Chapter Twenty-One

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Hull

The Flying Fish

T he walk from the castle shouldn’t have taken so long, but it had.

It was the longest walk Christelle had ever made in her life.

The road leading up through Hull went straight to the castle before veering off to the northwest, and it was along that road that Christelle made her final journey. It seemed like she’d been at Ashendon for years. Maybe even her entire life. She couldn’t remember when she hadn’t lived here, yet she remembered the moment of arrival with unusual clarity. She remembered the entire experience with unusual clarity. From the moment Leonidas approached her on the deck of that rolling cog as she stood at the side and tried not to become ill, it was a moment she would remember for the rest of her life. The moment when she realized there was something between them.

Even if he didn’t kill the captain for cooking onions and fish.

But it was more than that. Making their way to the castle had been a moment when she knew that she belonged to something bigger than herself. She and Leonidas and Kenneth had accompanied Phillipa in their quest to protect her. Truthfully, it had always been Christelle’s intention to protect the woman. Even though she was on a mission from her father, she would have never let anything awful happen to Phillipa. She would have laid down her life for the woman. A woman who had been a friend and a mentor to her.

And a woman who knew she was being spied upon.

Was that the most shocking revelation out of this entire situation? The fact that Phillipa knew Christelle, her own personal guard, was a spy? Christelle had thought long and hard about that very thing on her walk into Hull, and perhaps that was why it had taken so long. At one point, she stopped and sat on the side of the road, pondering the course her life had taken. She thought about Phillipa and how sweet and innocent the woman came across sometimes when the truth was that she was a royal, born and bred, and she wasn’t na?ve. She had a mind like a steel trap. She had done the right thing and suspected Christelle from the beginning. That being the case, Christelle wasn’t really surprised that Phillipa was onto her.

Perhaps she would have been disappointed had she not been.

Still, Phillipa had allowed her to remain at her side. She remembered well that Phillipa was always asking about her father and whether she’d heard from him. Christelle had always thought it was simply because Phillipa was trying to be polite and interested, but the truth was that it was much more than that. Even as Christelle was spying on Phillipa, Phillipa was spying on Christelle. She had to smile when she realized just how astute the queen was.

Her lady wasn’t so na?ve, after all.

Christelle was proud of her. Proud of the young queen for growing into a seasoned, smart queen. Christelle liked to think that she had a hand in that because Phillipa was so young, but the truth was that she was probably a very hard lesson for Phillipa to learn. A lesson that taught her that not everybody was who they seemed.

Not everybody was who you wanted them to be.

Therefore, Christelle sat on the side of the road for quite some time pondering that very real fact. The truth was that she wasn’t who she wanted to be. Her father had tried to mold her into what he wanted her to be, and, before she met Phillipa and Leonidas, Christelle was content with what her father wanted. But after living in their world for the past couple of years, she knew that her father’s world was not where she wanted to be.

And she was going to tell him so.

As the sun began to set, she cast a final glance to the castle on the rise, fighting off tears as she knew the glance would be her last. She was going to have to start a new life now, a life without Leonidas. In a sense, she would have done better had she been the one to drown in that cold river instead of Georgiana, because her life was ending in precisely the same manner. She was to be cut off from everybody and everything she had grown to love. For someone who had experienced those feelings for the first time in her life, feelings of acceptance and love, that was a fate worse than death.

By the time Christelle reached the town, the sun was nearly down. Along the river’s edge, fishing boats had laid out their nets for the night. The town itself was closing up for the day as she made her way to the waterfront and finally to The Flying Fish, the last establishment in a line of various business along the river’s edge. Already, at this early evening hour, it was quite busy.

The common room was packed with fisherman who had just put in a hard day’s work. Some kind of fish stew was clearly being eaten because she could smell it. It reminded her of those three weeks on the cog, and she immediately became nauseated. Grabbing the nearest serving wench, she asked for her father, but the woman didn’t know who Bernard de Lorrain was. As the wench darted off to serve some of the loud and hungry fishermen, Christelle wandered deeper into the tavern and came across another young wench, round and buxom, and told that lass whom she was looking for. This time, however, she described him rather than state his name, and that brought about the desired results. The serving wench directed her to two chambers on the ground floor, facing the street.

The chambers were located under the stairs that led to the second floor. It was dark and quiet back here, away from the common room, and Christelle went to the first door and rapped softly on it. There was no answer, so she went to the second door and did the same thing.

That drew a response.

“Who comes?”

Christelle knew that voice. God help her, she did, and her stomach sank as she responded.

“Your daughter.”

The door flew open, and the first thing she saw was her father standing in the doorway. He had an expression full of glee until he realized she was alone.

“Where is the guest I asked you to bring?” he demanded.

That was so typically her father. No warmth, no pleasantness. Simply business. That was all she’d ever been to him—business.

“May I at least come in before I tell you?” she asked. “Or do you wish for everyone in Hull to know our business?”

He looked at her, greatly displeased. “Come in.”

He opened the door wider so she could slip in. Once she was inside the chamber and he shut the door, he swiftly turned to her.

“Well?” he said. “Where is she?”

Christelle was looking around the chamber. She recognized her father’s ally, Gautier de Leon, but didn’t recognize the third man. He was big and brooding and heavily armed from what she could see. She could only imagine that he would be the muscle to take Phillipa back to the Continent, which didn’t sit well with her. Phillipa didn’t need a barbarian to contain her. She needed a gentle hand.

But her father didn’t care about that. He’d come ready to do business.

“Greetings to you also, Bernard,” she said, calling him by his given name because she’d never addressed him as Father or even Papa. “We’ve not seen each other in at least two years, but instead of a word of salutation, you simply make demands as if I am another one of your vassals and you only saw me yesterday. You could have at least been civil.”

Bernard faced off against his daughter. “As you wish,” he said sharply. “Greetings, Christelle. Where is Phillipa?”

“She is not here.”

“I can see that,” he said. “Where is she?”

“At Ashendon Castle, surrounded by heavily armed men,” she said. “I could not bring her with me.”

Bernard frowned. “Why not?”

“Because they discovered who I am.”

That wasn’t something Bernard had expected to hear. At first, he looked at her with confusion, then disbelief.

“ What? ” he spat. “That is impossible!”

Christelle eyed the men in the room, particularly Gautier, whom she knew to be hot tempered. The man had always concerned her.

He wasn’t going to take this news well.

“I am afraid is it very possible,” she said. “It seems that I was discovered early in my mission by Phillipa herself. Though I’ve not spoken with her directly about it, that is what I was told. She had been reading every missive I sent you and every missive you sent me, including the most recent one. They know what you want. Rather than executing me as a spy, they simply sent me on my way with nothing but the clothes on my back. I suppose I am more fortunate than most spies in that regard, but here I am. Your mission has ended.”

She said it all so casually that it drove Bernard to despair. He rolled his eyes and put his head in his hands, possibly a dramatic response, but not overly dramatic considering he’d been working on this scheme with his daughter for almost half her life. Ten years of training and connections. Ten years of hard work.

Clearly, the man was not pleased.

“But the queen has said nothing to you?” Bernard said incredulously. “Not a word?”

Christelle shook her head. “She said nothing,” she said. “If she has read everything that passed between us, even though no names were ever mentioned, then she knows I was sending you information. I think she could deduce solely by the clues what we were speaking of and what we were potentially planning. The woman is not stupid.”

“And what did you do to convince her that you were not a spy?” Gautier finally spoke up, eyes as cold as ice. “Did you try to convince her that she misread the missives? Better still, did you stress that her actions were wrong?”

“Her actions were not wrong,” Christelle said, eyeing the man she had a genuine dislike for. “As I told you, she did not speak directly to me about this. I was told by one of her knights. He is the one who banished me rather than execute me. A man who taught me the important things in life, like honesty and loyalty. In truth, I owe him everything.”

The fact that she had survived spying on the royal couple didn’t seem to matter to Gautier or to her father. All they could see was their ruined plans.

Being grateful for her life never entered into it.

“And you did nothing to try to salvage this?” Gautier persisted. “Nothing to convince them that they were mistaken?”

Christelle knew they didn’t care about her, personally, but it was never more obvious than it was at this very moment. “And how am I to do that when they have irrefutable evidence?” she said. “I am not going to deny the obvious. These people are not stupid. They are strong and brilliant and loyal. Even you should appreciate that kind of loyalty, Gautier, as my father’s faithful dog.”

Gautier laughed low, but it was without humor. “I see that spending two years with Phillipa has not made you more charming,” he said. “You still behave as lowborn as ever.”

Christelle smiled thinly. “Be careful what you say to me,” she said. “It may not reflect well on my father.”

“It already does not reflect well on me,” Bernard said. “ You do not reflect well on me. You had a mission, Christelle. Now you are telling me that you have failed? That our hard work is at an end?”

Christelle sighed sharply and faced her father. “I am telling you that Phillipa knows of my mission,” she said. “She has from the start, but still, she kept me on, though I do not know why. Mayhap she thought somehow you would divulge useful information from the French, but in any case, she knows. Even if she did not, your arrival in town is fortuitous because I was going to send you a missive telling you that I refuse to spy on Phillipa any longer. Now I can tell you face to face.”

Another thing Bernard was not expecting to hear. He scowled. “What’s this you say?” he said, aghast. “What is the matter with you? Have you gone daft?”

Christelle was feeling strong. From the bottom of her devastated heart, she was nonetheless drawing strength. Strength that had never been there before. It was the strength of righteousness, the strength acquired from knowing what path she wanted to take in life.

It was the strength taught to her by people she loved.

And one in particular.

“If being daft means I understand how wrongly you have used and treated me, then I am most assuredly daft,” she said. “If being daft means that I understand the difference between right and wrong, then I am quite daft. If it means I will no longer live the way you want me to live, like a snake slithering around on its belly, then I am most happily daft. All of it!”

She had spoken rather strongly, which made both Bernard and Gautier look at her as if, indeed, she had jumped off into the abyss of madness.

“What has happened to you?” Bernard demanded.

Christelle pondered the question. “Truth happened,” she said. “In fact, I have something to tell you. When I first came to England, it was at your direction. You sent me to Blackchurch. Do you recall?”

“Of course I recall,” Bernard snapped. “It was the one thing you did in your life to make me proud.”

Christelle gave a grin, one of true humor. “Then I am happy to tell you that I lied to you about Blackchurch,” she said. “I never finished the training. I failed at a particular test when I was three years into the training and they banished me from the program, as is their rule. Knowing what it meant to you, I knew I could not return home, so I spent a year—an entire year—working as a serving wench at a tavern in London. I enjoyed it, in fact. When the year was over, I came home and told you I had finished Blackchurch. Now that you know the truth and I am a complete failure in your eyes, how proud are you?”

Bernard’s eyes were wide with horror. “Nay,” he said. “Nay… it is not true!”

“It is.”

Bernard’s eyes were still wide, now joined by a gaping mouth. “How could you shame me so?”

Christelle’s smile faded. “At one time, a question like that would have been like a dagger to my heart,” she said. “I tried for years to please a man who would never be pleased. But now… now, it is my mark of greatness. You think I have shamed you, and I am happy you think so. Bernard, I do not want to follow you into the dark underbelly of politics any longer. Before, I had no choice, but now I do. I realize now that I want to live in the light, with people who are good and decent. Decent like Phillipa, who is the kindest, most genuinely caring person I have ever met. She lives in the light. I want to be more like her. That was a side of life that you never introduced me to.”

Bernard looked at her as if she’d lost her mind. He started to reply but couldn’t seem to find the words. He was so shocked, so infuriated, that he had to find an outlet other than words. Therefore, he resorted to a method he’d resorted to before—he lashed out and hit Christelle in the chin with the back of his hand. Her head snapped back and she lost her balance, falling to her knees as Bernard loomed over her.

“Two years with the English has made you weak and mad,” he said. “I will not listen to this, Christelle. Do you hear me? You are going to tell me everything about situation and we are going to determine a way to fix it.”

Hand on her stinging jaw, Christelle eyed him as she slowly rose to her feet. “Do not do that again,” she growled. “I may not have completed Blackchurch, but I was still trained there. I can, and I will, fight back.”

By this time, Gautier was standing over near Bernard and the hulking figure in the shadows had moved. He was lingering behind Christelle, which she sensed, so she moved to the side, trying to get away from an armed man coming up behind her. That put her over by the window, her back against the wall next to it. The dynamics of the chamber were changing and she didn’t like it. If she had to bail from the window in order to save her life, then she wanted to be prepared.

“Answer me,” Bernard said, ignoring her threat to fight back. “Tell me who told you about Phillipa’s awareness and relay the conversation to me. Do not leave out anything.”

Christelle sighed as she leaned back against the wall, getting a good look at the brute with the sword. In fact, she found herself fixed on the man.

“I do not know you,” she said. “Who are you?”

“He goes by Le Mort,” Gautier answered for him. “He is my swordsman. Answer your father.”

Le Mort . That meant Death. She eyed the warrior, mildly concerned that he’d come out of the shadows. He was waiting for a command to attack her, especially after her father had struck her. Given how she intended to answer her father, she was going to have to be on her guard.

Her warrior training was kicking in.

“There is no use in telling you anything because I am not going back,” she said frankly. “I am not going to try to salvage the situation. I am going to leave this town and start my life somewhere new. Mayhap I’ll find a kind man and we’ll have children and I will raise them to be loved and cherished, which was certainly not how I was raised. You tried to teach me how to be deceitful and underhanded, and for a time, I was. But, as I said earlier, that is not the life I want for myself. I want to live like a decent person.”

Bernard was gazing steadily at her with rage in his features, when suddenly they rippled into something incredulous. As if a thought had just occurred to him. He lifted a finger, wagging it at her.

“I understand now,” he said. “I do not know why it did not occur to me before.”

“What has occurred to you?”

Bernard looked at Gautier. “It is perfectly obvious.”

Gautier wasn’t any less confused than Christelle was. “What is obvious?” he asked.

Bernard was still looking at him. “Don’t you see?” he said. “She serves Phillipa now. She is here on behalf of the queen to glean information from us. She is spying on us !”

Christelle shook her head. “I am not here on behalf of the queen,” she said. “I am here of my own accord to tell you that I will no longer be your spy. After I am done with you, I am leaving Hull and you will never see me again. And I, thankfully, will never see you again, either.”

“You are not leaving,” Bernard said. “At least, you are not leaving alive. You should never have betrayed me, Christelle. You are a positively inept spy if you permitted Phillipa to know of your mission. How stupid of you. How ridiculous.”

Unfortunately, Christelle wasn’t armed. She’d left her sword with Leonidas when she fled Ashendon. When she’d begged him to execute her and he couldn’t bring himself to do it. It was the first time since entering the chamber that she’d thought of Leonidas in a conversation where she’d tried desperately not to think of him at all. She’d kept the focus on her father and on Phillipa, because to think of anything else would divert her attention.

It would make her want to crumple and die.

But she couldn’t give in to such emotion, not now when her entire life was on the line. She could see that, very quickly, this was going to become deadly.

Concentrate!

“I do not know what you expect of me,” she said. “I cannot return. My ruse has been exposed. There is nothing I can do.”

“You can tell us of Phillipa’s future plans,” Bernard said. “Mayhap we can salvage what you have so badly damaged.”

“She does not have any future plans,” she said. “The woman is going to have a child. She has not made any plans for the future other than delivering a healthy infant.”

Bernard cocked his head in a gesture that suggested he didn’t believe a word she had said. “You sent word to me that Phillipa was being separated from Edward and moved to Hull,” he said. “This is not where she is to remain for the rest of her life. There are more plans. What are they?”

“There are no more plans until she delivers the child.”

“When will that be?”

“I am not certain. Soon.”

“How soon?”

“I told you that I am not certain.”

Bernard snorted rudely. “You have spent every day with her for the past two years,” he said. “Of course you know when the child is coming. Tell me.”

“I am not a midwife, Bernard. All I know is that it will be soon.”

“And then what?”

“Then she will raise the child.”

Bernard was at his limit of patience. He turned to Mort and gestured. “Make her tell us what we wish to know,” he said.

Mort immediately moved in Christelle’s direction. Seeing this, she reacted with equal swiftness, grabbing the nearest chair and swinging it at the man’s head. He managed to get an arm up and deflect most of the blow, but not entirely. Some of it connected with his head and shoulder. Infuriated, he lunged at Christelle and, as she was unable to move away fast enough because her father was blocking her path, was able to grab her by the hair. He yanked as hard as he could, which had Christelle hurling across the chamber and flying headfirst into a wall.

Unfortunately, it didn’t knock her out, but it did wound her. Blood poured from a gash over her eye and, dazed and seeing stars, Christelle struggled to crawl away from Mort, who was coming in for another blow. He was a big man, and she was injured, so it was a simple thing for him to catch her and toss her onto her back. Once she was sprawled out, he pounced on her, grabbing her by the front of her bloodied hair. When she tried to fight him off, he slammed her head back onto the floor to stop her struggles.

“Now,” Bernard said as he bent over Mort’s shoulder, “I will ask you again. What are Phillipa’s future plans?”

Christelle was closely approaching unconsciousness. In fact, she was praying for it, because then they’d leave her alone until she came around again. But until that time, she had to draw on what Blackchurch had taught her, and that was resistance.

She would resist to the end.

“Go to hell,” she snapped at her father, blowing blood off her lips. “And take your bastard friends with you.”

Mort slammed her head into the floor again, which mercifully knocked her out completely. But that was a tragedy for Christelle.

She would have very much liked to have seen what came next.

And it wasn’t long in coming.