NOTORIOUS in the Tudor Court: A Sinful Alliance / A Notorious Woman

She drew in a deep breath of the cold, smoketinged air. She was surprised to find that she had caught her breath, that her lungs were expanding, opening up so she could smell everything. The clear breeze, the chimney smoke, the frosty river, the flowers slumbering under the ground. The stones and grass and wine. Nicolai’s scent, his hair and wrist and neck.

Her world tonight kept expanding and retracting in ways she could never have imagined. She remembered what it was to fly free in the dance, and now she twirled in a circle, her head tipped back to take in the night sky. The endless expanse of stars. She imagined herself soaring up into the endless blackness, free.

What had got into her tonight? The wine, the music? She could not fathom it. She could only twirl faster, her arms outstretched to take it all in.

The world would retract again soon enough, pull back inside to that one pinpoint that was her life—to deceive and defeat.

Nicolai laughed, catching her hands in his as she twirled. He tried to still her, but she would not let him. Instead, she pulled him into her circle, and they whirled and whirled until the sky and the palace and England itself were nothing but a buttery blur.

“Who is this mad creature?” he cried. Just like in the dance, he caught her around her waist, lifting her up and up until she flew into the sky. She lifted her hands as if she could grasp the very stars and pull them down to put into his beautiful hair.

“What has possessed you, Marguerite?” he said. “My wild rusalka.”

“I am possessed,” she gasped. She buried her fingers in his hair, the warm strands slipping silkily from her grasp. “Come, Nicolai, be mad with me. We shall have to be sane again soon enough.”

“I fear one of us will have to be sane right now,” he said, lowering her to her feet. “Or trouble such as we have never known in our very troublesome lives will descend on us.”

“Non, non,” she said, still caught deep in the moon’s spell. “Kiss me, Nicolai.”

“Marguerite…”

She grasped his hair again, and drew him toward her. Their lips met, and there was no practice to it, no artifice. Just a hot, blurry melding of their mouths, their passionate needs, so long denied.

She remembered Venice, how for one fateful moment she lost herself in him there. Just as then, she fell into him, into that bright essence of him, drowning, overwhelmed. She could not pull away, could not reach for her dagger. She threw herself heedlessly into him, deeply, madly. She held onto him as if she would never, ever let him go. She was his captive, but he would be hers, too.

He tried to draw away, to resist her. She could feel it in the tension of his shoulders, the supple arc of his back. She refused to let go, though, and he surrendered with a groan, falling into her as she did him. His arms closed around her, drawing her close against him, so close she could feel every inch of his body, every lean muscle and sharp curve, the heavy press of his penis through her skirts.

His lips dragged from hers, tracing fiery kisses to her jaw, her throat, the tiny fluttering pulse where her blood burned so hot just above her diamond. The plump curve of her heartbeat, concealed by her bodice.

How she wanted him! Every bit of him, his beautiful acrobat’s body, his laughter, his strength, his sex and, yes, his kindness, too. All that tenderness he showed Dona Elena and her son, she wanted it for herself. The terrible, desperate sense that it could never be hers, that it—he—was too good for her made her all the more desperate on this strange night.

She buried her fingers in his hair, pressing him closer to her heartbeat, the very life of her. “Mon ange, mon beau ange,” she whispered. And she meant it. Only an angel, or the worst sort of demon, could make her forget everything as he did.

He went still, perfectly still, his lips to her breast, and just like that she felt his soul fly away from her. It was as if her voice broke their spell. She clung to him, as he did her, his arms around her waist, his lips moving to the curve of her neck, their breath mingling. They were nearly as close as a man and woman could be, yet he was gone from her.

“Will you kill me now, Emerald Lily?” he said roughly. He slid his clasp to her hand, drawing her arm straight as he peeled back her sleeve to reveal the small blade strapped to her forearm. She had forgotten it was there, forgotten all but his kiss.

Now, as she stared down at the polished steel, she felt everything again. The cold night, the hollowness at her centre. She heard the distant thunder of revelry from the banquet house, and remembered where she was.

She pulled her arm away, shaking the sleeve into place. “If I had wanted to kill you tonight, you would have been dead long ago.”

“So, why am I not? What is it you want?” His Slavic accent, usually so faint, so lightly musical, was hoarser, rougher. He stepped back from her, wiping his lips with the back of his hand as if to erase the very taste of her.

Marguerite turned away, wrapping her arms tightly around herself. Her madness leached away, leaving her feeling brittle, angry. But angry at who, what? Nicolai—or herself?

She forced herself to laugh mockingly. “La, monsieur, I only desired a kiss! A kiss from a handsome man—is it so much to ask? So odd to you that it must be madness?”

He stood there in silence, just watching her as if to say he knew her too well now to believe that. To believe that her only motive could be a stolen kiss in the moonlight.

How infuriating he was, with those knowing eyes! How she wanted to kill him—or to weep.

But she would never give in to tears, especially not here and now. “I am sorry, monsieur, if I offended your modesty,” she said teasingly. “I assure you it won’t happen again. Now, shall we go back inside? I have an invitation to join Dona Elena for cards later.”

He gave her a low bow, his hand flourishing in a gallant, theatrical gesture toward the palace. “By all means, mademoiselle, let us go play games—of cards.” His voice lowered to a rough whisper, just loud enough for her to hear as she brushed past him, “But you know well this is not over.”

Ah, yes, she knew that all too well. This, whatever it was, would not be over until one of them was dead.

Chapter Nine

The scene in the Duke and Duchess de Bernaldez’s apartment was very different from that of the grand banquet hall. Indeed, it could almost have been taking place in an entirely different palace, Nicolai thought.

He gazed around the room as he strummed lightly at his lute, taking in all the people. The players in this little pageant. It was mostly the Spanish party, friends of the duke, the lilt of their Castilian accents soft above the music, the flicker of gilt-edged cards, the clink of golden goblets. Their laughter was gentle and muted, unlike the raucous banquet, the colours of their rich clothes subdued, glowing like ancient jewels. The whole room was dim, full of shifting shadows, hidden nooks that melted into the dark linenfold panelling.

Except for one spot of bright silver, where all the light in the room gathered. Marguerite Dumas. She sat at a table with Dona Elena and two of the Spanish gentlemen, her eyes demurely cast on to her cards, an untouched goblet of wine at her elbow. She never glanced toward Nicolai, not even the merest flicker. Yet that thin, shimmering, unbreakable cord that seemed to bind them since the moment they met tightened between them.

“How do you find England thus far, Señorita Dumas?” one of the men asked.

Marguerite smiled. “Very cold, señor.”

The others at the table laughed. “And not just the weather, si? The people are so strange, so rough.”

“Queen Katherine is very charming,” Dona Elena protested. “She has been most welcoming to my ladies and me, and her hospitality cannot be faulted.”

“Ah, but she is Spanish, is she not, my love?” her husband said from the next table. “The daughter of our own sainted Queen Isabella. Of course she will be charming and gracious! It is in her blood.”

“If not for her,” one of Dona Elena’s ladies said, “this place would be quite unbearable. They do not correctly observe etiquette. They do not even dance properly!”

“Poor Princess Mary,” another lady said. “Her mother does her best to raise her properly, I am sure, but to be trapped in such a barbaric place…”

“With women like that Boleyn creature, flaunting about,” a man added. “In Spain, such a thing would never be.”

“A virtuous and faithful queen would never be so disregarded,” Dona Elena agreed sadly. Then she brightened, laying down her cards. “Ah! A double six. I am in good fortune tonight.”

“And you, Señorita Dumas?” one of the men asked.

Marguerite shook her head. “Alas, I have not Dona Elena’s luck! The cards are against me.” She fanned her losing hand out on the table, studying their configuration wistfully. Her gaze lifted, meeting Nicolai’s across the room for only a moment. A quick flash, but long enough for him to see the hollow ache deep in those sea-green pools.

It seemed she found fortune against her tonight, in more than just cards. He remembered the mad fairy creature in the garden, twirling under the moon, arms outstretched to take in all the world had to offer. He remembered her lips on his, her hands grasping at his body, hungry, passionate, desperate.

It awakened an answering desperation in him, too, a feeling like a drunken craving deep inside. He wanted her, needed her, and not just her beautiful body, the fragile, fleeting allure of a lovely face. Her secrets, too. Her true soul, hidden so deep beneath deception and double-cross. He did not understand her, but he wanted to, so very much. And, for one moment in that winter garden, he felt he came so close.

Now, her gaze dropped back to the cards, and she laughed merrily. The gossamer cord slackened, and she was an opaque mystery again.

Surely he would never know what madness came upon her, upon them both, in the garden. She would kill him if she could, yet that cold fact never lessened the flame of pure need that seemed to flare up whenever they were near each other.

He would just have to take care not to come near her.

She was obscured from his sight by a line of pages bearing platters laden with more wine and fresh sweetmeats. Suckets of fruit in syrup, marchpane, jellies, “kissing comfits” made of sugar fondament, all to fortify the hungry gamblers.