Christmas At The Castle: Tarnished Rose of the Court / The Laird's Captive Wife

Celia rose slowly from her stool and curtsied, her legs trembling and unsteady. She still could not quite believe all that happened in this strange short meeting. Her worries of having no home or income had been whisked away, only to be replaced by the sudden reappearance of John Brandon and a journey to Scotland to spy on Queen Mary. Her head spun with it all.

She would have laughed if it was not so coldly serious.

John bowed to the Queen, and the major-domo came forward again to lead them away. He took them not to the crowded presence chamber but through a hidden door into a small, dimly lit closet. After the brightness of the privy chamber Celia could see nothing but the shadow of heavy tapestries on dark wood walls.

She rubbed her hand over her eyes and took a deep breath. When she looked again the servant was gone—and she was alone with John.

He watched her closely, his lean, muscled shoulders tense and his handsome face wiped of all expression.

“Hello, Celia,” he said quietly. “It has been a long time, has it not?”

Chapter Two (#ulink_27b63791-7bc2-5888-b2ec-e37dbfb6e63a)

Celia stared up at John in the shadows of the closet. The faint, hazy bars of light fell over his face, and she saw that the years had changed him just as they had her. He was leaner, harder, his eyes a wintry, icy blue as they studied her warily.

Once she had thought those eyes as warm as a summer sky, melting her heart, piercing all her defences. But now her heart was a stone, a heavy weight within her that was numb to all feeling. It was better this way. Feelings were deceptive, treacherous. Never to be trusted.

Especially when it came to this man.

Celia stepped back until she felt the hard wood panelling of the wall against her shoulders. He didn’t move, yet his eyes never wavered from her face and it felt as if he followed her. It felt as if he pressed up against her in that dim, quiet light, his hard, hot body touching her as it once had. Demanding a response from her.

She twisted her hands into her skirts, struggling not to look away from him. Not to show her weakness.

“Aye, it has been a long while,” she said, once she finally found her voice again.

The last time she’d seen him he had been kissing her beneath that tree, their secret meeting place. His body had held her against the rough wood of the trunk, just as she braced herself to the wall now. He had kissed her, his mouth and tongue claiming hers, demanding she give him all her response as he dragged her skirt up, baring her to his touch. There had been such a wild desperation between them that day, a need such as she had never known. He had made her dream of a romantic, glorious future with him.

And the next day he was gone. Vanished without a word.

“Yet not nearly long enough,” she said coldly. “I thought never to see you again.”

His glance swept down over her again, taking in her austere gown, her ringless fingers, the tight, smooth twist of her hair. For an instant another image flashed in her mind. John taking her hair down, freeing it from its pins and running his hands through its heavy length. Calling it a fairy queen’s hair as he buried his face in it …

Those all-seeing blue eyes focused on her face again, narrowing as he watched her closely, as if seeking her thoughts. Once she had gifted him with all she was, given herself to him in every way.

She hoped she was no longer such a fool. She looked back at him with a steady, cool daring. Let him try to read her, play her again. The besotted, silly, giddy Celia he’d once known was gone. John had killed her—with the able assistance of her wretched husband and foolish brother.

“I’ve thought of you, Celia,” he said.

She quickly scrambled to cover her surprise at his words. He had thought of her? Surely not. Unless it had been to chuckle at her naivety. The country girl who had fallen so easily for his charm, his dalliance to pass the time of rural exile.

Celia laughed. “I would have thought Court life would be far too busy for any idle nostalgia, John. So many tournaments to win, ladies to woo. I’m sure every moment is filled for a man of your … assets.”

She let her gaze drift down over his body—the long, lean line of his legs in his tall leather boots, the snake-like hips and powerful shoulders. The years had not softened him one bit.

Her stare slid over the bulge in his breeches and she had to turn away. She remembered that part of him all too well … hot velvet over steel, sliding against her, inside of her.

“Aye,” she said tightly. “You must be busy indeed.”

Something seemed to crack in his iron control then. As fast as the strike of a hawk diving for its prey he seized her arms in his hard hands and held her against the wall. Those blue eyes she had thought so icy burned down at her in a white-hot blaze.

Celia could feel her own carefully built walls slipping and she struggled to hold onto them. Nay, this could not be happening! Five minutes in John’s presence could not be destroying all she had built up to protect herself. She twisted away from him but he wouldn’t let her go.

“Let me go!” she cried. His hands just tightened, holding her between the wall and his body. The heat of him, the vital, fiery life that had always been a part of him, wrapped around her like velvety unbreakable bonds. She remembered the tenderness, the need she had once felt with him.

“What has happened to you, Celia?” he said roughly.

“What do you mean?” she gasped.

She went very still and stared at the hard angle of his jaw above the high collar of his doublet. A muscle flexed there and his lips were pressed in an angry line. She imagined twisting her hands in that collar, tighter and tighter, until he let her go. Until she could hurt him as he had once hurt her.

“You look like the Celia I remember,” he said. One hand slid slowly down her arm, rubbing her velvet sleeve over her skin until he touched her bare wrist. Something flared in his eyes as he felt the leap of her pulse, and he twined his fingers with hers.

Celia was too frozen to pull away. She felt like the hawk’s prey in truth, mesmerised as he swooped closer and closer.

“You’re even more beautiful than you were then,” he said, his voice softer and deeper. “But your eyes are hard.”

Celia jerked in his arms. “You mean I am not a foolish, gullible girl who can be lured by a man’s pretty words? I have learned my lesson well since we last met, John, and I’m grateful for it.”

He raised the hand he held to study her fingers. The pale skin and neat buffed nails. His thumb brushed over her bare ring finger. Celia tried to twist out of his caress, but despite his deceptive gentleness he held her fast.

“You aren’t married?” he asked.

“Not any longer,” she answered with a bitter laugh. “Thanks to God’s mercy. And I intend never to be again.”

He raised her hand, and to her shock pressed his mouth to the hollow of her palm. His lips were parted, and she could feel the moist heat of him moving slowly over her skin. It made her legs tremble, her whole treacherous body go weak, and she braced herself tighter against the wall.

That weakness, that rush of need she had thought she was finished with, made her angry. She made herself go stiff and unyielding, building her defensive walls up again stone by hard-won stone.

“I may have changed, John, but you certainly have not,” she said coldly. “You still take what you want with no thought for anyone else. A conquering warrior who discards whatever no longer amuses you.”

His mouth froze on her skin. Slowly he raised his head and his stare met hers. She almost gasped at the raw, elemental fury she saw in those depths. The blue had turned almost black, like the power of a summer storm.

“You know nothing of me,” he whispered, and it was all the more forceful for its softness. “Nothing of what I have had to do in my life.”

I know you left me! her mind cried out. Left her to the cruel hands of her husband, to a life where she had nowhere to turn for sanctuary. She bit down on her lip to keep from shouting the words aloud.

“I know I do not want to work with you on the Queen’s business,” she said.

“No more than I want to work with you,” he answered. With one more hard glance down her body, he abruptly let her go and spun away from her. His back and shoulders were rigid as he raked his hands through his hair. “But the Queen has commanded it. Would you go against her orders?”

Celia braced her palms against the wall, trying to still the primitive urge to smooth the light brown waves of his hair where he had tousled them. “Of course I would not go against the Queen.”

“Then to Edinburgh we go,” he said.

He heaved in a deep breath, and Celia could practically see his armour lowered back into place. He shot her a humourless smile over his shoulder.

“I shall see you at the ball tonight, Celia.”