Page 26 of Retribution

“Perrin is an excellent operative,” Gerard confirmed. “It was a pleasure serving with him.”

That explained why Gerard and Perrin were so friendly. “And why have you come?” Aidric asked. “Clearly, there is something we must be aware of, as Edward’s bodyguards?”

Perrin nodded. “There is,” he said. “Aidric, this concerns you.”

Aidric looked surprised. “Me?” he said. “Why?”

“Because you saved a woman today.”

Aidric’s eyebrows lifted. “How did you know that?”

Perrin’s gaze was focused on him. “Because part of my duties, as an agent for the Executioner Knights, is to maintain communication with agents who are entrenched with enemies of the crown,” he said. “I’ve stopped being a field agent for the most part and now I’m simply a contact because that is where I serve best. I relay information to my father and he makes decisions based on that information. In any case, one of our agents is embedded in the household of the Archbishop of Cambridge and has been for almost ten years. He was placed there when Clarence du Fulbourne rose to power and my father has simply kept him there to watch Cambridge because the man bears watching.”

Aidric was listening intently. “What does that have to do with me?”

Perrin lifted his eyebrows. “Because you saved one of the Seven Jewels of London from a robbery today,” he said. “That woman belongs to the Archbishop of Cambridge.”

Now, he was starting to make some sense and Aidric tried not to react overtly. “I know who she is,” he said. “But she was in danger. I would have done the same thing for any woman who had been in the same position. I hope it did not incite trouble with the archbishop.”

Perrin shrugged. “It depends on what you consider trouble.”

“Has something happened to her?”

Perrin shook his head. “Nay, not her,” he said. “Not yet, anyway. But it seems that the archbishop is quite unhappy that Edward has returned and he has been vocal about his displeasure to our agent, a man he greatly trusts—and even before you saved his courtesan, Cambridge had been suggesting that a move against the king might be in order.”

“A move against the king?” Britt repeated. “What does that mean, Perrin? Where are you going with all of this?”

Perrin held up a hand to beg patience. “It means that when Aidric protected the courtesan, the archbishop saw an opportunity,” he said, looking between Aidric and Britt. “Aidric, the archbishop has a scheme. He intends that his courtesan should get close to you because the acquaintance has been made and you have shown that you hold some kind of regard for her, even if it is only chivalric in nature and intention. The archbishop intends to instruct her to cultivate that friendship in the hopes that you two will become… closer. And she can get close to the king because of it.”

Aidric was completely baffled. Outraged, too, if he thought about it. “Close to the king?” he said, sounding disgusted. “For what purpose? To seduce him?”

“To kill him.”

Those three words were like a lightning strike right in the middle of the room. It seemed to jolt everyone to varying degrees, Aidric most of all. There was shock, surprise. It took Aidric a few moments to wrap his head around what he’d just been told.

“Her?” he finally said. “That delicate slip of a woman? A murderess?”

Perrin held up his hands in a gesture that suggested anything was possible. “That is what my contact has told me,” he said. “She is to be instructed to use you to get to the king. It is even possible that she might try to use her wiles to convince you to kill him for her.”

Aidric was genuinely shocked. “That’s pure madness,” he hissed. “I’ll simply refuse to speak with her if that’s the case. I will not let her near me.”

Perrin shook his head. “It may not be that simple,” he said. “It seems that she and her father are in some kind of debt to the archbishop.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that the lady in question has a father who is evidently at the mercy of the archbishop,” Perrin said. “According to our agent, the man is a slave to the juice of the poppy. He became that way in the Levant, a habit that ruined his fortune as well as his wife’s fortune. When his daughter was chosen as one of the Seven Jewels of London, called ‘the Pearl’ because the original Pearl became a mistress to a great warlord and died in childbirth, it was much to her father’s distress. He greatly protested but his protests were quelled when the archbishop offered to keep him supplied with poppy. Now, he uses that as leverage against his courtesan. If she does not do as she is told, that supply is threatened, and she does not wish to cause her father such agony. It is a strange dynamic, Aidric. If she is unable to establish a relationship with you, Cambridge is not beyond punishing her or her father.”

Aidric didn’t want to hear that. He’d been building up a substantial rage, but hearing that the lovely Cleodora might be punished for his refusal to cooperate in the archbishop’s reprehensible scheme brought him to a standstill.

Cleodora.

The truth was that he’d been thinking about her since yesterday. She was all he’d thought about, and even as he’d walked Westminster Hall and discussed security arrangements, she wasn’t far from his mind. Now, she was in the forefront and Perrin’s news was horrifying. Disappointing, maddening, and absolutely horrifying. He’d called himself an idiot once before.

Evidently, it was the truth.

At least when it came to Cleodora. The entire time he spoke with her, he’d never received the impression that she was anything other than a polite young woman. Usually, he could tell if a woman was conniving or arrogant in the first few moments of speaking with her, but he never got that impression of Cleodora. She had been moderately shy, of course, but it had seemed so natural. Was it possible that he was simply so overcome by her beauty that he was willing to overlook everything else? Was it possible he’d learned absolutely nothing from having his heart broken those years ago?

Women were not to be trusted.