Love Everlasting (21 page)

He also wanted to know what Royce had learned
to prove Julianna’s loyalty or lack thereof. It took all of Royce’s
diplomatic skills, along with his quick wits to convince Henry
that, so far, Julianna had made no move that would prove her guilty
of treachery or of spying for Louis of France. Since Royce was far
from convinced of her innocence himself, the discussion was tricky,
to say the least.

He did not return to his bedchamber until
well after midnight. He was not surprised to discover Julianna wide
awake and waiting for him.

“Kenric spoke to me again,” she informed him
at once. “I must have something to tell him.”

“Must you?” Wondering exactly when Kenric had
been able to evade both Cadwallon and Michael so he could get near
enough to Julianna to talk to her, Royce sat on the side of the bed
and began to pull off his boots. He wasn’t particularly worried;
his men would report to him in the morning. He intended to keep
Julianna well occupied until then.

“Kenric says there’s a mysterious plot afoot
and he expects me to coax you into telling me what it is,” Julianna
informed him. “Then I am to convey the information to him.”

“Really?” Royce allowed his gaze to rest on
the thick honey-colored braid of hair that hung over her shoulder
before moving on to her slightly flushed face. Her eyes were
shadowed by fear, and her lips trembled. Despite the guard that
Royce tried to keep securely in place around his heart and his
thoughts where she was concerned, he felt a stab of sympathy for
her.

“Is there nothing you can tell me?” she
asked.

“What do you want to know?” He removed his
tunic and stripped off his hose and his linen undergarments.
Julianna watched him with an avid gaze, her tongue moistening her
lips twice while Royce undressed.

“Kenric says that Lord Dunstan de Granville
is secretly a French agent,” she revealed.

“I suppose anything is possible.” Royce
didn’t think she was all that interested in Dunstan de Granville’s
supposed duplicity. At least, she wasn’t interested at that exact
moment. She was too fascinated by the very obvious evidence of her
husband’s desire for her to be worrying about spies. And Royce, who
ought to have been intensely interested in learning what else
Kenric had told Julianna about Dunstan, found himself noting with
masculine delight his wife’s quickened breath and the rising color
in her cheeks. He slid under the quilt and gathered her into his
arms.

“Royce,” she whispered, holding him off with
both hands on his chest, “please, tell me something harmless that I
can pass on to Kenric to keep him satisfied.”

“You,” Royce whispered with one hand at her
throat, “are bound to satisfy only me, and no other man. Never
forget that.”

“You know what I meant.” Her eyes widened as
he stroked her breast. “Please, Royce, tell me something.
Anything.”

“Later,” he growled, and brought his mouth
down hard on hers. She made a sound deep in her throat and arched
against him, and Royce gave himself up to the demands of a passion
that he was beginning to fear would never be slaked.

Much later, when he was temporarily finished
with her and they lay side by side, she raised the subject
again.

“I have to give Kenric some piece of
information,” she said, “or he will begin to imagine that I am
defying him. When Kenric is thwarted, he becomes dangerous.”

“Very well,” Royce said with a sigh that he
hoped she’d think indicated an irritated resignation. “Since you
are so set upon acting as a double agent, you may tell Kenric that
I am growing ever more suspicious of Dunstan de Granville.”

“Are you, really?”

She turned a little to look at him and the
covers fell away from one breast - her beautiful, exquisitely
sensitive breast, whose rosy nipple fairly cried out for Royce to
kiss it. With remarkable self-control, he managed to restrain
himself. He was, after all, testing her loyalty while setting a
trap for Kenric.

“I did notice that you are not on the best of
terms with Lord Dunstan,” she said. “When I left the great hall,
you appeared to be quarreling with him. But I never can be certain
about you, Royce. I don’t know you well enough yet to judge your
moods.”

“Oh, I think you know me fairly well,” he
said. With a great effort of will he forced his thoughts away from
what he wanted to do to her with his hands and his mouth until she
writhed and wept and begged him for his most passionate attentions.
Instead, he made himself listen to her next question.

“You really don’t trust Lord Dunstan?” she
asked.

“Julianna, I have to be careful about
trusting anyone.” Especially you. He didn’t say it aloud, but he
thought she understood the implication. Julianna was not a stupid
woman. She lowered her eyelids and Royce’s heart gave a great
lurch. If she couldn’t even look directly at him, couldn’t meet his
gaze that was an ill omen indeed. Her forlorn little whisper
interrupted his dire thoughts.

“Kenric said any desire you showed toward me
was only lust on your part. He said you have no affection left for
any woman since your wife died.”

“You are my wife.” He caught her shoulders
and pushed her down, holding her beneath him, letting her feel his
mounting arousal, and marveling yet again at the way her nearness
affected him. At his age, he ought to be immune to her charms, yet
here he was, aching for her again, so quickly. “Julianna, I swear
to you, if you ever again mention Kenric’s name while you and I are
naked in bed together, I will beat you.”

“But,” she protested. Then, her voice
dropping to a soft murmur as his hands caressed her with startling
intimacy, “Oh, my. Oh, Royce, please don’t stop. Don’t ever
stop.”

“You see,” he whispered into her ear, “lust
isn’t entirely a bad thing, is it?”

As he expected, by then she was beyond words.
Her only response was a long, eager sigh, followed by a moan of
delight.

“You had better have some useful information
for me,” Kenric said the next morning.

He had appeared without warning some distance
along the gallery, far enough away from Royce’s room that the
man-at-arms on duty at the door couldn’t hear what he was saying.
Even so, Julianna was sure the man would report the meeting to
Royce at his first opportunity.

“Did you watch the door until after Royce
left?” she taunted Kenric. “Why didn’t you simply approach and
knock? Marie would have let you in.”

“Answer me,” Kenric ordered.

“I am weary of secrets and intrigue,” she
said with a sigh. “I would like a little peace.”

“If you don’t do as you’re told,” Kenric
said, “you will find the peace you seek, in your grave.”

“Very well, then.” She made herself look
directly at him, though she longed to run and hide from the glare
of his pale blue eyes. “I have learned that Royce distrusts Lord
Dunstan de Granville. I have been trying to find out why that is,
but Royce is remarkably tight-lipped on the subject.”

“Perhaps he doesn’t trust you, either,”
Kenric said with a sneer.

“That may be so,” she agreed, making use of
Royce’s comment of the previous night. “I don’t think Royce trusts
many people.”

“I need more from you,” Kenric said. “Has
Royce said anything about the queen?”

“No.” She thought for a moment. “Now that you
mention her, I have noticed quite a few of Lord Cortland’s
men-at-arms and some of Royce’s people staying unusually close to
her. Why would that be? Is she in some danger?”

“How should I know?” Kenric responded in his
nastiest voice. “How am I to learn anything when the people I set
to gather information are all but useless to me?” With a rough
movement, he caught Julianna’s arm.

“Let me go at once,” she ordered, glancing
down at his hand. “Royce noticed the bruise you put there before we
left Caen and he forced me to tell him who did it. If he sees
another bruise on me, you are a dead man.”

“Not if I see him first.” But Kenric released
her arm.

“Find out what is happening with the queen,”
he instructed in an arrogant way that made Julianna long to slap
him. “Discover exactly how strong the guard around her is, and
learn when the guard is changed.”

“How in the name of heaven do you expect me
to learn something like that?” Julianna cried. “Royce would never
tell me such important details.”

“Probably not.” Kenric sneered again. “Your
husband doesn’t care about you, and he doesn’t trust you. The only
use he has for you is to relieve himself on you in bed.”

“Then, you cannot expect me to be very useful
to you,” Julianna snapped, fighting back angry tears. “We are not
dealing with a fool, Kenric. Don’t imagine for a moment that Royce
doesn’t suspect you, too.”

“Just find out as much as you can,” Kenric
ordered, and stamped off, heading down the gallery toward the
stairs.

Thoroughly shaken, and disgusted with herself
as well as with Kenric, Julianna leaned against the inside wall of
the gallery. She was afraid to stand next to the flimsy-looking
rail. Several long minutes passed before her knees stopped shaking
and her heartbeat slowed enough that she felt able to descend to
the great hall.

The holy Christmas season proceeded as
planned. Though the Advent fasting would not end until midnight of
Christmas Eve, no one in Norwich Castle was suffering from hunger.
Not with six varieties of fish served at each midday meal. Not with
huge bowls of vegetable stew and trays piled high with breads and
several kinds of fruit tarts for sweets. Nor was thirst ignored.
Wines spiced and plain, ale, cider, and perry were offered freely.
The beggars who swarmed at the castle gates, as they crowded around
all noble establishments, made no complaints, for the leftover food
was more than adequate to fill every empty belly.

Meanwhile, the castle cooks were busily
chopping and spicing the meats for the mincemeat pies they planned
to serve at the upcoming feasts. Lesser kitchen workers were
assigned to prepare the haunches of venison and sides of beef that
would be roasted for the celebrations. The pastry chefs saw to the
steaming of the great Christmas puddings, or to whipping up almond
custards, or they soaked raisins, dried pears, and apples in spiced
honey and wine until the fruits were plump and ready to be made
into delectable tarts.

Lord Cortland’s personal agents, along with
Royce’s less noticeable people, surveyed every step of the
preparations, checking to be sure no poisonous ingredients were
introduced.

Holy Mass was said each morning and Queen
Adelicia attended with the king. No hint of the danger to her
showed in her actions, or in her husband’s. No one, either in the
castle or in the town, where she ventured frequently so the people
might see her, made a move against her.

Still, Royce dared not allow himself or his
men to relax. He grew more tense with each passing day. Wanting his
wits clear at all times, he drank no wine, confining himself to
fresh perry, the pressed juice of pears that he preferred over
cider.

The only pleasure he permitted himself was
the company of his wife in his bed each night. He could not stay
away from her, and his persistent need for her worried him. He
warned himself that a man of his experience ought to have greater
control over his sexual desires. Food and drink he could ration
with no sense of personal deprivation, and he could reduce the
number of hours he slept. But he could not do without Julianna’s
moist, hot embrace.

She had told him how Kenric accosted her in
the gallery outside his room and her account matched that of the
man-at-arms who had observed it. Julianna continued to beg him for
information that she might offer to that cursed spy, though after
Royce’s warning, she no longer asked while they were in bed.

“Look around you,” he exclaimed one day in
exasperation. “Pay attention to what you see and hear. You are
neither blind nor deaf, Julianna. I am amazed that you seem
determined to prove to me that you are.”

“Don’t you understand?” She had chosen the
early morning for this particular plea, offering it while she
donned a woolen robe and splashed water on her face. “Royce, I am
afraid that if I offer my observations to Kenric without discussing
them with you first, I may inadvertently reveal something that you
don’t want him to know. Then you will blame me.”

He stared at her, uncertain whether to kiss
her or leave her. His very uncertainty infuriated him.

“There are women,” he said slowly, “who
imagine their husbands are fools.”

“I am not one of them,” she declared. “Nor am
I a fool, myself. I know you do not trust me. I think that is why
you will not tell me what I need to know in order to appease
Kenric. I wish you would not torment me in this way.”

“Who is tormenting whom?” He caught her
stubborn chin, holding her face steady while he looked into her
eyes. The worry he saw there brought him close to kissing her and
taking her back to bed in hope of vanquishing her fears. Instead,
he flung away from her and seized his tunic.

“If you wait until I am fast asleep,” he said
in a cold, hard voice, “and cut my hair very short, I will loose
all of my strength. Then I will be compelled to do whatever you ask
of me.”

He heard the sharp intake of her breath and
he saw the sudden gleam of moisture in her eyes. Before he could
say anything to soften the deliberate cruelty of his insinuation
that she was a wicked, scheming Delilah and he a willing Samson,
Marie knocked on the door and Julianna called to her to enter.
Royce noted that her voice was unsteady. He could not decide
whether he ought to feel pleased or guilty about that.

While Royce wrestled with his desire for his
wife and his suspicions of her, his agents were busy in both town
and castle.