Historical Romance – The Best Of The Year. Кэрол Мортимер

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СКАЧАТЬ her as a link to all that had gone before. ‘Do you know?’

      ‘Why would I know?’ She wanted to say she was sorry she must lie to him. ‘I was no more than four.’

      ‘But don’t you find it strange? That a clandestine wedding should have a witness?’

      She shook her head and looked down at her stitching, yet another copy of the emblem of the Prince of Wales. White feathers. The motto Ich Dien. I serve.

      And that was what Anne would continue to do.

      ‘Not so strange,’ she said. A risk, now, but she must take it. She must steer him away from that wedding and back to this one. ‘I witnessed her wedding to the Prince.’

      He stared, as if struck dumb. ‘What? Why?’

      ‘Because she asked me to.’

      Shock quickly merged with anger. ‘And you didn’t tell me?’

      A shrug. As if it were of no significance. Now meet his eyes, as if you have nothing to hide. ‘Is it important?’ Last night’s kiss still burned on her lips, lips she would use to tell him all about this wedding.

      The one that didn’t matter.

      ‘That night, Lady Joan woke me and asked me to come with her. She did not say why. But when we entered the chapel, I saw the Prince and then—’ another shrug ‘—they exchanged their vows.’

      ‘You knew the marriage was forbidden.’

      You mustn’t. You cannot! The King, you are too close... ‘The entire court knew that.’

      ‘Then why didn’t you stop them?’

      Laughter came easily then. ‘Am I to tell the Prince of Wales and the Countess of Kent what they cannot do?’

      ‘But you knew what would happen, how grave the danger, to their souls, to the kingdom!’

      ‘I did, but what I did not know is how deeply it would trouble Sir Nicholas Lovayne to be called on to resolve the issue.’ He had barked at her as if he, not the kingdom, had been affronted.

      ‘That is not what troubles me.’ Hurried words. Angry.

      And as his temper rose, hers must fall. ‘Then why are you so angry?’ Yet as she asked, she knew.

      He stood and she could see him wrap himself in calm, as protective as a cloak. ‘When next you witness their wedding, you will see one the church can bless,’ he said, letting her question lie unanswered. ‘We return to the court in the morning.’

      She rose, eager to retreat to her room. ‘I will be ready.’ Ready to leave this man who had a habit of goading her to say too much.

      Or perhaps it was her own weakness that made her say things she should not? How had she kept the secret all these years, she wondered, as she climbed the stairs to her room, when after a few days and a few kisses he had her babbling of things she should not?

      Yet how could she have understood the freedom of being away from Lady Joan? All her life, in her lady’s presence, she had rarely said more than yes, my lady, no, my lady, thank you, my lady, all the while bursting to say more.

      Well, her confession had done what she had intended. It turned his attention to this wedding and away from the other one.

      The one her mother had claimed to witness.

      * * *

      Nicholas spent the rest of the day concerning himself with details he could control: making sure the horses were ready, packing food for the journey. The court had returned to Windsor, which would cut the return trip down to scarcely five days.

      Five days too many to spend with Anne of Stamford.

      Why are you so angry?

      He was still wrestling with her question the next morning, as he walked to the stables to retrieve his horse. The inn’s stable had not had room for all their mounts and he wanted the time away from her, from Eustace and the others, just to think.

      Anne had tweaked him with her suggestion that he resented the difficulty of unravelling the Prince’s impulsive marriage. Six weeks travelling to Avignon, innumerable days arguing with papal clerks, then the same, long journey back, only to be handed one last task before he was finally free. Yes, he was irritated and impatient.

      But that was not the reason for the visceral, unfamiliar fury that had moved him when he discovered that Anne had witnessed the wedding and never told him.

      From the beginning, the woman had stirred unwelcome emotions—possession, tenderness, lust and now anger—all those crazed passions he had so proudly spent his life avoiding. The ones that drove men like his father and the Prince into the arms of women who, finally, held them as tight as a prison.

      But when he was drawn to Anne, he let his head convince him that it was logical, or at least harmless, to pass the time with her. Meanwhile, he ignored the urges that originated below his neck.

      In his loins.

      Or even in his heart.

      She had sparked feelings he did not even recognise. From hope and prayer for her to find her miracle to a willingness to confess his own failures to a desire so strong that he nearly went far beyond a kiss. A kiss that was still on his lips when she told him—

      He stopped in mid-stride in the centre of Canterbury’s busiest street as he realised the truth he should have known all along.

      He was angry because she had lied.

      She had fooled him because he had started to believe she was different from other women. She wasn’t. She had created an illusion, lured him in, all the while concealing anything she did not want him to know.

      He had been no wiser than his father, trusting her, thinking she trusted him, but if she had, she would have shared such a confidence long before.

      It made him wonder what else she hid.

      Close to Lady Joan, yes. Closer than he had ever imagined.

      She had made it clear where her loyalty lay.

      A good reminder of a lesson he thought long ago ingrained. Never trust emotions, particularly when it came to women.

      As he mounted his horse, his girdle purse swung against his thigh with a gentle thud. Gathering the reins in his left hand, he reached inside, prinking his finger on the edge of St Thomas’s mitre.

      The pilgrim badge.

      He had broken his rule. Reached for a reminder. Weighed himself down with a token of remembrance.

      Nicholas turned the horse toward the inn and bent his elbow, ready to hurl the bauble across the muddy street.

      At the last moment, he looked down and rubbed his finger over the sharp, pressed pewter and remembered.

      The stubborn set of her jaw, refusing to allow either pain or pity to rule her. СКАЧАТЬ