AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I hope ye don’t venture often into the London streets alone,” he said. The thought of Lucy being attacked sent a wave of fury through him.
She slipped her hand in her pocket, pulling out a sheathed dagger. With it fell a parchment. “I am armed,” she said.
He stopped to pick up the unfolded letter. “Do ye know how to use the dagger?” he asked, but his gaze fastened on his name on the letter. His gaze scanned the script that was a combination of fine swirls and boxy letters as if to hide the identity of the author.
“What’s to know?” she said, unaware he’d stopped. “You poke the point into someone if they get close.” She turned around. “Oh,” she said, hurrying back. “That’s nothing.” She pulled the letter from his hand, shoving it back in her pocket with the dagger.
“Someone sent ye a forged letter, signing my name,” he said. “That isnotnothing.”
Lucy continued walking along the lane. “Cordelia slid it beneath my door last night. I found it this morning and confronted her.”
Greer ran through the letter in his mind, each word making the stone in his stomach grow heavier.
As beautiful as you are, it will never work.Lucy Cranfield was beyond beautiful.
I must return to Scotland, and you must remain at the queen’s service. Both true.
I do not wish to harm you further.
Whatever was to be between us cannot be.
“Lucy,” he said, catching her arm to stall her. “Everything she wrote is true. Except the ‘Never Yours.’”
Hurt tightened her eyes, but she kept her familiar smile. As if pain no longer registered on her exterior.
“I would not have written that I was never yours,” he said. “I was completely yours last night.”
“You want me to ignore you?” she asked. “’Twould be difficult with you following me into London.”
“Nay. Ishouldwant ye to ignore me, but I don’t,” he said.
The tightness in her face relaxed. “Then I am happy you’re not so noble.” She smiled broadly.
He glanced at her pocket and back to her face, his chest tight. “If ye had not been with me last night, would ye have ignored me this morning? Thought that I’d be coward enough to leave a note under your door without a spoken word?”
“Cordy would have given herself away somehow. She’s a terrible liar.” Lucy turned away and continued to walk, both of them silent for several dirty cobblestone streets.
When Twelfth Night was over, he would leave, and she would stay.I could stay. No, he couldn’t. He rubbed a hand down the short beard covering his jaw.
“What would you have done if I’d ignored you?” Lucy asked, her voice breaking the silence between them. “Would you have assumed I wanted nothing further of you?”
They walked around a large puddle of melted snow where a cat drank, sitting back on its haunches. It ran as Lucy tried to pet it.
When he didn’t answer, she continued. “’Tis a good thing we were together last eve, then.”
He caught her arm before she could turn back onto the busy thoroughfare along the Thames. “I would have asked for an explanation, thinking I had incurred more of your anger.”
“And I would have agreed that you had,” she said.
“And I would have demanded to know what I had done.”
She smiled at the back and forth. “And then the game would be over with Cordy’s letter revealed.” Her arched brows rose. “See, the letter is not important. It would have delayed us by half a day.”
She stepped into the throng of people like a golden fish caught in a stream. He followed, walking beside her in a game of dodge the puddles, people, and filth.
Greer frowned, the ache in his stomach turning completely to stone. Because even if the letter was easily seen as a forgery, that didn’t make it any less true.
*
