Endless minutes later, boots thundered closer to the wharf and voices shouted, briefing our guards that the assassins had been apprehended. The guards gave the all-clear for the king to rise within a funnel of men that offered a complete circle of protection.
“Is everyone okay?” I said hoarsely as Nick helped me up and shoved away a guard who tried to touch me. My chin stung, and my lower leg ached.
“We must make haste,” Nick said, wiping my chin with his sleeve. The damp spot hurt, confirming that I was bleeding. The barrier of guards escorting us off the barge made it impossible to see, but a woman moaned behind me, and a commotion of people tried to help her.
A second later, Francis’s unmistakable voice cried out. “No, no, no! By God’s grace, no—I pray you!”
I spun around with my heart in my mouth. “Where’s Alice?” I said to Nick.
“Make haste!” he said again, pulling me close as we climbed onto the landing stage. Nick appeared unscathed, but his eyes flamed bright green with a blinding rage that I’d rarely seen.
A coach waited on the road behind the king’s water gate. Guards with crossbows sat poised inside each window as Nick and I were speedily ushered onto the opposite bench. Perhaps walking up the slope to the palace would be too dangerous.
“Was someone hurt?” I said through the bile in my throat as I angled to see past the guards. People were still huddled over someone on board the barge.
“Who took the arrow?” Nick snapped at a page outside the coach window.
“I believe it was Mistress Alice Grey, Your Majesty,” the boy said, his crooked teeth chattering. “I saw the arrow strike the lady in the chest.”
The noise that blasted from my lips sounded inhuman. Nick took me in his arms, catching me as I howled into his side.
16
I was trapped inside a nightmare, worsened by the sickening jolts of our coach tearing across boggy ground. I sat up, absorbing the passing blur of tangled woodlands and farming cottages. Hampton Court Palace was long behind us.
“Where are we going?” I said in a choked voice.
“Robin House,” Nick replied. “Hampton Court Palace is no fortress.”
“But neither is Robin House.”
“Few know of the manor’s existence,” he explained. “You shall be more safe there.”
I slumped against the window, watching the brave bowmen on horseback riding alongside our carriage, ready to strike at anyone following us.
Alice was shot in the chest with an arrow. Francis was howling. Alice is dead.
My throat constricted until I couldn’t breathe. There was only one reason the king’s barge would be ambushed on the eve of his wife’s coronation: no matter how well I played the part—no matter how much I tried to fit in—the people didn’t want me as their queen. The same way the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Grey, and even Francis Beaumont hadn’t. Would this ever end?
“They are having bonfires in London,” Nick said, pointing at a blush of light haloing the horizon. Given the circumstances, I was pretty sure they weren’t fires of celebration.
The memory of Alice’s face pushed into my mind again—her smitten smirk melting into Francis’s—and another sob convulsed from my throat. Nick squeezed me tightly, his breaths deep and heavy.
We held each other until our coach slowed along the mossy pathway leading to Robin House. The guards rushed ahead to check over the manor and light the fires, but Nick and I barely saw them as he ushered me upstairs. We said nothing to each other…the creaking of floorboards as we moved was the only sound to penetrate the unbearable silence.
Not wanting to see anyone, we untied each other’s intricate coronation outfits and climbed into the bed, grasping for each other’s warmth. Exhaustion sent me to sleep without effort, but I soon woke to an inky-black sky through the leaded windowpanes. Nick lay sleeping, a peaceful silhouette of a troubled angel. I knew he loved me—he wouldn’t have risked everything to be with me if he didn’t. But for Alice to die before she was meant to...just because Nick and I had defied the path of history to be together? The thought tasted like bitter poison.
Emmie, what have you done?
When the thoughts turned so cold that I shivered, I tugged the fur blankets to my chin and took slow, focused breaths so I didn’t end up with an asthma attack on top of everything else. I twisted every which way to shake off the despair in my heart, but there was nowhere to hide.
By some miracle, I slept a while longer until my eyes twitched open to the relief of daylight and an empty mattress beside me. The memories of the night before resurfaced, and I dodged them by dozing for as long as I could. Before long, however, my mounting concern about Nick’s whereabouts pushed me out of bed.
After sluggishly dressing in the simplest kirtle I could find in the clothes chest, I headed downstairs. Nick was in the dining chamber, huddled over a hand-painted map with four of his privy councilors, but there was no sign of Francis Beaumont. He must’ve stayed with Alice while she…I swallowed a sob. One of the earls was addressing the king about war taxes, but when Nick saw me, he excused himself, guiding me outside to the courtyard.
“Are you well?” he said, surveying my injured chin. “I wished not to awaken you.”
I tumbled into his arms, my stinging eyes locked on the patch of ground where, just a few days ago, we’d married each other with nothing but hope in our hearts.
As I struggled to speak, Nick pulled me to look at him. “Emmie, my lords brought word from Hampton Court. Mistress Grey is alive.”
Tears rushed to my eyes. “Are you serious?”
“The lady was shot in the shoulder, not the chest. Doctor Norris says she will be well.” He exhaled like he still couldn’t believe it. “Mistress Grey is being tended to at court, and Lord Warwick will remain with her.”
The hopeless, heavy mass inside me exploded into a burning ball of light. I wanted to cry and scream and shout from the rooftops.
“When can we go back?”
Nick cleared his throat. “You shall not return to the palace, my lady. However, I will take my leave from here this day.”
I didn’t know how to reply. Why would he leave me here?
Nick took my silence as an objection, and his eyes pleaded with me. “It is much too dangerous for your person to be at court during this time. My council has gathered news throughout the night.” His cheeks reddened, his jaw tight. “Fires of high treason are blazing across London in protest of your coronation. Henry Howard’s rebellion against you is spreading, and we believe he sent the archers to the coronation feast. Fear not, my lady; when I find that devil, I will see him dragged through the city alive, and then hung, drawn, and quartered, with his innards fed to the street dogs.”
My stomach rolled with nausea. Hopefully, Norfolk didn’t feed me to the dogs first.
“Just tell me what to do,” I said, shaking away the terrifying image. I couldn’t believe this was happening—that people actually wanted me dead for marrying the king.
“You will remain at Robin House under close guard,” Nick said firmly. “You may keep a maidservant, but no one must know you are here—not even your ladies; do you understand? Few know of this place, and there is nowhere more safe for you to be while I crush Howard and every traitor who seeks to defy his sovereign king.”