Secrets at Court Read Online Free PDF Page A

out. Always have an alternate route.
    He would have no more of the wishes of others.
    ‘And do God’s wishes align with those of the Countess?’
    A smile teased her lips. ‘Thanks to the Pope and to Sir
Nicholas Lovayne, yes.’
    He could not help but smile. Yes, he was ready to be free of
such demands, but as long as they were his, he would fulfil each one. Including
this last. ‘So is there to be a magnificent wedding ceremony in Canterbury?’
    Anne shook her head and looked back at her needlework. ‘She
wishes it to be done quickly.’
    ‘No pomp? No circumstance?’ No huge celebration of all his
work? ‘She is of royal blood and marrying the future King. There has been no
such wedding since...’ When? Before he was born.
    She looked at him sharply. ‘Appropriate to their station, yes,
but she is wedding the man she wants.’
    ‘She wants?’ A much more urgent and earthy word than loves or even needs . One
that conveyed a stiff staff and a welcoming hole. One uncomfortably like what he
was feeling for the woman before him. ‘I persuaded the Pope to bend the laws of
God for what she wants? ’
    Words he should not have said. Her wide eyes told him so.
    ‘You were sent,’ she said, as if teaching a child, ‘because you
could accomplish the task. You should feel humbly grateful for the trust placed
in you.’
    ‘Grateful?’ No, that was not what he felt. Instead, it was that
most serious of the seven deadly sins: pride. ‘I only hope it is worth the
cost.’
    ‘To you?’
    A sharp tongue, this one. Sharp enough to puncture his moment
of desire for her. Despite her lectures, she seemed no more humbly grateful than
he.
    He cleared his throat and collected his wits. ‘To me it is,
yes.’ Well worth it. Now, he would be free. ‘I meant worth the cost to them.’
The cost of the chapels alone was more than Nicholas would see in his
lifetime.
    Her needle paused, for the first time, and she gazed beyond
him, as if he had disappeared. ‘To be able to look at someone that way...?’
    ‘As if they cannot wait until darkness?’ His words were more
than reckless, but, in just weeks, he would no longer be the Prince’s
thrall.
    She shook her head. ‘It is more than lust.’
    That, he could not argue. It was madness. ‘The Prince is...’
Every word he tried sounded like an insult. The Prince acted like a man
bewitched. His own father had looked so, when he married his second wife.
Bewitched and blind to the truth of her.
    Anne gazed up at him, as if she understood the meaning he could
not find words for. ‘Blissful. He is blissful. She is the same.’
    He shook his head. Bliss would not last. His father’s had not.
‘I have never seen him so before. But then, he has never been wed.’
    Now she looked at him, her eyes—what colour would he name
them?—unwavering on his. ‘And she has? Is that your meaning?’
    As if she knew thoughts he easily hid from others.
    Did the woman speak so bluntly to the Countess? If so, she
would not be a comfortable companion. ‘Have you recently come to her service?’
If so, perhaps she would not be there long.
    ‘No. I have been with her for a long time.’
    Perhaps through all the marriages, official and otherwise.
Perhaps she could save him a trip to Canterbury. ‘Were you there when she and
Thomas Holland wed?’
    She pricked her finger and popped it in her mouth. His gaze
lingered on her lips longer than it should have. He was thinking of wants, of needs...
    ‘You are right,’ she said, finally, glancing down at the
Prince’s badge, fallen again to the earth. ‘I seem to be ever dropping things at
your feet. Could you hand it to me again?’
    For a moment, he could not look away from her lips. Thin, yes,
but finely drawn, an apology from the Creator for what he had done to her
leg.
    Nicholas forced his eyes away and picked up the needlework
again, glad of the excuse to break his gaze, struggling to remember his
thoughts.
    ‘Are you a juggler, Sir