He and an older knight, both in chain mail, were running down the steps two at a time, shouting to their escort and waving
the carriage on. Mercy, he looked wonderful in his knightly garb, hair flying behind him, as he sprinted to the carriage.
The carriage tipped alarmingly as Jamie and the other knight leapt onto the outside of it. The carriage lurched forward, throwing
Linnet against the back of the seat. Before she could grab hold of anything, she fell against the queen as the carriage careened
around first one corner, and then another. Finally, it jerked to a halt.
Linnet untangled herself from the queen and attempted to straighten her headdress. Through the gap in the cover, she saw they
were stopped beside a low building attached to the back of the castle hall.
The carriage door burst open, and a huge, formidable man with a hard, handsome face and fading tawny hair blocked Linnet’s
view of anything behind him. It was Jamie’s father.
“Lord FitzAlan,” Linnet said. “What has happened, sir?”
He gave her a quick nod as he offered his hand to the queen. “We must make haste, Your Highness.”
FitzAlan lifted the queen down from the carriage as if she weighed no more than a rag doll. Then Jamie took his father’s place
at the carriage door. He looked every inch the gallant knight come to save her, from the determined line of his jaw to the
glint of the sword in his hand.
The tension of Jamie’s stance, alert to every danger, showed he expected trouble. She was so frightened now she wanted to
throw herself at him.
“Out. Now.” He spoke in a sharp voice as he looked to the left and right of the carriage.
She grasped the hand he held out to her and found herself almost flying through the air. Then his arm was about her waist,
holding her tight against his side. Her feet barely touched the ground as they followed the queen and FitzAlan through a low
doorway. Judging from the low arched ceiling of the passageway, they were in an undercroft.
“We are in the kitchens?” she heard the queen say.
“ ’Tis the safest route, Your Highness,” FitzAlan said.
Smells of roasting meats and warm bread wafted out to them as Jamie hurried her past the noisy entrance to the kitchen.
“What is the danger here?” she asked him.
“Hurry now.” Jamie kept one hand on her and held his sword in the other as he moved her along. All the while, his eyes searched
side to side and behind them. Linnet caught glimpses of barrels and pots and sacks of grain as they continued along the passageway
past various storerooms.
“But what is happening?” Linnet said. “Tell me.”
“Not now.”
They came to a narrow servants’ staircase. FitzAlan led the way and helped the queen after him.
“You first,” Jamie said, a firm hand at her back.
She lifted her skirts and ducked her head. The dark, enclosed stairwell seemed to have been made for smaller people. When
she looked over her shoulder, she saw Jamie taking the first steps backward, his sword at the ready.
Dear God, what was this? Linnet gave her arm a sharp shake, so that the handle of her thin dagger fell into her palm.
After climbing three flights without pausing, she was perspiring. Whether it was from exertion or fear, she could not say.
The sounds of the men’s boots and her own labored breathing echoed in her ears in the enclosed space. When FitzAlan opened
a door above her, the sudden noise of a great many voices startled her.
As FitzAlan held the door and waved them forward, Linnet stepped over the stone threshold and ducked through the low doorway
on the queen’s heels.
She found herself in a half-open corridor or gallery. Shouting filled the air, echoing off the walls and ceiling. Linnet went
at once to peer over the railing. Below her was a vast hall filled with people. They were yelling and raising sticks in the
air.
Jamie grabbed her by the arm and snatched her back from the railing. “Along here,” he ordered, pointing ahead. “Stay close
to the wall.”
FitzAlan was at the other end of the gallery, holding another door open for them. The queen gave Linnet a terrified look over
her shoulder before ducking through the doorway.
When Linnet followed her, she felt as if she had stepped into another world. She was in an oak-paneled room with tall, cheval-glass
windows on one wall and exquisite tapestries on the others. Through the doorway opposite, she could see several connecting
rooms.
“Where are we?” She tilted her head back to take in the elaborate ceiling with its even rows of carved paterae.
Queen Katherine looked about her and heaved a sigh. “We are in the queen’s apartments.”
“You’ll be safe here,” FitzAlan said. “We have guards posted at all the doors.”
“I will advise His Grace the Duke of Bedford that you have arrived,” Jamie said to the queen. “He will want to explain the
situation to you himself.”
“You are not leaving us, are you?” the queen said before Linnet could get the words out. “After frightening us half to death,
you cannot abandon us.”
“My father will stay with you while I—”
“My son will stay with you,” FitzAlan interrupted. “Jamie, I have other matters to attend to now that we have them away from
that crowd.”
“Why were all those men carrying sticks and bats?” Linnet asked.
“Jamie can explain.” Tilting his head toward the door they had come through, he said to Jamie, “I’ll send a few more men up
to guard the servants’ entrance.”
With that, FitzAlan dipped his head in the general direction of the queen and Linnet and departed.
“Your father is a man of few words,” the queen remarked.
“That was a long speech for him,” Jamie said,
shrugging his shoulders in a gesture that was so familiar it sliced through Linnet’s heart.
She longed to step into his arms and rest her head on his chest. In the month since he had broken their marriage plans and
left Windsor, she had been miserable. She could not even summon an interest in pursuing her enemies. While she still read
the reports Master Woodley sent her, she had not returned to London. Instead, she had remained in the quiet of Windsor, where
she and the queen could comfort each other for their losses.
She wanted to ask Jamie a thousand questions. Was he still angry? Did he suffer as she did?
Was he betrothed to Agnes?
Instead, she asked, “What is happening here?”
The queen, however, did not wish to discuss the turmoil taking place outside the doors of this quiet apartment.
“King Henry loved to come here,” she said before Jamie could answer. A soft smile touched the queen’s lips as her gaze moved
around the room.
Linnet sensed her friend’s sadness and bit back her impatience to question Jamie. “You were here with the king?”
The queen nodded. “This castle brought back fond memories of his grandfather, John of Gaunt.”
“They say he was closer to his grandfather than his father,” Linnet said.
The queen took her hand and squeezed it. “ ’Tis true. Of course, his father was often off fighting when Henry was young.”
Henry Bolingbroke, forever known as the Usurper, had favored his second son, Thomas. When he was in England, it was Thomas
he took to court with him. He left his
heir to spend time either with his grandfather or at Oxford under the tutelage of his half uncle, Henry Beaufort. Linnet
was not alone in believing Henry was a better king for it.
“This was one of John of Gaunt’s favorite castles,” the queen said.
John of Gaunt not only ruled on behalf of his nephew, Richard II, during Richard’s minority, but he was also the richest man
in England in his time. A look around the opulent room made it easy to believe.
Both women turned at the sound of boots and male voices. A moment later, the door swung open and the Duke of Bedford entered.
“ ’Tis good to see you, dear sister,” Bedford said, leaning over the queen’s hand. He gave Linnet a polite nod, then continued,
“I’ve sent a messenger to intercept the king’s carriage. There is no point in his coming to open Parliament until things are
quiet here.”
“I will not see my son?”
Bedford’s eyes crinkled at the corners in a kindly smile. “I hope he can be brought here soon.”
Linnet watched as the queen worried the kerchief in her hands. Would she not complain? Would she not shout and demand to be
with her son? Surely, the queen could bring some pressure to bear? Make threats, promises, whatever it took.
Linnet found it hard to understand her friend’s passive acceptance of her loss of control over her child. But then, Linnet
had not been raised in a royal household, where such things were understood from childhood.
“Where are my trunks?” the queen asked.
Her trunks?
She is separated from her only son once
again, and she asks after her trunks? And the queen put the question to Bedford, as if he were one of her servants and not
the effective ruler of England and France.
The duke, however, showed no offense. “Your clerk of the wardrobe is overseeing their removal from the wagon.”
Linnet now understood why the queen had asked: Owen was likely to be wherever her trunks were. Rather than fight her situation,
she sought Owen to comfort her in her distress.
“Sir James,” the duke said, interrupting her thoughts, “your presence will reassure the ladies. Stay and keep them company.”
Damn his father and damn the duke for leaving him to cope with the women. Now that he’d seen Linnet—and the queen, of course—to
safety, he wished to be gone.
Linnet turned to him and his breath caught in his throat.
“Tell us now,” she said. “What is happening here?” Once again, the queen diverted the conversation. “I shall rest until Owen
comes. The events of the day have been rather trying.”
“I will help you get settled,” Linnet said.
The queen held up her hand and gave Linnet a wan smile. “Stay with Sir James. I know you are anxious to hear the news.”
Jamie watched the queen pass through two adjoining rooms before entering the third and closing the door behind her.
He was alone with Linnet, which was the last thing he
wanted—or rather, the last thing he needed. Was everyone conspiring against him?
“Well?” Linnet folded her arms and tapped her foot, in that way she had. “Are you going to tell me?”
It took him a moment to recall where he was and what she was asking about. “Gloucester and the bishop are still at each other’s
throats. The King’s Council feared Gloucester’s supporters in Parliament would incite violence, so they banned the members
from carrying weapons.”
“I take it they did not foresee the need to include wooden bats in the ban?”
“They did not,” he said, amused by her remark, despite himself. “With the merchants and Gloucester’s other supporters up in
arms—or bats—nothing can get done. Bedford is threatening to cart his fractious family off to Nottingham and force them to
come to terms.”
At the sound of a door scraping behind him, Jamie turned to see Stephen Carleton duck in through the servants’ entrance.
“Stephen!” Jamie called out as he went to greet him. Stephen, who was just ten years older than he was, was more like a brother
to him than an uncle.
“You think I came to see you?” Stephen said. “Nay. I heard the exquisite and delightful Lady Linnet was here.”
Stephen opened his arms to Linnet. When she ran into them, Stephen swung her in a circle.
“You devil, Linnet, why have you not come to see us?” Stephen said. “Isobel told me to give you a most severe scolding.”
“Where is Isobel?” Jamie asked, interrupting what seemed to him an excessively warm greeting. “Did she not come with you?”
“She cannot travel now,” Linnet said in a tone that suggested he was an idiot.
“She is with child again,” Stephen said with a broad grin.
With a warm smile that shone in her eyes, Linnet said, “How happy she must be. I am sure Isobel is the best of mothers.”
Jamie reminded himself that Linnet did not want to be a mother; she wanted to murder men who had wronged her family.
“I just arrived, but there is no point in staying if Parliament can get no business done,” Stephen said. “I intend to turn
around and go home. The two of you should come visit us until this is settled.”
Linnet’s cheeks turned pink and she dropped her gaze to the floor. Jamie did not believe for a moment that Stephen had not
heard he and Linnet had parted ways. When Jamie glared at him, Stephen merely smiled and looked at him expectantly.
Jamie cleared his throat. “I will come for a few days, as I have matters to attend to nearby.”
“What matters?” Stephen asked, knowing damned well Jamie did not wish to discuss this in front of Linnet.
“I believe you know of my errands.”
“I heard your mother told you about the monk who was your father, and that you intend to visit the monastery where he lived.”
Linnet gasped aloud. Jamie ignored her; he did not want to hear—or answer—her questions.
“Apparently you are not my only uncle,” Jamie said. “The monk’s brother wishes to see me.”
“Sir Charles Wheaton,” Stephen said. “I know him. He is a good man.”
Jamie sighed. In addition to Stephen’s uncanny ability to hear news before anyone else, he seemed to know everyone.
“You have other business as well?” Stephen asked. Jamie told himself there was no reason not to say it; it was no secret.
Still, he was careful not to look at Linnet as he spoke. “I intend to visit Lord Stafford to arrange my betrothal to his daughter.”
Stephen’s brows shot up. For once, Jamie had surprised him. Stephen took a step closer to Linnet, as if taking sides.
So much for blood ties.
“H
old your shield higher,” Jamie instructed.
He was practicing with Martin in the enclosed courtyard behind the palace.
Martin lifted his shield, and Jamie gave it a good crack with the flat of his sword that sent Martin back three paces.
“That is the way,” Jamie called out when the lad came back swinging.