Secrets at Court by Blythe Gifford

Author:Blythe Gifford
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarlequinUKLtd
Published: 2014-04-09T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

Anne’s first thought was to fight, not surrender. She had struggled all her life against her feeble flesh, refusing to yield to its weakness, refusing to be the slave of pain. She could not ignore her damaged leg, but she could suffer it as a knight might suffer a scar of battle, knowing he had earned it bravely.

Pleasure was still an unfamiliar foe, yet even against pleasure, she might have triumphed. It was the heart’s want that she could not fight. The want that he must not see. The want she had buried so deeply she no longer knew it was there, so when it rose, fierce and fiery as a dragon, she had no defence. She simply let herself be kissed.

And then, she kissed back.

She couldn’t stop the gasp of desire that gripped her throat, the tears that burned her eyes at the realisation that someone would want to get so close. Without judgement. With desire.

At least one time.

One of them—he? She?—took a breath. A pause that broke the kiss only to let him take her lips again

But with that breath, she was Anne again. Anne with ugly hair and a lame foot and nothing but lies to tell this man.

She pursed her lips, pushed him away and squeezed her eyes shut so he would not see the wistful look that must have crept into her gaze. She should not have kissed him. Not the first time and not the second and least of all now.

Safer to remain ignored and unseen.

He stood and stepped away, out of reach, seeking distance as much as she, and parted his lips to speak.

‘Don’t!’ she said. Her strength was gone. His regrets would only sharpen her own. ‘Do not say you are sorry.’

‘Sorry?’

She held her breath, waiting for him to break the silence.

‘I am not sorry,’ he said at last. ‘I am not sorry at all.’

If he had crossed the room to touch her again, she would have turned to fire, a flame of yes and yes and yes once more.

But he did not. He left the room, pulling the wooden door behind him, and not until she could no longer hear his steps did she breathe.

He had not kissed her out of pity and he was not sorry that he had and that was the most frightening thing of all.

* * *

Nicholas slept little that night, so when the Archbishop summoned him to the Priory the next morning, he wasted little time.

As soon as he arrived, and without ceremony, the man thrust a parchment into his hands. ‘Here.’

He glanced at the carefully written lines. He had a little Latin, more than most of his station, so he stumbled through, trying to decipher the words.

Silence stretched.

‘It says,’ the Archbishop said, finally, ‘that given that Thomas Holland and Joan plighted their troth before a witness months prior to her marriage to Salisbury, the church says that marriage is valid, the marriage to Salisbury should be put aside and the Pope should so judge the same.

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