A VERY TUDOR CHRISTMAS Read Online Free Page A

she
couldn’t move. Her hands shook, and she clenched them in the folds of her skirt.
She couldn’t tear her gaze from the man who stood at the edges of Lord
Ellingham’s merry group. For it was the one man she had thought—hoped—never to
see again.
    It was Robert Erroll.
    Like her, he had grown older in the three years since she’d
seen him, but the time sat well on him. His face, framed by a neatly trimmed
fashionable goatee, was leaner, even more chiseled, browned and slightly
weathered by the sun and snow of his travels. His black hair was longer, swept
back from his brow and touching the high black collar of his purple velvet
doublet. His hand was curled around a jeweled dagger at his belt, and he watched
the enthusiasms of Peter Ellingham and his friends with a small, wry smile on
his sensual lips.
    Then his gaze swept over the room—and came to land on her. His
eyes, those oh-so-blue eyes she remembered so well, widened a bit as he saw her
there. Despite the crowd around her, she felt horribly exposed with nowhere to
hide. His smile flashed broader for just an instant. But then a veil quickly
fell over his eyes, his smile, leaving nothing but a mask of fashionable
boredom. He gave her a small bow.
    “Attention, please!” Lady Burghley called. “We have no time to
lose.”
    Meg was so very cold, her head spinning so she feared she would
faint. “Excuse me for a moment, Bea,” she gasped.
    “What...” Beatrice said, obviously bewildered. She tried to
catch Meg’s hand, but Meg managed to slip away. She pushed her way through the
crowd, seeking an escape route.
    With the new arrivals, the hall was even more crowded and
confused than before, and Lady Burghley was striving to regain control. In the
confusion, Meg was able to slip past the shifting tide of people and through the
still-open doors into the empty entrance hall.
    She ran down a long corridor, not knowing where she was going.
The rise and fall of all the voices blending together faded behind her as she
hurried along the darkened passageway. A few servants passed her but paid her no
attention, for they were on their own urgent errands. Everyone was focused on
the wedding preparations, and surely Lord Burghley himself was at the queen’s
side at Whitehall, getting ready for the Christmas season festivities.
    Why did Robert have to come back now, after all this time?
She’d been able to put her youthful folly, her romantic dreams, behind her, and
now here he was. Making her feel just as young and giddy as ever, just from one
look from his beautiful blue eyes.
    He would just have to go away again. Soon. And in the meantime
she would have to seek to avoid him. That shouldn’t be so hard, should it?
    Meg turned down another corridor and then another, until
suddenly she found herself confusingly in the entrance hall once again.
Bewildered, she tripped over the edge of a Turkish carpet and fell forward. With
a startled cry, she shot her hands out to catch herself....
    And found herself with a fistful of warm, soft velvet
instead.
    Strong, hard-muscled arms came around her and held her steady.
It was Robert Erroll—she knew it even without looking up at his too-handsome
face. She could smell the clean, cool scent of his soap, and her traitorous body
still knew his touch. She made herself go very still, and not panic and run
again like a ninny.
    “You must have an urgent appointment somewhere, Mistress
Clifford,” he said quietly, his voice deep and smooth, like spiced wine on a
cold Christmas night. “Is it still Mistress Clifford, or have you a new
name?”
    “I— Yes,” she murmured, staring hard at the gold buttons of his
doublet. “And I hear you are Sir Robert now, for all your good deeds to the
queen.”
    “I am not sure how good they are,” he said with a hint of
laughter. “But I am indeed Sir Robert now. It’s been too long since we met.”
    Since they’d met—and he’d kissed her and trifled with her
girlish affections when she