Seemingly pulled by the thread that bound them, she stopped behind a pillar to watch him.
He looked almost pained. His eyes were closed, his jaw tight. He looked as he had when he had insulted her for being in the King’s bed. If so light a word could be applied to their conversation. His words had lit a shock in her so fast, she had only been able to react in kind.
But weeks had gone since that market day when he’d helped her with the barn. Nights had passed, too, and her body was no longer sixteen years old but a woman’s, full grown.
She compared his stance then to that moment when she had demanded his kiss. That day was faded. But the market day was fresh.
Over every insult and heated word they had exchanged, over every kindness he had shown that day, somehow she must have been taking in the way his body had almost been against hers. His unique scent of snow, pine and steel. The way his cloak’s collar had brushed against the roughness of his jaw, the dip of his lower lip.
Because that was what she had replayed during the subsequent nights...that and his words. He thought her a whore, and had said so with a bite of anger, but it was another heat that flashed through her body since then—and now as she watched him.
The slanted light from the windows showed dust floating in the air, but also the broadness of his shoulders, the strong slant of his jaw, his fingers splayed on his muscular thighs.
Since that day at the market it hadn’t been the King she’d imagined in the bed over her. It had been—
Blue eyes opened, unerringly finding her. His brow furrowed, his eyes changed... She pressed against the pillar, but could not look away. The soft light that revealed his form to her hid half his face in shadow.
Hugh. Here in Swaffham. In her church.
His expression changed from puzzlement to something she shouldn’t recognise but somehow did. Something unholy and necessary. Something reflected and repeated inside her. Want. Desire.
No, she hadn’t dreamed of any king in her bed. She had dreamed of this man. And now, with fervency, she took in the reality of him. Watched his fingers clench into his thighs and his back straighten as if taking a blow. His lips parted as if he were pulling in a breath he’d forgotten to take. She felt her own part with them.
Hugh’s eyes were sheened with emotions that weren’t unreadable, empty or cold. There was more there, so much more, and she couldn’t look away.
When she had first seen him in the hall at Edward’s Court, she’d thought his eyes like a storm about to break. But she knew better now. Hugh’s eyes were a storm that never ceased. And it felt as if those emotions were crashing towards her.
There was a settling of the townspeople; a loud murmuring of appreciation. A different noise broke through her restless need.
Alice swung her gaze to the left. William was cautiously approaching the pulpit.William. Grabbing her skirts, releasing her breath, she hurried to her seat—but not before glancing to Hugh, who disappeared.
When she searched the narthex shadows, Eldric was gone as well.
Chapter Ten
‘Idon’t think I’ve ever seen Father in so fine a spirit.’ Elizabeth signalled towards the banqueting table groaning with food.
The apples were studded with cloves and the mead flowed from shallow flagons like a waterfall. The tiers of cheese and bread that had been arranged to look like a wild boar had been applauded as they entered the room and were now almost unrecognisable. The boar itself had received a standing ovation.
‘Of course he’s happy.’ Alice adjusted her mask. ‘We’re surrounded by a lavish affair that doesn’t deplete his coffers.’
Elizabeth laughed. ‘True.’
Her father was easy to spot, with his hands full of food and his cheeks red from the candles and the people around him. He was always happy. Even their mother’s death hadn’t deterred him for long, but that was to be expected given their arranged marriage.
Being reminded of that part of her childhood only darkened Alice’s restless mood. ‘Although whenhasn’tFather been happy at a party?’
‘No, this time it’s something else. I think he’s been happier since he’s begun spending so much time in London.’
London and her father and his mistresses. Always his mistresses. ‘I haven’t seen anything different. He’s the same as he’s always been.’
She was a wealthy wool merchant’s daughter and the King wanted gold and silver. So, though her father hadn’t quite forgiven King Edward for increasing his wool tax, her father was flighty enough to still be impressed by royalty.
The King, seeing an easy way of appeasing at least one rich merchant, often asked him to Court. And so Father’s mistresses had begun. Alice had been surrounded by them during her brief stay. She hadn’t liked that any more than playing the game for a seal in the Tower’s darkened passageways. She shivered just thinking of the dark.
‘No, there are rumours—’ Elizabeth said.
‘Can we not talk about Father?’ Alice couldn’t take any more. She’d been back for months already, and the Christmas festivities were truly starting now. She’d thought there would be a lead or something she could follow regarding the Seal, but there was nothing. Nothing...and her family was at risk.
