MAIDEN in the Tudor Court. June Francis
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to her sides.
‘What is it you want?’ she cried.
‘Coin to buy bread and a pallet for the night,’ he replied.
‘I have none. I’m just a poor lad who’s come from the country to try to earn a crust.’
‘Then I’ll have to take yer cloak,’ said that voice in her ear. His foul breath caused her to gag. ‘And don’t try any funny business or I’ll choke the life out of yer.’
With shaking hands Rosamund attempted to unfasten the ties at her throat. But he grew impatient and dragged the garment from her, causing the ties to snap, before running off with it. Furious with herself for behaving like a frightened hen, she gave chase. After all, it was possible that he would lead her out of this maze of alleys. Instead, she ended up blundering into a wall. Her hands explored its surface and she discovered that it loomed high above her and carried on horizontally for what seemed an age.
Surely it must lead somewhere?
Rosamund jogged beside it, tripping over rubbish several times in the gathering gloom. At last she came to a gateway and was about to try to open the door when she heard footsteps on the other side. The door opened and a religious appeared. She gazed at Rosamund from beneath her wimple and suddenly her eyes widened.
‘By the saints, Harry, where have you been these past six months?’ she asked in a charmingly accented voice. ‘Why did you have to go off the way you did? There was really no need. You won’t know it, but Alex left London. Although perhaps you met with him on your travels?’ she asked anxiously.
‘I think you are mistaking me for someone else,’ said Rosamund.
The nun looked uncertain and peered into Rosamund’s damp face. ‘Aye, I see now that you are not Black Harry, but you are very like him.’ She placed a hand on Rosamund’s chest and smiled straight into her eyes. ‘Is it possible that you are kin to him?’
‘I don’t know a Black Harry. I had a brother once called Harry, but he drowned.’
The nun’s expression altered. ‘You must come with me. I know someone who would be interested to meet you.’
Rosamund felt a prickly feeling in the nape of her neck and suddenly knew this religious was perhaps not what she seemed. At that moment there was the sound of a man’s voice in the yard behind her. Instantly, Rosamund recognised her stepbrother’s voice. She shoved the nun against the door and then she ran like the wind along the passageway.
To her relief there came a turning and the next moment she arrived at a tributary of the Thames. She paused to catch her breath, but she knew she could not delay. She might be completely mistaken about the nun, but she definitely was not about that voice. Lowering her head against the swirling snowflakes, Rosamund began to walk uphill. So it was she did not notice the tall, dark figure coming towards her and blundered into him. Caught off balance, he swayed. She clutched his cloak, but he slipped in the snow and they both fell to the ground with her on top of him. He arched his body in an attempt to throw her off, but she was entangled in his cloak so that proved impossible. He reached up and pushed. Rosamund gasped, thinking that he must not have realised where he had put his hands and dragged on one of his arms. ‘Master, will you desist and release me!’ she cried in a panic.
On hearing that muffled voice coming from somewhere beneath his cloak, Alex could scarcely believe his luck. ‘Master Appleby! Or should I say Mistress Appleby?’ he said in a velvety tone.
Rosamund collapsed on top of him and lay unmoving, listening to the heavy thud-thud-thud of his heart and the gallop of her own. He knew her secret, but she deemed him the lesser of two evils. ‘Master Nilsson,’ she gasped. ‘I lost myself in the back alleys and was robbed of my cloak and then I saw a religious, who thought I was someone called Black Harry. I find that very strange in the light of my having had a brother called Harry. Then whose voice did I hear beyond the wall but that of my stepbrother, Edward.’
‘You mean Fustian was inside the Steel Yard?’
‘Keep your voice down! So that’s what that place is,’ she murmured. ‘I have heard of the headquarters of the Hanseatic League, but never set foot inside. What was Edward doing there? I knew I had to escape. If he catches me now, then it will be your fault. You’re lying on part of your cloak and I can’t tug it free.’
‘Will you be quiet! Now, if you will release your hold on my cloak we can free ourselves.’
Relieved, she tried to do as he asked, but one of her hands was caught beneath his body and it required effort to free it. He hissed at her to stop.
‘But you’re lying on my hand,’ she explained in an undertone.
He muttered indistinctly, lifting himself up and glancing about him as he did so. He tried not to think about what was going on in his loins. Mistress Appleby might have stopped wriggling, but the damage was already done and he could only hope she was unaware of his arousal. What was it about this woman that she could stir up a whole host of conflicting emotions inside him at such a dangerous time? If Fustian came upon them now, then they would be at a huge disadvantage.
‘That’s better,’ gasped Rosamund, stretched her cramped fingers. She felt a bump against her belly and shifted to avoid it.
Alex groaned and, making an enormous effort, raised himself higher, taking him with her. With a final thrust he managed to throw her aside.
Rosamund scrambled to her feet and took several deep breaths. Despite the cold and damp, she had felt a heat between them that had her wanting to fan herself. But now was not the time to think of such things. They had to get away. She had only taken a couple of steps when a noise to her rear warned her that they were not alone. She called a warning to Alex before she was seized from behind.
‘Let me go,’ she cried, fearing that she had been caught by Edward.
‘Youse shut yer mouth and keep yer orders to yerself,’ snapped an unfamiliar voice.
Rosamund could scarcely believe that she had been captured by another ruffian. ‘Not now,’ she muttered, struggling to free herself.
‘We wants to know what yer’ve got in yer pockets,’ snarled the man, twisting her right arm up her back. She cried out in pain.
‘Hold fast there,’ said Alex, drawing not only his own sword, but Rosamund’s short-sword as well. ‘Release her at once.’
‘Another furriner giving his orders,’ said a woman with a sniff.
‘Just do as I say or I’ll run you through,’ said Alex.
The man who held Rosamund captive produced a dagger. ‘Come one step nearer and I’ll slit his throat.’
‘You have too much to say for yourself,’ growled Alex, and with one swift movement he knocked the dagger from the man’s hand and then, with a twirl of the other sword, he caught him a blow beneath the chin with its hilt. The dagger flew off into the darkness and the man’s hold on Rosamund’s arm slackened as he slid to the ground.
‘Hey, what have yer dun to him?’ asked his accomplice.
Alex did not bother replying, but seized Rosamund’s hand and dragged her away, hurrying her along the bank of the tributary until the woman’s cries faded into the distance.
‘Wh-where are we going?’ asked Rosamund, needing to clench her teeth in an attempt to stop them from chattering. She could not see the way ahead.
Alex bit back an oath and removed his own cloak and wrapped it round her. His fingers brushed her throat as he tied the strings and she trembled.
‘Keep still and be glad you’re a woman,’ he said brusquely. ‘I wouldn’t be so gallant if you were a man.’
‘Why should y-you feel a n-need to be gallant when y-you must believe my behaviour w-w-wicked and unseemly?’
‘I was taught by my grandmother to respect women. A habit I find difficult