The Queen's Christmas Summons

“Royal courts are glittering places. But there can be many dangers there.”

The words of Juan, the shipwrecked Spanish sailor Lady Alys Drury nursed back to health, echo in her mind as she puts on another courtly smile.

Then Alys locks eyes with a handsome man amid the splendor of Queen Elizabeth’s Christmas court—Juan is posing as courtier John Huntley! Alys is hurt at Juan’s deception until she learns he’s an undercover spy for the crown... Amid the murky machinations of the court, can true love still conquer all?

Praise for Amanda McCabe

‘McCabe sweeps readers into the world of the Elizabethan theatre, delighting us with a lively tale and artfully drawing on the era’s backdrop of bawdy plays, wild actors and thrilling adventure.’

—RT Book Reviews on The Taming of the Rogue

‘Including a darling little girl, meddling relatives and a bit of suspense, McCabe’s story charms readers.’

—RT Book Reviews on Running from Scandal

‘McCabe highlights an unusual and fascinating piece of history whilst never losing sight of the romance or adventure.’

—RT Book Reviews on The Demure Miss Manning

Alys put on her courtly smile, prepared to meet another of Ellen’s peacock friends—and the smile froze before it could form.

It had not been an illusion, a fleeting trick of her tired mind. It was him—Juan. Right there before her when she had been so sure she would never see him again—could never see him again. She shivered and fell back a step, suddenly feeling so very cold.

He did not quite look like her Juan, bearded and ragged from the sea. He was just as tall, but his shoulders were broader, and he wore no beard to hide the elegant angles of his sculpted face, his high cheekbones and sharp jawline, his sensual lips. He wore courtly clothes of purple velvet trimmed with silver, a high, narrow ruff at his throat. But his eyes—those brilliant summer-green eyes she had once so cherished—widened when his glance fell on her.

The Queen’s Christmas Summons

Amanda McCabe

www.millsandboon.co.uk

AMANDA MCCABE wrote her first romance at the age of sixteen—a vast epic, starring all her friends as the characters, written secretly during algebra class. She’s never since used algebra, but her books have been nominated for many awards, including the RITA®, Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award, the Booksellers’ Best, the National Readers’ Choice Award, and the Holt Medallion. She lives in Oklahoma with her husband, one dog and one cat.

Books by Amanda McCabe

Mills & Boon Historical Romance

and Mills & Boon Historical Undone! eBooks

Bancrofts of Barton Park

The Runaway Countess

Running from Scandal

Running into Temptation (Undone!)

Linked by Character

A Notorious WomanA Sinful AllianceHigh Seas StowawayShipwrecked and Seduced (Undone!)

Stand-Alone Novels

Betrayed by His Kiss

The Demure Miss Manning

The Queen’s Christmas Summons

More Mills & Boon Historical Undone! eBooks by Amanda McCabe

To Court, Capture and Conquer

Girl in the Beaded Mask

Unlacing the Lady in Waiting

One Wicked Christmas

An Improper Duchess

A Very Tudor Christmas

Visit the Author Profile page

at millsandboon.co.uk for more titles.

For Kyle, for three lovely years—so far

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Praise

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Epilogue

Extract

Copyright

Prologue

Richmond Palace—1576

‘You must stay right here, Alys, and not move. Do you understand?’

Lady Alys Drury stared up at her father. Usually, around her, he was always smiling, always gentle, but today he looked most stern. In fact, she did not understand. In all her eight years, her father had never seemed so grave. The man who was always laughing and boisterous, ready to sweep her up in his arms and twirl her around, could not be seen. Ever since they journeyed here, to this strange place, a royal palace, her parents had been silent.

After long days on a boat and more hours on bumpy horseback, riding pillion with her mother, they had arrived here. Alys wasn’t sure what was happening, but she knew she did not like this place, with its soaring towers and many windows, which seemed to conceal hundreds of eyes looking down at her.

‘Yes, Papa, I understand,’ she answered. ‘Will we be able to go home soon?’

He gave her a strained smile. ‘God willing, my little butterfly.’ He quickly kissed her brow and turned to hurry away up a flight of stone steps. He vanished through a doorway, guarded by men in green velvet embroidered with sparkling gold and bearing swords. Alys was left alone in the sunny, strange garden.

She turned in a slow circle, taking in her fantastical surroundings. It was like something in the fairy stories her nursemaid liked to tell, with tall hedge walls surrounding secret outdoor chambers and strictly square beds of flowers and herbs.

And the garden was not the only strange thing about the day. Alys’s new gown, a stiff creation of tawny-and-black satin, rustled around her every time she moved and the halo-shaped headdress on her long, dark hair pinched.

She kicked at the gravelled pathway with her new black-leather shoe. She wished so much she was at home, where she could run free, and where her parents did not speak in angry whispers and worried murmurs.

She tipped back her head to watch as a flock of birds soared into the cloudy sky. It was a warm day, if overcast and grey, and if she was at home she could climb trees or run along the cliffs. How she missed all that.

A burst of laughter caught her attention and she whirled around to see a group of boys a bit older than herself running across a meadow just beyond the formal knot garden. They wore just shirts and breeches, and kicked a large brown-leather ball between them.

Alys longed to move closer, to see what game they played. It didn’t look like any she had seen before. She glanced back at the doorway where her father vanished, but he hadn’t returned. Surely she could be gone for just a moment?

She lifted the hem of her skirt and crept nearer to the game, watching as the boys kicked it between themselves. As an only child, with no brothers to play with, the games of other children fascinated her.

One of the boys was taller than the others, with overly long dark hair flopping across his brow as he ran. He moved more easily, more gracefully than the boys around him. Alys was so fascinated by him that she didn’t see the ball flying towards her. It hit her hard on the brow, knocking her new headdress askew and pushing her back. For an instant, there was only cold shock, then a rush of pain. Tears sprang to her eyes as she pressed her hand to her throbbing head.

‘Watch where you’re going, then!’ one of the boys shouted. He was a thin child, freckled, not at all like the tall one, and he pushed her as he snatched back the ball. ‘Stupid girls, they have no place here. Go back to your needlework!’

Alys struggled not to cry, both at the pain in her brow and at his cruel words. ‘I am not a stupid girl! You—you hedgepig.’

‘What did you call me, wench?’ The boy took a menacing step towards her.

‘Enough!’ The tall boy stepped forward to pull her would-be attacker back. He shoved the mean boy away and turned to Alys with a gentle smile. She noticed his eyes were green, an extraordinary pale green sea-colour she had never seen before. ‘You are the one at fault here, George. Do not be ungallant. Apologise to the lady.’

‘Lady?’ George sneered. ‘She is obviously no more a lady than you are a true gentleman, Huntley. With your drunken father...’

The tall boy grew obviously angry at those words, a red flush spreading on his high, sharp cheekbones. His hands curled into fists—and then he stepped back, his hand loosening, a smile touching his lips. Alys forgot her pain as she watched him in fascination.

‘It seems you must be the one who took a blow to the head, George,’ Huntley said. ‘You are clearly out of your wits. Now, apologise.’

‘Nay, I shall not...’ George gasped as Huntley suddenly reached out, quick as a snake striking, and seized his arm. It looked like a most effortless movement, but George turned pale. ‘Forgive me, my lady.’

‘That is better.’ Huntley pushed the bully away and turned away from him without another glance. He came to Alys and held out his hand.

He smiled gently and Alys was dazzled by it.

‘My lady,’ he said. ‘Let me assist you to return to the palace.’

‘Th...thank you,’ she whispered. She took his arm, just like a grown-up lady, and walked with him back to the steps.

‘Are you badly hurt?’ he asked softly.

Alys suddenly realised her head did still hurt. She had quite forgotten everything else when she saw him. It was most strange. ‘Just a bit of a headache. My mother will have herbs for it in her medicine chest.’

‘Where is your mother? I’ll take you to her.’

Alys shook her head. Her mother had stayed at the inn, pleading illness, so her father had taken Alys away with him. She didn’t know how to get back to the inn at all. ‘She is in the village. My father...’

‘Has he come here to see the Queen?’

The Queen? No wonder this place was so grand, if it was a queen’s home. But why was her father to see her? She felt more confused than ever. ‘I was not supposed to move from the steps until he returns. I’ll be in such trouble!’

‘Nay, I will stay with you, my lady, and explain to your father when he returns.’

Alys studied him doubtfully. ‘Surely you have more important things you must be doing.’

His smile widened. ‘Nothing more important, I promise you.’

He led her back to the top of the stone steps where her father left her and helped her sit down. He sat beside her and gently examined her forehead. ‘It is rather darkening, I’m afraid. I hope your mother has an herb to cure bruising.’

‘Oh, no!’ She clapped her hand over her brow, feeling herself blush hotly that he should see her like that. ‘She does have ointments for such, but it must be hideous.’

He smiled, his lovely green eyes crinkling at the corners. ‘It is a badge of honour from battle. You are fortunate to have a caring mother.’

‘Does your mother not have medicines for you when you’re ill?’ Alys asked, thinking of all her mother’s potions and creams that soothed fevers and pains, just as her own cool hands did when Alys was fretful.

He looked away. ‘My mother died long ago.’

‘Oh! I am sorry,’ she cried, feeling such pain for him not to have a mother. ‘But have you a father? Siblings?’ She remembered the vile George’s taunt, of Huntley’s ‘drunken father’, and wished she had not said anything.

‘I seldom see my father. My godfather arranges for my education. No siblings. What of you, my lady?’

‘I have no siblings, either. I wish I did. It gets very quiet at home sometimes.’

‘Is that why you came to look at our game?’

‘Aye. It sounded very merry. I wondered what it was.’

‘Have you never played at football?’

‘I’ve never even heard of it. I have seen tennis, but few other ball games.’

‘It’s the most wonderful game! You start like this...’ He leaped up to demonstrate, running back and forth as he told her of scoring and penalties. He threw up his arms in imagined triumph as he explained how the game was won.

Caught up in his enthusiasm, Alys clapped her hands and laughed. He gave her a bow.

‘How marvellous,’ she said. ‘I do wish I had someone at home to play such games with like that.’

‘What do you play at home, then?’ he asked. He tossed her the ball. She instinctively caught it and threw it back.

‘I read, mostly, and walk. I have a doll and I tell her things sometimes. There isn’t much I can do alone, I’m afraid.’

‘I quite understand. Before I went to school, I was often alone myself.’ His expression looked wistful, as if his thoughts were far away, and Alys found herself intensely curious about him, who he was and what he did.

‘Alys! What are you doing?’ she heard her father shout.

She spun around and saw him hurrying towards her, frowning fearsomely. ‘Papa! I am sorry, I just...’

‘I fear your daughter took a bit of a fall here, my lord,’ her new friend said, stepping close to her side. She felt safer with him there. ‘I saw her, and I...’

‘And he came to help me, most gallantly,’ Alys said.

Her father’s frown softened. ‘Did you indeed? Good lad. I owe you many thanks.’

‘Your daughter is a fine lady indeed, my lord,’ Huntley said. ‘I am glad to have met her today.’

Her father softened even more and reached into his purse to offer the boy a coin. Huntley shook his head and her father said, ‘My thanks again. We bid you good day, lad, and good fortune to you.’ He swung Alys up into his arms and walked away from the grand palace.

Alys glanced back over her shoulder for one last glimpse of her friend. He smiled at her and waved, and she waved back until he was out of sight. She thought surely she would never forget him, her new friend and gallant rescuer.

Chapter One

Dunboyton Castle, Galway, Ireland—1578

‘And this one, niña querida? What is this one? What does it do?’

Lady Alys Drury, aged ten and a half and now expected to learn to run a household, leaned close to the tray her mother held out and inhaled deeply, closing her eyes. Despite the icy wind that beat at the stout stone walls of Dunboyton, she could smell green sunshine from the dried herbs. Flowers and trees and clover, all the things she loved about summer.

But not as much as she loved her mother and their days here in the stillroom, the long, narrow chamber hung with bundles of herbs and with bottles of oils and pots of balms lining the shelves. It was always warm there, always bright and full of wonderful smells. A sanctuary in the constant rush and noise of the castle corridors, which were the realm of her father and his men.

Here in the stillroom, it was just Alys and her mother. For all her ten years, for as long as she could remember, this had been her favourite place. She could imagine nowhere finer.

She inhaled again, pushing a loose lock of her brown hair back from her brow. She caught a hint of something else beneath the green—a bit of sweet wine, mayhap?

‘Querida?’ her mother urged.

Alys opened her eyes and glanced up into her mother’s face. Elena Drury’s dark eyes crinkled at the edges as she smiled. She wore black and white, starkly tailored and elegant, as she often did, to remind her of the fashions of her Spanish homeland, but there was nothing dark or dour about her merry smile.

‘Is it—is it lemon balm, mi madre?’ Alys said.

‘Very good, Alys!’ her mother said, clapping her hands. ‘Sí, it is melissa officinalis. An excellent aid for melancholy, when the grey winter has gone on too long.’

Alys giggled. ‘But it is always grey here, Madre!’ Every day seemed grey, not like the sunlit memories of her one day at a royal court. Sometimes she was sure that had all been a dream, especially the handsome boy she had seen that day. This was the only reality now.

Her mother laughed, too, and carefully stirred the dried lemon balm into a boiling pot of water. ‘Only here in Galway. In some places, it is warm and sunny all the time.’

‘Such as where you were born?’ Alys had heard the tales many times, but she always longed to hear them again. The white walls of Granada, where her mother was born, the red-tiled roofs baking in the sun, the sound of guitar music and singing on the warm breeze.

Elena smiled sadly. ‘Such as where I was born, in Granada. There is no place like it, querida.’

Alys glanced out the narrow window of the stillroom. The rain had turned to icy sleet, which hit the old glass like the patter of needles as the wind howled out its mournful cries. ‘Why would your mother leave such a place?’

‘Because she loved my father and followed him to England when his work brought him here. It was her duty to be by his side.’

‘As it is yours to be with Father?’

‘Of course. A wife must always be a good helpmeet to her husband. It is her first duty in life.’

‘And because you love him.’ This was another tale she had heard often. The tale of how her father had seen her mother, the most beautiful woman in the world, at a banquet and would marry no other, even against the wishes of his family. Alys knew her parents had not regretted choosing each other; she had often caught them secretly kissing, seen them laughing together, their heads bent close.

Her mother laughed and tucked Alys’s wayward lock of hair back into her little cap. ‘And that, too, though you are much too young to think of such things yet.’

‘Will I have a husband as kind as Father?’

Her mother’s smile faded and she bent her head over the tea she stirred. Her veil fell forward to hide her expression. ‘There are few men like your father, I fear, and you are only ten. You needn’t think about it for so long. Marriages are made for many reasons—family security, wealth, land, even affection sometimes. But I promise, no matter who you marry, he will be a good man, a strong one. You will not be here in Ireland for ever.’

Alys had heard such things so often. Ireland was not really their home; her father only did his duty here to the Queen for a time. One day they would have a real home, in England, and she would have a place at court. Perhaps she would even serve the Queen herself, and marry a man handsome and strong. But she could conceive of little beyond Dunboyton’s walls, the cliffs and wild sea that surrounded them. There had only been that one small glimpse of the royal court, the boys playing at football, and then it was gone.

‘Now, querida, what is this one?’ her mother asked as she held out a small bottle.

Alys smelled a green sharpness, something like citrus beneath. ‘Marjoram!’

‘Exactly. To spice your father’s wine tonight and help with his stomach troubles.’

‘Is Father ill?’

Elena’s smile flickered. ‘Not at all. Too many rich sauces with his meat, I have warned him over and over. Ah, well. Here, niña, I have something for you.’

Alys jumped up on her stool, clapping her hands in delight. ‘A present, Madre?’

‘Sí, a rare one.’ She reached into one of her carved boxes, all of them darkened with age and infused with the scent of all the herbs they had held over the years. Her mother removed a tiny muslin-wrapped bundle. She laid it carefully on Alys’s trembling palm.

Alys unwrapped it to find a few tiny, perfect curls of bright yellow candied lemon peels. The yellow was sun-brilliant, sprinkled with sugar like snowflakes. ‘Candied lemon!’

Her favourite treat. It tasted just like the sunshine Alys always longed for. She couldn’t resist; she popped a piece on to her tongue and let it melt into sticky sweetness.

Her mother laughed. ‘My darling daughter, always so impetuous! My brother could only send a few things from Spain this time.’ She gave a sigh as she poured off the new tisane of lemon balm. ‘The weather has kept so many of the ships away.’

Alys glanced at the icy window again. It was true, there had been few ships in port of late. Usually they saw many arrivals from Spain and the Low Countries, bringing rare luxuries and even rarer news of home to her mother.

There was the sudden heavy tread of boots up the winding stairs to the stillroom. The door opened and Alys’s father, Sir William Drury, stood there. He was a tall man, broad of shoulder, with light brown hair trimmed short in the new fashion and a short beard. But of late, there were more flecks of grey in his beard than usual, more of a stoop to his shoulders. Alys remembered what her mother had said about his stomach troubles.

But he always smiled when he saw them, as he did now, a wide, bright grin.

‘Father!’ Alys cried happily and jumped up to run to him. He hugged her close, as he always did, but she sensed that he was somehow distant from her, distracted.

Alys drew back and peered up at him. She had to look far, for he was so very much taller than she. He did smile, but his eyes looked sad. He held something in his hand, half-hidden behind his back.

‘William,’ she heard her mother say. There was a soft rustle of silk, the touch of her mother’s hand on her shoulder. ‘The letter...’

‘Aye, Elena,’ he answered, his voice tired. ‘’Tis from London.’

‘Alys,’ her mother said gently. ‘Why don’t you go to the kitchen and see if our dinner will soon be ready? Give this to the cooks for the stew.’

She pressed a sachet of dried parsley and rosemary into Alys’s hand and gently urged her through the door.

Bewildered, Alys glanced back before the door could close behind her. Her father went to the window, staring out at the rain beyond with his back to her, his hand clasped before him. Her mother went to him, leaning against his shoulder. Alys dared to hold the door open a mere inch, lingering so she could find out what was happening. Otherwise they would never tell her at all.

‘There is still no place for you at court?’ Alys heard her mother say. Elena’s voice was still soft, kind, but it sounded as if she might start to cry.

‘Nay, not yet, or so my uncle writes. I am needed here for a time longer, considering the uprisings have just been put down. Here! In this godforsaken place where I can do nothing!’ His fist came down on the table with a sudden crash, rattling the bottles.

‘Because of me,’ her mother whispered. ‘Madre de Dios, but if not for me, for us, you would have your rightful place.’

‘Elena, you and Alys are everything to me. You would be a grace to the royal court, to anywhere you chose to be. They are fools they cannot see that.’

‘Because I am a Lorca-Ramirez. I should not have married you, mi corazón. I have brought you nothing. If you had a proper English wife—if I was gone...’