“You come to complain of my distance,” he said without looking at me. “Forgive me. I have been well occupied with matters of importance.”
“I just went to see Agnes Nightingale,” I replied flatly. There would be no sugarcoating this. Nick gaped up at me as I continued speaking. “I wanted to ask her about the cursed ring, as I told you already. I know you didn’t want me to, but it’s something I needed to know, and I’m a grown woman, so I went. I found Mistress Nightingale hanging from a rope in the market square. Her mom was there, too shocked to speak properly, but she said that the king did it…that the king’s guards came and took her daughter away.” I stepped forward as if being nearer to Nick would draw out the truth. “Did you have Agnes Nightingale hanged today?”
For a painfully long moment, he just sat there, blinking at me. When he finally spoke, his voice was stiff. “You would do well not to pursue these discussions, Emmie. You will not question my deeds, nor will you speak to me on matters of business. As for you taking leave in the dead of night, in Aylesbury of all places—”
“So you did do it! You executed Agnes Nightingale, just like you probably killed Norfolk, Wharton, and all those councilors that no one has spoken of since!” I turned away, dropping my face into my hands as I crumpled inside. The stark silence of Nick sitting behind me—doing nothing to console me or to tell me I was wrong—swallowed me whole. The thought came so fast and violently that it sliced right through me: This relationship is never going to work. We’re just too different.
“Emmeline, look at me,” he said, but I refused. “Agnes Nightingale was a known heretic who does the work of the devil,” he said evenly. “You may feel otherwise, but in this realm, that is an act of treason against God.”
I spun back to face him. “Tell me the truth, Nick. You killed Agnes so I could never prove that the enchanted ring is safe to use and that I’d be forced to never leave this place again.”
“Speak not for me!” he snapped, before glaring at a guard who popped his head through the curtain. The guard quickly disappeared, and Nick leaned toward me. “Here is the truth you seek: A villager here made a claim that Mistress Nightingale threatened his person. Days after, the man’s daughter died of no known cause. The witch was then justly tried, and judgment passed upon her. When she refused to give penance, I had her die by the rope, rather than the fire. That I did for you, knowing how you despise prolonged death. Yet you remain not gladdened.”
I shook my head. “For me? God, Nick, who are you?”
Frustration rippled across his brow. “If you do not know that by now, then I am not sure you will ever. Christ, nothing is ever enough for you, Emmie—you wish for only a world and a set of rules that I cannot provide.”
I didn’t reply, and the room turned silent—the sort of unbearable stillness that I’d only known in the Tudor period. I’d expected Nick to shout at me—perhaps kick something like a petulant child—but he just sat there with his head in his hands.
“Are you okay?” I eventually mumbled. Guilt grabbed me by the throat. All this time, I hadn’t considered what my brazen, modernistic views might do to this sixteenth-century king; how they might make him question his own worth and place in the world. Part of Nick’s job was to execute people convicted of heresy, and I was laying the guilt trip on thick like he was the criminal.
None of it changed the fact that he’d just had a young girl killed—and one that he knew I’d wanted to see.
“I’m going to bed,” I said, my voice hoarse with exhaustion. “You better take some deep breaths, so you don’t kick off your asthma.”
He nodded, wiping an eye with the heel of his hand. I spun away as fast as I could. I couldn’t bear to see him cry. I also didn’t want to run into the arms of an executioner. With fists at my side, fighting the urge to turn back, I headed to my chamber and crept over my sleeping ladies and into the bed.
Bridget received word of her cousin’s death at first light. I gave her the morning off, wanting her to sleep and not have to think about mindless things like my hair and makeup, but she staunchly refused. The last thing Bridget wanted was to be seen grieving over a dissident, but I could tell she was shaken up. Before we could chat about it any further, the king ordered all the courtiers staying at Aylesbury Manor into the Great Hall after breakfast.
Nick emerged in head-to-toe Tudor glamor, and I questioned whether he was making a point to me that he was still brilliant and beautiful. Gemstones glittered from the intertwined serpents stitched into his jade-green doublet as he announced that we were all to head back to Hampton Court as fast as possible. The French king had soured on the alliance, and—fueled by Spanish support—the Catholic Viceroy of Ireland was now raising an army in the north of England.
Gasps rumbled through the hall, including mine. Nick wouldn’t look at me, but I studied his drained face. This was what all the meetings had been about. A Catholic rebellion was looming, with troops already on English soil. I nearly bit through my lip. Was this also because of our marriage?
Not surprisingly, I wasn’t invited into the king’s coach for the ride home. We made one stop overnight in Hertfordshire, where I didn’t even see Nick. By the time we reached the lofty redbrick turrets of Hampton Court Palace, the courtiers were yawning and dragging their feet. Nobles hurried away to the heat of their lodgings, leaving me standing in a windy courtyard, searching for the king. Things felt so unfinished between us. But Nick never appeared.
I returned to my rooms with the girls, grateful for Violet’s infectious enthusiasm at lodging in a royal apartment at one of the king’s palaces. After we’d all washed, we sat around nibbling cheesecake and macarons. I collapsed into freshly cleaned sheets and didn’t move the entire night.
After a long and dreamless sleep, something soft stirred my arm. My eyes fluttered open, before sinking closed again. A soft pat roused me again, and I sluggishly rolled over to meet the source. Nick’s angelic face watched me from where he sat on the bed.
“A good morrow to you,” he said tightly.
I elbowed my way to sit up, too stunned to consider my bed hair. “What are you doing here?” The pinkish light piercing the shutters had me guessing it was nearly sunrise.
He rubbed his neck, releasing a gentle waft of roses. “The hour is early; forgive me. I wished not to depart without bidding you farewell, but I cannot delay any longer.”
“What are you talking about?” I registered Nick’s traveling cloak and the leather gloves resting in the upturned flat cap beside him.
“I must journey to Lancashire to demonstrate support for my troops and to prevent more idiots giving heed to the Irish savages.”
I couldn’t move nor breathe. The agitation polluting the air we shared had spread like venom, and now Nick was off to a battleground. He might never come back.
“Emmie, I feel this parting may do us good,” he said grimly, unable to look at me. “I shall be gone weeks, and it would be a favorable time for you to call upon your conscience and decide whether you trust me…whether you wish to live in a place of war and the necessary protection of princesses…and, perhaps mostly, whether you wish to love a king bound by his duty to punish heretics who refuse their penance.”