Tarnished Rose of the Court

by Amanda McCabe

  His tongue plunged inside, tasting her, claiming her—every part of her. She tried to draw back but he held her fast, his hand tight in her hair, his mouth sealed over hers.

  She moaned and tried to push his tongue out with hers, but instead she found it twisting with his, tasting him return. He tasted dark and sweet, like wine and the night and John, and she wanted it. She wanted it with such raw longing it terrified her. She couldn’t think, couldn’t reason. He was all around her, all she knew.

  His other arm came around her shoulders and drew her up until she sat on his lap, balanced on his unwounded thigh. He never broke the desperate rhythm of the kiss, only drove deeper into her.

  She wrapped her hands around his neck and felt the soft hair at his nape brush over her fingers. She caressed him there, trying to learn the feel of his skin, the essence of him, all over again. John groaned, and untangled his hand from her hair to touch the base of her throat, pressing over her pulse.

  He brushed aside the edges of her surcoat and traced his fingertips over the bare swell of her breasts above her bodice. His fingers were rough on that soft skin, and she wanted more. She arched her back with a soft moan into his mouth and his palm flattened over her breast.

  One finger slid beneath the brocade and swept over her aching nipple once, twice, then harder, making her cry out. His thumb slid in with the finger and he pinched her between them.

  Pleasure shot through her, and Celia accidentally fell back on his lap. She kicked his wounded leg with her slipping foot and he gasped.

  “Oh, hell!” she cried, tearing her mouth away from his. She pushed out of his arms and leaped to her feet.

  He reached out for her, but she could see the fresh blood spotting his bandage.

  It brought her coldly to her senses as nothing else could. He had held her captive in their own hidden world where there were only the senses, the way he made her feel. She couldn’t stay there, no matter how much she wanted to. It had already destroyed her once.

  “I—I will send someone in to finish tending to your wound,” she stammered. John reached out for her, but she shook her head and spun round to run out of the room. She was always fleeing from him, from whatever terrible power lay between them, but it seemed it was all she could do.

  Clutching her surcoat closed, she dashed through the near-empty great room and up the stairs. Past the sleeping bodies to the palette where Lady Allison already slumbered.

  Trembling, Celia shed her clothes as best as she could and slid under the blankets in her chemise. She closed her eyes tightly, trying to find sleep, to forget John Brandon, even as her body still felt tingling with newly aroused life.

  “Why, Mistress Sutton,” she heard Lady Allison whisper, “you naughty thing.”

  Celia’s eyes flew open and she peered at Allison over her shoulder. Allison grinned at her, as if they were conspirators.

  “Is he as wonderfully skilled as they say?” Allison whispered.

  Celia felt her cheeks grow warm. Ashamed of that ridiculous blush, she turned away and closed her eyes again as Lady Allison softly laughed.

  Oh, aye, she thought bitterly. John Brandon was entirely too skilled for any woman’s good.

  Chapter Seven

  John shifted in his saddle, trying not to wince as his bandaged leg brushed the hard leather. It had been some time since he had indulged in a tavern brawl, despite his reputation for wildness, and he felt every bit of the violence in his bruised muscles and the healing gash on his leg.

  But it was worth every ache just to remember how Celia had cared for him, bandaging his wound, kneeling between his knees. Kissing him so passionately, so wildly, as if he was all that mattered to her.

  Just as he had felt when his lips touched her, tasted her. Nothing else existed. Nothing had ever come between them.

  That had been last night. Everything was always different in the cold light of day.

  And a damnably cold day it was. Snow had set in soon after their hasty midday meal of bread and cheese—great fat flakes that melted on his cloak and drifted into white piles at the side of the road. The wind felt like needles as it swept around them. Even Lord Darnley, his pretty face bruised and sulky after last night, has subsided into the silence of endurance.

  John looked to where Celia rode in one of the carts, lodged between the meagre shelter of two travel trunks. The hood of her black cloak was drawn over her hair, and he could see only the curve of one pale cheek. The long, thick lashes that cast shadows over her cheekbone as she stared down at the book in her gloved hands.

  She hadn’t turned a page in fully fifteen minutes. John knew because he had been watching her the whole time. Yet she was not asleep. Her shoulders and slim back were too stiff and straight.

  She never looked his way, never indicated by the slightest gesture that she knew he was there. Her walls were back up, her drawbridge slammed closed to him. It would be best for both of them if he just let it stay closed. Old scars did not need to be ripped open all over again.

  Yet still that desire burned deep inside him to see her eyes free of that caution, that icy chill, to see his Celia again. To make her admit she had never ceased to be his.

  But she was not his. She never had been. It had all been a terrible mistake. He couldn’t let her touch his heart as she once had—until he’d found out her brother was one of the conspirators he had come to the countryside to catch. Too late, for by then he had already fallen for Celia.

  “You look as if last night’s fight was merely a prelude to what you’d like to do today,” he heard Marcus say as his friend’s horse fell into step beside him. “You look furious.”

  “Then shouldn’t you best stay away from me?” John growled.

  “I’m not that easily frightened,” Marcus answered carelessly. “If you need to beat on someone that badly, Darnley is over there. But I don’t think that would help.”

  “Of course it wouldn’t. The Queen would have my hide if I damaged her pretty pawn.”

  “I mean I don’t think violence will ease you. When were you last with a woman?”

  John slanted a hard warning look at his friend. “Marcus...”

  “That long, eh? No wonder you’re so fierce.”

  Aye, John thought, it had been a while since he tupped a woman. Since before he’d seen Celia again. Now it seemed when he looked at another woman, talked to her, saw her smile of invitation, it stirred nothing at all within him. It was not enough.

  “Lady Allison is always up for a lark, you know,” Marcus said, as if heedless of the turmoil within John. “Or Mistress Andrews. She is meant to be Darnley’s inamorata right now, but she’s bound to be bored waiting around for him to get it up. Or the next town is sure to have a decent brothel—”

  “I don’t need you to play pimp for me, Marcus,” John interrupted.

  “Of course you don’t. Women fall at your feet everywhere you go. You hardly have to seek them out. But you need something to free you from whatever demon has you in its clutches.”

  John grimly shook his head. “Just leave, Marcus.”

  “So you can go on brooding? Nay, we have been friends for too long. I know this journey is hellish, but there is something more. What is it?” Marcus’s tone had become suddenly serious. He and John had known each other for too long—through their wild youths and into this dangerous work.

  John’s stare unconsciously went to Celia, where she sat in the cart. Lord Knowlton was with her now, and she smiled at whatever he’d said to her, just as she had when the man had sat with her in the tavern last night. She seemed to like him too much.

  His hands tightened into fists on the reins.

  “Ah,” Marcus said softly. “I see.”

  John tore his eyes away from Celia to glare at Marcus. “What do you see?”

  “Every time the two of you are together I would vow you are about to murder each other or strip each other’s clothes off—or both.”

  A wave of despair rolled over John, hard an
d cold. All his years of careful subterfuge and one moment with Celia pulled all the lies and façades away. He was being such a fool. “Am I so obvious?”

  “Only to me, as I would be to you. To everyone else you are still the rakish, careless Sir John Brandon. But I have never seen you like this with a woman. What is she to you?”

  John glanced around to see that they had fallen slightly behind the others and no one was near. They were all too occupied in their own cold misery to pay attention to anyone else.

  “A few years ago, when I was in the country on a task, we had a—dalliance,” he said.

  Marcus gave a low whistle. “And I take it matters did not end well?”

  Considering he had betrayed her brother and his friends to their death, nay, it had not ended well, and he had left Celia—and his heart—behind. And he had never forgotten her since. “Nay,” he said shortly.

  “But you still want the lady?”

  John said nothing, and finally Marcus laughed. “Then I think we can look forward to many more brawls on this journey. Unless you make love to Mistress Sutton again, get past those icy walls of hers and rid her from your system.”

  “Do you really think she would let me in her bed again, knowing all she does now?” John said bitterly.

  Marcus said nothing in reply, and they rode on in heavy silence.

  * * *

  “Halt!”

  Celia glanced up from the book she held in her hands to see the head of Lord Darnley’s guard blocking the procession on the road. She had not been reading at all, merely staring at the book as she felt John stare at her. As last night’s kiss flashed through her mind over and over.

  Something had shifted between them in that kiss, something she sensed was profound even as she could not decipher what it was. What a hold on her he still had.

  She was glad of any distraction. She put the book back in her saddlebag and slid off the cart, holding onto the wooden slats as the legs she had tucked under her cramped. Everyone else had come to a halt as well, looking relieved to stop. The day had only grown more bitterly cold, the snow falling thickly.

  “The bridge across the river ahead is out,” the guard said. “We can either turn back and make camp, or go downstream to the next bridge and continue to the next manor.”

  Either way, they were surely in for more cold. Celia sagged back against the cart as she watched the guards consult with Darnley and his men. It looked as if they would be here for a time. Celia turned and made her way through the milling crowd, away from the noise, until she found a silent spot on the sloped icy banks of the river. She wrapped her arms around herself and stood there very still, watching the freezing water rush past below her.

  Surely this journey would never end? She would never be free of John, of seeing him every day and remembering. Remembering the foolish girl she had once been, how much she had wanted him. How much she still wanted him, curse it all.

  She heard a soft footfall crunch on the frosty ground behind her, heard a breath, and she knew without turning who it was. She always felt when John was near.

  “You seem to enjoy spending time with Lord Knowlton,” he said roughly.

  Celia almost laughed. Was that jealousy in his tone? Surely not. That was too ridiculous. He was always surrounded by women. “He is charming.”

  John gave a half-snort, half-laugh. “Of course he is. He wants to tup you.”

  “He is a gentleman!” Celia protested, trying to dismiss the feeling of disquiet she had felt with Knowlton.

  “So am I,” John said solemnly.

  Celia shook her head. She turned to look at John and found he wore a fierce scowl on his face, his hands curled into fists. Because she had been talking with Knowlton? He had no right to care. Should not care. And she should not be feeling as she did either. As if her whole being was wound so tightly she might burst.

  “John, you are the very furthest thing from a gentleman there could be,” she said.

  “God’s teeth, Celia, don’t push me away like this any more!” he suddenly shouted.

  He moved so fast she couldn’t back away, lunging forward to seize her arm and pull her towards him.

  “Tell me what you’re feeling. Tell me how I make you feel.”

  How he made her feel? Anger and pain as she had never known, everything she had locked inside her for so long, rose up in her like the fiery force of a volcano. It exploded from her, and she lunged forward to slap John across the face. “You left me!” she cried, all the pain of years ago flooding out of her. “Tell me why you did that? Tell me how you felt then. Tell me...” She slapped out at him again as he instinctively stepped back.

  In her blindness, she caught him low on the jaw with the flat of her hand. It wasn’t a hard blow, but he was caught by surprise and fell back a step. She reached out to hit him again, and he caught her wrist in his hand. His fingers tightened on the slender bones there and she sobbed as she struggled to break free.

  The flash of fury in his eyes, of some pain that answered her own, made her sob again.

  “You have no right to question me, John Brandon,” she cried raggedly. “You have no right to say anything to me at all. You left me. You have no part in my life!”

  “Celia...” he began, his voice tight as if he too was on the brink of an explosion. As if he held himself tightly leashed.

  “Nay! I survive however I can now. And you—you...”

  His fingers closed even harder on her wrist, a

  manacle she couldn’t escape from, and he reeled her closer. She tried to dig her boots into the frozen mud, but he was stronger.

  His stare was so glittering, so intense. No one had ever looked at her like that before—as if he knew her, was part of her. Yet he wasn’t. Hadn’t been in so long. She had been alone.

  She wanted only to leave him, to run and hide, to be free at last of whatever hold he had on her. She twisted her body hard as it touched his, trying to wrench away. But she overbalanced on her uncertain feet and fell heavily to the side.

  Her hand was pulled from John’s at last, yet she couldn’t right herself. She felt herself toppling to the ground.

  “Celia!” she heard him shout.

  As she fell heavily onto the ice her leg caught on a fallen branch and she rolled forward. She had only a dizzy glimpse of him, of the raw horror on his face, of the flat grey sky above her, and then she was tumbling down the steep riverbank. Faster and faster.

  She tried to catch at the ground, at anything she could find, but it slid out of her grasp. Her head struck something and bright stars whirled around her. Her whole body seemed to go numb.

  Yet she felt it when she tumbled into the water. The icy-cold waves closed over her head, and it felt like a thousand daggers plunging into her skin. She tried to scream at the agony, and water rushed into her mouth.

  Celia did know how to swim, and she struggled to push past the pain and fight her way to the surface. Her heavy skirts and boots grew sodden, weighing her down. She kicked hard against them and managed to break upwards and gulp in a precious breath. But the river wasn’t finished with her yet. It caught at her again, pulling her down.

  And suddenly she only wanted to live. When her brother had died, when she’d been with Thomas, she had never really wanted to die. But merely surviving, putting one day behind her and then the next, had been all she could do. Otherwise the pain and anger would overwhelm her.

  But now, with her whole body numb and the rushing river carrying her away, she wanted life again. Music and colour and sunshine. She wanted to see John—to slap him properly, to find out once and for all what had really happened when he left her. Or to kiss him as she once had, with nothing held back.

  That was her last thought as she was sucked under the water again. The precious air was cut off.

  Suddenly a hard arm caught her around her waist and jerked her up towards the light.

  She gasped and let her head fall back onto a naked shoulder as she was drawn towards the shore. I
t seemed so very far away, yet she wasn’t scared now. Somehow she knew it was John who held her, and that he wouldn’t let her go. He wouldn’t let the river have her.

  He reached the bank and hauled her up its slippery length under his arm. Celia couldn’t stop shivering, couldn’t think. When they reached the top, he laid her on the ground and pulled up her skirt, to draw her own dagger from its sheath at her thigh.

  He cut away her sodden doublet and the stays beneath in smooth, quick strokes and spun her onto her stomach, his legs straddling her hips. The flat of his hand hit her hard between the shoulderblades once, twice, until she expelled the water that choked her lungs.

  She sobbed out all her fear and relief, and through her tears she felt him pull her back into his arms. He wrapped his body all around her, all his heat and strength. He pressed his lips hard to her cheek, and to her shock she felt his own tears on her skin.

  “God’s teeth, Celia,” he growled. “I thought you were dead. I thought...”

  “You saved me,” she sobbed through her chattering teeth. “You—you could have drowned.”

  “I won’t let you go,” he said. “Not without me.”

  Celia heard a shot and the pounding of running feet on the icy mud.

  “John!” Lord Marcus said, and for once there was no lightness at all in his voice. “What happened? Are you hurt?”

  “She fell into the river,” John answered. He still held onto her.

  “Oh, sweet God, Mistress Sutton, but you will surely freeze to death!” Lady Allison cried.

  Celia heard the swish of fabric and a warm, fur-lined cloak covered her icy skin.

  She was drawn away from John even as she tried to hold onto him. “Nay,” she cried.

  But darkness closed in on her, born of the cold and shock, and she fainted into its weighty oblivion.

  Chapter Eight

  “Shh. Be still. Rest now.” John slowly smoothed the cool, damp cloth over Celia’s brow and whispered to her until she settled back in the bed. She still frowned, and her hands were curled tightly against the sheets as if she fought demons in her sleep. But she quieted.