My Lady Jane(74)

“Protect him? From what? ‘The Affliction’?”

Peter opened one of the stalls and hoisted a saddle onto the steed inside. “From the likes of your dirty father. The king never had ‘the Affliction.’”

G stood still with his mouth open in surprise.

“There’s no time to explain. Get on yer horse. Follow my daughter. She’ll lead you safely away.”

While G mounted the horse (with Jane on his shoulder), Peter disappeared down toward the end of the stables and out the door that led to the kennels. He returned moments later with a beautiful Afghan hound.

“There’s a good girl,” he said, ruffling the dog’s fur. “Follow Petunia, my lord. She’ll help you.”

“I thought you said we were to follow your daughter.”

Just then a horn blew, and then another. Peter’s eyes went wide. “Go!”

He threw open the stable doors and then G and Jane and their horse and Petunia-the-dog galloped away into the night.





PART TWO




(In Which We Throw History Out the Window)





Midlogue


Hey, there! It’s us, your friendly neighborhood narrators. We just wanted to take a break for a minute to tell you something important: up until now, what we’ve shown you has been loosely based on what we’ve been able to uncover in our research, filling in the blanks where needed.

But from this point on, dear reader, we are going to go deep, deep, abyss-to-the-inner-crust-of-the-earth deep into the stuff the historians don’t want you to know about, the stuff they will go to extreme lengths to hide. (Because can you imagine the cost and hassle of rewriting all of the history books?) We’ve traversed the great plains of Hertfordshire, spelunked the dark tunnels of Piccadilly, hiked the rolling hills of the Cotswolds searching for the descendants of our lovers and the poisoned king, and we have compiled what we so delicately refer to as . . . THE TRUTH. (Because of the danger, we considered changing our names. But we didn’t. Still, we sleep with swords under our pillows.) If the truth of what happened to our heroes and heroine scares you—and God’s teeth, it should scare you—do not venture past this point.

But if you are a bucker of the system, a friend of truth, an ally of love, and a believer in magic, then read on.





NINETEEN


Edward

“Take that, you lily-livered scut!” Gracie shouted, swinging her sword.

Edward sidestepped the blow in the nick of time. He puffed out his chest. “That’s King Lily-Livered Scut to you.”

She laughed. “Yes, Sire,” she said. “Of course. How could I forget?”

His heart was pounding from more than just the exertion of the fight. This whole sparring-with-a-girl situation made him wildly uncomfortable. It wasn’t proper, of course. What if he were to hurt her? But Gran had said that was nonsense and sent them outside to “work up a sweat.”

Right. Edward was definitely sweating now. Gracie was making sure of that, what with the distracting trousers that hugged her in all the right places as she parried and thrust at him, her eyes bright and cheeks flushed, the sheen of her own perspiration on her forehead and what glimpses of her neck he could see around the tumble of black curls. It was outright unfair, he thought. How could he be expected to concentrate?

“Your Majesty.” She grinned and swiped at him again. He struck back at her lightly, a series of moves designed to impress her with his vast knowledge of swordplay, and she retreated.

“You’re not bad. For a girl,” he said.

Her next blow glanced off his shoulder, not hard but certainly unexpected. Somehow she’d made it past his superior defense techniques, but it must have been blind luck. He darted away, regained his footing, then advanced on her again. She retreated. She was open; she left him all kinds of vulnerable places to strike. Still, he could not bring himself to really hit her.

“Come on, Sire,” she scoffed as his broom gently grazed her leg. “Enough with the chivalry.”

“My lady,” he said gallantly, “I’m willing to stop whenever you are. Perhaps you’d be better off sticking to more womanly pursuits, like embroidery or music or—”

She bashed him in the ribs. If it’d been a real sword in her hand, instead of half of a broken broomstick, he would have been done for. As it was, he went to his knees, the wind knocked out of him. She rapped his hand then, hard enough that he dropped his broom, and she kicked it out of the way. Before he could reach for it, she lifted her foot and sent him sprawling into the grass. When he looked up, the blunt end of her broomstick was at his throat.

Beaten. By a girl.

Inconceivable.

His mind whirled with excuses. He was still getting over the effects of the poison, of course. His twisted ankle remained a bit tender, not to mention the dog bite on his leg. A broom was not the same as a good sword in your hand—it was a poor replacement, in fact, different to balance, difficult to hold. The sun was in his eyes.

“Do you yield?” she asked.

He laughed up at her and rubbed his knuckles where she’d struck him. “Hey, that hurt.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry, Sire,” Gracie said, but she didn’t look sorry. “Now, does England yield?”

“To Scotland?”