These woods surrounding the castle are deep and dark. Surely they hold many secrets. Perhaps there is room for one more. Without looking back or thinking too incredibly far into the future, I slipped into the dark cover of the royal forest.

The King’s Forest

B

ranches tore at my hair and dress as I ran. My chest heaved against the impossible whale-bone corset. His Majesty and all his men are out in these very woods. Should they find me—

The swift chop of the headsman’s axe echoed in my skull. I kicked out of my azure slippers and ran faster beneath the deep canopy.

Sounds of the night creatures amplified as I struggled to catch my breath. Images of Henry and his gleaming brown eye, peering at me from behind every tree trunk, faded until he became a wild boar, largest in the whole of England, running for his life, crashing through the understory.

Tears streamed down my cheeks and I leaned against the trunk of an ivy-encased trunk. The darkness was almost tangible, and I was certain that brown eye was out there. Staring at me from the deep black. Watching. Waiting. Lusting.

Somewhere nearby, a dog barked.

His Majesty has discovered my absence and set the dogs after me.

I pushed off like a sprinter and dashed blindly through the wilds. I didn’t care where I wound up, just so long as it was nowhere near Henry or the castle. My jagged breath clawed at my throat as I refused to give in to the sharp pains that stabbed my sides, or the misbegotten roots and rocks that jabbed at my stockinged feet.

Finally, I slowed as I entered a clearing, illuminated by the moonlight, through the sudden parting of leaves.

Is that a light?

I rubbed my bleary eyes and willed my breathing to slow. My heart thundered in my ears as the tiny stone cottage, built into side of a small knoll, came into focus before me. Just as I thought, a lone candle lit the front window.

In the distance, it came again. Sharp. Like a slap to a cold cheek. Another dog bark.

I chewed my lower lip and rushed the door. My quivering fingers rapped the ancient wood in staccato succession. And waited.

Nothing.

I knocked again, louder this time, and pressed my ear to the wooden slats.

The door creaked inward.

Without bothering with a second time-consuming thought, I stepped inside. My heartbeat pulsed in my ears as I pushed the heavy door shut behind me. I leaned against it, eyes closed. In this moment, I was safe. Safe from the wild boar. Safe from the bloodhounds. Safe from the peeping brown eye.

At least for now.

I opened my eyes and dared a peek around my new surroundings. A roughhewn chair sat before a crooked hearth, and a candle flickered in the only window. Across the way, a door set partially open to what was probably somebody’s sleeping quarters. A black kettle hung in the fireplace that had long grown cold. Above the mantle hung a gleaming, familiar object. “Surely not.”

I rubbed my eyes.

“Surely not,” I whispered again. As much as I wished they had, my eyes had not deceived me. A double headed axe hung above the fireplace.

My breath caught in my throat as I stepped to the middle of the quaint cottage, not wanting to remember where I’d seen that axe before. I turned slowly and prayed for any sign of the cottage’s owner. Perhaps a simple parkkeeper and his wife. Anyone, so as long as the owner wasn’t—

Then, there it was. On the middle roof timber. The tell-tale brown hooded mask, hanging innocently enough.

Blood drained from my face, and my knees began to shake. I smoothed wildly at my hair and chewed my lip. “I’ve gone from the coliseum stadium into the lion’s den.”

The scraping of the door along the dirt floor made me jump. Before I could find a place to hide, a shirtless man wearing only britches stepped inside. Droplets of water dotted his chest and hung like diamonds from his damp, black locks. Freshly scrubbed, his muscular arms shone in the glow of candlelight as he rubbed his glistening hair with a cloth.

I swallowed hard as the shirtless man froze in the doorway and his ice blue eyes met mine. Again.

I recognized him at once, even without his brown hooded mask. With all the luck of a condemned man who escaped the gallows only to find himself in the torture chamber, I’d found my way into the quarters of His Majesty’s private executioner.

My fingers searched the stone wall behind me.

Perhaps I can make it out the door, if I can just get by him—

Catching myself staring at his smooth, chiseled chest, I turned my face away.

Why had you not expected such a handsome creature to belong to those eyes, those striking blue eyes.

Words as gruff as I remembered filled the cottage. “How did you find me?” His eyes narrowed to fiery slits. “Why are you here?”

My tongue untied as I began in shaky words. “Have—have you been sent to kill me?” I gulped. “Sir?”

“Sir?” The executioner arched a dark eyebrow. “Perhaps we should exchange pleasantries before talk of killing. Don’t you agree?” He stepped inside and pushed the door shut, effectively sealing my exit. “I’m Jean St. Bromaine. Seems you’ve found your way into my home.”

Fear chopped the politeness from my words as I tried to place his accent. A mixture of French and Welsh perhaps? “I know who you are. I saw you this morning.”

“Ah, yes. I knew I recognized you. But the question remains, who are you?”

I dug my fingers into the rock wall behind me. A hot flush crept up my neck. “Forgive me. I am Lady Bridget. I was brought to court—”

My thought trailed off as I realized Jean was no longer listening. He turned his back to me as he continued to dry his hair with the cloth. Muscles rippled beneath his skin, giving rise to an odd emotion in my stomach. We stood together in awkward silence.

Finally, he flung the damp cloth over a peg beside the door and turned back to face me. “Good evening, Lady Bridget.”

My eyes widened at his unspoken insult. My tongue grew bold, and I let go of the stone wall. “Tell me, Jean, why are your quarters not in the castle? Or more appropriately, the Tower?”

I tilted my chin as I had seen Lady Denny do, and elicited a smoldering look from Jean.

He removed a white cloth shirt from over the back of the chair and drew it over his head and arms. Pulling it down, he covered his chiseled chest and stomach before he spoke. “I do my job well. In return, the King affords me the simple luxury of choosing my own quarters.”

I glanced at the headsman’s axe that hung above the mantle, almost a living thing itself. The same curved, double sided blade that took the lives of Catherine Howard and Lady Rochford just this morning no longer dripped with syrupy blood, but instead gleamed.

He followed my gaze. A smile raised the corners of his full lips. “And as you see, I choose to live as far from the castle and as far away from the goings on at Court as possible.” He sunk into the lone chair, a look of contentment on his darkly shadowed face. “After all, I usually see the faces that fill the His Majesty’s Court in my own time.”

I stared at him, any words I could say refusing to untangle themselves and escape my tongue.

Jean linked his fingers together across his chest. “What I mean to say is that those who are favorites at Court one day, often wind up trembling upon my chopping block the next.”

“Yes,” I mused. “I can see how that would be true. That is precisely the reason I’m here, as well.” Muscles in my neck I hadn’t realized were tense began to twitch and relax.

Jean sat forward, his elbows on his knees. “How about a pot of tea?” His gauzy shirt drooped a bit at the neckline. I tried not to let my gaze fall to what the shirt kept hidden. The curious blush that appeared with Jean still burned in my cheeks.