So she moved her focus elsewhere. Watched as others were seated around her and counted each place being occupied. Only then did she realise that though Hugh would sit next to her they wouldn’t share a trencher.
She had the honour of doing that with Lyman, who made her very skin crawl. But it wasn’t enough to take her attention away from Hugh, whose tall frame slid into the chair to her right like a sword into a sheath.
The ease of it escalated her hostility and awareness of him. More so as she felt the heat of him at her side smelled his unique scent of snow, pine and steel and watched the graceful lethality of his hand reaching for his goblet. Such a simple task, but it gripped her heart in her chest.
She wouldn’t make it through this dinner—knew that at some point she’d grab that goblet and pour its contents over him. And the blame wasn’t only on this man at her side, but on Elizabeth, who sat serenely next to her husband.
Her sister could have sat Hugh anywhere at the table. Knowing Alice’s resolution, sheshouldhave sat him elsewhere—several chairs down, so she couldn’t see him, couldn’t hear him, couldn’t...feelhim. But her sister hadn’t done that because she was testing her.
So she unclenched her fingers digging into her skirts and straightened her shoulders. When a wrong had been committed, she made it right. To do so here, she wouldn’t talk to Hugh. She would persevere through this simple dinner and secure herself invitations to peoples’ homes. The King had commanded her. Hugh, who had inveigled himself an invitation, would have no power over her. As for her sister’s actions—she had courses of food to get through while she prepared her words.
* * *
Hugh grabbed his goblet, peered into its depths, and knew that the King might easily use Elizabeth as a strategist. There were two scenarios as to why she’d sat him next to Alice. Either Elizabeth had forgiven Hugh for all the perceived wrongs he had done against her sister—which he doubted, or she had done it as an experiment to see how he behaved. But, if so, why?
Hugh chanced a glance to Alice. Her chin was high, her body arched away. She was surprised by his presence, and angered by it, too.
Oh, she’d made it clear she wanted nothing to do with him, but Hugh had requested an audience with the King that day after their argument in the garden.
A request that had been immediately granted...as if the King had expected it. Unfortunately, nothing of Alice’s relationship with the King had been revealed.
No, his hope for answers was deterred, and he’d left the royal rooms with only more questions.
Because the King had ordered him to return to Swaffham—a town he despised, and whose people despised him. Return and spy on Alice.
And so, like the spy he was, tonight he would use her anger and surprise to his advantage. He still had too many questions when it came to Alice and her relationship with the King. Too many threatening factors, this town, the Seal, the Fenton family. Factors that needed to be tied...fixed...or at least forgotten.
Yet, all the schemes and factors were nothing when compared to the woman by his side. Even in that brief glance he saw the way her chestnut hair curled in the candle’s light, the almost familiar way she had of sitting with her back straight, her shoulders rigid. Pride and determination in her every movement. Traits that were so muchher, he would have recognised them anywhere.
Alice—whom he longed for and needed as much as air. Alice—who was very neatly ignoring him. And he was letting her...coward that he was.
He had never been good enough for her. And now his own actions made him a traitor to the King. Ignore Alice he must for his own sake, but a King demanded he watch her. He no longer felt like he was choking on the lies and deceit, but drowning in them.
‘It seems as if we’re sharing tonight.’
Hugh rolled the tenseness in his shoulders and turned to his right. A petite woman was looking expectantly at him. A similarly built man sat to her right. Most likely her husband, who wouldn’t be sharing her trencher as was his right.
‘It appears I’ve disrupted the seating arrangements,’ he said.
‘I don’t mind.’
He recognised that light in the woman’s eyes. He glanced at her husband, who sat with his new trencher partner. There were no warning glares sent his way. It seemed the husband didn’t mind either.
‘You don’t remember me, do you?’
She was pretty, with dark hair and hazel eyes, her cheeks and chest plump with good food and health. If hehadknown her, he’d forgotten her—as he had everything about this town.
He gave her an appreciative glance and noticed the light flaring in her eyes. ‘I’d like to be reminded,’ he said.
The arch of a brow, and familiarity flashed through him. It was coming to him now.
‘Maybe I won’t tell you...to see how you’ll tempt the information from me,’ she teased.
He kept his expression neutral as he glanced at the feast he was to load the trencher with. ‘May I?’
‘Of course.’
‘Is there anything you don’t want?’ he asked, as he reached for the serving spoon for the goose, and shifted to give room for the servant to pour the sauce.
