Her Christmas Knight

‘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.