Another feeling assaulted her, more powerful than the embarrassment of being held too closely. It was even more deeply pitted in her stomach than her sudden inexplicable wanting.
She felt fear.
She blinked her eyes to focus and was caught by the bluest eyes she’d ever seen. No, not the bluest eyes she’d ever seen, because she’d seen these eyes before. Years ago. The fear went down her back all the way to her heels before it raced hot and fast to the top of her head.
She blinked again. No, these eyes were not the same—even though they were the crystal blue of a summer sky, so bright and too piercing to be real. These eyes had had that light taken from them. They were as clear and stunning a colour as to be almost impossible, but these eyes held something else—some darkness—as if an unseen storm was about to break.
Other features of this warrior were different, too. His blond hair did not wave around his shoulders, but was cut short, its curls tamed to just behind his ears. His skin was not pale from the clouds and mists of a small town, but was sun-baked. Underneath the torchlight his face was all hard, lean planes and too fierce for softness. There were lines, too, around his eyes—not from laughter, but from determination. His lips, which curved sensuously and were made for smiling, were instead turned down deeply.
None of this seeming harshness hid the sheer beauty of his features. No, this man’s perfection was marred by a nose that crooked a little to the left.
The seal slipped in her suddenly damp hands. She knew that nose. She had broken that nose. Reluctantly, against her will, she raised her eyes to his again. He was still studying her.
She felt permanently latched to him. She could not move even to let air into her lungs. Oh, she didn’t want to, but she knew those eyes. And they knew her. There was no confusion in their blue depths, there was only...waiting.
But he couldn’t be the man she knew. She hadn’t heard from him or seen him for more than six years. She’d thought him dead. She wanted him dead.
‘Hugh?’ The name escaped before she knew she still had a voice, and the corner of his lips lifted.
She knew that crooked smile. She knew that smile all too well.
The bright room blurred. Her body felt like a whirling spindle. She felt the instant tightening of his hands against her back and his body bracing itself against her sudden lack of strength.
She was fainting.
A sharp pain in her back, a sudden shove forward, and Hugh shifted to keep their balance. It was all she needed to break eye contact. The dizziness left; the room turned bright again.
They were surrounded by heavily perfumed people. The courtiers’ dress of—multiple colours along with the copious amounts of gold and silver—glinted and glared in the torchlight. They were all staring at her. Their mouths moved, but she couldn’t hear their words above the roaring in her ears.
She pushed away, but Hugh did not immediately release her. Instead he slowly lowered her to the ground. If possible, the chainmail was more abrasive and his body was harder than a stone wall. Her breasts tingled inside her chemise; swathed in her heavy skirts, her dangling legs entwined with his.
It was all too intimate, too heady. When her feet touched the floor it felt as if he’d dropped her from that imagined cliff.
Unsteady, she pressed her hand against his chest. Her body shook with the rise of his breath, the strong beat of his heart. Hugh’s hands returned to her sides, and they were all too familiar, too proprietorial. He didn’t have a right to such touch. He had refused her offer to have a right to such touch.
‘Release me,’ she said, not looking in his eyes.
He stepped away. The crowd moved into the space before her. Their voices finally reached her ears. The circular room was clanging and echoing with cries of protest, outrage, laughter, loud talk.
The courtiers stared and pointed at her chest. Embarrassment warmed her skin. Had the ribbons around her dress loosened as Hugh held her so tightly? Had she become undressed—here, in public, at Court?
She looked down, but nothing was indecent. The light green ribbon that wound round her chest and sleeves still held her blue linen dress together. She was intact; there was nothing to cause her shame.
And she still had the seal clutched to her body.
The seal. She had the seal.
How could she have forgotten the game? How long had she been held by Hugh, staring at him as if she...as if she wanted to see him again? Embarrassment did more than warm her skin. This time she knew she turned red. Something she couldn’t control. But what she could control was what she did about it.
Putting as much coldness into her features as possible, she looked up. He wasn’t there. The crowd had surrounded her and was pushing her forward. Digging her heels into the flooring, she struggled against the crowd until they suddenly opened before her. With a last shove she was released into a small opening.
She righted herself, running one hand down her crumpled dress, and turned to glare at the courtiers—but a glint of red and gold at the corner of her eye shocked her into stillness.
Disbelieving, she turned towards the red and gold of the King’s throne. It wasn’t empty. Instead there was a very tall, very thin, bearded man reposing on the ornately carved chair.
Fighting the instinct to hide, she dropped in a deep curtsey. King Edward had returned to the Tower of London and he was staring right at her.
‘Rise, my lady. It appears you have something of mine.’
She rose, her knees unsteady, her hands trembling. In fear of dropping it, she pressed the seal to her belly. King Edward barely glanced at it.
She was suddenly acutely aware of falling very short of Court decorum. Hair tangled from running, purple dress crumpled by the crowd, cheeks flushed with bewilderment. Even her mind was in disarray.
But none of this was fair. She’d neither seen nor heard any formal announcement of his arrival. Literally, she’d been in the dark.
As if conjured by its name, darkness swirled around her chaotic thoughts. Was she about to faint?
No!
She raised her chin. Damn the dark and—if she could—damn the King, too, for making her feel inadequate. After all, it was his stupid game she’d been playing. What did he expect? And whoever had heard of a king taking so long to gaze upon someone’s appearance?
But he wasn’t looking at her appearance. He hadn’t noticed the crumpled silk or the tendrils of hair that strayed out behind the silver circlet around her head. The King hadn’t noticed her physical appearance. The King seemed to be assessing her.
She was going to faint.
‘Who are you?’ King Edward’s deep voice echoed in the unnaturally quiet room.
She desperately wished her mouth wasn’t so dry. ‘Alice of Fenton, sire.’
‘From Swaffham?’
‘Yes, Your Majesty.’
