigh and rested against him. And in that way, he felt Alice as he had always dreamed he would. Her—her body. His defences gone.

  He’d never held her like this. And in the dark, he was conscience of the way her legs tangled with his, the curve of her hips just under the sweep of his fingers, the give of her breasts, the tenderness of her hands clutching his tunic.

  He shouldn’t feel the relief and satisfaction that he did, but he felt it down to his very marrow. More so because by wrapping his arms around her, he had eased her trembles.

  ‘Still?’ he said.

  She rubbed her face, her tears, against his tunic, somewhere near where his heart lay. ‘Afraid of the dark?’ she whispered. ‘Yes...ridiculous for a grown woman.’

  ‘Not ridiculous when you suffered the way you did.’

  ‘It is foolish since I’ve been scared of the dark for longer than I was stuck in that well.’

  As he looked back over the years, the memory of her shrieks that day still broke him. He didn’t even remember why he had been in that part of town. But he remembered seeing Allen and his friends laughing and patting each other on the backs and shoulders.

  Their camaraderie hadn’t made him pause. In fact, he usually did everything he could to ignore them. But their self-satisfied expressions had stopped him cold that day. They were pleased with themselves. And he knew Allen, the largest of the boys, tormented those weaker than him.