‘You thought I was his mistress.’
‘Stop—just stop.’
‘We don’t have much time. If you’re here to make sure I accomplish what he asked me to do, then you can see me doing it. If you intend to stop me, you should probably start.’
‘Why are you doing this in front of me? Why are you showing me this?’
‘You are a spy, like me. I know you are, so you can’t pretend.’
‘Then, if so, you are betraying secrets.’
‘I don’t have a choice.’ She paused. ‘I trust you.’
He cursed. ‘Never trust anyone.’
She did stop then, as he moved towards her. There was no light at all, but she could see the rigidity of his shoulders, his clenched fists, the jut of his chin.
‘I trust you,’ she repeated. ‘You saved me from the dark. You won’t harm me.’
‘I could.’
Hugh’s voice helped her concentrate, to not think about the darkness, but his tone prickled unease up her wandering hands.
He wasn’t pleased about their exchange.
Well, neither was she.
Was it the fact that the King had made her a spy? Was it her, a woman risking her reputation in a man’s private chambers?
Too many questions and no time to waste.
‘You’re going to help me. I’ve delayed already and I haven’t any time left. You wouldn’t let something happen to my family.’
‘It’s been six years, Alice. You don’t know me at all.’
She didn’t. But she was realising that time had passed for both of them.
‘You don’t knowmeif you think I could be the King’s mistress... Oranyone’smistress.’
Hugh pinched the bridge of his nose, felt the bump there. She had punched him when she’d thought he was one of her tormentors. A part of him...down to his very bones...recognised that she wouldn’t capitulate to her monarch’s demands. ‘I know.’
‘And yet you made those comments?’
Her words shamed him. ‘Foolishly. Heatedly. But I realised that it only mattered because it wasn’t with—’ He bit back the words he, a traitor, should never say to her. Instead, he said, ‘I need to apologise.’
Her lips parted, as if she was going to say something else, but she shook her head. ‘You can apologise by searching that cabinet you saw by the window.’
He had expected more anger. He’d insulted her—and not only once. But there was something more here. Something he needed the answers to, but didn’t want to ask. Still...
‘I need to understand first. The King sent you back to Swaffham to look for something in Lyman’s house?’
The King had sent him to look for the Half-Thistle Seal, to pay close attention to the Fenton family. Could it be that the King suspected Lyman as well as the Fentons? That might be the break he needed in this nightmare he was embroiled in. Him returning to Swaffham, facing his past, facing Alice. If he could place the blame on this man who stared at Alice too lasciviously then something good would come of it.
Except it didn’t matter if it was Lyman’s house or all the houses of Swaffham. The real trouble was if the King had sent her to look for the Seal, that only meant she looked forhim.
‘It isn’t necessarily Lyman’s house I need to search,’ Alice continued. ‘It’s all the houses. After I played his game of finding a seal—’
‘A seal—?’
