Chapter Six
“… I found myself wishing my time and life were my own so that I would be better able to focus on the amazing events unfolding before me. I would have given all that I’d worked for if just one afternoon could have been given to us where I did not have to worry about death and impending destruction… the storm was approaching swiftly….”
The Chronicles of Sir Sean de Lara
“I want to see the king.”
The guards in Plantagenet crimson gazed down at the round, red-headed young maiden standing before them.
It wasn’t usual to have visitors to the royal wing unless summoned, either under their own will or kicking and screaming.
But this young lady, clad in a pretty red gown, seemed quite determined.
One of the guards recognized her as having been in the king’s chambers a few days prior.
He immediately sent a page to the king’s secretary.
So Alys waited in the sumptuous surroundings.
She knew the king would grant her audience.
She was certain he had been thinking of her just as she had been thinking of him.
She knew that he was married, but it was of little consequence.
She could still be a royal ward. She wanted the same attention he had lavished on her before, the same undivided consideration and compliments to her beauty that he had given her.
So many people, including Sheridan, had said so many terrible things about him, but she did not believe it.
He had been completely kind to her. She knew he had feelings for her.
It wasn’t long before she heard a set of doors open down the long corridor.
They banged into the wall, giving her a start.
Looking up, she saw a massive figure coming towards her, silhouetted by the sun pouring in through the large lancet window at the far end of the hall.
It took her a moment to realize it was Sean de Lara.
Her face lit up.
“Sir Sean!” she said happily. “You have come to…”
Sean reached out and snatched her around the arm, practically dragging her down the corridor. Alys’ momentary glee turned to alarm.
“You are hurting me,” she said. “Let go of my arm.”
Sean acted as if he hadn’t heard her. He yanked her all the way down the corridor, ignoring her increasing pleas, until he reached the room he had come from.
He literally threw her inside and Alys lost her balance, tripping to her knees.
Frustrated, terrified, she looked up to see him bearing down on her.
“What are you doing here?” he growled.
She was petrified. “I… I came to see the king.”
His jaw was flexing so hard that it looked as if he was going to snap his jawbone. “Does your sister know you are here?”
“Nay,” Alys didn’t realize she had her hands up as if protecting herself from de Lara’s wrath. “She is in bed, tending a sick headache.”
His jaw stopped ticking and he peered more closely at her. “Sick headache? Is she ill?”
Alys slowly lowered her hands. “She gets them sometimes. She cannot eat or stand for a few days until it goes away. Sometimes she vomits if there is too much light in her chamber.”
Sean’s fury at Alys was suddenly turned to grave concern for Sheridan. She had seemed fine when he saw her yesterday. But he had to keep his focus. “Get out of here,” he reached down and picked her up off the floor. “Go back to your apartment and stay there. Never return, Alys. Do you understand?”
Alys didn’t. “But why? The king was so kind to me the other day.”
His expression clouded, a terrifying vision of death and intimidation.
“The king wants nothing more than to rob you of your maidenhood and violate you as you cannot even possibly imagine that a man could do. I could tell you horror stories that would give you nightmares for the rest of your life, but I will refrain simply for the fact that I would protect your dignity as a lady. But I swear that if you ever come back here again, I will spank you within an inch of your life. Do you comprehend me?”
Her big green eyes were wide with terror. “Aye,” she whispered.
“Then go home. Stay there.”
She was out in the corridor by this time. Without another word, she turned to leave the same way she had come when another set of doors opened and she found herself walking straight into d’Athée. His grizzled face twisted with delight at the sight of her.
“Ah,” he said. “The Lady Alys. The king will be delighted to see you.”
Sean was several paces behind Alys. He could do nothing but gaze impassively at her as Gerard took her by the arm and led her back into the open room. Feeling sick to his stomach, he followed.
John sat before his elegant dressing table, watching his chamberlain cut the front of his hair with a very sharp dagger.
He glanced into the polished bronze mirror, seeing Alys’ reflection, Gerard’s, and in the doorway, Sean.
Shoving the chamberlain aside and nearly losing an ear in the process, he turned to his guest.
“Lady Alys,” he rose from his chair. “I heard you had come to see me. How kind.”
Alys smiled timidly. “I…I thought perhaps to thank you for the delightful afternoon we spent together, sire.”
John took her hand gently, a gesture that was as sickening as it was forced. “Ah,” he said sweetly. “A lady with manners. I was about to have my morning meal. Will you join me?”
Alys glanced hesitantly at Sean, fearfully at Gerard, before answering. “I would be honored, sire.”
Sean was starting to feel the distinct twinges of panic.
He’d seen that expression on the king, too many times.
He knew where it would lead. He had held the king off once with warnings of unified opponents should he violate a St. James woman, but he suspected that warning would only hold good once.
Alys had walked right back into the jaws of the lion and he was very quickly realizing there was nothing he could do about it. She was going to be eaten.
As he watched Alys sit at the private table in the king’s bower, he could see the familiar pattern forming.
D’Athée faded into the shadows as he, too, was expected to do.
If he didn’t follow the pattern, the king would wonder why.
If the king began to ask questions, then Sean’s entire position could be in doubt.
If his position was in doubt, then nine long, horrible years of his life would be wasted, never to be regained again.
He could not blow his cover. The king could not realize that a traitor lay closer to him than he had ever dared imagine.
He could not risk his position, not when everything was so close at hand.
Stupid girl!
He left the room and shut the door. There were guards in the corridor, watching him, and he would not react.
He retired back into the large chamber that belonged to him adjacent to the king’s apartments.
Of all of the turmoil he had ever felt about his position, this was the worst. It was a nightmare.
He knew what he had to do, but he also knew what he should do.
Holding his breath, he waited for the first screams. They were not long in coming.
Damn her!
Sean burst through the connecting door, into the king’s chamber. The king had Alys on the floor near the table, the top of her gown ripped away to reveal snow-white flesh. She was sobbing hysterically. The king looked at Sean, his expression between fear and annoyance.
“De Lara?” he said through clenched teeth. “What manner of crisis is this?”
Sean reached around the king and yanked Alys off the floor, so hard that he heard a bone snap.
She screamed, clutching her wrist. Sean shoved her back through the doors and into the adjoining chamber, slamming the heavy oak panels behind her hard enough to rattle the walls.
Furious, bordering on a loss of control, he faced off against the king.
“Sire,” he was struggling to maintain his composure.
“I told you that attacking a St. James woman would be foolish. With all of the allied nobles in London at this time, and particularly those paying tribute at Henry’s Wake earlier this week, can you not see the folly of your actions?
I forbid you to deliberately incite a riot against the crown when we have worked so hard to contain it.
Surely there are other women you can entertain yourself with. ”
John gazed at him with his droopy-eyed, piercing stare.
He fidgeted with the tunic that was askew on his torso.
After an eternity of horrid, tension-filled silence, during which Sean was positive the man was going to have him arrested, the king suddenly broke into an unexpected, completely abashed, grin.
“De Lara,” he grunted, slapping Sean on the arm. “My most loyal servant. How on earth do you tolerate me? I am trying to destroy myself even as you try to save me. Are we such a foolish pair, you and I?”
Even at those words, Sean could not relax.
He was so furious that he had bitten his tongue; he could taste the blood.
“If it is a woman you want, I shall find one for you,” he said.
“But I will not let you provoke the opposition as you seem so willing to do. I will not let you commit political suicide.”
John was still grinning as he made his way, lazily, back over to his dressing table. “Very good, de Lara, very good,” he spoke like a man who clearly understood his mistake. “I would prefer a blond. Not too thin.”
As quickly as his lust roused, it was as quickly forgotten. From somewhere, the chamberlain appeared and resumed cutting the king’s hair with a razor-sharp dagger. It was as if nothing had ever been. It looked the same as it did when Sean had entered the chamber.