Her Christmas Knight

by Nicole Locke

  He shook his head and released her hand. She reluctantly let it fall to her side.

  ‘She was coughing blood at the end. There was someone else in the room—a local healer, I think, who often tended her. But still...’

  But still he wondered if he had been abandoned.

  ‘Weren’t there others in the village who could have taken care of you?’

  ‘I never believed so. Why else would she have notified my father and asked him to take me in?’

  Why, indeed. And if his father had already abandoned him, why beg him to take in his son?

  Then a thought occurred. ‘How did she know where your father was?’

  ‘My father was born and died in Swaffham; it probably wasn’t difficult to find him.’

  ‘Was your mother...? Did your mother have coin?’ She shook her head. ‘I’m asking this wrong. Do you know how she got you to Swaffham?’

  ‘I travelled with a messenger from my father.’

  From his father. ‘So it’s possible your father paid for your trip? It’s possible he wanted you?’

  He raised a brow. ‘Trying to soften it for me? My father made his intentions towards me clear when he abandoned his wife, my mother.’

  ‘But he agreed—’ Alice started, then stopped and gathered her thoughts. ‘He took you in, Hugh. Even if you believe he didn’t pay for your expenses to travel. He answered your mother. He took you in.’

  Hugh’s eyes closed, as if he could not accept what she said. When they opened, they were as clear as she had ever seen them, and completely unreadable. As if he purposely kept what he felt from her.

  ‘Why are we talking about this?’ His eyes went to the room where William slept.

  ‘Because after all this time we’re here, together.’

  Her heart hammered in her chest. Finally they could talk about the dance, his revealing of his past. The accusations in the garden. There would be no misunderstandings any more. No more questions of what if?

  ‘For what purpose? I said I would help with the Seal. We’ll find it or not, and either way we’ll leave Swaffham come spring. Me to my home, and you to inform the King on what has happened.’ He looked back at her. ‘We’ll be going our separate ways...as we have before.’

  ‘No. You kissed me. I know you feel for me.’ She took a step and noticed him bracing himself before she stopped. ‘I know why you turned me away that day. All those years ago. It was because of your father.’

  ‘He’s dead.’

  ‘But he’s why you stayed away, isn’t he?’

  ‘At the time? Yes. Is that what you want to hear? How could I subject you to a father fallen drunk in the mud? To the shame and humiliation of my lineage?’

  Alice’s heart soared even as she feared that this wasn’t enough. She couldn’t tell what Hugh was feeling, what he was thinking. The storm still battered against the tiny house, but she felt as if it howled and slashed at them. But she wouldn’t give up—she’d made a vow.

  ‘But don’t you see?’ she said. ‘There wasn’t a reason to stop your kiss that day. I never saw you as you saw yourself. Like you do now. I only saw your strength, courage, perseverance. That was the man I wanted. The man I vowed to marry.’

  ‘You saw me wrong. You keep seeing me wrong. To this day I don’t look at ale or wine like everyone else—as something to drink every day or, if it’s a good vintage, as something to use in celebration. I look at it and wonder if the next sip I take won’t wreck me, too.’

  She’d seen him at parties, lifting his goblet and staring at the contents. ‘And yet you still drink?’

  ‘As a test...a challenge...a game.’

  It was no game. He did it to prove he wasn’t like his father. If he continued to think that way there would only be bitterness about his past. There was no changing who had sired him, so he needed to see his father in a different way.

  ‘You saw yourself wrong. Your father had difficulties, but there was good in him. Your mother may have asked for his help, but he must have paid for the way. He took you in.’

  Hugh’s legs wouldn’t hold him any more and he leaned against the wall again. Alice stood there, looking far more fragile than he’d ever seen her. Her hair was wet from the snow, and she was shivering under the blanket she held.

  He could see the blanket covering her. It was his...and he couldn’t quell the feeling of possessiveness that he felt.

  She was always beautiful to him, and never more so than now. As she showed her love for that child, quaking and breaking everything inside him until he had no walls.

  Then she had brought up his past with his father, and rewritten his childhood. How could she have known? A few words spilled at a dance when he’d been angry and she’d guessed accurately.

  She was right. He had never seen what she had, hadn’t known such a boy existed. He only remembered the hardship, the shame. His begging of his father to stop drinking. He only remembered the relief when his father’s land had been sold and he bought his armour and turned his back on Swaffham.

  Turned his back on Alice.

  He had thought he wanted her then. It was nothing like now.

  He had held her in his arms, felt the softness of her lips. Tasted her until it had driven him to the edge. He had avoided her for days now, just to stop this conversation. He knew she’d have questions about why he’d kissed her.

  And all of the answers he could give her would bring him trouble. He had kissed her because he’d needed to distract her from the real traitor. Because he still wanted her. Would always want her.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said truthfully. ‘The present is too full of lies and deceit.’

  She stopped her shivering then. ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘Even if we repair the past—even if your words are true, Alice—what is there now?’

  ‘There’s everything now. There’s us now.’

  ‘Not for long. I’m selling this house. I don’t know why I kept it. I’m a knight, and I find information for the King. It’s what is expected of me.’

  ‘But—’

  The door rattled, sleet slashed against the roof and Hugh raised his voice to be heard. ‘There is nothing else. What did you think? That you could heal me of my past and repair the present? Is this something like William? Do you want to fix me? What did I tell you? Life doesn’t work that way. Since I left here, years separate us. More mistakes, more barriers. You and I were never meant to be together. Life has made sure of that. We have no future. I see that. Why can’t you?’

  Tears were falling. Why hide them? She was baring her soul to this man anyway. To one who found the world lacking, one who stormed and raged within himself and never let it go. A few mere tears meant nothing.

  ‘Because you feel something—’

  ‘For you? Lust.’ His lips curled. ‘I used to be as sheltered as you when I lived here. Believing there was a right and a wrong way. But nothing is that black and white. Didn’t staying in London teach you anything? Didn’t your father show you how flimsy vows are?’

  She gasped. Her father. Happy. Adulterous. Yes, she knew how men were, but Hugh had shown devotion and loyalty to his father. She had believed Hugh was different. But if he was, he was denying it.

  And he continued to deny them. Maybe the years he’d been away had change him irrevocably. Maybe she had imagined their compatibility. Maybe she didn’t, but it didn’t matter because if he denied the truth of their connection, what was the difference?

  Nothing.

  And in that, her heart cracked. She didn’t want to run away this time, but if he denied there was something between them, then it wasn’t her who was turning her back.

  She still had a traitor to catch, William to care for and her project with Mitchell. Maybe it was time to say goodbye.

 
The thread binding them felt more than frayed. As if all she needed to do was yank to break it.

  ‘So that’s it,’ she said. ‘What will you have me do now? Return home by myself? Drag William out of bed?’

  ‘The bed’s big enough for both of you. I’ll stay out here.’

  She clasped her hands before her and arched her brow. ‘And what of the Seal and your helping me?’

  ‘What did I say about flimsy vows and the fact that you shouldn’t trust anyone?’

  She pulled herself up with all the dignity she could and headed to the bedroom. Before she entered the darkness there, she turned. ‘I will still seek the Seal and the traitor.’

  ‘I didn’t expect otherwise.’

  ‘And neither you, nor any other man, will stop me.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  Heart thundering, Hugh entered the Fentons’ Great Hall and felt again like a gangly youth who wasn’t worth the imaginary dirt on their spotless floor, rather than the man he had become.

  He almost laughed. The man he’d become was worse than the clumsy poor youth he had been. Shamed for his father’s failures and knowing he’d fight against them for the rest of his life. He still had to fight those rumours, those memories, those truths.

  And now he had committed even more sins that, though he had confessed to them, he wasn’t all that certain God would forgive him this time.

  He didn’t forgive himself. Especially since he was being so brazen as to grace their home with his presence. He wasn’t invited, and after all he had done, he was most likely unwanted.

  Yet, this was the Fentons’ annual feast, and they kept the doors open for all of Swaffham. Everyone.

  Which made it easier and yet more difficult for him to be here. Because in the past this feast and entertainment had been exclusive. Now it was open to everyone, and he knew without asking who was responsible for that.

  Alice. Always Alice and her generous heart and spirit. She’d have been the one to insist on inviting the entire town. And it seemed the entire town was here. Dressed in their finery with their jewels glittering.

  His years away made it apparent how prosperous Swaffham had become. Everyone appeared in many ways more opulent than those at Edward’s Court, for he, at least, had suffered financial woes with his wars.

  Not Swaffham, which glowed. Yet, as opulent and joyous as the crowd appeared, it didn’t stop him from seeing Alice immediately. He almost walked away. It was better to face the King and the guillotine than Alice and the truth.

  It wasn’t his past deeds or his traitorous present that made him feel unworthy of being here today. It was how he had treated Alice the night of the storm.

  And how had he treated her? By spilling his bitter past, his pain, and talking to her with disdain.

  Then she had asked whether he’d help her. Her chin raised, her lips trembling from the cold or from her anger—he didn’t know.

  But he did know how she’d felt after he had told her he wouldn’t aid her. Her pride and dignity intact, she’d gone to sleep, safe, warm, with the boy at her side.

  He had stayed up all night, hating himself more than he had ever hated this town, and had resolved simply to leave. But the next day had sealed his fate.

  The storm had left lasting damage, but the worse was over when Cranley had come to his door, asking if Alice had made it.

  Alice and the boy had emerged from the bedroom then. William weak, hungry, but effusive in his happiness as Alice had fussed over him still. The boy had grumbled, but leaned into her hugs as well. And Hugh had known he was witnessing something he had never had.

  Love, unconditional.

  It was what he had seen when Alice had hugged the boy over the tub. It was what he had braced himself against and didn’t want to see. And the morning after the storm, he had been defenceless.

  And love had ripped through him like the unforgiving winds had. For one crystalline moment he had been wiped bare and then, with staggering swiftness, he had felt his body swell with a warmth that had filled every barren crevice of his life, of his soul.

  Love. He had felt love. Precious. Delicate. And yet so strong a storm couldn’t break it. A storm had forged it.

  He loved Alice, could no longer hide the truth from himself and pretend it was mere want or desire. And there was the crux of the matter. Because he loved her, he couldn’t leave Swaffham, leave her to think she had failed the King. There was no resolution for him. But he would set things right—or as much as he could without breaking his promise to Robert.

  He knew only one way. It was time to tell.

  * * *

  Hugh was here...in her home. Where he hadn’t been for far too long, where she had imagined him a thousand times even though she’d denied it a thousand more.

  And he was so unbearably striking that that was how she felt. Struck down. By his height, the hardened but fluid way he held himself. At ease and yet ready.

  For what? She didn’t know him any more. He had rejected her with no misunderstandings between them. It made no sense that he was here, and yet his gaze caught hers just as it always did.

  But his eyes were different now. Because she didn’t feel merely caught, she felt ensnared. She thought the thread between them broken. Now she felt like wool too tightly wound around the spindle.

  He stepped further in the room. Eldric walked right along with him.

  Alice forced her eyes away—only to meet Elizabeth’s knowing look.

  ‘It’s not over, is it?’

  Alice tried to relax her shoulders, but Elizabeth raised a brow at her obvious discomfort. She hadn’t told her sister of their conversation that storm-filled night. She probably didn’t need to.

  ‘It’s merely surprising to see him here.’

  ‘He’s been here for months and attended all the celebrations since then. How could you possibly be surprised?’

  Because every time she saw him, it hit her.

  ‘Weren’t you surprised when he arrived for St Martin’s Day dinner?’

  ‘You could have knocked me over with a quill!’

  Her as well. Alice felt the gentle relief inside her. This conversation with her sister would be easier than she imagined. ‘But only Father’s good graces kept your manners intact?’

  ‘No, it was the paleness of your cheeks. I thought you would faint. For you it was like seeing a ghost, and I thought, “Here we go again...” But then you did spend time with Mitchell and Lyman.’ Elizabeth gave a tenuous smile. ‘Did you ever mean it? About finding suitors?’

  She could never tell her sister why she’d done it, but she couldn’t lie. ‘There was no way we’d ever suit.’

  ‘What happened when you found William? What happened when you stayed in his home? He didn’t...?’

  ‘He didn’t touch me—not that anyone would ever believe that.’

  ‘I do, because you’re still so sad. I feel that perhaps...did we make you miserable? Was it something I—?’

  Alice squeezed her sister’s hand. ‘No, it was life, circumstances. Something else.’

  ‘Did you and Hugh talk of it?’

  She couldn’t keep lying—not about this. Her heart hadn’t simply broken that night of the storm, it had shattered. She didn’t even know where to start to pick up the pieces.

  ‘We did. Some things were repaired between us. Or so I thought.’

  ‘And other matters were...insurmountable?’ Elizabeth said kindly, but in her usual dogged way.

  There were times Hugh unwillingly acknowledged their connection; more often, he denied it. But he had never said the reason. When he dismissed her so thoroughly, she’d given up on understanding why, and yet—

  ‘He’s here tonight,’ Elizabeth interrupted.

  ‘It means nothing.’

&nbs
p; ‘But he’s heading this way.’

  And she was still angry at him. All her life she’d done nothing but lay her heart out for this man. Like a fool. As if she had no pride or didn’t know her worth.

  She did—she always had. It was he who didn’t know his. But she understood that now—or thought she did, and told him so.

  Still, he’d refused her. Yet he walked towards her now, the distance not so great, the room not so wide that his path through the crowds could be anything else.

  ‘It matters not what direction he comes—he’ll remember the path to the door.’

  Elizabeth released her hand and kissed her cheek. ‘Find happiness. That’s all I ever wanted for you.’

  When Elizabeth turned away Alice kept her gaze on Hugh, weaving through the crowd. Happiness was all she’d ever wanted for him, but he refused it. Now he looked determined. She braced herself.

  Then he stood in front of her.

  ‘Would you like this dance?’

  Here, now. This was the question he asked? ‘You know the answer to that.’

  ‘You did dance with me at one time.’

  She looked starkly at him. ‘Shouldn’t you be dancing with Helen?’

  ‘Helen from the St Martin’s Day dinner?’ He only just hid his smile. ‘So you did feel something that night.’

  ‘I don’t think my feelings have ever been in question.’

  ‘So mine are?’

  She tilted her head. ‘Didn’t we talk of lies and deceits and flimsy vows? You have no purpose here. I meant what I said.’

  ‘I’m not here to stop you from finding the traitor. I’m here to help you find him.’

  She’d be a fool to accept his offer of help this time. She’d be a fool to expose herself to the connection that he denied. Even when she’d handed him her heart she might as well have ripped it from her chest and dropped it in the darkest well she could find.

  She tilted her head. ‘What changed your mind?’

  ‘You did.’

  He lied.

  ‘I remember my words and your responses. What has changed?’

  ‘The next day.’