Dangerous Sanctuary

ALSO BY MICHELLE DIENER

In a Treacherous Court

Gallery Books
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2012 by Michelle Diener

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Gallery Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

First Gallery Books ebook edition February 2012

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ISBN 978–1–4516–7845–1 (Print)
ISBN 978-1-4516-7845-1 (eBook)

Dangerous Sanctuary

Keeper of the King’s Secrets (excerpt)

Susanna came back to the world like a swimmer breeching the water’s surface to draw breath, pulling herself from the hold of her work.

She shifted on the hard church bench and set down her charcoal and parchment, stretching her legs and tipping back her head to ease her neck. As she straightened, she looked down the length of Paul’s walk, the long nave that ran the length of St. Paul’s Cathedral, eyes burning with strain from sketching so long in the dim light.

She’d arrived early in the morning, when there was almost no one else within the cathedral, but now, as midday approached, it was becoming more crowded.

Usually, the booksellers would move in, taking over the nave to set up their tables, and the newsmongers would stroll up and down the length of the walk for the latest gossip and news in London, but not today.

Today the King’s procession through London from Bridewell would end here, in a ceremony of thanks to God for the capture of the French king, Francis I, and the death of the Yorkist Pretender, Richard de la Pole.

It had taken the King’s fancy—late last night, deep into making merry with his courtiers—to have a commemoration of today’s occasion. A painting of the ceremony.

A page had been sent to knock on her door, waking Susanna and
her betrothed, Parker, in the early hours to inform her of her new commission.

And so she sat now, sketching the main altar from which the Cardinal Wolsey would say the Sarum rite. She had come as early as the light would allow, drawing the background so she could focus on the King and Wolsey when the ceremony began. Her fingers were stiff and cold from capturing the intricate, soaring interior of the church in the freezing March air.

Susanna turned her head and looked at the crowd that was starting to gather. They would have to move back from the main altar, she supposed, when the King arrived. But for now, they could gawk at the decorations the priests were erecting in preparation for the royal arrival.

A man, a courtier judging by the velvet of his dress, caught her eye. He brought to mind a cat, sleek and predatory, as he made his way down the long walk.

There was a pent-up anger in him, transmitting itself in the sharp way he moved his head from side to side as he walked, and in the way his hands were fisted tight against his thighs.

He was looking for someone.

He headed toward the east end of the nave, in the direction of the magnificent stained glass circular window she had been itching to sketch, but as the crowds thinned out at that end and he did not find the person he was searching for, he turned and stalked back toward her.

The massive window distracted her, as it had since she’d arrived, and she lifted her eyes from him up to it again. She knew she could lose herself in reproducing it. She had seen fine examples of stained glass before. Her father had designed the cartoons for many, but
she had never seen anything of this scale and workmanship. It was breathtaking.

And it would have to wait.

She was cold and hungry, and wondered if she had time to slip home for a bite and a little time in front of a fire before the procession reached the cathedral.

A thin, icy breeze from the entrance snaked through the nave and puffed a frigid, incense-laden breath down the back of her neck. It made up her mind. She shivered and stepped into Paul’s walk, carefully rolling her sketch and slipping it into her satchel.

As she walked to the door, the talk around her was of the procession and the promised free drink that would be provided in the streets. The roads would be almost impassable as the crowds of London took advantage of the King’s good humor. She hoped they were clear enough now to make it worth her while going home.

“Where have you been?”

Susanna’s step faltered until she realized the harsh, low hiss was not for her.

Near the door, in the shadows, the courtier she’d watched earlier stood close to another man, crowding him back against an elaborately carved bench.

“I told you, I can’t help you. We don’t have an agreement.” His companion edged closer to the entrance. He was tall, as tall as Parker, and as broad in the shoulders. Like Parker he had a way of holding himself, in perfect control of his body. He wore the green and white of the King’s Yeoman of the Guard, the King’s bodyguards. The head of his halberd gleamed in the weak daylight from the open door.

“You renege?” The courtier’s fists tightened.

“Quiet.” The guard barely held his voice above a whisper, and then took a shuddering breath. “Every sharp-eyed gossip in London is here. You are as mad as I suspected.” He stopped abruptly, his lips held tight as he noticed Susanna.

He watched her walk past them and through the massive double doors to the churchyard in silence. The back of her neck pricked, and she was sure they were staring after her as she slipped out.

She braced herself as she closed the door behind her and took the full brunt of the wind. It tugged at her cloak, billowing it around her, ripping at her cap like a hasty lover.

As she reached the top step, she stopped, a burst of warmth that had nothing to do with the weak sun suddenly leaping within. Parker was coming across the churchyard toward her.

He moved with his usual efficient grace, and she was struck anew at the wonder that he was hers. Her betrothed. Her lover. She had traced every sharp angle of his face with her fingers. With her lips.

She smiled, and cared not at all if the whole world saw what it revealed.

He reached the first of the shallow steps up to the cathedral door, caught her eye, and smiled back.

At that moment, as their eyes met in a flash of heat, the courtier she’d noticed before burst out of the door and knocked into her, pushing past her, down the stairs.

She cried out, stumbled and fell straight into Parker’s arms.

He caught her easily and set her down. The eyes he turned toward the man as he ran into the street beyond were hard.

Curious, she looked back at the cathedral door and saw the guard standing just outside it, his eyes as hard as Parker’s as he watched his companion flee.

Parker followed her gaze and raised his brows as he noticed the man. “Halliwell.”

The guard turned to Parker at his call and froze, his face draining of all color as he recognzied him. Then his gaze shifted to Susanna, to how Parker’s arm still loosely circled her, and he pushed back against the door of the cathedral, fear sitting oddly on so strong a man.

Parker cast her a quick, quizzical glance.

“He was talking with the man who bumped into me—” she began, when Halliwell, still using the wall to support himself, stumbled down the stairs.

Then he turned and braced himself with both hands, and was sick.

“What is it?” Susanna’s soft murmur drew nothing but a groan from Halliwell, but Parker suspected he did not deserve any sympathy.

True, the circumstances were far from obvious, but the way Halliwell had reacted when Susanna began to tell him who Halliwell had been with in the cathedral was more enlightening than a thousand words.

“Let me guess. Geoffrey Pole is up to something and you’re involved. What does he intend to do?” Parker stood just out of Halliwell’s range, in case he decided to be sick again.

Susanna frowned. “Who is Geoffrey Pole?”

Parker kept his eyes on Halliwell. He wasn’t sure what was going on, but he no longer trusted the guard, especially not near Susanna. “The man who knocked you off the steps.” He leaned a shoulder against the cathedral wall. “And the King’s cousin.”

“I knew I was good as dead. Soon as I saw you.” Halliwell straightened and looked at Parker with hopeless eyes. “That mad idiot is going to try and destroy the King, and himself and his family along with him, and ’cause your lady saw us together, the finger will go straight to me. And I didn’t do anything. I told him I wouldn’t help him.”