Her Christmas Knight

Elizabeth turned her attention to the fire and rubbed her hands briskly. ‘But I believe there are a few of those men still available.’

Alice nodded her head. Even if Hugh hadn’t been behind her reason for refusing those marriage proposals, she wouldn’t have married any of the men who had applied for her hand. But they were the ones she needed to gain information from.

Elizabeth sighed. ‘Alice, are you serious about this? Is this how you truly feel? Look at me.’

Concern creased Elizabeth’s brow and troubled her grey eyes. Alice would have to make her performance more convincing if she was to get those invitations.

She smiled. ‘It is how I feel.’

‘Because I do not want you trying to placate your family into thinking you are happy. You know Father would be overjoyed if—

‘Do not talk to me of Father and relationships. He’s hardly one to talk about the raptures of love.’

Their father was overtly kind and generous with everyone. He loved their mother very much. Unfortunately, he loved many other women as well. It had only been a slight relief that he’d always tried to be discreet on his trips to London, but since their mother had died all discretion had vanished.

‘Fair enough.’ Elizabeth frowned. ‘This is not one of your projects, is it? You are not doing this out of some warped sense of setting a wrong to rights?’

She kept her eyes on her sister’s. This, at least, wasn’t a lie. ‘It isn’t.’

‘It’s not some silly vow you made while you were away?’

‘No.’

It wasn’t a vow—or a project. It was an enormous promise to the King. She felt the weight of it heavily on her shoulders. Or maybe it was all the lying she was doing.

Elizabeth’s hands went to her face and wiped the tears under her eyes. ‘I cannot tell you what this means to me.’

Alice grabbed her sister’s hands. ‘Don’t cry.’

‘All this time...’ Elizabeth’s voice broke. ‘All this worry. I did not think you would even attempt to find someone you deserve.’

‘Please don’t cry. Please. I can’t take your tears.’

Waving her hands in front of her face, Elizabeth beamed. ‘I am happy for you!’

Alice clasped her sister’s hands firmly together and willed Elizabeth to stop her happiness. Such sisterly joy pressed upon her more heavily than the lies she’d told. She still had more lies to tell, and it wouldn’t do if she failed this early in her mission.

‘I know you’re happy for me, but it means nothing if I don’t actually have a husband.’

Elizabeth shook her hands free. ‘That is easy to remedy. St Martin’s Day is mere days away, and Christmas will soon be upon us. In fact, I can think of many upcoming affairs that John and I have been invited to. I’ll simply secure an invitation for you as well.’

Such invitations were exactly what Alice both dreaded and needed. Lies and deceit pricked sharply in her heart, but she’d do anything to save her family.

‘I knew I could count on you for help.’

Chapter Four (#ud4ecfd27-1e7f-5b50-8510-d07054141f9e)

Hugh stormed through his old house—such as it was. The three-room residence was smaller than he remembered, the furniture rougher and the linens course. Abrasive, just like Swaffham. A small town with sparsely cobbled, cramped streets and not enough amenities where a man could get lost. Or, better yet, not be seen when he didn’t want to be.

He had never intended to return to this town of his childhood. A town he had been forced to travel to when his dying mother had written to his errant father and begged him to care for his son.

And so, at the age of five, Hugh had been carted off by travelling strangers. He had left Shoebury knowing he was leaving his mother, knowing he would never see her again. Knowing he was travelling to the care of a man who had never wanted him in the first place.

His father, Clifford of Swaffham, a knight impoverished, had been an abusive drunk. Many a night Hugh had dreamed he still lived in Shoebury with his mother—only to awake to cold and hunger. Many a time he’d thought it would have been better to be left alone in the streets without a parent.

Why his father had agreed to take him, he had never known. To this day Hugh didn’t know if he hated his father or Swaffham more. The tiniest comfort he hoped for upon his arrival was Bertrice’s food, and that held no flavour.

He rubbed the grit from his eyes. Even with her ankle healing from a recent break, Bertrice’s food was better than fine. It was his mood that wasn’t. He wanted to crack the clay cup in his hand, but he tipped it to his mouth and downed the ale instead.

Had nothing changed? Even his need to drink remained the same. He knew from experience that there wasn’t enough ale in all the land to hide his thoughts from himself, and if he drank much more he’d wouldn’t be able to keep his thoughts to himself.

Maybe if he poured out all his secrets he’d be rid of their poison.

The thought of finally being free of their crushing weight sent a mad euphoria through him—before hard reason dropped like an axe.

Laughing bitterly, he poured more ale into his cup. Pouring out his secrets would never happen. If it did, he’d be free—but only of his own head.

He renewed his pacing, stifling walls and bitter memories assaulting him from every cobwebbed dusty corner. At Edward’s court he shared his room with four other knights, but his suite was generous, its linens and wall coverings fine and warm in colour and purpose.

He kicked one of the thinly plastered wooden walls and a shifting of dust hit his shoe and hose. There wasn’t a scrap of colour or warmth in this hovel.

He shook the dust off in disgust. He regretted telling Bertrice not to clean the rooms. She had been insistent, but his bitterness at returning had tainted everything. Now he could see that if he was to spend time here, he’d have to make this hovel hospitable. Pampered soft bastard that he was.

Not that courtly pampering had made him any kinder, or any more of a gentleman. He was an unscrupulous man in a merciless predicament.

He’d been ordered by King Edward to find the keeper of the Half-Thistle Seal. Because private information had been leaked from the King’s chamber, Edward had lost a military surprise he’d been strategizing for months.

The Scots had not come as quickly to heel as the King had demanded since he’d won at Dunbar, and Balliol was now at the Tower of London. Since July, the King had relentlessly ordered nobles and clansmen to swear him fealty. Adamantly established sheriffs and governors to enforce his rule.

But that wasn’t all Edward had done. He’d also launched spies to infiltrate and report that his orders were being completed.

Hugh was such a spy. His skill with sword and strategy had been noted, but not exemplified.

Hugh had had the honour of gaining the King’s attention earlier this year, in April, after the death of the King’s favoured knight, Black Robert.

Secrets. Hugh was good at keeping and discovering them. He was good at reporting to the King. He had all the information Edward could ever need, but not everything he wanted to know.

For one, Black Robert was not dead, and was in fact Hugh’s closest friend and currently living on Clan Colquhoun’s Scottish soil while married to a Scot.

As for the second secret—Hugh didn’t need to travel anywhere to find the keeper of the Half-Thistle Seal. Hugh merely needed to look in a mirror or in the purse strapped tightly to his waist. The small seal had been pressing heavily since it had been hidden on the inside of his tunic. A metal thistle cut in half. One for him. One for Robert. Made so that Hugh could inform Robert of the King’s whereabouts and of any royal decrees that might affect Clan Colquhoun.

How had Edward discovered the Seal so soon? Only a few messages had been sent. Necessary to warn his friend of the King’s movements. Secretive, but innocent, and certainly not enough to start a war. Merely enough to save lives.

So many lives. The English...the Scots. How long could he protect both? Did it matter?

Ah, yes, it did—and that brought him to his third and definitely most perilous secret: Alice.

A joke on him since he was ordered to pay close attention to the Fenton family. Of all the families in all the land that the King had ordered him to spy on it had to be—