It was dangerous to want things, and Gwen was out of practice.
In fact, the only thing she had truly wanted for years was to be left alone.
Her mother waged a constant war against this tiny, precarious hope, but Gwen had kept it alive, refusing to become more involved with the ladies at court, make friends with the spawn of high-born families like Agnes, or in any way prepare for life as the future Lady of Maidvale. She didn’t see the point, because she did not intend to change; she would certainly not stop taking her daily walk, or working on her embroidery in the afternoon, or spending the majority of her day in her own company, even once she was married.
If she thought about it too much, it might have been depressing that her only real wish was for the absence of something – so she didn’t think about it at all. She kept to her routines. They made her feel safe. If she wasn’t allowed to desire anything for herself, then she thought she should at least get to keep that.
Lady Leclair was a problem. Looking at her felt a lot like wanting something.
On her way down to a family breakfast the morning after the opening ceremony, Gwen decided, for perhaps the five hundredth time since she had first set eyes on the knight of House Leclair, that it was best not to think about that either.
She had far more pressing matters to attend to.
‘Father,’ she began, watching as the king held up a letter and squinted at it, covering it in quite a lot of soft cheese in the process. ‘I’ve been meaning to talk to you about Arthur Delacey.’
‘Actually,’ her father said, wiping some of the cheese on a napkin, ‘I’ve been meaning to talk to you about Arthur Delacey.’
‘Well. Yes. I just think we should talk this through before we do anything rash. Is it really the best—’
The king sighed and raised his index finger, a signal rarely employed with his family but universally understood to demand instant silence.
‘He will be staying for the summer, Gwendoline. It is long past time for you to become reacquainted. You are nearly eighteen, after all – you must have known this was coming.’
‘I had hoped,’ Gwen said, choosing her words carefully, ‘that the circumstances that led to the agreement in the first place might have changed.’
Her father didn’t look unsympathetic, but unfortunately he also didn’t look like a man about to drastically change his mind. ‘You know that the Lord and Lady of Maidvale lent me invaluable support when I took the throne, Gwendoline, despite the fact that Delacey is a cultist through and through and could have easily thrown his lot in … elsewhere. You also know that I am a man of my word.’
‘So because of an old alliance that doesn’t even benefit us any more, I have to suffer?’
‘We do still benefit from it,’ her father said, looking at her evenly. ‘Lord Delacey may not hold as much power as he once did, but now is not the time to upset him or any of his faction. And you do not have to suffer. You have to marry.’
‘Same difference,’ Gwen said, feeling her cheeks getting hot.
‘Gwendoline,’ said the queen. Gwen waited with little hope to see if her mother was about to come to her aid. ‘Would you please stop picking at your nails.’
Gwen put both hands under the table and curled them into fists instead.
‘Father,’ Gabriel said quietly. ‘I’ve heard some … particularly unsavoury rumours about Arthur Delacey’s behaviour over the past year, and I had a brief encounter with him last night that all but confirmed them.’
‘Yes,’ said Gwen, throwing Gabriel a look of gratitude and seizing this opportunity to appeal to her father’s sense of propriety. ‘I understand that you gave your word, but shouldn’t we weigh up the benefits of honouring the match with the possible damage he might do? To the crown? To our reputation?’ To me, she added silently.
‘We will do no such thing,’ said her mother, looking exasperated. ‘You’re not a child any more, Gwendoline. It is high time you accept both him and your responsibilities as the future lady of his house and lands.’
‘I’m not going to move to his house and lands!’ Gwen said. ‘I’m going to stay at court, so frankly I don’t see the point.’
‘The point,’ said her mother acidly, ‘is that you may not have a choice! And you’ll still be expected to help manage his affairs—’
‘I know you’re not one for change,’ the king cut in with a touch more sympathy, breaking the seal of a new letter with his knife, ‘but give him a chance. He might surprise you. And – please do try not to break any of his bones this time.’
‘I can’t promise anything,’ Gwen muttered, but her father was once again buried in his correspondence, and her mother was eating in perturbed silence.
‘You saw him?’ she asked Gabriel as soon as they had left the dining room. ‘Did you talk to him?’
‘Sort of,’ Gabriel said, already walking automatically towards the library.
‘How can you sort of talk to someone?’
‘It was the middle of the night and he was trying to steal food from the kitchens. Oh, and he fell over. It was hardly a scintillating exchange.’
‘He fell over?’ Gwen said. ‘God, I wish I’d seen that.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Gabriel said drily. ‘I have no doubt that the performance will be repeated.’
Gwen successfully managed to avoid Arthur all day. She walked in endless loops around the grounds with Agnes, making polite but stilted conversation, and then retired for lunch, followed by a solitary afternoon in her chambers mostly spent drumming her fingers against things and sighing.
When she was called to supper in the Great Hall, Gwen knew she couldn’t put off seeing her betrothed any longer; she had Agnes pull out her finest spring dress in delicate pink and gold silk damask, braid her hair up out of her face and weave cherry blossoms into it. When she met Gabriel on his way down to dinner, just as late as she was, he raised an eyebrow at her.
‘You look nice,’ he said pointedly.
‘Oh, shut up.’
She noticed that he’d also made an effort; he was wearing an embroidered blue doublet that she didn’t recognise, and his hair was actually combed. ‘Did Elyan dress you? What’s with the jacket?’
He looked down at it as if he’d never seen it before in his life. ‘Oh? No. He’s gone back to Stafford.’
Lord Stafford managed the running of the royal family’s affairs, and it was the bane of his life that Gabriel refused every man of the chamber sent his way; they each lasted roughly a week before Gabriel felt too horrified by the familiarity and proximity and had them quietly sent to work elsewhere. He’d be left by himself for a month or so in glorious peace while Stafford lined up another doomed replacement.
The hall was packed; most of the people who’d come to watch the opening ceremony had also been invited to dine with the king tonight, which meant that the long wooden tables were overflowing with guests messily pouring wine, shouting to each other in greeting and jostling for a better position. Gwen assumed that Arthur would be among them, and felt a little smug about being able to bypass the crowds and walk straight up to the royal table on the dais, but stopped short when she saw who was sitting next to one of the only two empty seats.
‘I’ll give you everything I own,’ she said quietly to Gabriel. ‘I’ll give you—’
‘Sit by me, your highness,’ Lord Stafford called, plummy as ever, an upsetting amount of peacock feathers in his hat. ‘I had something I wanted to discuss with you.’
Gwen knew he wasn’t talking to her. He was never, ever talking to her.
‘Of course,’ Gabriel said politely, crossing to the seat without daring a backward glance at Gwen, who had no choice but to sit down next to Arthur.
She deigned to give him a quick once-over, and was glad to see that he looked miserable. He had dark shadows under his eyes and quite a nasty-looking cut on his brow. He was staring sullenly into his soup, and although he didn’t say anything when she sat down next to him, she saw his shoulders tense.
She was fully prepared to ignore him all evening, but her mother was deep in conversation with her father on her left, and when she tried to lean in to their discussion her father caught her eye and raised a knowing eyebrow. She sank back into her seat, resigned to her fate.
‘Arthur,’ she said factually.
‘Yep,’ he replied, just as accurately.
‘Rough journey, was it?’
‘Nothing compared to the destination,’ he replied, with a tight-lipped smile.
‘What a thrilling surprise to find you at my table.’
‘Believe me, it wasn’t my idea,’ he said gloomily, picking up his drink. ‘Your mother cornered me on my way in. Wouldn’t even let Sid come with me.’
‘Who’s Sid?’
‘Sidney Fitzgilbert. My body-man. He’s the short, ugly one over there.’ He waved a hand towards one of the long tables, and Gwen saw a stocky, dark-haired and perfectly good-looking man raise a hand to wave cheerfully. He was pale but slightly sunburned, and had stew all down his chin. She did not wave back.
‘Delightful.’
‘He is, actually. A ray of sunshine. Compared to some.’
‘Oh come on,’ Gwen said, finally snapping. ‘You’re nineteen now, not eleven. At least attempt civility.’
He turned to look at her with pure disdain in his narrowed eyes, gave her a slow once-over, and then returned his gaze to her face.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t think I will.’
‘You’re going to be here all summer,’ Gwen said. ‘Arthur. You might be here forever.’
‘Well. God. I suppose you’re right,’ he said, sighing and looking around. ‘Must find a way to get through it. Face it head-on.’ Gwen was just about to nod and say something vaguely approving when he gestured to a serving girl walking past. ‘Some wine, please, and keep it coming. All summer.’ He turned to Gwen and gave her a sweet, entirely artificial smile. ‘Maybe even forever.’
‘Oh, go to hell, Arthur,’ Gwen hissed. He raised his newly filled glass in a mock toast.
‘There’s the Gwendoline I remember.’
They sat in silence until the queen leaned over to talk to Arthur; he immediately sat up straighter and answered all her questions pleasantly, even charmingly; yes he’d kept up with his reading, no of course it wasn’t an imposition to be called here for the summer, yes he still loved to dance. It made Gwen all the more annoyed – he was capable of playing nice, just not with her.
After dinner, there was to be music. Gwen was usually able to sneak away at this point in the evening, offering excuses of sprained ankles or miscellaneous ‘women’s troubles’, while everybody grabbed partners and rushed to take their positions for the dancing – but as she tried to move towards the exit her mother’s hand closed around her upper arm like a vice.
‘Dance with your guest, Gwen,’ she said through a terse smile.
‘Mother,’ Gwen said seriously. ‘Call the guards. He threatened me with a knife.’
‘I told you not to say things like that any more,’ her mother said, taking her by the shoulders and steering her towards the dancers. ‘Lord Stafford’s poor nephew almost soiled himself when they grabbed him.’
‘I hope he really does kill me,’ Gwen said glumly. ‘Then you’ll be sorry.’
She could have sworn that as her mother walked away Gwen heard her mutter, ‘I wouldn’t count on it.’
Gabriel, of course, did not have to dance. He stayed seated, listening to Lord Stafford and nodding at regular intervals. She thought, not for the first time, that her brother would love for his only duty to be marriage. He wasn’t betrothed to anyone in particular; he could find someone kind and thoughtful and studious just like him, and retreat to one of the crown’s houses in the country to garden and adopt a hundred cats and live out the rest of his days in peace.
But that wasn’t his inheritance. Royal sons meant promise – they carried the hope and glory of their lineage, however reluctantly; royal daughters were born to be promised to somebody else.
Gwen’s somebody else was already standing in the men’s line, waiting for her. She wondered how her mother had found the time to force him into dancing too, when she had been so busy corralling her own daughter. Perhaps she had brought in co-conspirators.
Arthur didn’t look particularly pleased, but when the music started he didn’t drag his feet; he danced with an easy grace that Gwen couldn’t help but envy. She hated him for being good at it, while she was always inches away from endangering someone’s toes. She hated the smug smile on his face as they had to grasp hands; the small, mean snort of laughter she heard when she missed a step and almost went careening into the couple next to them.
Most of all, she hated how much dancing required her to look at him. He was handsome, it was impossible to deny – although her knowledge of his truly appalling personality obliterated any points this garnered in his favour. His hair was almost black, and fell straight down to his shoulders; his skin was luminous brown despite the fact that it wasn’t yet summer, as if he’d already been spending a lot of time out of doors. The cut on his eyebrow, the sleepless look he had about him, the slight bruising she now noticed on his temple; it all should have made him far less handsome, but instead it just added to his rakish charm. She was pleased to see that he was still no taller than her, at least.
The girls adjacent to her – girls all down the line, in fact – were looking at him, and he knew it. She couldn’t imagine what they saw in him; this horrible boy who’d become a horrible man, sent here to torment her for the rest of her life. As soon as the music stopped, she walked away from him without a backward glance and went straight up to Gabriel, who was standing by the royal table, still talking to Lord Stafford. He took one look at her expression and excused himself.
‘Are you all right?’ he said, once Lord Stafford had walked away.
‘What was Stafford talking to you about?’ Gwen asked, keen to be distracted.
‘War,’ said Gabe, grim-faced.
‘With who?’
‘Amongst ourselves. The cultists are getting restless. The Catholics too. Father’s keeping it all in check, for now.’ Gabriel leaned back against the fretwork of an ornate oak pillar as they watched the dancers begin again. ‘Although judging by the look on Arthur Delacey’s face, if we do need to quash anybody – really crush their spirits – you’re the woman for the job.’
Arthur had also retreated from the dancers. He was now sitting with Sidney, his stew-covered manservant – although, Gwen noticed, he had managed to locate and remove the stew – and talking quietly to him, glaring around at everybody as he did. When he saw Gwen looking at him he caught her gaze and then rolled his eyes like a child as Sidney laughed into his ale.
‘Can’t you go and rough him up or something?’ Gwen demanded of Gabriel, who was still staring at Arthur.
‘What? Er. No. Might cause a minor political incident.’
‘Cause a major one. Do it for me. He insulted my honour.’
‘Did he?’
‘Well, no. But he was very snippy with me.’
Gabriel gave her a wry smile. ‘You’ll live.’
Two of the ladies who’d been next to Gwen in the dancing line came giggling over to them, ostensibly to talk to Gwen, but really to bite their lips and blush prettily in front of Gabriel, who was so unmoved that at one point he actually yawned. Gwen had to bite her own lip to keep from laughing; watching women throw themselves at Gabriel while he politely studied the flagstones, or cleared his throat only to make a comment about taxes or the unusual colour of the evening’s soup, was one of her favourite pastimes. These ladies were surprisingly tenacious; mere yawning could not keep them away, and they hovered for an age before giving in.
‘Hard luck,’ she said to the retreating girls when they finally departed; both of them looked daggers at her.
‘That’s the sort of thing you’re supposed to say inside your head, G,’ Gabriel said distractedly. ‘Why don’t you go to bed? You don’t have to stay.’
Gwen shrugged. ‘I either submit to torture by dancing tonight or torture by Mother in the morning.’
‘Well, why don’t you go and get some air, at least? I’ll distract her.’
She gave him a grateful pat on the shoulder and walked quickly from the hall and out into the south courtyard. It was mercifully quiet as she crossed it, the sounds of revelry muffled, the night air cool and steeped in wood smoke. She was just wandering in the direction of the stables – and her very patient and understanding horse, Winifred – when she saw somebody coming out of them, walking directly towards her.
There was no logical explanation for her reaction when she realised who it was. Before rational thought had been able to communicate with her limbs, she had ducked behind a low wall.
Lady Leclair was no longer armoured as Gwen had seen her the day before, but just as striking in a plain tunic and men’s breeches; her hair was pulled untidily away from her face, her sleeves rolled up to expose the taut muscle of her forearms, and she had a smear of something dark – potentially mud, potentially horse manure – on her cheekbone.
Gwen had never seen something so magnificent in all her life.
Lady Leclair stretched her limbs until her bones clicked, eliciting a sigh of satisfaction that immediately turned Gwen’s mind to jelly, and then she paused as if remembering something and turned abruptly to walk back into the stables. She looked less imposing out of armour – she couldn’t have been any taller than Gwen, and she didn’t have a particularly large frame – but there was still a solidity to her, as if she were made of something stronger than whatever Gwen was spun from.
Gwen continued to crouch in an undignified sort of way even after she was gone, frozen to the spot, only realising that she should move when she felt a cramp starting to creep up her leg.
She had just resolved to get a hold of herself and go back inside when she heard more footsteps approaching from the opposite direction.
They grew louder, and Arthur Delacey came stumbling into view. One of her father’s men, blond, perhaps a Mark or a Michael, was tripping along after him and holding on to his arm in a very familiar manner. She tried to place him – assistant to the Master of Hounds, perhaps? As she watched, Arthur glanced around the otherwise empty courtyard, pulled the young man into the shadowy alcove between the stables and the gate, and kissed him.
Gwen’s mouth fell open.
Arthur was smiling lazily through heavily lidded eyes, pressing his mouth to Mark or Michael’s jaw while sliding one hand inside the other man’s tunic. The dog-boy closed his eyes and allowed his neck to be kissed, tilting his head back so that his hair fell away from his face, looking completely at ease. Gwen was so astonished that she completely forgot she was attempting to stay hidden – and when Arthur looked up, his eyes locked directly with hers.
He pushed the young man away, muttered something sharply, and Mark or Michael was gone in an instant. Arthur stood alone, smoothing his hair, colour high in his cheeks. He looked back over at Gwen, his jaw working as if he were trying and failing to summon the right words – and then they both jumped.
Lady Leclair had re-emerged from the stables, a jacket slung over her shoulder. Moving without thinking, Gwen ducked back behind the wall, her face flaming, listening to unhurried footsteps as the knight walked away in the direction of the kitchens.
When she dared to straighten up again, Arthur was standing right in front of her.
‘Nice night,’ he said, in a very strained voice. His hands were clenching and unclenching at his side as he waited for her to respond.
‘Arthur,’ Gwen said eventually, in a whisper. ‘That was a boy. You were kissing a boy.’
‘Was it?’ said Arthur, sounding a little panicked now. ‘No, I don’t think so. I’d have noticed.’
‘I should think it would have been obvious. You practically had your hand down the front of his—’
‘All right,’ Arthur hissed. ‘All right. It was a boy. Congratulations, you’re a genius. Let’s get this over with – would you like to tar and feather me now, or send me back to my father so he can do it? Either way, I’m sure you’ll be allowed to watch.’
‘Oh,’ said Gwen. ‘Oh.’ She was still trying to wrap her head around this; this brazen sneaking around where anybody could have caught him, this boy-kissing that he’d been doing so expertly, as if he did it all the time. He probably did do it all the time.
‘What the hell were you doing spying on me, anyway?’ he spat, with such vitriol that it immediately raised her hackles.
‘I wasn’t spying on you,’ she said. ‘I was just …’ She gestured in the general direction of the stables. Arthur’s gaze followed her hand and then snapped back to her face, eyebrows furrowed as if he were puzzling something out. She realised her mistake immediately.
‘Who was that girl?’ he said slowly.
‘What girl?’ Gwen said, the note of hysteria that she had noticed in his voice making an unexpected appearance in her own.
‘You know exactly which girl,’ he said, eyes widening. ‘You were spying on her.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Gwen said, but something had betrayed her – God, Merlin, the universe – because she sounded entirely unconvincing, and he looked triumphant. He knew. Of course he knew.
It wouldn’t have crossed most people’s minds, but – he’d just been kissing a boy, hadn’t he?
‘Right,’ he said, the panic visibly draining from him. ‘Right.’
‘I … Listen, I don’t know what exactly you think you’ve discovered here, but—’
‘Why don’t we go and talk about this somewhere more private, hmm?’ He turned on his heel and walked away across the courtyard.
With the air of somebody condemned to an extremely painful death, Gwen followed.