Secrets at Court. Blythe Gifford

him. ‘I know.’

      He shifted his stance, moving a step away. His mission was no secret, but her tone suggested she knew more of his news than the courtiers who had slapped his back in congratulations.

      He wondered what the Lady Joan had told her.

      ‘Then you know,’ he said, cautiously, ‘what a celebration this is.’

      She looked out over the room, without the smile he might have expected. ‘Not until they are wed in truth. Then, we will celebrate.’

      We. As if she and her lady were the same person. So they were close, this maiden and her lady.

      Why would Lady Joan choose such a woman as a close companion? If one discounted her lameness, this Anne would not draw a second glance. Perhaps, then, that was the reason. Perhaps the Countess wanted someone who would not distract from her own beauty.

      If so, she had chosen well.

      ‘Then let us hope we truly celebrate soon,’ he said. Celebrate and let him leave for the unencumbered life he wanted.

      ‘That will depend on you, won’t it?’

      Close indeed, if she had been told so much.

      He threw back the last swallow of claret. An unpleasant reminder of the task still before him. A waste of time, to look for things that had been proven to the satisfaction of God’s representative on earth long ago. ‘It will depend on how quickly the Archbishop can locate a dozen-year-old document.’

      ‘Is that all that must be done?’

      He certainly hoped so. ‘His Holiness can expect no more. Except to prick the King’s ease.’

      ‘And will it be difficult?’

      Full of questions. He glanced at the table at the end of the Hall. His answers, no doubt, would go directly to her mistress. ‘No.’

      ‘We are all just...’ The pause seemed wistful. ‘Ready for it to be over.’

      ‘As am I,’ he said. He felt like that Greek fellow. Hercules. One labour ended, another began. Surely he had reached his dozen.

      They exchanged smiles, as if they were old friends. ‘A few weeks only,’ he assured her. ‘Less, if I can make it so.’

      ‘You sound as eager for the conclusion as I. What awaits you, when all this is over?’

      Nothing. And that freedom was the appeal. ‘I will head back across the Channel.’

      ‘Another duty for the Prince?’

      He shook his head. He was done with duties and obligations. ‘Not this time. Rather a duty to myself.’ Bald to say it. He looked down at his empty cup. ‘And now, I leave you to the peace you sought here.’

      ‘Do not leave on my behalf. The Countess will have missed me by now.’ She took a step, steadying herself with her crutch.

      ‘Do you need help?’ He waved his hand in her direction. How did one assist a cripple?

      There was steel in her smile. ‘I do this every day.’

      Maybe so, he thought, but as she left, her lips tightened and her brow creased. Every day, every step, then, lived in pain.

      We are all waiting... Ah, yes. The Prince and Lady Joan were not the only ones depending on him for a quick resolution. So was her lady-in-waiting, he thought, as he watched her leave, rolling and swaying with her awkward gait.

      He wondered why she cared so much.

      * * *

      Anne made her way back to the dais, then waited until Lady Joan could break off and they could speak unheard.

      ‘So?’ Beneath the smile, her lady’s whisper was urgent. ‘What did he say?’

      Anne shook her head. ‘No suspicions.’ She had become sensitive to such things. Shrugs, tones of voice. It compensated for other weaknesses. ‘He gives little thought to the task except that it be over. He thinks that the Pope only wanted to create one final obstacle in exchange for his blessing.’

      ‘Yes, of course. That must be it. No other reason.’ Her lady breathed again. ‘All will be as it must. Now that we know, you must avoid Sir Nicholas.’

      She knew that. Knew she should for all kinds of reasons. But her stubborn, sinful ingratitude flared again. The resentment that boiled over when Lady Joan, kind as she was, demanded something in the tone she might use to a command her hound or her horse.

      No, she must be grateful. She nodded.

      Anne looked across the Hall at him. Tall, straight, well favoured, with eyes that seemed to pierce the walls.

      And able to move—oh, God, to move wherever he liked. Back to France for no good reason, as if it were as easy as walking into a room.

      She had learned to stifle her envy as she watched women dance on their toes, watched men stride without stopping. But when this stranger took her hand, it was not envy she felt.

      It was something worse. Attraction.

      She turned away. Maybe it was not this man, maybe it was all that surrounded her. The wedding, the minute-by-minute need that Joan and her Edward felt, as if each was the other’s air...

      That would never be hers, Anne knew, so she had never let herself want it. Never allowed her eyes to fall on a man and think of him that way. If she were so fortunate as to wed, it would be because some man had taken pity on her and agreed to carry the burden of her in exchange for beautiful stitching and a steady head. And if he did, she would, of course, have no choice but to be abjectly grateful.

      Her eyes sought him out again. No, she needed no encouragement to avoid Sir Nicholas Lovayne. She wanted no reminders of things that would never be hers.

      Chapter Three

      The next day, before dawn, Nicholas was mounted and recalculating the miles between the New Forest and Canterbury. His squire, Eustace, had arrived late in the day with the recovered horse. All was packed and ready, the steed beneath him as impatient as he.

      Light seeped through the trees.

      Prince Edward did not come.

      Instead, he sent a page with the news. The pestilence, that murderous giant, still lumbered in the land. The King forbade the journey, it seemed, until some other hapless soul could travel the route and return to pronounce it safe for his son and heir to traverse.

      Biting his tongue, Nicholas swung off the horse and left it for the squire to stable. Strange, the things men feared. Neither Edward the father nor the son had hesitated to face death on the field of battle, but the King had turned timid when he lost the last friend of his youth to The Death. Now, the monarch cowered in a forest, as if death could not find his family here.

      Nicholas would not run from death.

      It would come for him, as it came for all men. He had survived the war with the French, but there would be other wars to come. In Italy, or even the Holy Land.

      Deprived of his journey, Nicholas snapped at all around him like a hungry dog deprived of his bone. Restless, he left the hunting lodge, too small to comfortably hold even a temporary court, to prowl the grounds. He pulled three cloth balls from his pouch, juggling them to keep his hands busy, recalculating the miles to Canterbury and back.

      Eyes on his hands, mind on his task, he nearly tripped over Anne sitting on a small bench that caught the morning sun.

      Her needlework fell to the ground. She bent over, but he was faster, snatching it from the dirt more quickly than she could.

      Dusting her work off, he handed it back to her. ‘It seems that fetching your dropped items has become a habit of mine.’

      After the words had left his tongue, he realised how ill chosen they were.

      She