In a Treacherous Court (12 page)

Something new reared within him. He’d felt possessive of her since the first crossbow bolt embedded itself in the door above her shoulder. But now he wanted to act. To make sure the world could see what he already knew. What she needed to know herself.

That she was his.

He rose, quicker than she was expecting, put his hands on her, and jerked her hips to his.

She gave a quick, nervous swallow, and tried to pull back. He held her in place.

“I am in no state tonight to do anything about my desires for you, my lady. But next time you remember a kiss, I would prefer it to be mine.”

He bent his head to hers and touched her softly, holding himself in check, falling slowly, gradually into a thing that took on a life of its own.

He was deaf, suddenly, and blind, and his only impressions were of her sweet rosemary scent and the softness of her lips.

She made a noise, a gasp, and he realized he had backed her into his desk, that she was about to fall over it.

As carefully as he could, he stepped back.

She looked at him, wild-eyed, her breath coming in pants. She lifted a shaking hand to her mouth.

As he limped slowly from the room, he decided he had achieved his aim. She would not think of her blacksmith again.

Y
ou were there when my husband died?”

Mistress Harvey looked at Susanna uncertainly. She seemed confused, half-dazed, and Susanna could see they had roused the woman from her bed, although the morning was almost halfway gone.

“Yes, I was on the same ship as he, and tried to give him some relief as he lay dying. He entrusted a last message for you to me.”

Mistress Harvey made a sound of distress, enough to divert Parker’s gaze from his post at the window into the plushly decorated room, but he swung immediately back to the street, watchful and ready.

Despite her exhaustion, or perhaps because of it, Susanna’s mind drifted back to last night. He had looked just as dangerous then, but his intense focus had been on her. On wanting her.

When he was alone with her, Parker’s smile reached all the way up to his eyes.

She shivered.

“What was the message?” Mistress Harvey whispered. She was pale, pinched. Afraid.

Embarrassed at her wandering mind, Susanna straightened. “He said he’d provided for your future. That you held his secrets.”

Mistress Harvey gave a cry, and Susanna saw Parker frown.

“Madam.” His voice was harsh and impatient. “Since attending to your husband in his last hours, Mistress Horenbout has been attacked five times. The matter involves the King, and as his courtier, I am bound to see this to a resolution.”

The widow began to weep.

“Do you know anything of this?” Susanna reached out a tentative hand and placed it on her heaving shoulder.

“I begged my husband, begged him over and over through the years, to cease his prying. I told him no good would ever come of stealing secrets.” She lifted a trembling hand to wipe her eyes.

“What secret did he entrust to you?” Parker’s voice was softer now that he saw she would cooperate.

Mistress Harvey pursed her lips. “I didn’t want to know it. So I kept it folded, as he gave it to me. It has been a burden to me since the moment it lay in my hand.”

She went to a small desk set against a wall and slipped a hand behind one of the legs. With a snick, a small drawer slid out, and Mistress Harvey withdrew a letter from it with fumbling fingers.

Parker took the folded parchment she held out and as he
read it, his expression grew … frightening. Cold, controlled. Susanna believed him capable of almost anything in that moment.

“Where did your husband get this?” Parker hadn’t moved an inch from the window, but it was as if he’d stepped toe-to-toe with Mistress Harvey. As if he loomed over her.

She trembled. “I know not. I can tell you when he came by the secret, but that is all I know. As soon as he told me it concerned the King, I wanted no part of it. But he said it was our safeguard. Someone he feared would not move against us while we had the letter.”

Susanna could see the stark fear on her face, and suddenly knew Mistress Harvey did not speak true. She did know the secret. Either she had looked, or she’d known since the beginning.

Parker said nothing for a moment, then he slipped the parchment into his money pouch. “Tell me all you know.”

“He attended a merchants’ guild meeting a year ago. He came back excited, spent the next day out of the house. When he returned that evening, he was afraid. Nervous. As if he regretted hunting down the rumor he’d heard. Now that he had the truth, he didn’t want it.”

“Common sense intervened, then.” Parker’s tone was dry, but Susanna could see he held himself in check with iron will. Whatever was on that paper had made something clear to him, and it had shaken the ground beneath him. He seemed to vibrate with tension.

“We must go. I don’t need to ask you to keep this quiet, do
I?” He held Mistress Harvey’s gaze, and Susanna saw her go paler still.

“No, sir. You need not.”

He nodded, taking hold of Susanna’s arm and pulling her along in his wake.

As they stepped outside, the front door was slammed hard and fast behind them, making her start in surprise.

“Why was she lying?” She pitched her voice low.

Parker gave her a considering look.

“She is lying because she knows the King will kill anyone who knows the secret on this paper. Swearing she doesn’t know is her only chance of survival.”

“How do we know this secret is even true?”

Parker quirked his lip. “Under normal circumstances, we wouldn’t.”

Susanna drew her cloak around her as they approached Parker’s cart. “But in this case?”

“In this case, I know this secret is true because I already knew it.”

“And yet here you are, alive.” Susanna smiled, but Parker did not smile with her.

“Until the moment I read that paper, I thought I was the only one left alive, save two, who did know it.”

Susanna swallowed the lump that formed in her throat. “Who are the other two?”

“The King himself and his brother-in-law, Charles Brandon, the Duke of Suffolk.” Parker lifted her up onto the cart, then untied the reins.

“So how did Harvey discover it?”

“There is only one way. Either the King or Suffolk has talked. And we can only hope to God it was Suffolk.”

“And if it was the King?” Susanna moved over on the driving bench, and Parker joined her. He flicked the reins.

“Then we are dead.”

The Chiefe Conditions and Qualities in a Courtier:
Not to be ill tunged, especiallie against his betters.

Of the Chief Conditions and Qualityes in a Waytyng Gentylwoman:
Not to make wise to knowe the thing that she knoweth not, but with sobernesse gete her estimation with that she knoweth.

W
hat is the secret?”

Parker turned his attention from the rutted road to look at Susanna’s serious face. “It’s safer if you don’t know.”

“Whoever is behind these attacks thinks I know anyway.”

Frustration rose in him at the truth of her words. “It could be they thought Harvey had told you of the letter, not realizing his message for you had nothing to do with the secret he kept with his wife.”

He wondered again who the bastard was, although he had his suspicions.

“Am I not damned either way, then? At least knowing the secret, I may be of some use to you. Some help.”

Parker wasn’t sure when someone had last offered to help him.

“Parker?” A frown creased her brow, and he had to hold himself back from touching her.

There were dark circles under her eyes and her skin was pale, almost translucent. Her eyes held a spark, though. Tired but determined.

If he could not trust her with the truth, he could not trust anyone. And for a long time, he’d thought trusting no one was the only wise thing he could do.

But he was so tired of the cold loneliness of the last few years. So tired of looking at each hand extended in friendship with suspicion.

He wanted the safe haven he could see in her smile.

“I cannot tell you here. Let us get home.” He urged the cart horse forward, bracing an arm around Susanna as they hit a deep pothole and the cart lurched over it.

He felt too exposed on the street. He was only one man, and whoever wished to silence them had many at his disposal.

Given the new information Mistress Harvey had provided, they could be under attack from two fronts. Harvey had been playing two dangerous games.

But Parker had a surprise up his sleeve: the plan he’d put into place with Peter Jack early yesterday morning.

Unusual though it might be, he had his own army to call in.

T
he house was quiet. Susanna had been dismayed to find Mistress Greene in the kitchen that morning, but the housekeeper had promised to lie down if she needed to.

Susanna had watched her chop vegetables, look in on the boys, and make bread. She moved slowly, but each movement was a deliberate reclamation of her territory. She gathered up the rushes before the fireplace, stained dark with her blood, and threw them into the fire. Then she slapped her hands together as if ridding them of dust, and turned her back on the flames.

Tears had prickled behind Susanna’s eyes at the housekeeper’s determination and bravery. To cover her weakness, she’d busied herself, putting on a kettle to boil, sweeping the floor, all in silence. She felt the same quiet companionship with Mistress Greene that she’d had with her mother, completing small tasks together in the kitchen.

Now, with the house so still, they looked in at the kitchen, and Susanna thought Parker always would, until the end of his days. He would never enter his house again without checking the well-being of each person in it.

Mistress Greene slept in the big chair by the kitchen fire, still pale and hollow-eyed, and a quick look at the boys showed they slept too, empty soup bowls sitting on the small table between their narrow beds.

Eric looked much better, his color back; but Peter Jack’s face was a mess of cuts and bruises, smeared green with the
unguent Maggie had left for them to apply. He stirred as they backed out of the room and opened his right eye, his left swollen shut.

“All well?” he croaked, his voice rough. Marcus had hit him across the throat, and Maggie had said it could take a week for his voice to recover.

“Shhh.” Susanna stepped forward and crouched beside him. “All is well. Parker and I will be in his study if you need us. Go back to sleep.”

Peter Jack shook his head. “I’m tired o’ sleeping.”

“Give us a few minutes, then,” Parker told him, coming up behind her. “There is something I must tell Mistress Horen-bout in private, but then you are welcome to join us.”

“Need the privy, anyway.”

Susanna helped him to sit up, and was enveloped in the strong herbal scent of the unguent. He shook his head at her offered hand and struggled to his feet on his own.

He hobbled behind them into the kitchen and started for the back door.

She watched him make his slow, painful way across the floor, then hold the wall, teetering as he slipped his feet into his outdoor boots. For the first time since she’d met him, he looked closer to the child he was than the young man he would become. She felt a fresh wave of anger at Marcus and the man who had sent him. Her breath caught in her throat and stuttered out as she exhaled, fists clenched.