The diminutive maidservant drove another long pin against Alice’s scalp, trying to secure the large heart-shaped headdress to Alice’s hair.

‘Ouch!’ yelped Alice, raising one hand as if to ward off the onslaught of another attack by a pin. ‘I really think it will stay on now,’ she continued, a note of pleading in her voice.

‘All done, my lady,’ the maidservant announced, stepping back to run a critical eye over her work, frowning. ‘Will you not let me pluck out those few hairs that are showing on your forehead? It would improve the look of the headdress.’

‘Absolutely not!’ Alice spun on the low stool to face the maid, touching her hand to the loose tendrils of hair that framed her face. ‘I know all the other ladies at court do it, but it’s not for me.’

‘Ah, well, I’ve done my best then, my lady,’ the maidservant responded doubtfully. She chose not to ask about shaving the lady’s eyebrows off; her question would most likely be met with complete outrage. Yet it was what all the noblewomen chose to do; it was the fashionable look. This lady’s eyebrows might be finely arched and coloured a rich sable, but most ladies preferred to shave them off, and redraw high arches using a fine charcoal pencil. The maidservant picked up an oval looking-glass, its frame and handle made of smooth animal horn, and offered it to Alice, who gently pushed it away.

‘Nay, I know what I look like,’ she explained her rejection. Bastien’s compliment of her hair still sung in her head; her surprise at his utterance flowed in her blood, making her wonder at his words. He was wrong, of course. Her mother continually berated her for not following the court fashion, and she knew the women giggled and pointed at her hoydenish ways. But no matter, she knew there was more to life than just sitting around looking beautiful. Every time she went anywhere with her father, she honed her skill as a physician, sucking up knowledge like a sponge. Only this time she seemed to have received more than she bargained for.

The restrictive head-dress and heavy veil pressed down on her head, pulling cruelly at her hair, emphasising her feeling of imprisonment. Her gown, too, was of an elaborately embroidered silk, the loops and whorls of golden thread adding to the weight of the skirts. She felt unbalanced, as if she could hardly stand up, let alone walk. Her own mother would clap her hands together with joy if she could see her now, wearing the height of fashion; what irony that she was wearing these clothes behind enemy lines. She frowned. Both her mother, and Edmund, would be frantic with worry now, probably sending out a search party at this moment.

Edmund. The man she had agreed to marry. Her mind rummaged through the chaos of the past few days, through the shock of capture, the exhausting march, searching for the details of Edmund’s face, his gentle brown eyes. But every time she caught the faintest trail of him, the weak image was nudged away by an insistent, demanding pair of green eyes. Damn the man, that he had the power to corrupt her thoughts!

‘Are you ready, my lady?’ the maidservant enquired.

‘As ready as I’ll ever be,’ Alice smiled tautly at the girl. ‘You’d better lead the way.’

The maidservant nodded. ‘I was told to make sure you arrived safely at the great hall, my lady.’

‘Oh, really? To make sure I don’t slip away?’ Alice replied, studying the rising colour in the girl’s cheek. ‘Fear not. There’s not much chance of me fleeing dressed in these clothes.’

The maidservant hoisted a blazing torch out of its iron holder, and pulled the door open, holding the flame aloft to lead the way down the steep spiral stairs. Alice’s fingers trailed along the damp stone wall as she descended, countering her feeling of unsteadiness. The torch threw strange, flickering shadows up and down the stairwell, making the stone glisten under its shuddering light. Despite knowing her father to be in the great hall, Alice could not shed the feeling that she descended slowly to her doom.

After what seemed like an eternity, the maid halted before a wide, Gothic-arched doorway. Placing the torch carefully in an empty iron bracket at the side of the oak door, the maid turned the handle and pushed the door open slightly. ‘The great hall, my lady,’ she announced in a sonorous whisper. ‘I’ll leave you now.’

Heart thudding with—what…anticipation, a fear of the unknown?—Alice teetered on the threshold, allowing the sounds of merrymaking from the hall to wash over her: the click of dice, the roars of laughter and the light, bouncing tones of music. Her customary self-confidence drained away; she was about to enter a roomful of strangers—nay, not just strangers, but her enemies too, men who wished to harm her King. She edged backwards into the corridor. The maid had disappeared, no doubt assuming Alice would enter the great hall with no argument. But no, that was not how it was going to be!

Heart rate quickening, Alice turned, walking down the corridor with light rapid steps, skirts swinging forcefully. Now she would escape; she would seize this moment when no one was watching her. Her father obviously thought that by being pleasant to these barbarians, they would let him go; Alice was not so sure. Hopefully, dressed as she was, she would be mistaken for one of the ladies in the Duke of York’s court, allowed to come and go as she pleased. Her pulse beat wildly in her throat and at her wrists. She had almost gained the small door at the far end of the corridor, its rectangular outlines looming out of the dimness towards her. Her salvation.

Her white fingers reached out to turn the handle, made contact with the forged iron ring. Oiled on a regular basis, it slid easily around, and she pulled… Suddenly a muscled arm shot forwards over her shoulder and smartly slammed the door shut again.

‘And where do you think you’re going?’ His hot breath touched her ear; the skin on the side of her neck tingled. Alice eyed the massive palm in the centre of the door, and knew, without looking, to whom it belonged. Tears of frustration wetted her eyes…she had been so close!

She twisted angrily, trapped between Bastien’s huge frame and the thick door behind her. In the half-light, she caught the gilded gleam of his eyes, smelled the heady scent of his masculine aroma.

‘I was trying to leave,’ she admitted, turning her palms heavenwards. ‘I thought I had a chance.’ Her voice sounded small in the cavernous confines of the passage.

‘Did you think that we might have forgotten about you?’ He tilted his head to one side in question, the high-rolled neck of his gypon creasing with the gesture. ‘Do you honestly think we are that dim-witted?’

‘I don’t credit you with much intelligence,’ she replied, sourly, annoyed that her escape attempt had been foiled. ‘You Yorkists are known as men of war, who would kill first and ask questions afterwards.’

‘Is that your own opinion, or one that you have gleaned from the tittle-tattle of others?’ His well-defined lips twisted into a mocking smile.

She placed her hands on her hips, indignant. ‘I don’t listen to gossip! Nay, I’ve seen how you treat your prisoners; I saw the wounds you’ve inflicted on our soldiers on the battlefield…it’s enough.’

‘So you have formed your judgement on the basis of one battle, and on the hasty actions of one soldier?’

‘I’ve helped my father many times; I’ve seen more than just one battle.’

‘Hah!’ he laughed, a short, caustic noise. ‘You speak like a veteran soldier.’ He leaned in closer to her, the taut angles of his face just inches from her own. ‘Yet all you are is a maid completely out of her depth. Stop trying to second guess everything; in this situation you cannot win.’

Alice sagged back against the door, defeated. ‘It was worth a try,’ she muttered, her blue eyes flashing up at him, acutely aware of the closeness of his chiselled features. She swallowed; her throat was as dry as a husk.

‘Has life at court become a little bit tedious?’ he chided her. ‘Is that why you persist in putting yourself in danger?’

‘Nay!’ she protested. Why did he have to be so close? ‘I do it because I want to learn! My father teaches me, so I can heal people too!’ He made her sound like she was a child, a bored wanton out for a bit of fun. He couldn’t be further from the truth.

He glared down at her, blond strands of hair falling down across his forehead. This woman was impossible, frustrating; he couldn’t label her, neither lady, nor peasant. She was so unlike any woman he had ever met before. How different she appeared even now! In the upstairs chamber, clad only in that diaphanous shirt, she had been free, flowing, her hair loose and tumbled. His throat constricted at the memory. Now her beautiful hair was hidden beneath an elaborate padded head-dress, her svelte curves emphasised by the fitted seams of the gown. The wide, curving neck of the dress displayed an expanse of white throat and neck, a frantic pulse beating rapidly at its base. A pang of longing for her faded linen shirt scorched through him. She was close, too close!

‘Come on,’ he muttered abruptly, turning on his heel. ‘The Duke is anxious to speak to you.’

She trailed after him miserably, her feet dragging.

‘You seem to have slowed down a bit since we marched to Ludlow,’ he muttered drily, halting up ahead in the passage to wait for her.

‘It’s the gown,’ she explained, frustrated. ‘It’s like walking in thick mud.’

He smiled at her analogy, catching at her hand, intending to speed her up, to help her, he wasn’t sure which. ‘You would never have escaped wearing that,’ he chuckled, almost to himself. His lean, sinewy fingers tightened around her palm; a spark leapt up her arm, encircling her heart, burning.

Crowds of people thronged about the great hall, full of the Duke’s soldiers and their prisoners. Alongside them sat the usual retainers of the castle: the servants, the estate workers and some of the villagers, too poor or too ill to provide for themselves. The air was thick, muggy from the fire smoke and the combined breath and sweat of the crowd. Raising the long sweeping hem of her gown to negotiate the wooden steps to the high dais on which the nobility sat, Alice was glad of Bastien’s supporting hand on her elbow.

The Duke of York sat in the middle of a long length of oak table, talking animatedly to her father. Why, to look at them it could have been that they were the best of friends chatting and laughing with each other. But Alice noticed the lines of strain around her father’s mouth, the redness around his eyes, and knew that he was not finding the conversation easy.

‘Sit here,’ Bastien ordered curtly, indicating an empty high-backed chair next to her father. His elbow nudged hers as he flung himself into a chair next to her. Alice slipped into her chair gracefully, her skirts settling around her in graceful folds.

The Duke, who, with her father had watched her approach, smiled at her. ‘Well, my lady, are you well rested?’ He ran appreciative eyes over her attire. ‘I see the servants have found some appropriate garments. Doesn’t she look well in them?’ The Duke glanced at her father for agreement.

‘She looks much better,’ her father agreed, taking her small hand in his: a sign of silent support. With that gesture, Alice’s heart lightened. They would come through this together. But when she looked into her father’s eyes, she realised something was wrong; his whole demeanour seemed humbled, chastened. She caught the merest shake of his head, and realised she couldn’t ask him all the questions that tumbled in her brain.

‘Help yourself to something to eat,’ the Duke advised her, ‘and then we will talk.’ He resumed his conversation with her father, and Alice was left staring at her empty pewter plate, her stomach churning with nerves, with fear. If only she could read her father’s mind!

‘What’s going on, Bastien?’ In her panic, she appealed quietly to him, sitting on her right. Suddenly the man who had taken her prisoner, who had dragged her through the mud and mire of the countryside and treated her hardly better than a common peasant appeared before her as her ally, her haven. To rely on such a man was the last thing she wanted to do, but, adrift in this uncertain situation, it seemed her only course of action.

Bastien had already loaded his plate: slices of roast chicken, crusty bread rolls and a pile of cooked vegetables formed a colourful mound before him. He shrugged his shoulders at her low question. ‘You know as much as I do, maid. Where the Duke is concerned, his plans are often not revealed until the very last moment.’ He grinned, the smile lighting his face, lines crinkling out from the sides of his eyes. ‘Always keeps his enemies guessing…and keeps them on their toes.’

Her wide blue eyes swept over his face. ‘But we mean nothing to him,’ she hissed. ‘He can’t keep us here for ever. What would be the reason?’

Bastien stabbed his knife into a chunk of chicken, slicing a small piece off. A glorious scent arose from the woman next to him; a heady combination of rosewater, of lavender—she smelled like a summer’s day. Shifting uneasily in his seat, he chewed slowly, methodically, willing himself to remain unaware, to still his heightened senses. Don’t become involved, the logical side of his mind shouted at him, this maid’s business is none of your concern. Why was she any different from the other women he had met over the years? She was not important.

‘Listen, my lady, it’s nothing to do with me,’ he growled at her. ‘All I want is a decent meal and some good wine, without you prattling away beside me!’

‘Very well!’ Alice stared in silent fury at the shining wood, the sparkling pewter-ware before her. She was sick of being treated like this, of being pushed around, of being told to wait, told to speed up. Despite her mother’s best efforts to the contrary, she had been brought up to know her own mind.

Alice slapped her hand down on the table and stood up abruptly, turning towards the Duke. Red spots of colour bloomed across her cheeks. Bastien watched her jerky movements with mild amusement—just what did the girl intend to do now?

‘My lord, I demand to know what you intend to do with us!’ Alice cut across a conversation that the Duke held with a nobleman on the other side of him.

Her father tugged at her arm. ‘Alice, sit down, do!’

‘Nay, Father, I will not!’ She didn’t look at him, fearing her courage would fail before Fabien’s gentle look.

‘I beg your pardon?’ The Duke’s head swivelled round, his eyes narrowing on her. ‘Do you address me?’

‘Aye, my lord, I do,’ she replied boldly, although a violent trembling shook her knees. At her back, Bastien watched as she touched her fingertips to the table top, as if to keep her balance. Despite her bold move to address the Duke, she was terrified. A grudging admiration grew in his veins: she had courage, this maid, he had to admit. He chewed slowly on a piece of bread.

‘I could have you clapped in irons for the way you have just spoken,’ the Duke replied tartly. His voice, soft, sibilant, held a dangerous thread. ‘Or maybe sent to a nunnery to end your days. If you had been my daughter, I would have curbed your headstrong ways long before now—’ he threw an accusing look at her father ‘—for they will bring you nothing but trouble.’

‘Are you saying that it’s better to be meek and mild and just accept one’s fate?’ The words burst from her mouth before she had time to think.

‘Hold your tongue!’ the Duke snapped. A muscle jumped in his square-cut jaw. ‘This time, young woman, you will accept your fate, for I do have a plan that you will follow to the very last detail, otherwise…’

‘Otherwise…?’ Her voice emerged, small now, chastised.

‘Otherwise your father will die.’

Her muscles slackened, crumpled beneath her, and she fell back into the seat, her eyes darting from her father’s concerned face to the Duke’s arrogant profile.

‘Wh-wh-what?’ she stammered. Sickness roiled in her stomach.

‘Listen to me well, my girl. This country is in trouble. No one has seen hide or hair of King Henry for months. The barons are taking the law into their own hands, feuding, pillaging, kidnapping; it’s all happening right under the King’s nose and he doesn’t seem to care.’ The Duke sighed, leaning back in his chair to take a long sip from his pewter goblet. The rubies set into the thick stem flashed with a red brilliance.

‘Nay, it’s not true. Tell him, Father! Why, we saw the King not above a sennight ago!’ Even to her own ears, her words were slick with falsehood. Her mind scrabbled to remember the last time she had seen King Henry.

The Duke set his pewter goblet down with studied patience, turning his light-grey eyes towards her. ‘Do not feed me lies, young lady. Your father has told me of your close relationship with the Queen; I would use that to my advantage. You will return to court and find out what has happened to the King, find out what kind of mental state he is in.’

Beneath her fingers, Alice pleated, then unpleated the thick silk of her skirts. A cold stone of fear lodged in her stomach. She had heard Queen Margaret’s talk at court, of how she hated the Duke of York, the king’s cousin, convinced that all he wanted was to snatch the throne and be King of England himself.

‘You’re asking me to spy for you,’ Alice whispered.

‘Precisely.’

‘And you’ll keep my father a prisoner here until I come back with news.’

‘Why, you do understand quickly,’ Richard replied, a mocking smile on his face. His skin appeared stretched, taut, with the dark shadow of a beard about his jaw. ‘And if you don’t come back, why, then you will never see your father again.’

Tears welled in her eyes, and she hung her head, trying to hide her weakness, but her mind spun into action. How would they know that she brought the truth? She could return here with a bundle of lies to suit the Duke’s ear and secure her father’s release. What could be simpler?

‘And to make sure you bring back the truth—’ the Duke’s speech jerked once more in her brain ‘—I’ll send an escort with you. Someone I can trust.’ He placed great emphasis on the last word, indicating that he didn’t trust her in the slightest. ‘Someone to make certain that you don’t tittle-tattle.’

Alice lifted her pewter goblet, raising it to her lips. Some idiot of a soldier didn’t worry her; she’d be able to outwit him in an instant, and he would be none the wiser. The thought of escaping this place, of rounding up support for her father, imbued her with sudden confidence. She took a deep gulp, feeling the honeyed liquid slide down her throat.

‘Who’s the lucky man?’ As Alice set her goblet down, her eyes swept the room for a suitable candidate. Over there, lounging by the fire, a short man, with thickset brow and kind face—aye, that was the sort of person who could come with her. ‘I’m sorry, what did you say?’ Suffused with her own plans, her burgeoning hope, she had failed to catch the Duke’s words.

‘Lord Bastien will go with you, naturally.’

Alice’s confidence drained from her limbs. Her father took her small, cold hands in his. ‘It will be all right, Alice, you’ll see.’

‘Nay.’ She jumped up, almost tipping her chair back with the violence of the movement, fixing her father with her imperious blue orbs. ‘Nay, Father, it will not be all right!’

The gardens at Ludlow has been set out some years ago, in a formal pattern of rectangles and half-circles. Alice’s skirts whisked over the low box hedges as she walked angrily down one of the main paths. The edge of her sleeve caught a rose head in its final unstable moments as a flower, and the pink petals tumbled down, emitting a sweet heady perfume as they fell in her wake, showering the uneven stone path.

Footsteps descended purposefully on the steps behind her, following her.

She spun round, believing it to be her father, searching the blue-fringed twilight for his familiar silhouette.

‘Oh, it’s you!’ she blurted out, dismayed as she recognising Bastien’s bright hair emerging from the shadows.

‘I came to fetch you back,’ he explained, a weariness in his voice.

‘Oh, aye, I forgot. It wouldn’t do to let me out of your sight now, would it?’ she replied woodenly. ‘Don’t you realise this is all your fault?’ An owl hooted, eerie and chilling through the oak woods that surrounded the garden. The rushing sound of the river broke through the trees, continuous, insistent.

‘No doubt you have wrought some intricately ill-informed explanation.’ Bastien cupped her elbow gently and began to lead her back to the castle, his manner deferential, formal. He had to maintain this emotional distance from her; it was easier that way.

She ignored his sarcastic comment. ‘If you had let me go in the forest, then none of this would have happened. My father would not be a prisoner, I wouldn’t have to spy upon my friends…’ She wrenched her elbow away from him. ‘Tell the Duke you can’t do this, that you’re busy!’

‘I only wish I was!’ Bastien stopped for a moment. His breath puffed out, short bursts of mist in the chill night air. ‘Believe me, escorting a wilful young lady back to the King’s court isn’t my idea of a good time. But the Duke knows full well that I was intending to spend the winter on my estate sorting my affairs out.’

‘See, you are busy. Someone else needs to go in your stead.’

‘What, so you can give some poor unfortunate soldier the slip?’ he chortled, the iron mask of his reserve melting away. ‘I’ve only known you a handful of days, Alice, but even in that short time, I can read your mind.’

I can read your mind. The intimate words, husky and low, punched into her brain. Her hands flew up, covering her cheeks, as if trying to place a barrier between his large, imposing presence and herself. She didn’t want this, didn’t want him here, next to her, insinuating himself wholeheartedly into her life. The thought of him accompanying her back to Abberley filled her with horror. And then there was Edmund…

‘And how am I supposed to explain your presence?’ she asked desperately, her hands falling away from her face. ‘Everyone will be most surprised that I have lost a father and gained a Yorkist thug in exchange. Edmund would certainly have something to say about that.’

‘Edmund…?’ He let the question drift over the evening air.

‘None of your business!’ Alice clamped her lips together, wishing she had never mentioned the name.

‘Ah, the young beau,’ he deduced quickly, alert to the tiny tilt of her head, the softening of her voice. ‘The man you intend to marry.’

‘The man I will marry,’ she corrected him. ‘Which will make it all the more difficult to explain you!’ She jabbed a finger into the middle of his chest; underneath the soft pad, his skin refused to yield: a powerful cage of muscle and rib, bound together by his innate strength. Alice dropped her fingers hastily.

‘I am the man who saved you from the evil clutches of the Duke of York and brought you home. It would be the least you could do to provide me with bed and board for a few days after such a daring rescue…’

‘Nay, nay…’ Alice backed away ‘…please tell me you jest.’ The very thought of him staying at Abberley, of having to be nice to him!

‘No jest, my lady, but the Duke’s plan in every detail.’

‘It won’t work, you’re completely mad, he’s completely mad!’

‘It’s a good thing I’m thick-skinned,’ he muttered. The wide span of his hands curved around her shoulders, the warmth from his skin flowing through the thin silk covering of her gown. ‘Listen, it’s not for ever, just until I have the information that the Duke needs. Then you need never see me again and can spend all your time with your pretty beau.’

The words rankled. ‘He’s not like that,’ she responded irritably, feeling the box hedge push its prickly leaves through the material of her skirts and into the back of her calves. She felt uncomfortable hearing Edmund described as her ‘beau’, for up to this moment he had been a friend, and nothing more. Why, it was only a couple of days ago that she had agreed to marry him! Bastien’s choice of words made Edmund sound like some sort of court fop. Unease sluiced through her veins, a trickle of doubt. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about; you don’t even know him.’

‘Aye, but I know you,’ he shot back, ‘and I know your demanding, wilful behaviour. No man in his right mind would put up with that, so your Edmund, well…all I can say is “good luck” to him.’ Bastien shrugged his shoulders.

‘That’s it! I’m not staying here to listen to this a moment longer!’ Alice pushed past his large frame, almost tipping herself into the flower-bed in the process. A shaft of pure rose scent burst into the air, strong and heady. ‘Edmund is not like that at all!’ she threw back over her shoulder before mounting the stone steps. Ahead of her, the arched doorway stood open, throwing out a shaft of warm light, like a beacon. ‘At least he knows how to treat a lady!’

In two short strides he was upon her, one hand gripping her upper arm, preventing forward movement. His distinctive smell of musky leather, spliced with a tint of mead, curled around her. ‘I would treat you like a lady…’ his voice lowered, a tantalising baritone ‘…if you behaved like one.’