Knight of Passion (15 page)

He was tired of talking, and even more tired of thinking about how to manage her and mold her to his will. All he wanted was
to be with her, to have her safe in his arms.

He remembered to lift a hand in farewell to Francois as he went out the door. ’Twas past time to go. He’d been away from her
far too long.

L
innet threw her arms around Jamie’s neck as soon as he came through the door. “The bishop kept you far too long.”

He kissed the tip of her nose. “Did you miss me?”

“I did,” she admitted, since it was far too late to pretend otherwise.

“I missed you more,” Jamie said. Then he gave her a kiss that curled her toes—and almost made her believe it.

She rested her cheek against his chest and sighed as he ran his fingers through her hair. The steady
thump-thump
of his heart brought her an unfamiliar sense of peace. In the happiness of the moment, she could almost forget the difficult
tasks she had set for herself.

“Francois was here,” she said.

“Hmm.”

She felt a bit guilty for being glad the two had missed each other. But this was their last day in London, and she did not
want to share what little time they had left even with her brother.

“Once we return to Windsor, we won’t be able to be together like this,” Jamie said, echoing her thoughts.

Being at Windsor would be like it was in Paris—kissing in darkened courtyards and making love between old pots and bags of
grain in dusty storerooms. She suspected that what had seemed exciting to Jamie at eighteen would no longer sit well with
him. Jamie was a man now, the sort who was used to living his life in the open, with nothing to hide.

Jamie took her face in his hands and smiled down at her with a soft look in his eyes. “We’ll sneak off as often as we can.”

The secrecy suited her; she was reticent to have anyone know her business. But Jamie was not as comfortable about “sneaking
off” as he pretended.

One thing was different from when they were in Paris. While he was affectionate with her, no declaration of love ever passed
his lips. She told herself this was good, that it would make it easier when he left her this time.

But she did not believe it.

“Let’s not waste what time we have left here,” Jamie said, lifting her chin. “Come upstairs with me.”

She nodded. However long it lasted, she had him now. Much later, when they lay entwined in her bed in the fading afternoon
light, Jamie said, “I could not find the hidden door in the corridor at Westminster.”

She disentangled her legs from his and got up on one elbow. “I thought you had an appointment with the bishop.”

“I wanted to see the secret passageway before I met with him.”

She sat up. “Did you not believe me? I am not some silly woman who sees things that are not there.”

“You, silly? What a notion,” he said, rolling his eyes.

“Nay, I never doubted you. In fact, I told the bishop all about the witches’ cabal you witnessed.”

Her cheeks grew warm. “How could you tell him what I saw? He is a churchman!”

Jamie laughed and ran his hand up her arm. “In sooth, I do not believe it is possible to shock the bishop. Though the pleasures
of the flesh do not rule him, celibacy is not one of his virtues. He has a mistress, you know.”

“But why would you tell him?”

“If witches are brazen enough to meet in the bowels of Westminster Palace, who knows what evil they are up to? You forget,
our young king was in the palace when this happened.”

“I suppose it is good to be cautious, but their interest did not appear to be… political,” she said, thinking of the naked
woman on the table.

Jamie sat up and grabbed both her arms.

“Going down that passageway alone was so dangerous, I still cannot believe you did it,” he said, his eyes like blue fire.
“What in God’s name made you do it?”

She was not about to confess that she had thought she was following Alderman Arnold.

“We have discussed this already—or rather, you shouted,” she said, arching her eyebrows. “It is over and done with.”

Praise God she’d had the good sense not to tell Jamie the whole tale. If Jamie knew she suspected the wolf-man had seen her—and,
God forbid, what he was doing at the time—Jamie would have gone into an even worse rage than he had.

“You are hurting me,” she said, though he was not,
truly. When she looked pointedly at where Jamie’s fingers were digging into her arms, he released his grip at once.

“Sorry, but each time I think of you down there alone with them, I want to kill someone.” He looked away from her and narrowed
his eyes. “I want to feel my blade buried to the hilt in that wolf-man’s gut… or squeeze the life out of him with my hands
around his throat.”

Linnet suppressed a shiver as she remembered the wolf-man’s eyes boring into hers. She felt so blissful—and so safe—with Jamie
at her house that she had been able to push aside thoughts of the witches most of the time. When she awoke with nightmares,
Jamie’s arms were about her. His solid presence soothed her.

“Another reason I told Beaufort about the witches,” Jamie said, picking up the thread of his conversation again, “is that
I thought he might be privy to the secrets of the palace.”

“Did he know of the hidden passageway?” she asked. “The bishop says there was once a secret passageway, but he denies knowing
where it was.”

“What will he do about the witches?” Linnet asked.

“He’ll keep his eyes and ears open for sorcery and any sort of treachery against the king,” Jamie said. “And the bishop has
a great many eyes and ears.”

“You mean the monks and priests under his purview?” Linnet asked. “What will they know of demon-worshippers?”

Jamie lay back on the bed and put his arms behind his head. “The Winchester geese are the bishop’s best source of information—the
prostitutes hear most everything.”

Linnet twisted a strand of Jamie’s hair around her
finger as she debated whether to tell him. Finally, she said, “I learned something else the bishop might like to know.”

As Jamie waited in silence for her to tell him, she ran her fingers in a slow circle over his bare chest.

“How well do you know Lady Eleanor Cobham?” she asked and felt Jamie’s muscles tense beneath her fingertips.

“Why do you ask?” he said in a voice that was too casual.

She stopped her hand and looked him in the eye. “I heard something about her when I was in London before.”

“There is always some gossip about Eleanor.”

He spoke without meeting her eyes, and she did not like it.

“I made a purchase from an old woman who makes herbal remedies.” Even under torture, she would not admit she had gone seeking
a potion to make Jamie repulsive to her.

She waited for him to ask what her visit to a herbalist had to do with Eleanor, but Jamie’s lips were shut tight.

“The old woman told me,” she said, drawing the words out, “that Eleanor used love potions on Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester.”

“Women waste their money on such ‘magic’ all the time,” Jamie said. “The City and the church officials turn a blind eye to
it so long as there is no allegation of sorcery.”

“That is the thing.” Linnet turned so that her legs hung over the side of the bed and began to swing them. “The old herbalist
says Eleanor obtains her potions from Margery Jourdemayne, a woman who works in the dark arts. This Margery is known as the
Witch of Eye.”

Linnet wondered where the old herbalist was. When she went to her shop today, the door had been locked tight. Her neighbors
said they had not seen the old woman in weeks.

“Tell me your curiosity did not move you to seek out this Witch of Eye,” Jamie said, sitting up. “It would be just like you.”

Linnet glanced sideways at Jamie. Despite his disparaging tone, his expression was uneasy.

“You know something about this,” she said, turning to tap her finger against his chest. “And about Eleanor Cobham.”

He ran a hand through his hair and looked at the door, as if contemplating escape.

“What is it?” she said.

“You will laugh and think me a fool.”

Jamie looked like a boy caught eating cakes before supper.

“Perhaps I will,” she said, “but tell me all the same.” He fidgeted some more, blew out a breath, and glanced at the door
yet again before he finally spoke. “When I was in London two or three years ago, I went to bed with Eleanor.”

His words stung like vinegar on a fresh cut. Jamie, however, showed no sign he noticed how his words made her wince.

“I had no intention of going with her, at first.” Jamie shrugged. “When she made it plain she was inviting me to her bed—the
woman was not subtle—I tried to find a way to politely refuse her.”

“But you changed your mind,” Linnet said, doing her best to keep the razor-sharp anger she felt out of her voice.

“ ’Twas strange,” Jamie said, looking at his hands. “After having no thought except how to make my escape, quite suddenly,
I wanted her. In fact, I wanted her so badly that… well…”

“Well what?”

He shrugged again, looking slightly embarrassed. “Well, I believe I took her right there in the corridor outside her chamber
the first time.”

He could not wait to get Eleanor into her room?

The
first
time?

“And you thought I would laugh at this?” Linnet said, her voice rising.

Jamie looked at her with wide eyes. “ ’Twas not my fault. The woman drugged me!”

Linnet turned her head away. “I am not your wife,” she said through clenched teeth. “You need not lie to me.”

“I swear to you, she must have given me a potion. No woman would have been safe from me. I was like a bull in spring, mindless
to anything but rutting, rutting, rutting.”

“How did you survive this trial?”

Somehow, Jamie failed to realize her question was rhetorical. Instead, the fool said, “In sooth, my cock was hellish sore
for days.”

Did he think she wanted to hear that? She wanted to throw something at him, but there was nothing close at hand on the bed.

“How long were you in that room with her, Jamie Rayburn?”

“Two, three days? ’Tis hard to say. I stayed until the madness passed.” When he caught her expression, he raised his hands,
palms out. “I could not leave and let myself loose on the rest of womankind in the state I was in.”

“How chivalrous of you. The absolute height of chivalry, to be sure.” She got down from the bed, flung her robe on, and pulled
it tight around herself. “You should go now.”

“You are angry?” he asked, his eyes wide and blinking. “Come, do not tell me you are jealous of a woman who had to drug me
to get her way with me.”

“Jealous? Why would I be jealous?” she snapped. “I had lovers, too.”

It was almost true. She had very nearly done it. She’d wanted to. She’d meant to. She would at her very next opportunity!

Jamie dropped down from the high bed and grabbed her by the shoulders. The anger in his eyes was most gratifying. But whatever
he was about to shout at her, he bit it back.

“You will follow our agreement?” he said with an edge to his voice. “No other lovers during our affair.”

How dare he accuse her after what he’d just confessed? She twisted away from his grip and glared at him.

“If I do take another lover,” she said, “I’ll be sure to claim he slipped a potion into my cup.”

Linnet was so angry Jamie could almost see the steam rising off her as she stood, arms folded and eyes blazing. He had to
work to hide his smile. Ha! She was jealous of a woman he went to bed with more than two years ago—and against his will.

If that was not a good sign, he did not know what was. Of course, he had wanted to shake her until her teeth rattled for that
remark about her other lovers. That had scalded; he still felt the burn of her words in his belly.

He sucked in a deep breath. He could not change her past. What mattered was that he would be the last lover she ever had.

Because, by God, she would never have another.

Jamie pulled her into his arms. She was stiff as an iron pike, but he stifled her protests with a kiss. A moment later, her
arms went around his neck, and she melted into him like butter on hot bread.

Aye, she was his for good. She just did not know it yet.

J
oanna Courcy, the boldest of the queen’s ladies-in-waiting, grabbed Linnet by the wrist and pulled her into the privy chamber
behind the screen in the Great Hall.

“You must speak to her!” Joanna said, her voice high and shrill. “We are all at our wits’ end.”

Joanna could be speaking only of Queen Katherine.

“I shall help if I can,” Linnet said. “What is it that troubles you?”

“The queen and that
Welshman
,” Joanna hissed in her ear.

With a sinking feeling in her stomach, Linnet asked, “Has she been indiscreet?”

“She is all a-twitter over him,” Joanna said, her hands fluttering in the air. “And he, a lowly commoner.”

Which was entirely beside the point.

“We have dropped quiet hints, but she ignores them,” Joanna said. “None of us can speak to her as you do.”

Linnet hid her misgivings and patted the woman’s arm. “Do not fret. I shall speak with Her Highness at once.” And she would
give that Owen Tudor a good tongue-lashing as well.

The journey from London had been long and tiring. All she wanted to do now was change her clothes, settle her things into
her chamber, and then go off somewhere with Jamie. After the freedom they had in London, it had been hard to sit next to him
for hours on the barge and not be able to touch him as she wanted to. The most she could do was occasionally touch her fingers
to his arm.

But the queen needed her, so she would have to wait to have time alone with Jamie. Without stopping in her own chamber to
change, she went to the queen’s apartment.

Queen Katherine greeted her with a warm smile that lit up her eyes. “My dear Linnet,” she said, taking her hands, “ ’tis good
to have you back with us.”