Free Love Everlasting by Flora Speer

not
falter now, dared not say a single word that would indicate what
Deane had been doing for all of those unhappy, frightening
years.
    While Deane hadn’t wanted his wife’s
assistance in bed, he’d had no compunction about using her
familiarity with the ladies of the royal court. Discreet by
necessity and growing more skillful under Deane’s training,
Julianna had aided him in his work, gathering the latest court
gossip, listening to rumors, sifting possible facts from highly
unlikely conjectures. By the time the first symptoms of his fatal
illness appeared, Julianna had made herself invaluable to him. He
had never admitted as much, of course. Like so many men, Deane
thought women were stupid and untrustworthy, even as he trusted her
with information that could lead him to the headsman’s block.
Julianna thought he had never fully grasped just how many of his
secrets she had learned.
    Finally, when Deane had grown too ill to
continue, his nephew, Kenric, had assumed his place as an important
link in the chain that King Louis of France held so ruthlessly in
his royal grasp. During the years of her marriage to Deane, Kenric
had always been the contact, the man who carried into and out of
France the information that Deane provided. With Deane’s illness
and death, Kenric controlled the information that was sent to King
Louis.
    Julianna believed Kenric was also the man who
knew the secret that had haunted Deane of Craydon until the day he
died. She suspected Kenric of revealing the secret to King Louis,
so he could use it to force Deane into spying for the French.
    “You must have an opinion about Lord Deane’s
reason for slighting you as a wife,” Royce insisted.
    “It’s only a suspicion,” she said, knowing
she was going to have to betray Deane in order to save herself. But
then, Deane had betrayed her many times during the years of their
miserable marriage. He had betrayed his king almost as often. And
Kenric had betrayed both men. Saints in Heaven, what a dreadful,
twisted web those foolish creatures had woven! “I have no proof,
Royce, just a feeling.”
    “Tell me your suspicion,” Royce demanded.
    “I think Deane did not care for women in the
way that men usually do,” she said, choosing her words carefully so
they couldn’t be held against her later. “After he deserted our
bed, I began to notice that Deane’s squires were always remarkably
handsome, and I saw how warmly affectionate he was with them - far
more affectionate than he ever was with me.”
    “Hmm.” Royce stared at her profile, noting
how pale she was. Despite the scandalous possibility she was
suggesting, no blush of embarrassment stained her cheek. She had to
be lying. She had been evading honest answers all along, regaling
him with information out of her marital bedchambers, most likely in
the hope that he’d be diverted enough to give up on the more
serious and important inquisition.
    A clever woman, he thought, according her the
admiration such an agent deserved. A dedicated and resourceful
spy.
    Or, was she a sadly misused, unhappy soul,
given away twice in marriage to uncaring men who did not value her,
by a father who granted her hand to further his own ambitions?
Royce couldn’t be absolutely sure which she was as yet, and where
Julianna was concerned, he didn’t want to make a mistake.
    Of one thing he was certain; if she thought
she’d fooled him, she didn’t know him well at all. For the moment,
he would allow her to imagine she had won their minor contest, to
think that he accepted all she had told him. He’d learn the entire
truth soon enough. He could wait.
    Meanwhile, he had done what King Henry
required of him. Julianna’s great inheritance was now securely in
the possession of Royce of Wortham, just as the king wanted.
    The heiress who had brought all of those
lands to him remained a beguiling mystery. He was going to enjoy
tutoring her in the finer points of passion. He’d stir her carnal
desires until she