has happened, I can see something is wrong.’ Aude squeezed her brother’s arm. ‘Don’t tell me our family’s loyalty has been called into question?’
Edouard shifted his attention back to her and shook his head. ‘Not precisely.’ His voice was clear in the warming summer air. ‘Aude, I won’t beat about the bush. One of my friends has been denounced as a traitor.’
Her breath caught. ‘A friend? Who?’
‘Aude, hush, for pity’s sake!’
‘What did he do, this friend?’
‘So far as I can judge the accusations against him are completely false, but I can say no more. I am telling you this, Aude, because it is important for you to realise that over the coming months we shall have to be particularly careful with whom we are seen to associate.’
It felt for an instant as though the sun had gone in. But there it was, still gleaming on the trickle of water in the riverbed. It was low tide, but the Seine was especially low this morning—it had been a dry spring and an even drier summer.
‘Mind your back, fool!’ The voice of the distracting sailor—she was certain it was he—cut into her thoughts. Aude turned in time to watch that barechested form take up a small packing case and heft it on to a wide shoulder. He ran lightly down the gangplank and on to the jetty.
Aude’s jaw dropped. Her heart missed its beat. She could see his face properly and she knew him!
This was no sailor as she had assumed, but she had been right about his ancestry; Viking blood did indeed flow in this man’s veins. She was looking at Hugh Duclair, Count de Freyncourt. No wonder that naked torso had caught her attention. Hugh had always been so…so vibrant. Whenever Aude was with him she could see no one but him. It was a little unsettling to learn that Hugh had the power to fascinate even when being mistaken for a deck-hand.
She clutched Edouard’s arm. ‘It’s Hugh!’
Aude had not seen Hugh for over a year. A friend of her brother’s, she had met him several times when she had been a child. Notwithstanding the cloud that had hung over her family, Hugh had always been kind to her. True, he had enjoyed teasing her more than she found comfortable, but when he hadn’t been baiting her, she had liked him. Too much. Indeed, as a child, she had woven many a childish dream about him. But goodness, he had changed since those days. He was so tall, so large, and with that gilded brown hair shining in the sun…
Edouard’s lips tightened. ‘Aude, you are not to acknowledge him.’
‘I beg your pardon?’ Aude stared. ‘You cannot mean it, Hugh is a particular friend.’
‘Not any more,’ Edouard said, in a clear, cold tone that Aude was afraid must carry to where Hugh was directing operations a few yards away. No wonder the ship’s master had not commented on Hugh’s lack of attire, he would not dare. A ship’s master—criticise the Count de Freyncourt!
‘What do you mean?’
‘Haven’t you heard? Hugh has been banished from the Duchy.’
‘Hugh is the one who was banished? No!’
‘He has been accused of conspiring against Duke William.’
Aude drew her head back. Her skin was icy, as though someone had doused her with cold water. ‘That cannot be true, Hugh would never do such a thing, never.’
‘It was Bishop Osmund of St Aubin himself who gave testimony against him. He swore a sacred oath, over relics.’
‘I do not care who testified against him, I am going to speak to him.’ Aude picked up her skirts.
Edouard caught her wrist. ‘Don’t you dare!’
‘Edouard, release me!’
‘No!’ Her brother lowered his voice. ‘Mon Dieu, we are still shadowed by the accusations made against our family in Grandfather’s time.’
Aude clenched her teeth. ‘But Grandfather always maintained his innocence! The charges against him—’
‘Serious charges,’ Edouard murmured, leaning closer, ‘of plotting to overthrow the Duke.’
‘They were never proven! Grandfather was falsely charged, and you know it.’ Aude lifted her chin. ‘Just as Hugh is being falsely charged.’
‘In a sense it does not matter whether we believe Hugh to be guilty or not, we cannot afford to recognise or be associated with him. You are not to speak to him. Ever.’
‘Hugh is our friend!’
‘Not any more,’ Edouard muttered under his breath, before raising his voice loudly enough to be heard on the ship. ‘But should Hugh Duclair be reinstated that would, of course, be a different matter. Then we might acknowledge him.’
‘Why you…you…’ Words failed her. Her eyes were drawn back to that strong, lithe torso. Why had it only just dawned on her that watching the play of a man’s muscles could be so stimulating? She was flushing all over, hot where moments ago she had been cold. This was not right, she could not bear it. Not Hugh, merciful Lord, not Hugh.
It was only when Aude felt her brother’s hand catch hers that she realised she had stepped towards Hugh. Blindly, instinctively, wanting…what? To give comfort? To take it? Her brother’s revelations had thoroughly upset her.
‘Aude, let the man continue with his preparations,’ Edouard’s voice came at her, seemingly from afar. ‘He is cutting it fine as it is. He only has a day to get out of the Duchy.’
‘What will happen if he is delayed?’
‘His life will be forfeit.’
Aude’s heart beat hard as Hugh came down the gangplank with another packing case. How galling to have to leave Normandy under such a cloud, how ghastly to have lifelong friends ignore you…
Her frown deepened. That packing case on Hugh’s shoulder, surely it was one of hers? Biting her lip, hobbled by Edouard’s command not to acknowledge him, Aude watched as Hugh set the box down—yes, it was definitely hers—next to a couple of travelling chests. Travelling chests which Aude also recognised, since they too belonged to her. But they should all be on that barge…
Eyes narrowing, Edouard’s strictures forgotten, Aude stepped forward to block Hugh’s path. His sun-kissed hair was ruffled and, thanks to his exertions, a fine sheen of sweat gleamed on his splendid chest. Heavens. Those childish fantasies she had once built up around him; those dreams she had had only last year of kissing him, of cuddling him—well, she couldn’t possibly apply them to the man standing before her today, she wouldn’t dare. Spring fever, it had been spring fever. Breath constricted, Aude found herself staring into stormy eyes that were mid-way between blue and grey. Dark lashes, such long, dark lashes…Hugh’s eyes had always been breathtaking. To look at them was to ache with longing.
‘Excuse me, ma dame.’
His voice was curt. Rude. It hit her like a slap in the face. His voice was a stranger’s voice, and it reminded her that in the past Hugh had irritated her as often as
