Page 29 of The Rose at Twilight

“You are a fool!”

“You have no right to rebuke me.”

“Your own father, were he here, would speak so. By heaven, even a more indulgent father would put you across his knee and smack some sense into you before he let you put your fool head on a block. Have a care lest I do more than just speak for him.”

“Oh, how dare you!” she cried, turning angrily toward the door. “I will not stay here and listen to you. My father is dead, and you have absolutely no right—”

“You said that before,” Sir Nicholas pointed out grimly, barring her way, “and I tell you now, mistress, to count yourself fortunate that I know I have no such right. I will find your brother for you. Perhaps he will attend to you as you deserve.”

“You need not,” she snapped. “I will send Ian myself to find him.” There were tears in her eyes, and she dashed them away, angry that she should display so childish a reaction to his displeasure, and wishing she might simply draw a sword or dagger to defend herself against insults, as a man might have done.

“Do as you please,” he said quietly. “I have only one more thing to say to you. Something I ought to have said long since.”

That he was still angry was clear to her despite his even tone, and she struggled to keep him from seeing that his mood affected her. “Say it then,” she muttered.

“When we met the king at Greenwich, I spoke to him briefly of the reason for our delay in the north, and told him that all who had dwelt within Wolveston Castle had died. The sickness was already in London by then, and appeared to have spread throughout the kingdom, so we spoke at some length of that. Then I told him of your fostering, that you had been at Middleham and Sheriff Hutton, and were acquainted with the Princess Elizabeth.”

“What of it?” She was curious now. The angry undertone was still present in his voice, but there was nothing in his words to explain it. “My acquaintance with her family is no secret, sir.”

“The king recognized your family name,” Sir Nicholas said.

“He remembered your brother’s name among those who had fought at Bosworth and he spoke of attainder, declaring that the Wolveston lands—a considerable property, he said—would be claimed by the crown if Wolveston did not submit.

So certain was he that I did not debate the point, wanting to be certain of my facts first. Your brother did submit, but before he did I asked questions of men from the north who had no cause to speak falsely to me. ”

“What questions? I do not understand you.”

He regarded her sternly. “It is possible, of course, that in England, just as the law gives land to only one brother, that if that brother is attainted, the others must be included in the bill, but … Ah, I see that that need not be the case.”

Alys, comprehending at last the direction his thoughts had taken, felt warmth flood her cheeks and would have turned so that he could not see her guilt, but his hand flashed out to stop her.

“No, mistress. I have said nothing of this matter to anyone else, but I am loyal to my king—a point that ought to weigh favorably with you. I will have the solution to this puzzle. You have only one brother, have you not?”

He was looking straight into her eyes, and much though she would have liked to deny it, she could not. She nodded. “I had two others, Robert and Paul, but they died eight years ago.”

“I thought as much. Those others at Wolveston?”

Squeezing her eyes shut so that he would not see the terror welling within her, she whispered, “I do not know.”

“You saw the one.”

“Aye, but I had never seen him before.” That was true. She opened her eyes, fighting to hide her fear, pleading silently for him to believe her.

“You knew he was not your brother. Why did you not speak?”

Careful to keep her voice calm, she said, “I had no cause to trust you then, or any reason to speak.” Remembering what her first thoughts on the point had been, she added, “I did suspect they might have been sons of some other, more prominent Yorkist family that my father’s servants tried to protect by insisting they were part of ours, but I did not know.

Then I became ill and forgot about them until now. ”

His gaze was a searching one, uncomfortably so, but she met it without flinching, and when after a long moment he still had said nothing, she said, “I … I must go now, sir. It will not do for my absence to be remarked.”

“Aye, we have lingered here too long,” he agreed, moving to open the door for her. Before he did so, he paused with his hand on the latch to add, “You mind that tongue of yours in future, lass. Say nothing that you would not wish to hear repeated.”

She glanced up at him, her fears subsiding, replaced by curiosity. “Why does it matter to you what I do or what I say?”

The question seemed to take him aback, for his cheeks showed color, but he recovered swiftly and said with a shrug, “I suppose that, having taken responsibility for your safety before, I am finding it difficult to relinquish it now. I feel much the same way I would feel were one of my sisters to behave so foolishly.”

“And I suppose that your sisters, poor creatures, would instantly obey you,” she said sharply, having not the least idea why such a statement from him should instantly fire her temper again, but knowing that it did so, that she did not want him to treat her like his sisters. She glared, daring him to respond.

He was silent, but there was something in his expression when he returned her look that exasperated her.

It was as though he were merely being patient with her, waiting for her to collect herself, to be sensible, to see that she was being foolish to taunt him.

Instead of calming her, it had the opposite effect.

“Well, have you got nothing to say, Sir Nicholas?”

“There is no need to respond to such a statement.”

“Such a foolish statement, I suppose you mean!”

He said nothing.

“Oh, you enrage me! You treat me like a child, warning me to hold my tongue, to keep my opinions hidden behind my teeth, as though Elizabeth did not already know what I think of her.”

“There is a difference,” he said severely, “between speaking your mind to one Elizabeth Plantagenet—”

“I did not merely speak my mind to her; I slapped her!”

“You what?”

“You heard me!” She had not told Madeline about the slap, but now that she had told him, her tongue seemed to rattle on of its own accord.

“She arrived at Sheriff Hutton prating smugly of how Richard had sent her there to quiet stupid rumors that he had murdered Anne and wanted to marry her! ’Twas utter nonsense.

I—I lost my temper, and I slapped her—hard!

” Her palm tingled again at the memory, and she rubbed it hard against her skirt.

Sir Nicholas’s lips pressed tightly together for a moment before he said, “There is a vast difference between that woman, bereft of her accustomed rank and forced to bend her knee to a usurper, and the king’s bride. There are dangers you cannot—”

“What dangers? What possible danger can there be to me, the king’s ward, here in the king’s own palace?

You speak nonsense, sir.” Impatiently she moved again to pass him, to reach for the latch, since he showed no more inclination to open the door and let her out; but, as she brushed against him, he caught her arm, and before she knew his intent, he had pulled her hard against him with one hand and gripped her chin with the other, forcing it up so his lips could claim hers in a swift, bruising kiss.

She struggled in his grasp, but she was pinned against his powerful body, and her skirts entangled her legs when she tried to kick him. Her left hand was free but although she flailed at him, it had no more effect than a leaf battering a tree trunk.

She knew his intent was only to teach her the danger of thinking she was safe in a palace filled with men of every sort from rough yeomen guards to knights of the realm accustomed to having their most casual request obeyed instantly.

But when his lips and hands touched her and she found her soft body clamped against his muscular one, a fire unlike any she had experienced before spread through her, flashing from lips to toes through every nerve and muscle of her anatomy.

So hot was the flame that it took all the strength she had to keep from melting in its heat, melting against him, softening, yielding, surrendering.

Sir Nicholas did not prolong the moment but freed her within seconds, setting her back on her heels with a quickness that left her gasping.

Recovering swiftly, her fury augmented— though she would rather have died than admit it—by the very speed with which he had released her, she raised her hand to strike him.

“Do not,” he snapped.

The gesture froze in mid-air, stopped as much by the hard look in his eyes as by the tone of his voice.

Knowing well that she could never trust him not to retaliate in kind if she did hit him, she stood unmoving, glaring back, holding his gaze with hers until suddenly, the glint of steel vanished from his eyes.

His expression softened then, and for a moment she saw a look she had never seen before in any man’s eyes, one she was not at all certain how to interpret.

There was gentleness and something else, something that set the heat tingling within her veins again.

But the look was quickly gone, followed by another she recognized only too well. He was amused.

With effort, she restrained her temper, letting her hand fall to her side again. In as offhand a manner as she could manage, she murmured, “Is that also the way you treat your sisters, Sir Nicholas?”

A muscle leapt high in his cheek, but whether she had annoyed him or only added to his amusement, she could not tell, for he turned away and yanked open the door, saying sardonically, “Go to your duty, mi geneth. If there be justice in this world, her highness will order you whipped for your tardiness.”