Her Christmas Knight. Nicole Locke

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.

      Pivoting, she strode towards the exit. She had lost in the battle of love, but there was more to her than her heart. There was her loyalty, her honour, her determination.

      Throwing the apple core onto some shrivelled clippings, she made her decision.

      To hell with Hugh and her heart. No more distractions, deliberations or confusions.

      She had a traitor to catch.

       Chapter Three

      November, 1296

      Of course, making the decision to be a spy and knowing how to do it were two different matters entirely.

      Alice walked purposefully through the town square to the widest house in Swaffham. Icy rain pelted against her. She clutched her green cloak tighter. It was a futile gesture. The rain had already found gaps around her neck and cuffs, and her dress lay coldly sodden against her trembling skin.

      She sped up her walking, aware of other unfortunate drenched souls jumping out of her way.

      Two weeks of wasted time at Court and travelling to Swaffham and she only had vague ideas of what she could do to find the Seal. It wasn’t as if she could ask anyone how to spy. She was sworn to secrecy.

      At least she knew what she had to do first. She needed information about the people in town—which meant she needed to be around them and invited into their homes. And there was only one place to go for those types of invitations.

      Pushing open the door, she walked quietly into the building that held many town meetings. The hall was a simple large room, filled with chairs and tables. The walls were covered with plain unembroidered panels of green linen cloth. A fire blazed in the hearth under the hood of a huge chimney, and showed light that the narrow windows fitted with oiled parchment could not.

      Fresh rushes crunched under her feet and alerted the men whispering in different corners to her presence. Some of them looked up, but most kept to their heated conversations and ignored her.

      She pulled her hood tighter around her face and walked briskly to the stairs leading to her sister’s living quarters.

      When she reached the landing, she knocked on the large wooden door. The moment the servant had ushered her into the private solar her sister Elizabeth flew down the narrow stairs at the back of the room.

      ‘Oh, Alice! I am glad you returned. You would not believe what I have been through in the last few days.’

      Alice tried to untangle her wet cloak, but her fingers were swollen and red from the cold. The maid who had let her in concentrated on the knot and Alice gratefully lowered her trembling hands.

      ‘What has happened now?’ she asked.

      Elizabeth took the remaining steps. ‘The town council will not listen to John.’

      This was a familiar argument to Alice. Her brother-in-law might not have the respect of the town, but her sister had the respect of her husband. ‘Do they ever?’

      ‘They should!’

      ‘Because he’s your husband or because he’s the mayor?’

      Elizabeth shook her head and gave a tiny exasperated grin. ‘Both.’ She strode across the hall, her slippered feet slapping against the bare wooden boards. ‘He is trying to initiate a law so that householders and shopkeepers are required to clean the streets in front of their houses and shops.’

      The maid removed the cloak and herself from the hall.

      Alice rubbed the cold