Chapter Two
The next morning was too clear and pretty for Alice’s dark mood, so she took comfort in the night’s damp that was still making the morning unpleasantly cold. Rubbing her arms, she walked briskly out through the iron doors and into the enormous courtyard.
The light had not yet crested the horizon and the courtyard was bathed in a glow somewhere between night and day. The dim light did not matter. She knew where she wanted to go. The kitchen gardens would be empty of courtiers and servants at this time. She needed the privacy. Better yet, she desired the ugliness of lacerated chopped vegetables and herbs. A mutilated barren garden might lighten her mood.
She had spent most of the night trying to resolve what the King wanted of her. When she hadn’t been able to, she had tried to sleep. Nothing had worked. The night had not been long enough for her to resolve anything, and the dark had made her already nightmarish thoughts more frightening.
She rushed up the inclined hill, and turned to walk through the lavender-hedged entrance.
The kitchen gardens were empty. She pulled her skirts tight against her to walk the narrow paths between each planting. She didn’t know why she bothered. Tearing her dress might be a welcome distraction.
In fact, she’d welcome company, too. She longed for Esther, her most loyal of servants, but she was too old for this trip. Esther’s cantankerous company would have kept her occupied with menial chatter. She’d would even have taken her father’s flighty personality for a diversion.
Then she wouldn’t have to worry about the task she had been ordered to do: to spy on her friends, to expose one of them for the enemy they were.
It would be impossible. The King was not asking her to delve into the personal belongings of strangers, but of friends. She would have to search their homes, their carriages, their wardrobes to look for a hidden seal. How could she betray her friends’ trust?
A crunch on the pebbled path announced that she was no longer alone.
‘Couldn’t sleep?’
She did not need to turn around to know who was behind her. His voice, as familiar to her as her own, confirmed her other nightmarish thoughts. She had indeed seen Hugh again. In the night, she’d hoped she imagined him because of the unfamiliarity of Court.
Releasing her grip on her skirts, she turned to face him.
He stood closer than she’d thought was possible on the pebbled footpath, and the morning light was strong enough to illuminate what she could no longer deny.
His lean, rugged body was solid; the blond hair that had once curled around her fingers was bright. Everything about him was all too real. Including her sharp anxiety at seeing him again.
It was as if six years had been stripped away and she was sixteen again. Sixteen and spilling out her naïve adoration with no reserve, with no thought that her affections would not be reciprocated.
She remembered every inflection of his sneering reply.
Shame flooded her limbs. She wanted to flee, to turn away, at least to lower her eyes—but she could not.
He approached her slowly, stealthily. The blue concentration of his eyes burned away her confidence. Even her skirts hung limply, as if the very clothing she wore was as insignificant as she felt.
‘So it was you,’ she whispered.
He took a step closer. The glint of the morning sun softened his features, or maybe it just hid the harshness she had glimpsed last night.
‘Did you doubt it?’ he answered. ‘When it was I who had you in my arms again?’
Hot embarrassment swept through her. It had not only been the King’s mission occupying her thoughts throughout the night. Hugh’s arms, his slightly crooked nose and all her embarrassing confessions to him had haunted her dreams and had her wishing for the light of day so that she could pretend he did not exist.
She had almost convinced herself, too. When the King demanded so much of her, she didn’t need her thoughts occupied by her childish vow to marry him. Certainly she never wanted to re-live her begging him for a kiss when she was sixteen.
And now he stood right in front of her, like a mocking reminder of her foolish youth.
A reminder of how he had rejected her.
But that did not mean she had to listen to him or repeat the mistake of conversing with him. He had purposely made it sound as if her running into him had been a clandestine affair. As if she would ever consider such thoughts again!
She looked pointedly around him and lifted her skirts—but he blocked the only exit from the garden. For one flaring moment, she fought the terror of feeling trapped. No doubt he had done that purposely, too.
‘Let me pass,’ she said, proud that her voice didn’t betray her true feelings.
‘After this long time, that is all you have to say to me?’
‘I’d say less if you would let me by,’ she replied.
‘You have changed much, Alice. You used to be more talkative.’
‘Maybe I thought you were someone worth talking to.’
She took a step in his direction. She’d force him to move if she had to.
He didn’t move. ‘I merely guessed that you couldn’t sleep. It was either that or you never made it to your bed. But you have changed your gown. I was always partial to that colour grey on you. It almost matches the colour of your eyes.’
‘You have been too long at Court,’ she said. ‘Save your pretty words for the more feeble-minded.’
‘Just as well you didn’t wear grey yesterday, for it seems the King prefers purple,’ he replied, as if they were carrying on a normal conversation. ‘Did you return to your room last night, or did one of your many servants bring you a change of clothing?’
Why was he talking of her clothing? He was close enough that she should have been able to know what he was thinking, but his eyes were like opaque glass—reflective, revealing nothing.
She didn’t need this confusion.
‘Why are you here?’ she demanded. ‘I know it wasn’t to talk of my dress.’
‘After we had run into each other in the hall, I thought we could meet once again—but then you spent time with the King.’
‘Are you following me?’ she asked.
‘Only enough to see you.’
His eyes held hers and his lips curved almost sensuously, almost as if he wanted her.
She couldn’t take his looking at her like that—not now, not when she was too tired to keep her defences up. Why was he acting as if he cared? She knew that he didn’t, and never had.
Treacherous tears were building. She would embarrass herself if she stayed.
But he wasn’t going to let her pass. He was going to stand there with his beautiful smile and his confusing words. A thought occurred. Something... No. Someone had brought him here.
‘It is the King, isn’t it?’ she asked, although she knew she was right.
‘The King?’
‘You want to know what the King wanted of me. You don’t want me.’
Some emotion flitted across his eyes like a jagged cloud. His intensity towards her vanished and he shrugged. ‘You cannot blame me for trying.’
Oh, yes, she could. If she hadn’t already wished him to hell, she was doing so now. Callous, cruel, arrogant... She was glad his words had cut so quickly into her softening feelings. Her tears had dried and she could leave without another embarrassing scene.
‘I owe you no words, no explanation,’ she retorted. ‘I owe you less than that—I owe you nothing.’
‘Oh, do you?’ he replied. ‘In front of all those courtiers you would have fainted from exertion if I had not been holding you up.’
Let him think it had been exertion and not his presence that had caused her to feel faint.
‘You cannot keep me here for ever.’
His stance changed, became more relaxed. He had that air of boredom she had seen in the other courtiers. But Hugh didn’t fool her.
Oh, he was dressed as ornately as any courtier. The green of his tunic, woven very fine, lay perfectly over his chest and tapered slightly at his waist. His tan leggings fitted seamlessly over his legs and his boots gleamed new. Yet none of his frippery hid what he had become. He was too unyielding, too rugged to look like anything but what he was: a warrior.
She had never thought of him that way, although he had trained for knighthood all his life. She had watched him broaden into a man, but he had always been Hugh...a girl’s infatuation.
Now he was something more. Something she didn’t understand.
‘I do not need for ever,’ he said. ‘I need enough time for you to tell me what you did with the King.’
‘Did?’ she repeated. ‘What I did with the King? Don’t you mean “spoke of”?’
‘Do I?’
He would not let her avoid this conversation. She had wanted—no, needed to confide in someone. And here was Hugh, asking her to do so. As if she would ever confide in him again.
‘He congratulated me on my winning,’ she said.
‘Something more happened; the King doesn’t just share pleasantries in his private chamber.’
‘Nothing of importance.’
‘Your blushing gives you away. You were never good at lying.’
She’d have to get good at it. Her sisters’ lives were at stake.
‘It is of little consequence for you.’
His eyes narrowed and he abandoned his appearance of nonchalance. ‘Maybe you haven’t changed. I see you have kept your stubbornness.’
She’d have preferred to keep her pride, but it hadn’t take long in Hugh’s presence for her to know that it was still in tatters.
‘I do not see how it concerns you.’
‘The King and his friendships always matter to me.’
‘I am hardly his friend.’
He eyes hardened with a heat that slid along her face, taking in her eyes, the slant of her jaw, and resting on her lips. She felt his eyes there, felt his words as he answered.
‘No, I suppose friend doesn’t quite capture your role in the King’s life, does it?’ His eyes were back on hers and the heat was gone. ‘But I refuse to think you’ve changed that much. Whatever the King wants of you, you won’t be able to do it.’
Shock caused her to ask, ‘How do you know what the King wants of me?’
‘It isn’t hard to guess. You were in his private chamber for over an hour.’
He had been watching her—maybe even listening behind a door or a tapestry. The King had made her think it was a private conversation. There could only be one reason why Hugh would be privy to this secret: the King did not trust her.
Well, she’d show them both.
‘What do you know what I can or cannot do? It’s been six years. Long enough for both of us to change.’
‘Not long enough. Not to betray your family like this.’
‘It’s not a betrayal. It’s an honour!’
Colour left his face. ‘To hell with this pretence. What has he done to you?’
He moved to grab her.
She jerked her arm away. ‘Do not delude yourself into thinking I would welcome your touch again.’
Anger blazed in his eyes before he could hide the emotion from her. She fought the instinct to step back. Hugh wasn’t pretending he was angry; he was acting as if he hated her.
‘No?’ He dropped his arm. ‘Or maybe it is the King’s touch you prefer.’
The insult seized at her thoughts. This wasn’t a conversation about her spying. Hugh didn’t know what the King had asked of her. He thought she was whoring.
Rage whipped and tightened her throat. ‘I’d prefer anyone to you!’
‘Then you have changed from the girl I once knew,’ he said. ‘What happened after you threw yourself at me and I refused? Did you throw yourself at another? Did he refuse too? Or were you simply waiting for the King to notice your...charms?’
She clenched her skirts so she didn’t strike him. ‘If I was, that would be my affair.’
His mouth curved cruelly. ‘An interesting choice of words.’
Her fingers bit into the cloth. It didn’t matter what he thought. He didn’t deserve the truth.
‘I don’t have to listen to this.’
She stepped over the plants, not caring when her skirts snagged on some rosemary.
He shifted away and let her pass. ‘There is no need to ruin your gown in order to escape from me. I will go, but I will stop whatever has been started here.’
‘Only if the King wishes it.’
She smiled and knew it didn’t reach her eyes. Let him make what he would out of her words. She was beyond caring.
His hands flexed at his sides and he loomed over her before he settled back on his heels.
‘He will wish it,’ he bit out as he pivoted away. ‘I’ll make sure he wishes it.’
He was out of her sight before she could take two breaths.
She felt rooted where she stood. Rooted. And she was standing amongst the herbs.
A tight rumble rose involuntarily from deep inside her. She bit her lips to seal it in but the sound burst out of her. Then there were more—too fast, too quick to control—until she was laughing and crying in the garden. Hysterics amongst the herbs.
She clamped her hands over her mouth and wiped furiously at her tears. Frustrated at herself, she brushed at her skirts until she could take large gasps of air.
By the time the sun had risen and the opening of shutters echoed in the courtyard, she could breathe again and felt lighter. Better.
Better than she’d thought she would after seeing Hugh again. Maybe all she had needed was those hysterics to settle her thoughts.
She strolled further into the garden and picked an apple from the arbour.
When she had first come to the garden she had thought being alone would sort out her thoughts, but it was her outpouring that had made two things painfully clear.
The first was that she knew herself better than Hugh did—and in more ways than she had ever guessed.
She could do what the King commanded. Spying was no more than discovering information and lies. It was no more than seeking the truth. Her worries over betraying her friends were misplaced.
She would find a way into their homes. If someone she knew was a traitor then searching through their belongings would not be a betrayal of friendship. If treason against her King had been committed, she had already been betrayed.
She couldn’t believe she had ever wondered if she could spy. A wrong had been committed. What did she always do when there was an injustice? She made a plan and corrected it. If there was a wrong, she’d set it right. She couldn’t believe she had ever questioned herself.
It had to be the surprise of seeing Hugh again that had muddled her thinking about spying.
Her thinking always became ensnared when it came to him. Their conversation today was proof of that. Over the years she had imagined many conversations with Hugh, but in her imaginings the conversations had made sense.
This conversation certainly didn’t. He had never given her an honest answer as to why he’d sought her in the garden. The flattery about her dress and wanting to see her alone had been a lie. He might remember differently, but she would never forget his rejection of her.
She bit hard into the apple. It was mealy from the cold, but she didn’t care. He believed she was the King’s mistress. He thought she whored with other men. He had come to the garden to find the answer for himself. Maybe he’d thought she would lie with him as well!
Hurrying her pace, she revelled in the crunch of the pebbles beneath her feet, but it didn’t ease her heart. And that was the second pain-filled fact she had learned from her crying.
She was still in love with Hugh.
For six years she had fooled herself into thinking she no longer cared for him. How wrong she had been. She might as well be sixteen again, with all her wild longings.
But she didn’t feel sixteen around him. There was something more now. She felt...
She took another bite of the apple. What good would it be to delve into what she felt around him? Hugh had ridiculed her youthful declaration of love. And now he thought she whored with the King.
What manner of man was he?
She knew the answer to that: the wrong manner of man.
Anger rushed through her limbs and sent heat to her face. She had been wronged for many years by Hugh. And, no matter how much of a wrong it had been, she could never set her heart to rights.
Pivoting, she strode towards the exit. She had lost in the battle of love, but there was more to her than her heart. There was her loyalty, her honour, her determination.
Throwing the apple core onto some shrivelled clippings, she made her decision.
To hell with Hugh and her heart. No more distractions, deliberations or confusions.
She had a traitor to catch.