Tarnished Rose of the Court

When he emerged into the corridor Celia was long gone. The music from the ball floated back to him, echoing off the walls, mocking him with its merriment. He could feel someone watching him, and spun around to find Marcus leaning against a marble pillar with his arms crossed over his chest. He arched his brow at John.

“Are your balls frozen off, then?” Marcus asked with a grin.

John shot him an obscene gesture and turned to stride away down the corridor. His friend’s laughter followed him.

It was certainly going to be a long and wretched journey to Edinburgh. Or were they all headed into hell instead?

Chapter Four

“Is this all of it, Mistress Sutton?” the maidservant asked as she fastened shut the travel chest.

Celia glanced around the small chamber. All of her black garments and his meagre personal possessions had been packed and carried away, and the box containing her few jewels and Queen Elizabeth’s documents was tucked under her arm. She had no more excuses to linger.

“Yes, I think that is all,” she said. She glanced in the looking glass. She wore a plain black wool skirt and velvet doublet for travel. Her hair was pinned up and held by a net caul and tall-crowned hat. She looked calm enough, composed and quiet, but part of her wanted to hide under the bed and not face the inevitable.

The past few days had passed in a blur of meetings with the Queen and Lord Burghley to learn more of her tasks in Scotland. She was to befriend Queen Mary, who was said to chatter freely with her favourite maids, and try to gauge her marital inclinations and report back to Elizabeth. To try and persuade Mary that an English marriage of her cousin’s choosing would be best for her. To watch and listen, which Celia had become very good at. A wary nature was always cautious of what would happen next.

But Elizabeth said Mary should wed Lord Leicester, and Burghley said Darnley. Celia wasn’t sure whom to incline Queen Mary towards—if the Scottish Queen could be “inclined” at all.

There had also been banquets and balls, tennis games to watch, and garden strolls, which she had tiptoed into as if they were the flames of hell. But the chief demon, John Brandon, had never appeared there to torment her. To draw her into quiet corners and reveal parts of her she had long ago encased in ice and buried. To watch her with those eyes of his that saw too much.

She wasn’t sure if she was grateful or angry he’d stayed away.

No doubt he has much to occupy him, she thought as she jerked on her leather riding gauntlets. Like saying farewell to all his amours.

Lord Burghley had said John would be her conduit in Scotland for any messages, so she knew she would have to face him eventually. Face what he had made her feel.

Celia stared down at the black leather over her palm and remembered the hard heat of him in her hand. The power and, yes, the pleasure she had felt in that one instant as he grew hard for her. The way she’d longed to pull away his clothes and feel him against her again. Part of her in every way.

She convulsed her hand into a fist. Maybe if she had crushed him, hurt him, she would be done with him now—as he had once been done with her.

But the feeling of his mouth on her, driving her to a mad frenzy, told her they were not done with each other. Not at all.

She spun around and snatched up her riding crop, cutting it through the air with a sharp whistle. She imagined it was John’s tight backside under the leather’s touch, but pushed away that thought when a disturbing spasm of desire caught at her. The less she thought of John Brandon and his handsome body and sweet words the better!

Celia hurried downstairs and out through the doors into the courtyard, where the travelling party was assembling. It was chaos, the long line of horses and carts struggling into place as servants loaded last-minute bundles and trunks.

Lord Darnley and his mother stood slightly apart from the others as Lady Lennox whispered intently into his ear. He nodded sulkily, his gaze straying to where his chosen companions played at dice on the steps. Though it was early in the day, and long hours of travel awaited them, they were all obviously inebriated.

Celia was thankful that at least her tasks did not include being nursemaid to them. She would just as soon they fell off their horses and froze in a snow bank somewhere.

She studied the rest of the people. Servants piling onto the carts and courtiers unlucky enough to be chosen for this journey finding their horses. Lady Allison Parker, another of Elizabeth’s ladies sent to cozen Queen Mary, was letting one of Darnley’s friends lift her into her saddle. She laughed as she settled her bright green skirts around her, flirtatiously letting the poor lad glimpse her long legs as her red hair gleamed in the greyish light.

Celia had the feeling she and Lady Allison would not become bosom bows on this journey.

Then she saw John, the merest flash of his light brown hair from the corner of her eye, and she stiffened. Every sense suddenly seemed heightened, the wind colder on her skin, the light brighter in her eyes.

She half turned to find that he stood near the front of the procession, holding the reins of a restless jet-black horse. He softly stroked the horse’s nose, crooning in its ear, but his eyes were on Celia, intently focused. His body was held very still, as if he waited to see what she would do. Which way she would jump.

Celia remembered her fantasy of her riding crop on his backside, and she felt a smile tug at her lips. Her gaze flickered down to his long legs encased in leather riding breeches and tall black boots.

When she looked back to his face some unspoken promise seemed to burn in his eyes. As if he could see her thoughts, her fantasies, and he was only waiting to get her alone to make them come true.

Celia spun away from him, only to find that Lord Marcus Stanville watched her from the doorway. She had seen him talking with John a few times. Obviously they were friends. Celia was inclined to like Lord Marcus, with his golden good looks and light-hearted demeanour, but she did not like the way he watched her now. Like John, it was almost as if he could see what she was thinking and it amused him.

“An excellent day for a journey, wouldn’t you say so, Mistress Sutton?” he said.

“If one enjoys freezing off one’s vital appendages, mayhap,” she answered tartly. “I would prefer staying by a warm fire, but perhaps you have different inclinations, Lord Marcus?”

He laughed, and Celia sensed John watching them. To her shock, Lord Marcus took her hand and raised it to his lips.

“I hope I am as adventurous as the next man, Mistress Sutton,” he said, “but I confess some of the finest adventures of all can be had by a fire. Still, we must all do the Queen’s bidding.”

“Indeed we must,” Celia said. “Whether we like it or not.”

“I admit I was not overly enthusiastic about this task at first,” Lord Marcus said. “But with you and my friend Brandon along it’s looking more promising than an afternoon at the theatre.”

Before Celia could demand he tell her what that meant, he took her elbow in his clasp and led her towards a waiting horse. He lifted her into the saddle and grinned up at her.

“Let the games begin, Mistress Sutton,” he said.

Celia glanced at John, where he still stood several paces ahead of her. He watched her and Marcus with narrowed eyes, and Celia was sure the games had begun long ago.

And she had the terrible certainty that she was losing.

Celia stared out at the passing landscape as her horse plodded along, and tried not to rub at her numb thigh. They had been riding for several hours now, and the cold and boredom had conspired to put her in a sort of dream state. There was nothing before or after this steady forward movement, only the moment she was in.

And it gave her far too much time to think.

She wrapped the reins loosely around her gloved hands and watched the bare grey trees on either side of the road. The wind moaned through the skeletal branches, almost like low voices carrying her back into the past.

She tried not to look back at where she knew John was riding, but she was always very aware of him there. In the quiet that had fallen since the cold had driven everyone into silence, she fancied she could almost hear him as he shifted in his saddle or spoke in a low voice to Marcus.

Celia shook her head. It was going to be a very long journey. She needed to keep her focus on the task that awaited her in Edinburgh. And on the reward Queen Elizabeth would give her if she performed the task well—a rich marriage where she would never have to beg for her bread again.

A rich marriage to some nameless, faceless stranger, which she could only pray would be better than her first. It was her only choice now. She had to survive, to keep fighting.

And when she looked at John she feared she would lose the will to fight. He had always made her want to surrender to pure emotion, from the first moment she’d seen him. A shiver passed through her as she remembered how he’d taken her hand that first day, how he’d smiled down at her as if he already knew her.

“Cold, Mistress Sutton?” she heard him say.

For an instant his voice made her think she had been hurtled back in time. She blinked and glanced up, to find that while she had been woolgathering he’d drawn his horse up next to hers. It was as if he could sense her vulnerable moments, the wretched man.

“Aye,” she said. “It feels as if I’ve been in this saddle for a month.”

A slight smile touched his lips, and his gaze swept down to where her legs lay against the saddle. The side pommel turned her towards him, her skirts draped over her legs, and she thought of how he had crawled beneath them at the ball. The touch of his hands and tongue …

Suddenly she was not cold at all. She looked away from him sharply, and to her fury she heard him give a low chuckle—as if he knew what she thought.