Nicole Locke - Her Christmas Knight

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.’