Chapter Fourteen
‘This storm will never let up,’ Esther grumbled.
It had hit with the fierceness of all it had promised. Walking down the stairs, Alice shivered at the wind swirling through her home, despite the servants draping tapestries along the walls and fur along every crack.
Fires blazed, and sputtered against the wind battering against the tiny flues. They made the entire house bright with flame and dark with smoke. It stung her eyes, but she’d take that if it meant warmth.
‘At least this time we knew it was coming.’
Every day since the Boar’s Head Feast the weather had worsened. After Wren Day it had become unbearable.
‘But it’s Holy Innocents’ Day and we can’t eat, and we can’t take our mind off our hunger with work.’
‘Any work done today will fail, and any new project will end badly. The storm is merely reminding us of our duties.’
‘The storm is making Bertrice think her ankle is divine.’
‘Her ankle is simply healing.’
Esther shoved straw around the fireplace. ‘She says it aches with the storm. I’ll never hear the end of it.’
Alice smiled, though she knew she wouldn’t hear the end of it either. ‘At least she’s no longer a burden on you.’
Esther let out huff as she walked to the door leading to the long hallway to the outside kitchens. ‘Don’t think I don’t know what you’re up to.’
Alice’s smile faded. If only she knew what she was up to. After weeks of searching for the Seal, she was no closer to the truth.
No, she was closer—because she was beginning to question everything.
Alice pulled her shawl around her and sat in a chair by the fire. There were shouts from the servants who continued to tighten the shutters. Her father was bemoaning the chill more than his empty stomach. She wouldn’t be left alone for long, and would need to help soon.
Hugh had said he’d help her, and it appeared as if he was. And yet, they’d found nothing during Wren Day nor during their riding of horses the day after.
Nothing.
And amongst her fears of not finding the Seal were questions about why she hadn’t. Of course whoever had the Seal wouldn’t be careless, but there didn’t seem to be a trace of it. She’d received no messages from the King on how to proceed either.
There was a part of her that felt she’d been sent here to look for nothing. And yet why would the monarch engage in games that meant nothing?
She still reeled at the fact that there were spies, that subterfuge and intrigue occurred here. Swaffham was a bustling town, but it wasn’t London, and yet she believed a traitor was here simply because one man, one king, had told her there was.
She was questioning everything...everyone. Mostly Hugh...and herself.
Hugh.
He was a spy, though why he was in Swaffham she still didn’t know. It wasn’t to stop her. Instead there was a certain camaraderie between them now. She trusted him—she had to. But everything in her was still cautious.
There were too many questions. Hugh was right when he said nothing was ever idle between them. Whether it be the tumultuousness of her thoughts when it came to him, or how she craved his nearness.
What had happened at Lyman’s house? He had guessed what she was, demanded to know what she was doing. When she’d told him he’d kissed her.
She wanted to kiss him again. To finally explore what was between them. Not to run away as she had in the past. She’d braved things enough during the Wren Day parade, but again he’d shut her out.
But the questions kept coming. The question of why then and not now. She knew he felt it, too. Because when she turned too fast, when she glanced at him when he wasn’t expecting it, she saw the heat in his blue gaze, felt it linger on her lips.
Wind blasted the house and made the wood creak. The fire before her sputtered and flared and she pushed herself deeper into the chair.
Nothing she did or said had made Hugh repeat what he’d done. She didn’t dare approach him again. She had laid out what she wanted. If he didn’t want her, then...
Yet he had kissed her. There were feelings there. She knew it now. She was certain, too, that he’d rejected her all those years ago because he’d felt unworthy of her.
He couldn’t be more wrong.
Hearing pounding and shouts at the door, Alice leapt from the chair and hurried towards the entrance just as it swung open.
Ice and snow pelted the two boy servants, the floor, herself and Esther, who had shuffled to her side. Freezing wind shoved in a stumbling man, his cloak buried in snow. A visitor unrecognisable until the door was shut and he raised his face.
Father Bernard.
‘What’s happened?’ Alice asked.
Father Bernard pulled back his cowl. His lips were blue, his cheeks burnt from cold.
It was none of those things that stabbed fear through her. It was the stark hope in Father’s Bernard’s eyes as he asked, ‘Is William here?’
‘No, he’s at home...at Bertrice’s.’
The servants rushed to disrobe him of his cloak, his boots.
‘He wanted to ensure the town observed the day, but I sent him home,’ he said. ‘Bertrice came to me when he didn’t return. Already searching for him, she was freezing, her ankle swollen, and I left her at the church. I then came here.’
Alice ushered him into the hall, to the chair where she’d been sitting. Blankets and hot broth were brought. He looked at it, and shook his head. His hands were shaking so badly, he couldn’t hold it. Alice knelt and steadied it for him.
‘It’s for tomorrow, and the only thing heated. Tell me what happened.’
He nodded; held the cup tightly. ‘It’s Holy Innocents’ Day. He’s gone out to ensure no work is being done. If he’s not here, he’s out there.’
Out in the storm.
Alice own legs almost gave then, even as she pushed herself away and ran to her room for warmer clothes. Father Bernard and Bertrice were already frozen and weak. It was up to her.
* * *
Hugh was freezing to death in his own home. It didn’t matter that he had enough timber to heat a hundred homes. His hearth was too small to warm his toes even though he had them shoved next to the embers.
At least before Bertrice had returned to her home she had prepared food for after the fast and hot water in case he wanted a bath. Already hot stones warmed his bed. Months in Swaffham and he was still being pampered. When he returned to London, he would be able to slip right back into his lavish lifestyle there.
If he returned.
What did the King want of him? After he had seen Alice emerge from the royal chambers, after he’d returned from the garden the next day, he had requested the King’s counsel. He’d thought it spontaneous.
Now he had to wonder if it had all been planned. But the King couldn’t know what Alice meant to him—couldn’t know it was he who carried the Half-Thistle Seal. Well trained, all too careful, he’d watched his back.
His obligations, his vows, were dangerous but necessary. Life-saving for Robert and his family. Whether the King was speculating or not, he needed to be more careful.
The same went when it came to Alice. Alice who was far more noble and brave than he. Not only in her wanting to help others, not only in her stalwart attempts to keep her family from the King’s wrath. Because she had the courage to walk beside him. To tell him of her feelings, her wants.
She wanted him. Still. Traitor that he was.
Coward that she knew him to be.
Only a coward would avoid a woman declaring herself so sweetly, so resolutely.
He reeled from her words. She didn’t care about his past—she wanted him, his touch. She wanted to pledge herself before this town, and God, to him.
A traitor.
He could never have her. Poor, from a dishonoured family. He had never deserved her.
Yet, fiercely, he wanted to be selfish for once in his life. Hadn’t he paid enough debts already? Hadn’t he earned some happiness as he’s taken the jibes of the townsfolk, as he’d fed his father to sober him up?
He wanted simply to hold her hand. Never for himself. If he did, he’d be sentencing Robert’s happiness. If he did, he’d be damning her and her family.
Still he sought a solution. He hoped it wasn’t in vain.
He looked at his cup—empty, never filled. There were days when he knew to drink deep, and nights when he didn’t dare. This was one of them. At least the weather was as foul as his mood and no one would disturb him.
He hadn’t drunk since the Boar’s Head Feast. He might never drink again. But he needed a drink, needed to free himself from this town, and his memories.
He had nowhere to go.
This house—tidied because of Bertrice, was repaired enough to withstand a storm. He wanted to demolish it all. Because no matter how many days or weeks went by he couldn’t solve the dilemma that was right before him. How to save Robert...how to save Alice.
And why was Eldric pounding on the door?
No, too light to be his friend, too insistent to be polite.
He yanked it open. A boy was shoved through, tripping over his feet and falling to the ground.
‘Hugh!’ a woman yelled.
Alice.
He pulled her in.
* * *
She was cold...so cold. The wind and ice were no longer stabbing her, but she felt no relief. ‘Where’s William?’
‘I’ve got him. He’s safe,’ Hugh said.
Her eyes stinging, she watched Hugh pull William onto his lap and press his cheek to the boy’s lips. Hurriedly, he yanked off his shoes and stripped off his clothes.
‘Get out of your clothes.’
Her teeth chattering, she shook her head. ‘Him first.’
‘I’ve got him. I can’t take care of both of you. Alice, get your cloak off. I’ll get the rest.’
Her bones were frozen, her arms no longer her own. ‘I can’t. I carried him... I can’t lift them.’
‘I can’t save him and you,’ he called. ‘You can do it—you must. He’ll need you.’
He wrapped a blanket around the boy and dragged a tub towards the fire.
Alice looked at William, her relief at finding safety turning to concern at the boy’s pale colouring, and the bluish tint of his lips. His eyes were still closed.
‘I carried him from the well in the square. What’s happening to him?’
He yanked a steaming cauldron of water from the fire and poured it into the tub. ‘He’s alive, but not waking. I’ll put him in water, bring his temperature up.’
Her body trembled more at the thought of a bath. ‘Hot?’
‘Not hot. His body heat has dropped too much. Yours has probably, too. I can’t tell if his hands and feet are frostbitten yet. I won’t know until he wakes.’
‘Please—just save him.’
William called out as Hugh set him in the water.
‘Careful,’ Hugh soothed. ‘It’s water to warm you. Keep your hands and feet in. Lean down.’
More water was poured.
Her cheeks were warming. From tears? Alice raised her shaking arms as Hugh crouched by her side and ripped off her cloak, flung it to the floor.
He cursed.
‘What were you thinking? What have you done? I only have one tub, and you need to get out of these clothes.’
Alice kept her eyes on William, terrified now of him drowning.
‘Both of you could die!’ He unlaced her surcoat, her dress. Her chemise was saturated. Her arms went up.
‘You take it off. I’ve got to get back to the boy.’ He shoved a large tunic and blanket at her, grabbed the second cauldron and poured it into the tub.
William’s eyes opened just after she pulled the tunic over her head and wrapped the blanket around her. ‘Can you see me?’
Nodding, he gave her a small smile.
‘What happened?’ Hugh said, wringing out the clothes in the corner.
‘He was lost in the snow.’
‘And you went out to find him? By yourself?’ Hugh shook the cloak and hung it up. ‘It didn’t occur to you to get help?’
‘Bertrice and Father Bernard had already been out in the storm.’
‘There was me.’
‘I thought I’d find him before I got this far.’
‘I’m sorry,’ William called out.
Hugh’s heart pounded as if there was danger all around him. Instead there was merely a woman and a boy, safe and warming at his weak fire. They would live. Still, his heart would not stop its erratic beat.
‘This will take long. You need to come to the fire.’
He left the room, returned with stones and pushed them into the flames.
When he turned, Alice was bent over the tub, and cradling William. Her tiny body hovering over William’s gangly one. Everything about Alice was wrapped around William despite the tub, the water, the blanket.
The boy’s arms clung just as tightly around Alice.
He knew he was witnessing something not often found. Before it could get hold of him, before he could put words to it, he placed his hand on her shoulder and felt their combined shudders resonate through him.
This wasn’t a snippet of time with Alice, or a shared moment. It was so much more and he didn’t want to see it—not now. Not when he still hadn’t found a resolution.
Ignoring the heaviness in his chest, Hugh continued with the tasks ahead. The boy’s eyes were closing again, and he prayed it was only exhaustion and not something worse.
He flexed his fingers into Alice’s shoulder to gain her attention. When she looked up, he said, ‘We need to keep pouring the water, and you can’t get your blanket wet. I don’t have any spares.’
* * *
Hours spent heating the water and adding it to the tub. Hugh constantly checked the temperature, and threw more logs on the fire. Entertained William, and made sure he stayed awake.
Alice huddled nearby. Hot stones under her feet, a cup of steaming water in her hands, she listened as Hugh tirelessly told his stories and patiently answered William’s questions.
Hugh was sharing his life with this boy he didn’t know. Since he had to know she was listening, he was sharing it with her as well. These were the stories she’d wanted to hear on Wren Day. Tales of his childhood in Swaffham that she’d never known before. What had happened when he’d arrived at Court, his befriending Eldric and another knight she knew nothing of.
Even knowing that Hugh was carefully cultivating the stories for William, she got lost in them. Enough to finally feel the warmth of the room and know the fact William was truly safe.
She hadn’t gone out alone in the storm. Not at first. Cranley had gone with her. When they’d found others trapped, animals as well, and no sign of William, they’d separated.
At first Cranley had refused, but then they’d found Bertrice in the church and they’d talked about what would be done. Alice would carry on to the town square, no more. She’d find shelter.
Only after several assurances had they let her go.
Back into the howling winds, with the sleet slashing against every bit of her as she forced her feet forward. She’d had a shawl wrapped around her face, but she hadn’t been able to protect her eyes as she’d scanned for any sign of life or unusual shape. Difficult when the snow had already masked so many landmarks.
It had been against the town’s square well that she’d found William huddled. Almost frozen, almost asleep. She’d grabbed his hands before he’d cried out and then lost consciousness. Then she hadn’t known what else to do but carry him just as he was.
She had seen the smoke from Hugh’s chimney, and forced herself to make the distance.
And now, in the comfort of his home, she was finally believing they were safe. That with Hugh’s care William would keep his hands and feet. She clutched her warm cup and realised she could have lost her own.
She had expected more accusations from Hugh about her carelessness, about William’s foolhardiness, but he only talked of his own conflicts and tribulations. Grand stories made grander for the boy, but underneath she heard the rest. The pain and conflict of his training, his continual feeling of being an outsider.
And with his actions, with his words, her love could not be contained. What had been said during Wren Day wasn’t enough. What she had said all her life to him wasn’t enough. She knew that now because he had never denied the truth of her words, he had just walked away.
So foolishly, recklessly, she would approach him again. She wouldn’t run away.
As they lifted William from the tub and carefully dried him off, as they laid him down on the bed with multiple covers, Alice didn’t hide what she felt for Hugh. She couldn’t contain the love she felt. She wanted to know him more.
He had said it wasn’t the past that stopped him, but she didn’t know what it was that did. She had vowed at the dance that she would explore what he had said in haste about his childhood, about whatever was between them.
A part of herself questioned her actions, heard her sister’s warnings when it came to Hugh. But her family had never seen him as she did. This wasn’t about some childish vow.
And she knew it wasn’t only her with feelings. Hugh had admitted as much. She saw it, felt it in his anger that she’d gone out in the storm, that she spied for the King. He worried for her.
And she felt something else now. In his home the distance between them insignificant. All there was was them.
It seemed Hugh was aware of it as well. His eyes were darting around the room, maybe trying to see it through her eyes, perhaps looking for distraction. She didn’t welcome the fear of almost losing William to the storm, but she did welcome this moment.
‘You care for him,’ Hugh said suddenly, his voice gruff as if he hadn’t used it for a while. As if she hadn’t heard him give comfort to a child he barely knew.
Alice adjusted some of the stones at her feet. ‘He’s very precious to me. So much—all of this—has been keeping me away from him. I should have seen his concern, been there for his worry.’
She stopped her words, knowing they were fruitless. The King had commanded her, and if she didn’t obey more hurt would occur.
‘What is he to you?’
‘He’s an orphan Bertrice has been raising with her own children, but I’ve been there for him, too.’
‘And so you took him under your wing?’
‘I think we all have. Father Bernard has been teaching him the scriptures... I’ve been teaching him about the Fenton household.’
‘Were his parents noble?’ he asked.
She didn’t understand these pointed questions, but they were easy to answer and they had time. ‘The mother was Bertrice’s friend. His parents drowned when William was an infant.’
‘So...what is the point of your care and your educating him?’
Hugh leaned against the wall—a relaxed pose, but she knew better. Setting the cup of water on the floor, she prepared herself for words. She was used to this from Elizabeth, from Mary, her father. All of them lectured her on her projects. But it would be wrong of her not to help William.
‘There doesn’t have to be a point to it. We’re simply there for him.’
‘However—’
‘What was your point in telling him those stories?’ she interrupted. ‘You could have told him something else. But you talked about your childhood, your mistakes. That was to help him, was it not?’
Hugh was silent. A muscle in his jaw flexed.
She swept the blanket around her. ‘William made a mistake in going out into the snow. You knew there was no point in lecturing him. He’s learned his lesson because he almost died, so you talked of your mistakes. You talked of Robert, who helped you. Who is he?’
Hugh’s chest expanded and he suddenly turned, intent on adjusting the fire’s logs. They popped and cracked as he spoke. ‘He’s the famed Robert of Dent. Even here in Swaffham you must have heard tales of him.’
She hadn’t, but it had been clear William had. There had been awe in William’s eyes as Hugh had spun his stories.
‘But he wasn’t a legend to you—he was your friend.’
‘He’s dead now.’
He had talked not of one moment with Robert, but of many times over the years. They must have been close. ‘I’m sorry.’
Another adjustment of the logs before he threw a new one into the fire and turned to her. The light in the room didn’t allow her to see his expression clearly.
‘You can’t fix him,’ he said.
And so they were back to talking of William’s trials again, not Hugh’s.
Again Alice kept her patience, though it was fraying. ‘He doesn’t need to be fixed. There isn’t anything wrong with him.’
‘He lacks the funds and connections for him to be brought to the Church,’ Hugh said. ‘If he pulls through this then what?’
Her patience was gone. She didn’t want to talk of William—she wanted to talk of them. But it all had to do with the same thing. She knew it, and she feared he knew it, too. It was as if their talking of William and his childhood was somehow talking of Hugh’s. As if talking of William’s unknown future was talking of their own doomed future together.
If that was somehow true, then in this she would tell all. She would confess and lay it all before him. Because there was a connection between herself and Hugh—there always had been. Maybe they had been too young to care about it, maybe there had been too many misunderstandings, but now they could understand each other.
‘What hope for you when you arrived at Edward’s Court?’ she said. ‘I know what you came from, the means you took to help yourself. I appreciate now that when you did need it you gained help from this Robert. If William gains help from others, who knows what will become of him?’
Hugh bowed his head, shook it before he raised his eyes, steady on hers again. ‘You think your caring for him will set things straight. Life doesn’t work that way.’
It did work that way. A traitor amongst them or not. This moment right now was what she had dreamed of all those years ago when she’d demanded that Hugh kiss her. She didn’t want only his kiss—she wanted his love.
‘What I want for William is love. And he has that—all of it. He doesn’t need to be fixed for me to love him. I don’t care if the Church won’t take care of him. What use is all the Fenton wealth if it can’t help him? I’ll make sure to help him. That’s what love is. It’s to be there, to help when you can.’
He cursed and turned away. Pressed his hand against the wall as he faced the fire.
Alice watched his anger and frustration fade to something else. Something darker inside him. They were talking of them. This wasn’t about William. Except even with that understanding there were still barriers.
‘You don’t think it’s enough?’ she whispered.
‘What’s not enough?’ he answered.
‘Love.’
He turned his head, his eyes glancing over her before returning to the fire. ‘What would I know of it? It’s the Fentons and the other grand families who seem to have an ownership over that emotion as well as everything else.’
His childhood again—but there was more. Maybe he was an outsider because he chose to be.
‘I never understood why you hated this town so much,’ Alice said.
‘I never said that I hated it.’
‘You never had to. I heard it when you talked to William. I watched it while we grew up. You never tried to make friends here—you always held yourself apart.’
‘Unlike your family.’
She loved her family, but all families had flaws. Her father and his mistresses were only one of them. ‘My family isn’t perfect. You know that.’
‘Is that what we’re to do? Speak of the past? Haven’t I done enough of that tonight?’
Hugh didn’t want to remember those days. As far as he was concerned he was from Shoebury. That was all he told anyone. Of course, the King, Robert and Eldric knew otherwise. After all, he couldn’t have trained as a knight if he’d had no connections. Swaffham and his father, such as he was, were necessary. But this town—he didn’t want to remember at all. And yet here he was, actually living here again.
‘What else are we to talk about?’ she said.
‘What do you want me to talk about? The past you know or the past you don’t?’
‘Tell me,’ she whispered, so softly he shouldn’t have heard.
Maybe he hadn’t but had simply wanted to hear those words. For her to give him permission to tell a tale he’d never intended to tell.
‘What is there to say? That I was born in Shoebury and my mother was sick, and that for unknown reasons she sent me to my father when I was only five?’
‘I didn’t know.’
‘Of course you didn’t. I didn’t let anybody know. As far as any of you were concerned my life consisted only of this town.’
‘Then tell me about it.’
Alice had never thought of Hugh’s childhood before Swaffham. People had talked about it in vague ways, but never with any kind of salacious whisper or sympathetic murmurings. He had been but a mere child when he’d arrived.
But now she could visualise it all too clearly. Shoebury was to the south. There would have been warmth, a mother who loved him. Loved him enough to find the man who had abandoned him. A father who had taken no responsibility for him before. Knowing Hugh, who had his pride, she had no doubt his mother had had her pride as well.
She thought of her own happy childhood and her practical mother, her very impractical father, and her two sisters. Hers had been a busy home, a happy childhood, and one to look back on fondly.
But for Hugh something had been taken from him. Cruelly, forcefully. And he had been brought here to Swaffham. Brought to a knight, a man who hadn’t taken responsibility for him in the first place. A man who had served the King, but who had changed over the years. Who had become cold, callous, his drinking increasing as his viciousness grew out of control. If Hugh had been five when he’d arrived, he had been part of the downward spiral that his father had taken.
The whole town had watched it happen. For herself, she’d never forgot that day when Hugh had picked his father up from the middle of the road.
‘I wish I’d done something differently that day,’ she said. ‘When the rains came and your father—’
‘Was covered in mud and everything else.’ His brow furrowed. ‘You were too young to comprehend.’
‘Still...’ she said. She had watched like everyone else. But she often looked back to that day and wished she had done something. But nobody had. Nobody.
‘I’m glad you didn’t. That you couldn’t comprehend the shame of it all.’
And there was the difference in their pasts, she didn’t see any shame at all. She saw only a good deed, and strength. ‘Tell me something of Shoebury.’
A muscle in Hugh’s jaw twitched. ‘I remember nothing except my mother.’
‘You never travelled there again?’
‘Never. I didn’t want to know if...’
‘If it had changed?’
‘I didn’t want to know if she was still there.’
Alice needed to sit. Her legs weak from the storm, from his story. But she also wanted to hold him, so she stood. How had he endured the jibes of the town, of his father, when all the while he’d worried about his mother?
Before she knew it, she’d crossed the room and grabbed the outside of his arm. He looked down at her hand, his eyes softening from the starkness they’d held. When she went to remove her hand, he clasped it in his own.
Startled, she searched his eyes. There was so much pain there. ‘Was that even a possibility?’
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.’