A VERY TUDOR CHRISTMAS

by Amanda McCabe

  She pressed her back to the locked door and stared at him in the flickering shadows. The candlelight carved his face into stark, elegant angles and cast his eyes into mystery.

  “I think you will have to ask your cousin that, fairest Meg,” he answered, far too composed for her liking. There was even a hint of amusement lurking in his voice. “And my kinsman Lord Ellingham. He was the one who led me here.”

  Beatrice and Ellingham, conspiring together in this prank? Meg almost laughed. It was so silly, if it wasn’t also so infuriating! What could Bea possibly be thinking? “Why would they do such a thing? Bea is mischievous, ’tis true, but not cruel.”

  Meg closed her eyes. Nay, Beatrice was not cruel. So whatever her intent was in this prank, it was because she thought she was being kind. Had Meg somehow showed her feelings for Robert to her cousin? She had always been so careful not to speak of him to anyone.

  Yet here they were, together, alone, with nothing but the hurts of the past lurking between them like a gray ghost. Meg studied his face, so close yet so far. He was not the beautiful, laughing young man she remembered, and had cherished so secretly in her memories. He was harsher, darker, with secrets of his own in his eyes. He drew her to him even stronger than before, in a way she had never known before.

  “It’s been so very long, Meg,” he said roughly. “I thought about it, wondered how it would be when we met again at last.”

  He had thought about her, as she had him? Against her will, Meg found herself intrigued, curious. “Is—is this how you imagined it?”

  He laughed, the rich, deep sound all-enveloping in the small room. “Not in the least. But you are more beautiful than ever, Margaret. And I know your tender heart is still in there.”

  Suddenly, in one lithe, swift movement, he was across the room and at her side.

  With a rough groan, he dragged her against him and covered her lips with his. As his tongue slid into her mouth, she met him eagerly, longing for the emotions only he could make her feel.

  No matter how they had come to this strange, unreal moment, no matter what would come after, she knew she needed him. It had been coming for such a very long time, and now it was upon them.

  His fine velvet doublet had been unfastened, and she pushed it off his shoulders. It fell to the floor and she slid her hands under his thin linen shirt to touch the warmth of his bare skin. She wanted more and more of him.

  “Meg,” he whispered. “Are you sure?”

  But she didn’t want him to talk. She didn’t want anything to yet intrude on this dream.

  She nodded, and in answer he kissed her again, roughly, nothing held back. Her head fell back as his tongue plunged deep into her mouth. She met him with her own bound-up passion, her arms holding on to him tightly as she dug her nails into his back through his shirt.

  He picked her up off her feet and whirled her around until they tumbled together dizzily to the floor. She was vaguely aware that Beatrice and Lord Ellingham must have left them provisioned, for they didn’t land on a cold, bare wooden floor. There were soft blankets piled there, and her foot pushed over a jug of wine with a metallic clatter. But then Robert was over her, above her, and he was all she knew.

  He tore his shirt off over his head and tossed it away before he leaned back into her. He kissed her throat, the soft skin swelling above the pearl trim of her bodice.

  “How have you become even more beautiful?” he whispered.

  Meg longed to believe him, to believe this moment was real. But she couldn’t hear his words just then. She wanted nothing to mar her dreams.

  “Shh,” she said. Her hand slid along his strong, muscled back, and skimmed over his hard backside before she traced the band of his breeches and tugged their laces free. Maiden she might have been but few others at court were, and she had listened to their chatter about the bedchamber. And she had imagined just such a moment with Robert for too long.

  His manhood sprang free from the fabric confines, hard as iron. She traced her fingertips lightly over its hot length, and he groaned deeply. Bolder, she touched him closer, up and down, fascinated by it. By him.

  “If you don’t stop, fairest Meg,” he said hoarsely, “I fear this will be over before it begins.”

  Meg laughed, and suddenly everything was wonderfully real. He pulled out of her arms and stood to hastily divest himself of the rest of his clothes. Soon he stood before her splendidly naked, his bare skin turned golden by the candlelight.

  “I—I feel rather overdressed now, I fear,” she said.

  Robert laughed. “Let me help you with that, then.”

  He drew her up beside him and unlaced her fine bodice, her satin skirts and farthingale. As the garments fell away, she suddenly felt shy, unsure. She shivered, half-drawing away from him.

  But then his lips touched the bare curve of her shoulder, and the cold uncertainty turned to the fire of need. She trembled as he traced the tip of his tongue over her skin, as he drew the jeweled pins from her hair and let the length of it tumble free. His breath caught, grew rough, and she knew he was as enraptured by the moment as she was.

  She lay back in the blankets and stared up at him in the flickering light. He studied her, too, and she could only hope he enjoyed what he saw as she did with him. He was so glorious, like an ancient god, and for that night he was hers as she had dreamed of for so long.

  She held out her arms to him and he came to her, kissing her lips, her neck, her shoulder, the softness of her bare breast, until she could bear it no longer.

  She wrapped her legs around his lean hips and pulled him against her. His skin was satin-smooth, hot, damp. She traced her eager touch over his back, his strong shoulders. She pressed her lips to the pulse at the base of his throat, tasting the salty-sweetness of him. She craved him like she never had anything else, needed him.

  “Meg,” he whispered. He buried his face in the curve of her shoulder, holding his body taut above hers. “Have you dreamed of this as I have?”

  “Yes,” she gasped, but then she could say no more. She could hardly breathe as his mouth, open and hot, slid over her skin. He swept aside her tumbled hair to kiss the shell of her ear.

  She felt the rush of his breath, the light bite of the edge of his teeth on her soft earlobe, and it made her shudder with a lightning-rush of heat. She arched up into him.

  “Do you like that, my Meg?” he said.

  “I feel as if I’m falling,” she gasped as the room seemed to whirl around her.

  “I’ll be here to catch you.” His fingertip slid between her parted legs, tracing her seam before he slid deep into her wet core. And Meg let herself fall free into the pleasure.

  “Please, Robert,” she begged, wanting so much more.

  His breath was ragged as she spread her legs farther and pressed himself between them. His hips drew back and slid forward, and she felt the stretch and burn as he slid inside her. She gasped at the new sensation, the fullness of him joined with her at last.

  He plunged past her maidenhead and he went very still.

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” he said, his arms rigid as they braced against her.

  “It’s better now,” she whispered. Afraid he might leave her, she tightened her legs around his hips to hold him with her.

  And it was better. The burning ache faded as her body grew accustomed to his, leaving only an enticing glimmer of sparkling pleasure. Leaving only him and her together.

  He drew back one slow inch at a
time, almost sliding out of her before he flexed his lean hips and drove deep again.

  “Oh!” Meg gasped as he moved again and again, faster, deeper. That twinkling heat of pleasure grew and grew, expanding low inside her until every part of her ignited to fiery life. She instinctively learned his rhythm and met him as they moved together, faster, more frantic.

  Behind her closed eyes there were sparks of gold and silver, shining, burning. She heard a strange humming in her ears, growing louder in a rising chorus. She cried his name aloud, wanting more and more. More of him.

  Then all thought, all sense, flew apart as those sparks exploded. She felt as if she was soaring free into the sun.

  Above her, Robert shouted out her name, his back arching, his head thrown back in abandoned pleasure. He fell to the blankets beside her, their arms and legs entangled.

  Meg slowly sank back down to earth from the stars. She had never felt so tired and light—so confused and giddy. She was with Robert now, in a way she never could have imagined. She didn’t know what would happen tomorrow, or even in the next hour.

  But right at that very moment, she knew she was where she should be.

  Chapter Six

  “Surely they will be missing us by now,” Meg murmured as she stretched luxuriously and curled back into Robert’s arms. Their little prison chamber was chilly with no fire, but his lean, muscled body was warm wrapped around hers. She couldn’t quite care that someone missed them, not with him so close to her.

  She couldn’t quite care if she ever got out of that room at all.

  Robert’s fingers toyed lazily with her loosened fall of hair, wrapping the strands over his throat and his naked chest. “I doubt it. Peter snatched away my costume for the masque, which I was carrying when he and his ruffian friends shoved me in here. I’m sure he and your cousin have found replacements for you in your part.”

  Meg laughed. Surely one Knight of Apollo or Hour of the Night looked the same as another behind the gilded masks. “Then we must have another hour at least before they release us and explain their behavior.”

  “Are you sorry not to have your moment of glory before the queen?”

  “Moment of glory?” Meg propped herself up on her arm to gaze down at his face in the dying candlelight. How handsome he was, her knight, gilded golden in the light, his hair tousled and his eyes lazy and smiling. She could never have dreamed they would end up in such a place. “I would rather stay here forever than face another moment in such a crowd. I’ve had my fill of such ‘glory’ over the last few years.”

  Robert reached up to trace his fingertips over her cheek. “Do you not like your court life, Meg?”

  “I like it well enough sometimes. The people can be amusing, and I enjoy the plays and the music,” Meg answered, thinking back to how she had lived since she last saw him. “But for all the time—nay. It grows wearisome then. There is no place to rest or think.”

  “I want to hear about everything you have done,” he said, drawing her back down against his shoulder. “The people you have met, everything you’ve thought and dreamed of...”

  Meg laughed. “My life has been dull indeed compared to yours. I want to know all about your travels. Such strange lands you have seen.”

  Robert grinned down at her lazily as his fingers traced a light pattern over her bare shoulder. “’Tis true I’ve seen much. Golden palaces in France, streets made of water in Venice. Snow as deep as a man’s head in Muscovy. I have enough tales to bore you for many evenings to come, Meg. When we are old and gray by our own fire.”

  Many evenings to come? Did he, could he, mean that? Meg scarcely dared hope. “I want to know...” She suddenly remembered something he had said, a few vital, fleeting words before they were parted in the great hall. She sat up straight, drawing the edges of the blanket around her shoulders as she stared down at him. “What was that about a letter, Robert?”

  He sat up beside her, bracing his forearms on his knees. His face looked solemn. “The letter I sent you three years ago, the night my parents came to Clifford Manor. I have cursed myself a hundred times since then for being such a coward as not to tell you those words myself. But I feared if I saw you again, I would never be able to leave you. And I had to prove myself to you first. Prove I was worthy of you. My family had no money, you see, and I had to make our fortune.”

  “Worthy of me?” Meg whispered, bewildered, hopeful, scared. “I never got such a letter. I’ve spent so long trying to forget your kiss. Trying to tell myself I could not be worthy of you.”

  Robert’s hands suddenly clenched into fists, his jaw growing tight. “Then I am a double-damned fool, Meg, for what I did. All this time we would have known, planned...”

  “Nay!” Meg reached up to press her fingertips to his lips, stopping his words. A surge of pure, warm, summertime joy flooded through her, washing away the misery and loneliness. “Surely it is enough that we know all now. And, with thanks to our interfering cousins, we have had this night.”

  Robert took her hand in his, holding it as tenderly as if it was the most fragile, precious jewel. “Is this one night all you want, Meg?”

  “It is more than I ever thought to have,” she said. “I know the truth now, and I can be free. So can you.”

  “I never want to be free of you. Not for a single night again for the rest of my life.” His fingers tightened on hers, and his eyes closed as if he struggled with his words, with the flood of emotions rushing over them both. Just as she did. All she could do was hold on and let it carry her away.

  Meg was sure all of it was a wonderful dream, too perfect to be real. Yet their touch, the warmth of his body close to hers, it felt so very real. So true. Just as she had imagined it in her most secret fantasies.

  “I can make a home for us now, Meg,” he said. “The queen is to give me an estate of my own. A place only for us, where we can belong together. Where I can spend years making up for my foolishness three years ago. If you will only let me try.”

  “Let you?” Meg felt the tears she had held back for three long years fall free, warm and healing as they dropped on their joined hands. Like a benediction for their future. “Oh, Robert. All that matters is now, you and me. Everything that we can do together.” She gave a choked laugh. “All the evenings you will bore me and our children with tales of your travels.”

  “Then, Mistress Margaret Clifford,” he said solemnly, with a catch of tears in his own voice. “Will you do me the honor of giving me your hand in marriage?”

  Meg looked up into his brilliant blue eyes. She had prayed for just such a moment when they’d first met, but she knew that only now could it have been so very right. So perfect. They’d had to be ready for each other, and now they were. It was perfect.

  “Yes, Robert Erroll,” she answered. “I will marry you. At last.”

  Robert laughed and swept her into his arms. “Then I can tell you one more secret.”

  “No more secrets, I beg you!” Meg cried, holding on to him very tightly.

  “Oh, you will like this one, my love,” he said with a wicked grin. He reached down into the folds of his doublet and pulled out a shining brass key. “I have had the key to this room all along....”

  * * * * *

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  ISBN-13: 9781460322161

  Copyright © 2013 by Amanda McCabe

  All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.