Love Everlasting (24 page)

“No, you won’t,” Kenric declared.

With that, he kicked Julianna so hard that
she also tumbled over the edge, falling through the opening in the
broken rail. As she went over she wrapped a hand around a boss of
heavy, carved wood that ornamented one of the pillars supporting
the gallery floor. She held onto it, with her head just under the
level of the floor and her legs dangling into the air three stories
above the great hall.

Looking up, believing that Michael was close
enough to help her, she saw Kenric, instead. With an expression of
vicious glee on his face, Kenric stepped on Marie’s clutching
fingers, pressing his boot down hard. Marie shrieked one last time
and let go.

Julianna got her second hand around the wood
boss. She didn’t know how long she could cling there. Given a few
moments, Kenric would likely find a way to make her fall, too. But
Michael was on the gallery and she could hear him shouting at
Kenric. Her hands were sweating and she was nauseated. She knew
that Marie must be dead, yet the music and the noise from below
hadn’t stopped for a moment. Perhaps no one yet realized what was
happening far above the great hall.

She heard running footsteps and men’s loud
voices, but from her position just beneath the gallery floor she
couldn’t see a thing except the chunk of solid wood to which she
was clinging for her life’s sake. The boss was carved into a
grotesque face, with a long tongue protruding from its misshapen
mouth. She learned that face by heart. It might well be the last
face she ever saw. There was another face she’d rather see during
her final minutes of life.

“Julianna! Hang on!” She knew that voice.

“Royce!” The cracked sound that issued from
her dry throat was not at all like her own voice. Then she saw a
large hand reaching toward her from the gallery.

“Take my hand,” he said.

“I can’t,” she cried. “If I do, you’ll fall
over, too.”

“I won’t fall,” Royce told her with perfect
calmness. “I am lying flat on the gallery floor and Michael is
holding my legs. Take my hand, Julianna.”

“Oh, Royce.” Terrified of falling though she
was, she knew she had to obey him. It was the only way she’d ever
leave her dangerous perch alive. She uttered a quick prayer - as if
the Good Lord would ever listen to a guilty sinner like her! - and
forced herself to remove one hand from the boss to which she
clung.

“Reach higher!” Royce commanded.

How could she disobey him? She tried again,
and this time her fingers touched his. It was enough. His fingers
laced into hers and his other hand surrounded her wrist. Slowly he
pulled her upward until she dared to uncurl the fingers of her hand
that was still clutching the boss. As if from a great distance she
heard Michael’s voice, encouraging her.

Then she was on her knees at the very edge of
the gallery, with Royce still keeping a firm grip on her hand and
wrist. He rolled over, away from the edge and toward the inner
wall, carrying her with him. She lay beneath him, feeling his
weight on her, too numb to weep or laugh. Almost, too numb to
breathe.

“Are you all right?” Royce levered himself
away from her and stared down at her face. “You are pale as
snow.”

“I’ve been told a pale complexion is the
latest fashion in Brussels.” Then, having caught her breath and
fearing she’d begin to cry if she didn’t keep talking, she said,
“Marie tried to kill Queen Adelicia.”

“So I’ve heard.” He frowned at her, his
strong body still holding her on the gallery floor. “Michael said
you prevented her at the last moment.”

“Did I? I suppose I did. I wasn’t thinking
clearly. I only knew I had to stop Marie. Then I chased her. I knew
if I could catch her, you could force her to talk and you could
learn who else was involved in the plot. But Kenric killed her. And
he tried to kill me. Where is Kenric?”

“He fled,” Royce told her. “Somehow, he
managed to elude all of our agents. I suspect he had help in
getting away. Cortland’s men are scouring the town and the
countryside, looking for him. But Marie is dead. She cannot talk
and Kenric did not want you able to talk, either.”

“I’m sure you are right. You set a trap for
all three of us. You distrusted me that much,” she said
reproachfully.

“Royce,” Michael interposed, a warning note
in his voice, “Julianna saved the queen’s life. She did try to
rescue Marie after she fell, and she almost lost her own life in
the attempt. Kenric is ruthless.”

“Yes.” Royce lifted himself off Julianna and
stood. “Kenric would have killed the two people who knew what he
planned.”

“Which two?” Julianna demanded with a flare
of anger. Royce offered no help, so she got to her feet by herself.
She leaned against the wall, hoping thus to steady her shaking
bones. “Royce, you cannot think I was involved in the scheme to
kill the queen?”

“Were you?”

“How could you think that? You heard Michael;
I stopped Marie! Oh, leave me alone! Go away!”

“If you have any wits left, my lady,” Royce
said, his voice just above a whisper, yet commanding,”you will keep
your mouth shut until you and I are alone.”

Turning to the half dozen men-at-arms who
stood nearby listening to the argument with unconcealed interest,
he ordered, “Two of you stay here to make certain no one else goes
over the edge. Two of you go below and pick up the body. Be as
discreet as you can. If anyone questions you, say a servant fell in
a drunken accident. Just about everyone in the great hall is drunk,
so that excuse may well suffice. Take the body to the chapel and
stay there until I join you. Let no one enter the chapel. The other
two of you are to stand guard outside my chamber door and Michael’s
door. No one but Cadwallon, Michael, or me is to go in or out for
the rest of the night.”

“Yes, my lord.” The men-at-arms scattered to
their assigned duties.

“Michael, take Julianna to my room,” Royce
ordered with a jerk of his head.

The secretary put an arm around Julianna’s
waist and supported her as they stumbled through the door. Royce
followed. Closing the door, he put his shoulders against it and
folded his arms across his chest.

“You first, Michael,” he said. “Tell me what
happened while I was out of the great hall. I’ll wager the skirmish
that resulted in a dead man at the main gate was intended to draw
Cortland and me away at a vital moment.”

“A very loud diversion occurred on the floor
of the great hall. Exactly what caused it is not important at the
moment. We can look into it later. Considering what happened next,
I am sure you are right, Royce. Both incidents were almost
certainly deliberate,” Michael said.

“Cadwallon and the king looked toward the
uproar,” Michael continued. “Cadwallon must have suspected
something, because his hand was on his sword hilt. Out of my own
suspicion I looked in another direction and that’s when I saw
Julianna. She appeared to be fearful, and she was running toward
her maid. Kenric was following her. The maid was where she should
not be, just behind the high table. Royce, Marie had a knife.
Julianna grabbed her and prevented her from getting close enough to
stab the queen. When Marie ran away, Julianna gave chase.”

“What were you doing?” Royce demanded.

“I tried to help Julianna stop Marie. I fell,
thanks to my cursed leg, but I was able to trip Kenric and hold him
down for a few moments. Then Kenric got away from me and went after
Julianna and the maid. I alerted Cadwallon, though by then he
didn’t need any warning. He had seen what was happening and he put
himself between Marie and the queen in time to divert the blow.

“I followed Kenric up the nearest flight of
steps,” Michael went on. “When I reached the topmost gallery, I
found Marie was trying to take Julianna hostage. There was a
scuffle with Kenric and he pushed Marie off the gallery. When
Julianna tried to help her, Kenric pushed her off, too. Then you
arrived.”

“It’s all true,” Julianna said, seeing
Royce’s doubtful gaze on her. “Michael has told you the entire
story.”

“How did you know Marie was assigned to kill
the queen?” Royce demanded.

“I didn’t know. I was hanging about near the
high table, waiting for you to return, when I saw her. Or rather, I
saw her red dress. That’s how I realized it was Marie. If I were
planning to kill someone, I’d never wear such a noticeable dress,”
she added, knowing she was babbling, but unable to stop herself.
She couldn’t stop shaking, either, and her voice was trembling. But
she continued to speak, the words pouring out of her. “Furthermore,
if I had committed a crime, I wouldn’t try to escape by running to
the upper level of a castle. But when I finally caught up to Marie,
she told me she wanted to find your secret documents. That was
another mistake; she should have stolen the documents first, put
them in a safe place, and then committed the murder.” Julianna
stopped, gasping for breath and near to collapsing.

“Michael, thank you for your efforts. You may
go.” Still with his gaze on Julianna’s face, Royce moved away from
the door. “Find Cadwallon and report to him. Say I will join him
shortly. Both of you are to keep a close watch on the queen, in
case a second would-be killer is lurking nearby.

“Since most of the servants are drunk, I will
wait until morning to order the broken rail repaired. I don’t want
anyone else to fall.”

Michael went out and Royce latched the door.
Julianna sank onto the bed, exhausted and weak and close to
tears.

“You are very clever at planning murder,”
Royce said. The way he advanced on her, slowly and powerfully,
reminded her of the lion she had once fancied him to be. “Your own
words convict you.”

“I hardly know what I am saying. I only told
you what I was thinking as I chased after Marie. Royce, please tell
me you don’t really think I had anything to do with that dreadful
plan.”

“Did you?” He loomed over her. “If you did,
tell me now, and I’ll kill you myself, quickly and mercifully.
Death at my hand will be far less painful than King Henry’s
justice.”

“Dear God in heaven!” She gaped at him. “You
cannot think I knew. I would never – never! - I cannot bear the
thought of violent death. The thought of Marie falling like that,
even though she would have killed the queen, makes me ill. Royce, I
think I’m going to be sick.”

“No, you are not.” With one large hand he
pushed her down on the bed and held her there while his fingers
worked at the fastenings of his hose. An instant later his mouth
crashed down on hers, devastating her with his dominating
passion.

For just a moment she feared he would rape
her, that he would take her out of anger and frustration at his
failure to solve the entire mystery of the plot against the queen
or to learn who besides Kenric and Marie was involved in it.

She should have known better. Despite his
threat to kill her quickly and painlessly, Royce was not a man who
would be happy to commit violence upon any woman. At the moment he
was fierce and determined and he allowed her no opportunity to say
yes or no, but he was not brutal. He began by kissing the wounds on
her earlobe and throat and she trembled at the heat of his breath
on her skin. Then, tight-lipped and grim-faced, he pulled off her
clothes with terrifying efficiency.

She shivered under his rough caresses. Oh,
how she shivered, first in a lingering reaction to the events of
the last hour, and then in flaming passion. She screamed with
savage pleasure when he plunged into her, and she clung to him
moaning at his every forceful thrust. She screamed again when the
fiery climax shook her to her very soul.

Royce caught her face between his hands and
glared down at her, his face shining with sweat, his broad chest
heaving with his tortured breath, and he thrust into her once more,
harder and deeper than before. She felt his body convulse with the
force of his release, and she saw his hard face begin to relax in
the aftermath.

“That,” he said a moment later, “was to make
sure you know who your true master is.”

“Royce.” She clutched at his shoulders,
attempting to bring him closer, into a more tender embrace, but he
tore himself from her arms and stood beside the tumbled bed.

“I have known all along about the spying you
did for Lord Deane,” he told her. “I have been hoping you would
confess everything you did for him, that you’d be honest with me,
as you once promised.”

“I was afraid,” she began, but he interrupted
her explanation.

“I cannot trust you and, unfortunately, I
cannot seem to keep myself out of your bed.” He glared down at her.
“You represent a great danger to my work for King Henry. That is a
risk I dare not accept.”

“You despise me,” she whispered. “It’s what I
feared most.”

“I despise myself more,” he said. “I ought to
have better sense than to give in to unbridled lust.”

“Oh, Royce, it isn’t only lust.” She saw in
his eyes that nothing she might say or do would alter the distaste
with which he regarded her, so she stopped before making an
admission he wouldn’t believe. “What are you going to do with me?”
she asked.

“Pack your belongings,” he ordered,
refastening his hose as he spoke. “Since you no longer have a maid,
you will have to do it yourself. You leave at dawn.”

“Are we going to Craydon?” she asked in
confusion. “I don’t understand. I should think you’d want to remain
here for a few days. You will have questions you want answered,
possible accomplices to discover. Kenric must be traced and found.
How can you think of leaving?”

“I am going nowhere,” he said. “You are, but
not to Craydon. I am sending you to Wortham, under armed
guard.”

Not until much later, while she was folding
the last of her clothing into a basket, did Julianna think of a
possible explanation for Royce’s sudden, fierce assault on her
senses. When it was over, when he’d left her alone in their
bedchamber, she had discovered to her surprise that she was much
calmer. The trembling deep in her bones, and the accompanying
nausea, were gone.