QUEEN'S CHRISTMAS SUMMONS, THE

by MCCABE, AMANDA

  He groaned, and their tongues touched and tangled, all artifice washed away in the ocean of sheer need. Come what may, ruin or wonder, none of it mattered when they were together.

  Through that shimmering, blurry haze of need and tenderness she felt his fingers comb through her hair, pushing away the last of the pins as he spread the dark curtain over her shoulders. His lips slid from hers and he buried his face in her hair, in the curve of her neck.

  ‘Sweet Alys, my angel,’ he whispered. ‘You are so beautiful.’

  ‘Not as beautiful as you,’ she murmured. She reached for him as she laid back on the rug, pulling him on top of her so she could kiss him again, could press her hungry lips to his smooth-shaven cheek, his strong jaw, his throat, where the lifeblood beat so frantically. She unbuttoned his doublet, clumsily slipping the carved buttons free from the velvet, desperate to feel his warm skin. He tasted wondrous, of the sun and the winter wind and wine, and she wanted all of him. She wanted to hold him so close she became a part of him and neither of them were ever lonely again.

  He whispered hoarse, incoherent words as his lips trailed down her neck to the lace edge of her bodice, his tongue swirling in the hollow at its base, as if their lifeblood could meet there. He kissed the soft slope of her breast, pushed high by her fashionable bodice. She gasped at the waves of pleasure that followed his mouth, the touch of his hands on her bare skin.

  She drove her fingers into his hair, holding him close as he dotted a ribbon of kisses along the line of her bodice. ‘I want to see you, Alys.’

  She nodded, mutely arching her back so he could loosen her bodice lacings. The stiffened silk fell away with her thin chemise and he drew it aside until she was revealed to him.

  For a moment, as he studied her silently, she held her breath. No man had ever seen her thus before and she longed for him to think her beautiful. She had felt so certain, so safe, only a moment ago. Now she felt so—shy.

  She tried to draw her chemise up over her again, but his hand stopped her. ‘Alys, you are so perfect. Perfect,’ he said.

  She laughed happily and drew him back down to her. His lips closed over her aching nipple, caressing, drawing, until she moaned in delight.

  Her eyes fluttered closed. She pushed his unfastened doublet off his shoulders until he shrugged it away. She wrapped her arms around him, her palms sliding along the groove of his spine, feeling the muscle tension of his shoulders beneath the thin linen of his shirt. It was still not nearly enough.

  She wanted him in every way there could be, every way she had heard about among the maidservants. She wanted only him and the need burned like a bonfire.

  ‘Please, John,’ she whispered, throwing every ladylike caution away. ‘Make love to me.’

  He stared down at her, raising himself to his elbows on either side of her. His green eyes were shadowed with a flaming desire that matched hers, a lust that was out of control. But there was also a cold shard of caution and that she did not want. She couldn’t bear for him to draw away from her now. Not when they had come so far to find each other again.

  ‘Alys,’ he said roughly. ‘Have you ever—been with a man before?’

  She shook her head, feeling a blush stain her cheeks.

  ‘Angel.’ He rolled away to sit up beside her, but he still held on to her hand. She saw the gold ring glint on his finger, the ring she had worn on the voyage to England which gave her courage. ‘It will hurt the first time. And you know there could be—consequences. There are ways we can prevent it, but they are not certain.’

  Alys swallowed hard, as she remembered whispered tales of court ladies who had tried to hide their secret pregnancies and been found out and cast out of court. But surely she was more clever than they? And she had John beside her. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘But I also know I want you. Do you not want me?’

  ‘Want you?’ He ran his hand roughly through his hair. ‘I have wanted you ever since I opened my eyes after the shipwreck to see an angel.’

  ‘Then we are right to have this.’ She stood up, filled with a new confidence, a new joy. John was here with her, when once she had thought she had lost him for ever. Even if it was just for this one time, she wanted to be with him completely. She reached for the ties at her waist and fumbled with her heavy skirt, but she was shaking so much she merely knotted the tapes.

  ‘Let me help,’ he said gently. He rose to her side, his long fingers reaching out to deftly untie the knots. Her overskirt, her embroidered petticoats, all fell away like a cloud. He finished unlacing her bodice and untying the points of her sleeves, and she found herself standing in only her chemise, her stockings and shoes.

  He slid down until he knelt at her feet. Gently, slowly, he removed first one shoe, then the other, running his thumb in a soft caress over the sensitive curve of her ankle. His palm flattened and slid along her calf, the bend of her knee, slowly, softly, until she could barely breathe.

  He reached the hem of her chemise and lifted it up until he revealed her blue-satin garters, the bare skin of her thigh above. His fingertips traced that line where skin met silk and she thought she might snap from the tension of anticipation. The core of her womanhood felt so damp, so heavy with a need she had never known before.

  At last, at last, he touched her there and she cried out. Her knees buckled beneath her with the jolt of hot pleasure. He caught her in his arms and carried her to his waiting bed.

  He reached down to draw back the bedclothes before he laid her down amidst the linens. As she propped herself on the bolsters to watch, he pulled off his shirt, revealing his bare chest to her at last, just as she had imagined in too many fevered dreams. He was such a contrast of shadows and the golden glow of his skin. He was lean from exercise and a life lived outdoors, powerful and also beautiful.

  She found she could not look away from him. He was truly a wondrous sight, the most handsome she had ever seen. He leaned on to the bed, bracing his palms on the mattress to either side of her, holding her a willing captive. His head lowered, his mouth capturing hers in a passionate kiss. There was no doubt or fear now, only the knowledge that for this moment he was hers, as she was his. A moment that was meant to be ever since the sea gave him to her.

  He broke their kiss only to unfasten his breeches. Her legs fell apart and he eased between them, his body pressed close to hers. His manhood, which she had only seen before in drawings and thought a fearsome thing, was heavy and hard, hot against her. She wrapped her thighs around his hips, arching up against him, trying to feel yet more of him, all of him. His naked skin against hers made her cry out with pleasure.

  His moans answered hers, his mouth trailing away from hers to press a soft kiss to the sensitive hollow just below her ear. ‘I am sorry, my angel,’ he whispered.

  She nodded, closing her eyes as she felt him reach between their bodies. He gently pressed her legs further apart and she braced her feet flat to the mattress as his fingers slid inside of her, testing. Then his manhood followed, sliding slowly, ever so slowly, against her damp folds. She tightened her jaw against the stretching, burning sensation, her shoulders tensing.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered again, his whole body held taut above her.

  He drove forward and she felt a tearing deep inside, a flash of lightning-quick pain. She tried to hold back her cry, but it escaped her lips.

  ‘’Tis all right now,’ he murmured. His body went perfectly still against hers. His breath rushed against her skin, as if he held his power tightly leashed. ‘It will fade now, Alys, I promise. I will make it better.’

  He was right, it was fading. As he lay still, their bodies joined, she felt the pain slowly fade away, leaving only a tiny curl of pleasure low in her belly. She ran her hands down his back, feeling the hot, sweat-damp skin over his lean muscles, pressing him closer to her.

  He pulled back slowly and drove forward
again, a bit deeper, and that pleasure unfurled. Every movement of his body against hers, every moan and sigh, drove that pleasure higher, like a bonfire. It blinded her with its brilliant light, that hot spark of pure joy.

  They moved together, faster and faster, reaching for that sun. He suddenly arched above her, shouting out her name as he pulled out of her.

  Alys hardly noticed. Those sparks had blown into an enormous explosion of red-and-blue flames that threatened to consume her from within.

  Then everything fell into darkness. When she opened her eyes again, she found herself collapsed on the rumpled bedclothes, John beside her.

  His arm was close around her waist, holding her tightly. His eyes were closed, his breath laboured as if he too had felt that wondrous, devastating explosion of joy.

  ‘John...’ she whispered.

  ‘Shh...’ he said, not opening his eyes. He just pulled her closer, until she was curled against him. ‘Just rest for a moment, Alys my angel.’

  She closed her eyes again, resting her head on his shoulder as she felt the chilly air of the room beyond their bed brush over her damp skin. She would happily sleep for a moment, lay down all her worries and just stay here in his arms. She could happily do that for ever and ever.

  * * *

  John held Alys as she slept, listening to her soft breath, feeling her stir against him as the day slipped onward and evening gathered closer. They would have to part very soon, but he couldn’t let her go. Not yet. That hour with her had been the greatest of his life and he feared he would never know it again.

  Soon, all too soon, he would have to let her go; their magical hour would end.

  But it had been magical indeed and that was more than he ever thought he could have in the coldness of life. His sweet angel, his Alys, had been a gift in his lonely life twice now, a gift he did not deserve. He had never imagined he could feel this way about a lady, about anything. But the gift had come at a most complicated moment. He now had to keep her safe as well as do his task.

  He drew her closer, pressing a gentle kiss to her forehead. She murmured, her soft brow wrinkling in a frown, as if he interrupted a sweet dream.

  ‘It grows late,’ he whispered.

  ‘Too cold to get out of bed,’ she answered and burrowed closer to him under the blankets.

  ‘I would love nothing more than to stay here with you for days,’ he said and he truly did. The peaceful moments he found with her were the sweetest ever. ‘And for nights.’

  ‘That sounds delightful,’ she said. ‘But I am sure we would be missed long before that.’ She touched his cheek gently, tracing his features lightly with her fingertips. He caught her fingertip between his lips, making her giggle.

  ‘I should take you back to your chamber,’ he said reluctantly.

  She gave a sad little nod. She rolled away from him, sitting on the edge of the bed to reach for her discarded chemise and skirts. John thought the curve of her back was so wondrously beautiful, so pale and elegant as the length of her glossy dark hair draped over her shoulder.

  He sat up behind her, kissing the soft, vulnerable nape of her neck. She shivered and curled back against him as he wrapped his arms around her, holding her close. They sat there, bound together in silence, in that one perfect moment that was out of time, out of the dangers of the courtly world, and belonged only to the two of them.

  ‘I must go,’ she whispered. ‘I told Ellen I would be at the banquet tonight.’

  John hated to let her go out in a crowd such as that, vulnerable to the danger that always lurked around the Queen, as it had in the woods. But she was not alone now. He was always with her, even when she might not think it. Even when she came to hate him, as she surely would one day all too soon.

  ‘Be careful tonight, Alys angel,’ he said. ‘Always be wary.’

  She glanced back at him over her shoulder, a small frown on her brow. ‘I am always careful. What do you think will happen tonight?’

  ‘Nothing, I hope.’ He drew her close to him again for one more soft kiss. ‘Just be careful.’

  She wrapped her arms around him and hugged him back, her head nestled on his shoulder as if she had always been just there. As if she was meant to be just there. ‘I will be careful, John, if you will also.’

  He gave her a grin, one of the careless smiles that always disarmed and distracted. It did not this time, for her frown deepened. ‘I will be careful, too, Alys. I always am.’

  She just held on to him even tighter, and he admitted—he had never felt more at peace in his life.

  Until he knew he had to let her go. He reached down to help her gather her clothes—and he froze when he saw that her sleeve had a bow missing. A silver-satin bow.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Later that night, alone as he prepared for the night’s revels, John turned the silver-satin bow between his fingers and envisioned the place where it should have been on Alys’s sleeve. It had been Alys who came into his chamber and searched his things. Alys who put herself into danger here at court, playing a game she could not understand.

  But that had to end now. He had seen too many people hurt, even killed, by messing in courtly schemes. He would never see Alys one of them. His gentle, beautiful Alys—she was too good for that world and for him. He had used her badly.

  It would be so hard, to refuse that brightness she brought into every day when she was near, to turn away that glimpse of something good in his cold life. But he cared about her too much to selfishly hold on to her, no matter how much he longed to.

  She deserved better than him, than the life he led. He had to end it now, no matter how much it hurt him.

  * * *

  ‘Wassail, wassail all over the town, our bowl it is white and our ale it is brown! A wassailing bowl we’ll drink to thee...’

  Alys laughed with the other ladies as they made their way along the gallery to the Queen’s gift-giving and fireworks in the Great Hall. She worried she must look utterly silly, the way she had been smiling all afternoon as they got ready for the party, but she couldn’t help herself. That small, warm bit of happiness she hid deep in her heart couldn’t be repressed.

  She’d had little sleep. Even after she left John and crept back into the maids’ chamber, even after dinner and reading with the Queen, she had laid in her own bed and pressed her face to the pillow to keep from laughing at the delicious memories.

  She was surely now a fallen woman. But wickedness felt as if it was entirely worth it. Even now she seemed to float on a fluffy cloud of delightful secrets.

  They moved through the open doors into the Great Hall to take their places around the Queen’s dais. The room seemed transformed into a treasure cave, sparkling with the gifts laid out on the long tables. Jewels, gilded salt cellars and goblets, bolts of satin and velvet and pelts of fine fur, all sparkled in the torchlight. But even such riches couldn’t hold Alys’s attention as she searched the gathered faces for John.

  At first she could not see him, the crowd was packed so thickly, but then she glimpsed him with a group of men at the other side of the room. Her stomach lurched in a sudden jolt of pure excitement. Everything in her cried out to run to him, to throw her arms around him and kiss him. But the glittering crowd was there, watching, always watching, hoping for a scrap of gossip.

  Alys bit her lip to keep from smiling and slowed her steps to a near-crawl as she passed him. She hoped desperately he would see her and come to speak to her, give her some sign that their time together meant as much to him as it had to her.

  He did see her and he smiled, but it was not the joyful grin she had hoped for. It was quick, tight, vanishing in an instant.

  He excused himself from his friends and made his way through the crowd to her side. His hand pressed hers fleetingly, hidden by the heavy folds of her satin skirt.

&
nbsp; How very handsome he looked that night, the glossy dark waves of his hair brushed back to reveal the amethyst drop in his ear, the austere angles of his face. The gold embroidery on the high collar of his purple-velvet doublet set off his sun-tinged skin perfectly and he was every inch the stylish, sophisticated courtier.

  Yet Alys preferred him as he was earlier, when they were alone in his chamber, with his hair rumpled and his eyes heavy-lidded with sated passion.

  His smile then had been so different than it was now.

  ‘Lady Alys,’ he said quietly. ‘How lovely you look this evening.’

  ‘Th-thank you, Sir John,’ she managed to say, though her throat had gone dry.

  ‘Can you meet me later?’ he whispered quickly. ‘Here in the Great Hall, perhaps over by that tapestry, when everyone is outside for the fireworks.’

  Only moments ago Alys would have been overjoyed at such an invitation. Now she wasn’t so sure. ‘Of course.’

  He nodded and turned to melt back into the crowd, quickly lost to her sight. Alys felt a touch on her sleeve and she spun around to find Ellen watching her with a sympathetic smile.

  ‘Is anything amiss, Alys?’ she asked.

  ‘Nay,’ Alys answered brightly. ‘Not a thing.’

  * * *

  All the courtiers crowded close to the stone parapets, bundled in warm furs and velvet cloaks against the icy wind that blew off the river and passing goblets of warm, spiced wine between them. There was much laughter and exultation over the success of their gifts to the Queen and the fineness of hers to them. The tables of the Great Hall were piled high with jewels, lengths of brocade and satins, feathered fans with ivory handles, exotic wines, and silver plate.

  Alys automatically smiled and laughed with the others, but she was watchful, tense. John had not yet reappeared at the party and soon she would have to find him in the Great Hall. She sipped at her wine, trying to pretend she was not searching through the crowd for him. She could see little beyond the press of people. She drew her new embroidered shawl closer, a Christmas gift from her father that made her feel closer to him that night.