Alice could not think beyond his words. His eyes roiled with emotions she could almost catch. Regret. Embarrassment at words he hadn’t meant to say. Words that were an acknowledgement of his feelings for her.
Equally alarming—he knew she’d questioned the vendors. It was as if she had been picked up and placed somewhere else in the world. She couldn’t make sense of it.
She didn’t have time to make sense of it now. She thought she’d been careful, believed she could lie and no one would notice. Hugh had noticed.
‘How long have you been following me?’
‘Answer me,’ he said.
She had given a vow to the King. ‘There’s nothing going on.’
Anger. Menace. Whatever confusion or roiling emotion there had been in his eyes after his revealing words was gone. Now he looked every stitch a knight—and one who would cut her down.
‘Is it true, then? You slept with the King?’ He lowered his voice, deadly soft. ‘Or is it false and you’re protecting something...someone? Tell me. Is it you or the King?’
What did she care for the King? She wouldn’t risk her family. ‘Wasn’t it made clear to you that day in the garden? I was in the King’s private chambers. Why else would a woman be in his chambers?’
He shook his head, as if warning himself against thoughts or words, before he bit out, ‘No matter what you are doing for him, he won’t take you back to his bed. He never does.’
Humiliation scored through her, but she didn’t hold back her taunt. ‘Maybe it’s another’s bed I’m wanting.’
‘Enough! There’s more going on here.’
She agreed—and she could be as angry about it as him. Again he leaned over her, as he had all those years ago. This time, he accused her of being a whore. She had enough of his confrontations. Instead of standing on tiptoes, she ground her heels into the earth, ready to tell him to step away, but there were more words.
‘Tell me this,’ Hugh continued, ‘when you were there in the King’s bed, while you were under him, what did he command you to do?’
Her first instinct was to slap him. Her second was to deny.
Instead she gave a mere twitch of her lips as she replied, ‘When I’m in the King’s bed it’s I who command him.’
Chapter Eight
Words. Only words. But they ripped through Hugh’s defences so quickly he knew he couldn’t erect them properly again.
Alice turned then and walked away. He let her.
Too much at risk. Too much at stake. How much was true and what could he believe?
He breathed in raggedly, watched her retreating back, her steps quick but short given the crowds. Her skirts were swinging around her hips, her back straight. Pride. Determination. But at that pace she wouldn’t get far.
She needed to get far. At least until he’d reined in his emotions.
Think.
The King knew of the Half-Thistle Seal and believed it to be in Swaffham; he had also demanded Hugh to spy on his mistress. Was it possible those two orders weren’t connected?
No, otherwise nothing made sense. Edward had never spied on his mistresses before because he’d never kept his mistresses for long. So he had to take the information Edward had given him. Such wrong information.
Hugh was the spy, and the Half-Thistle Seal hadn’t been in Swaffham until Edward had sent him here.
Could Edward suspect him and be setting him up?
It was possible Edward did suspect. So why send him here to pay close attention to his former mistress?
Alice...a mistress, who commanded men? He could see it even now. Her petite curves free of her clothes’ restraint, her eyes heavy-lidded with desire. Her lips plush and wet from kisses.
He’d held her against him only a few times in his life. Still he was seared with the memories of how she had felt.
