Her Christmas Knight. Nicole Locke

      ‘Or the craftsman didn’t think what had happened to the kings of different countries was important enough to depict.’ He drained his goblet. ‘I want you to know that I do not hold to such a belief. I could not care less what happens to the lovers, or to individual people. There are greater risks than the lives of two people. How old are you?’

      ‘I have known twenty-two summers, Your Majesty.’

      ‘You are old enough for what I need of you. You showed cunning and care in pursuit of the seal and you live in the very town that plagues me the most. So, although you have no training for such a task, I am ordering you to take on a mission of the utmost importance.’

      ‘I do not understand.’

      She shifted in the seat that was no longer comfortable. Her first instinct was to leave the room, but she could not rise without his permission. Maybe she should not have been so clever in the game-playing. But she was coming to realise that perhaps it hadn’t been a game.

      ‘I want you to know that what I speak of now is between us. If this information becomes public before your duty to me is accomplished, you and your family will be placed in this very tower—and not as guests.’

      She wished now that she had taken his offer of wine. The liquid would have quenched her suddenly parched throat. She nodded her head to let him know she understood, although she didn’t, not fully.

      ‘No need to lose your courage now. I am not asking you to break any commandments with God.’

      Her heart did not ease. Maybe she wouldn’t have to commit murder, but it was something grave. Something that was important enough to bring the King back to London. Something that he felt necessitated his making a threat to her family.

      ‘In any war, information is as important a part of winning as the ability with a sword,’ he continued. ‘Right now there are letters that are passing secrets from this very chamber to the usurpers in Scotland. For distinction, or for pride, all these letters are sealed with the impression of a half-thistle.’

      She could not be following this conversation correctly. It was too private, too important. The King of England was telling her that he had a traitor in his court. And the traitor closed his treacherous letters with a seal. A true seal.

      ‘The seeking of the seal...the riddle,’ she said, ‘it wasn’t a game.’

      ‘No, it was a test. I thought that whoever was cunning enough to find and escape with a fake seal would be cunning enough to find a real one.’ He tapped the table and smiled. ‘And, in case you were wondering, none of those seekers were randomly chosen to play the game.’

      She had to concentrate on his words and not on the image of her sisters locked in the Tower. ‘What is it that you want me to do?’ She forced the words from her lips.

      ‘I think it should be clear to one who has beaten my best guards and won a testing game. It is the reason the winner’s prize must be a hunting horn. I wish for the winner to be a hunter.’

      She must be shaking her head, for the King raised his hand and nodded.

      ‘Yes, Alice of Fenton from Swaffham. I wish you to find the Half-Thistle Seal,’ he continued. ‘Whoever has this seal will be the traitor. We believe that this traitor is in your very town—might indeed be among the people you know.’

      She stopped breathing. This couldn’t be happening to her. He couldn’t possibly mean what she thought he meant.

      ‘I wish you to become a spy,’ he finished.

      Oh, spindles—he did.

       Chapter Two

      The next morning was too clear and pretty for Alice’s dark mood, so she took comfort in the night’s damp that was still making the morning unpleasantly cold. Rubbing her arms, she walked briskly out through the iron doors and into the enormous courtyard.

      The light had not yet crested the horizon and the courtyard was bathed in a glow somewhere between night and day. The dim light did not matter. She knew where she wanted to go. The kitchen gardens would be empty of courtiers and servants at this time. She needed the privacy. Better yet, she desired the ugliness of lacerated chopped vegetables and herbs. A mutilated barren garden might lighten her mood.

      She had spent most of the night trying to resolve what the King wanted of her. When she hadn’t been able to, she had tried to sleep. Nothing had worked. The night had not been long enough for her to resolve anything, and the dark had made her already nightmarish thoughts more frightening.

      She rushed up the inclined hill, and turned to walk through the lavender-hedged entrance.

      The kitchen gardens were empty. She pulled her skirts tight against her to walk the narrow paths between each planting. She didn’t know why she bothered. Tearing her dress might be a welcome distraction.

      In fact, she’d welcome company, too. She longed for Esther, her most loyal of servants, but she was too old for this trip. Esther’s cantankerous company would have kept her occupied with menial chatter. She’d would even have taken her father’s flighty personality for a diversion.

      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