The Winter Queen

by Amanda McCabe

  His eyes narrowed, but other than that he showed no reaction. ‘Friends?’

  ‘I saw her yesterday, coming out of their apartments,’ she said. ‘And just now walking with Lady Lennox and Melville. Has she some Scottish connection?’

  ‘Not that I know of, but then I know so little of my English family.’

  ‘Could she…?’

  ‘Rosamund.’ He took her hand in his, holding it tightly. ‘I thank you for telling me this, but pray be very careful in these matters. I know not what game Celia is playing, but with all that has been happening here of late it cannot be good. I will look into it.’

  ‘But then you will not be safe!’

  He raised her hand to his lips, kissing her bare fingers warmly, lingeringly. ‘I have been taking care of myself for a very long time. But if anything happened to you I don’t think I could bear it. Promise me you will stay far away from Celia and her—friends.’

  Rosamund nodded, curling her fingers around his. He kissed them once more before he let her go. ‘Until tonight, then, my lady.’

  ‘Aye,’ she murmured. ‘Until tonight.’

  ‘One, two, three! One, two, three! And—jump.’

  At Rosamund’s words, Anton tried the cadence but landed wrongly, dragging her down with him. She fell to the floor in a tangle of silk skirts, arms and legs—again.

  ‘Oh!’ she said, laughing. ‘Perhaps it is time for a rest.’

  ‘Rosamund, I am so sorry,’ Anton cried, helping her sit up. ‘I knew you would come to rue the day you agreed to teach me to dance.’

  ‘I am not quite ruing it yet,’ she said, smoothing down her skirts. ‘You are getting better, I think. The volta is a very difficult dance.’

  ‘And you are much too kind,’ he said, sitting down beside her on the floor, stretching his long legs out before him. ‘I can only hope not to cause complete chaos when we dance before the Queen—or injure you before that.’

  ‘As for that, I am sure I’m safer here than in the maids’ apartments,’ Rosamund answered. ‘The Marys leap about, shouting and quarrelling all night long.’

  She leaned back on her palms, studying the tapestry-lined walls around them. It was nice in here, in Lord Langley’s cousin’s room, quiet and peaceful, far from the maids and the rest of the Court as they went to their late-night card parties and then stumbled home drunkenly. There was no fire, but those rich tapestries, the fine rugs on the floor and the exercise kept it warm.

  She wished she could just stay there with Anton, cocooned in their own little peaceful place, for the rest of the night. For days and days.

  Or at least until the Scots went home, and old Lord Pomfrey ceased to burst in on the maids in the altogether.

  ‘It is not so tumultuous in your own home, I’m sure,’ Anton said. He lay down on his side next to her, propping his hand on his palm. His hair was rumpled from their dance, falling in unruly waves over his brow. His fine satin doublet was unbuttoned, revealing his white shirt dampened by their exercise. The candlelight played over the planes and angles of his handsome face.

  It all felt so wondrously intimate, just to be so close to him. To feel his warm body next to her, keeping the cold night at bay as they talked. She felt she could tell him anything, share anything with him.

  ‘Ramsay Castle is very peaceful,’ she said. ‘I have no brothers or sisters, and so have always had my own chamber. I could read there in the evenings with none to disrupt me. But it can be lonely too.’

  ‘I, too, have no siblings,’ he said. ‘At our home, my father was often away and it was only my mother and me. And the snow and ice!’

  ‘No wonder you are such a fine skater, then.’ She wished he would tell her more, tell her all about his life. His past, his hopes, his wishes.

  ‘Aye, for there was little else to do.’ He smiled at her, but there was a melancholy tinge to it. A whisper of memories and regrets. ‘It was not like a true home.’

  ‘And that is why you want to dance well for the Queen?’ Rosamund asked. ‘In hopes it will persuade her to grant your petition for the estate?’

  ‘I doubt a fine leg on the dance floor will do that,’ he said ruefully. ‘At least, not on its own. But to gain her attention at every opportunity can only help, don’t you think?’

  Rosamund laughed. ‘Her Grace does seem to admire an athletic gentleman.’

  ‘And my pretty face?’ Anton teased. ‘Will that help too?’

  ‘You are pretty indeed, Master Gustavson, though I hate to inflate your pride to even greater heights by saying so. And I am not the only one to notice,’ she said. ‘You can’t fail but gain her attention. As for your petition—if right is with you, you definitely can’t fail. The Queen is just.’

  ‘My grandfather left it to me in his will,’ he said. ‘Surely that means right is with me?’

  ‘If the will is proper and legal. He must have meant you to have it. Yet you never met him?’

  He shook his head, lying down flat beside her. ‘Nay, though my mother spoke of him so often I felt I knew him. They used to go to Briony Manor in the summer when she was a girl, and she would ride with him and her brother over the fields and meadows. She loved it there.’

  ‘And that is why he left it to her—to you? It was her special place?’

  ‘I think so, and because her brother and his sons inherited their other properties and had no need of a smaller place like Briony.’ He reached out to stroke the edge of her white silk skirt between his fingers, studying it closely as if some secret was writ in the fine fabric. ‘Also, my mother and grandfather quarrelled about her marriage before she left England. She always regretted it, and hoped that they could reconcile. Perhaps this was his way of doing so.’

  ‘Oh, Anton.’ Rosamund slid down to lie on her side next to him, facing him. Her heart ached at his tale, at the thought of families broken apart by quarrels, by disagreements over romances and marriages. At a lonely boy growing up in the midst of ice and snow, longing for the green warmth of a land he knew only in his mother’s stories.

  Always searching, as she was, for a place to belong.

  He turned his head to watch her, his eyes so dark, so full of swirling depths. She felt she could fall into them and be lost, like plunging beneath the winter ice to find a whole new world. A place of unimaginable beauty, worth the danger of obtaining it.

  He rolled to his side, his palm reaching out to touch her face. His long fingers slid into her hair, loosened as it was by their dance, caressing, binding them together. Slowly, slowly, as if in a dream, he cupped his hand to the back of her head, drawing her closer.

  Her eyes closed tightly as he kissed her, as his lips touched hers, seeking her out hungrily. As if he had longed for her, only her, for so long, a starving man granted his one life-giving wish.

  Rosamund moaned softly, her lips parting as his tongue pressed forward, seeking hers. She touched the tip of hers to his lips, licking gently to taste the wine and sugared wafers from the banquet. To taste that dark bittersweetness that was Anton alone and was more intoxicating, more needful, than anything she had ever known. He tasted of the essence of life itself.

  Their tongues tangled, all artifice melting away in a torrent of sheer need, of primitive desire that washed away all before it. Come what may, ruin or wonder, none of it mattered when they kissed, when they touched.

  Through the shimmering, blurry haze of lust and tenderness she felt his fingers in her hair, combing free the last of the pins as he spread the pale strands over her shoulders. With a groan, his lips slid wetly from hers, and he buried his face in her hair, in the curve where her shoulder met her neck.

  ‘Rosamund, hjarta,’ he whispered against her bare skin. ‘You are so beautiful.’

  ‘Not as beautiful as you,’ she whispered back. She reached out for him, pulling him on top of her so she could kiss him again, could press her open, hungry mouth to his jaw, his throat, to the smooth skin revealed between the laces of his shirt. He tasted of salt, of sunshin
e, winter ice, candle-smoke and mint. She held onto him so tightly, closing her eyes to absorb all of him, his heartbeat, his breath, the wondrous, vibrant, young strength of him.

  He was beautiful, she thought, every part of him, body and soul. And she wanted him beyond all words, all rational thought. Beyond any realisation of danger or risk.

  ‘Alskling,’ he muttered hoarsely. His lips trailed down her bare neck, his tongue swirling in the hollow at its base where his life-blood beat. He kissed the soft edge of her breasts, pushed high by the beaded neckline of her 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 licked at the line of her cleavage, nipped at her breast then soothed the sting with the tip of his tongue.

  ‘I want to see you,’ he said.

  Rosamund nodded, mutely arching her back so he could loosen her bodice-lacing. The stiffened silk fell away with her thin chemise, and he drew it down until her breasts were revealed to him.

  For a moment, as he stared at her avidly, she held her breath. Were they not right? Too small? Not small enough? She had not bared herself thus to another person, not even Richard when he had pleaded with her. It had never felt right, safe, as it did now with Anton. But suddenly she was unsure.

  ‘So beautiful,’ he said roughly. ‘Rosamund, you are perfect, perfect.’

  She laughed, tightening her fingers in his hair and drawing him back down to her. His lips closed over her aching nipple, drawing and licking until she moaned in delight.

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

  She wanted him in every way there could be, every way she had read about, heard whispers of. She wanted only him, and it burned inside her like a bonfire.

  ‘Please, Anton,’ she whispered, throwing every caution to the four winter winds. ‘Make love to me.’

  He stared up at her, raising himself to his elbows on either side of her. His eyes were shadowed with a flaming desire that matched hers, a lust that was out of control. But there was also a flash of caution, and that she did not want. Not now. Not when she finally knew exactly what she wanted: him.

  ‘Rosamund,’ he said hoarsely, his accent heavy. ‘Have you been with a man before?’

  She shook her head, swallowing hard. ‘There was a—a gentleman at home. A neighbour. We kissed, and he—he wanted to do more. But I did not. I didn’t trust him, not really. I didn’t want him, as I do you.’ Richard had been a bluff boy; Anton was a darkly mysterious, alluring man, and her desire for him was that of a woman. She saw that now.

  ‘Hjarta,’ he said. He rolled away to sit beside her, but he still held her hand. They were still connected in that magical moment of growing certitude and undeniable need. ‘It will hurt the first time. And there could be—consequences. There are ways we can prevent it, but they are not certain.’

  Consequences, as with Katherine Grey and Lord Hertford? That was chilling indeed. But Rosamund was not the Queen’s cousin, and Anton was not an indiscreet fool. ‘I know,’ she said simply. ‘But I want you, Anton. Do you not want me?’

  ‘Want you?’ He ran his hand roughly over his face. ‘I burn for you, hjarta. I need you.’

  ‘Then it is right.’ She stood up, filled with the sure knowledge that this was right, that she and Anton were meant to be together, even if just for this one night. She reached for the tapes at her waist, intending to shed her heavy skirts, but her fingers fumbled at them. She was trembling too much.

  ‘Here, my lady, let me,’ he said softly. He rose to her side, his long fingers reaching out to deftly unknot the tapes. Her overskirt, her embroidered petticoat and the cage of her farthingale fell away. He finished unlacing her bodice too, and cast it away along with her sleeves.

  She stood before him in only her chemise, stockings and her heeled shoes.

  Anton slid down her body until he knelt at her feet. Gently, he removed first one shoe then the other, running his thumb caressingly over her instep, the sensitive curve of her ankle. His palm flattened and slid along her calf, the bend of her knee, slowly, slowly, until she could barely breathe.

  He reached the hem of her chemise, lifting it up, dragging it over her silk stockings until he revealed her garters, the bare skin of her thighs above. His fingertips just traced that line where skin met knitted silk, and Rosamund thought she might snap from the tension, the anticipation. Her womanhood felt damp, aching with heavy need.

  And then, at last, he touched her there. His fingers combed through the wet curls then pressed forward to circle one aching, throbbing point.

  Rosamund cried out, her knees buckling beneath her with the jolt of lightning-hot pleasure. Anton caught her up in his arms, carrying her to the alcove bed waiting in the darkness.

  He reached down to draw back the bedclothes before he laid her down amid the linens. As she pushed herself back against the bolsters, propped on her elbows, he pulled off his shirt, revealing his bare chest to her at last.

  The candlelight on the wall outlined him in a contrast of shadows and golden glow, his bare, damp skin glistening.

  He was well-muscled and lean from exercise, from a life lived outdoors, and his skin had a smooth, olive cast to it, roughened by a sprinkling of coarse dark hair. It arrowed down towards his hose, as if to draw her gaze.

  And she did stare. She had to; she could not look away. He was a truly wondrous sight, powerful and beautiful, like a god from his Norse homeland.

  He leaned onto the bed, bracing his palms on the mattress either side of her, holding her a willing captive. His head lowered, his mouth capturing hers in a passionate kiss. A kiss that blotted out everything else. There was no doubt or fear, only the knowledge that, tonight, she was his. And he was hers.

  He broke their kiss only to draw her chemise over her head and toss it away with his shirt. Her legs fell apart, and he eased between them, his body pressed to hers. Through the rough velvet of his hose, his penis was heavy and hard against her.

  She almost giggled hysterically as she thought surely he would not look like old Lord Pomfrey! Then he kissed her again and any need to laugh, or even think, fled.

  She wrapped her thighs around his hips, arching up against him, trying to feel yet more of him. His naked skin against her breasts made her cry out with need.

  His moans answered hers, his mouth trailing away to press the hollow just below her ear. His hot breath against her made her shiver, mindless with desire.

  ‘Ledsen, hjarta,’ he whispered. ‘I’m so sorry. I need you now.’

  Rosamund nodded, closing her eyes as she felt him reach between their bodies to unfasten his hose. His penis, long and thick, sprang out against her thigh. She was surprised at how it felt on her bare skin, like velvet over iron, at how hot it was, and how thickly veined.

  He gently pressed her legs further apart, and she braced her feet flat to the mattress as his fingers slid inside her.

  Then his manhood followed, sliding slowly, ever so slowly, against her damp flesh. She tightened her jaw against the stretching, burning sensation, her shoulders tensing.

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

  Then 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.

  ‘Shh,’ 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, hjarta, I promise,’ he soothed. ‘I will make it better.’

  He was right. As he lay still, their bodies joined, Rosamund felt the pain slowly fade away, leaving only a tiny curl of pleasure low in her belly.

  She r
an her hands down his back, feeling the hot, sweat-damp skin over his lean muscles pressing him closer to her.

  He pulled slowly back and drove forward again, a bit deeper, and pleasure unfurled. Every thrust, every movement of his body against hers, every moan and sigh, drove the pleasure to greater heights. It was like a brilliant strand of sunshine unravelling inside her, blinding her with its brilliant light, its hot sparks of pure joy.

  He suddenly arched above her, shouting out involuntarily as he pulled out of her.

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

  Then everything fell into darkness. When she opened her eyes, she found herself collapsed back onto the rumpled sheets, Anton stretched out beside her.

  His arm was around her waist, holding her close. She turned her head to see that he lay on his side, his eyes closed, his breath laboured as if he too had felt the same wondrous, devastating pleasure as she.

  ‘Anton…’ she said.

  ‘Shh,’ he whispered, not opening his eyes. He just pulled her closer until their bodies were curled together. ‘Just sleep for a moment, alskling.’

  Rosamund closed her eyes again, resting her head on his shoulder as she felt the cold night air brush over her skin. She would happily sleep for a moment, happily stay just here, in his arms, for all the moments to come.

  Anton held Rosamund as she slept, listening to her soft breath, feeling her stir against him as the night slipped away from them. The candles sputtered low, and the light at the window was edging from black into pale grey.

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

  But they had been magical indeed. Women had always been a large part of his life. He liked them, liked to talk with them, laugh with them and, yes, make love with them. Their minds worked in such wondrously subtle, fascinating ways. He loved to listen to their voices as they sang, loved their perfume, their laughter, their elegance. And they often seemed to like him in return.

  Yet never had he met a lady who made him respond as Rosamund did. He found himself so completely fixated on her, wanting to be with her all the time. When she laughed at his jests, his spirits soared. And when they kissed…