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

“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.

“We are almost to Harley Hall,” he said. “We’re to stop there for the night.”

“Hmph. One night to get warm, and back out into the cold tomorrow. Is that kindness or cruelty?”

“To taunt us with a taste of what we can’t have?”

Celia looked back at him, startled by the tension in his low voice. But his expression was entirely bland as he looked back at her.

“If it becomes too unbearable, Celia,” he said, “you’re welcome to ride pillion with me. I would gladly keep you warm.”

Celia gave an unladylike snort and stared straight ahead. She couldn’t keep the image of his words out of her head—herself perched before John on his saddle, his arms wrapped around her as he rested his chin on her shoulder, his breath warm against her ear.

She thought if she ignored him he would leave, perhaps go and flirt with Lady Allison, who kept giving him sidelong glances. Yet he stayed by Celia’s side, riding along in silence for long moments.

“Do you live entirely at Court now?” she finally said, to break the silence and the thoughts in her head.

“Most of the time. Except when my estate requires my attention, which is not very often,” he answered. “It is the only life I know. Why do you ask?”

“I have been at Court for many weeks now, and yet you only appeared that day I met with the Queen.”

“So you had begun to think you could avoid seeing me again?”

Of course that was what she had thought. But she said nothing.

“Celia, surely you knew we would meet again one day?” he said. “Our world is too small to avoid each other for ever.”

“I did think I would never see you again,” she said. “I am a country mouse and you—well, after you left so abruptly I did not even know where you went. You could have sailed off to the land of the Chinamen or some such thing.”

“I did not want to go,” he said suddenly, fiercely.

Celia turned to him, startled. His eyes were icy blue as he stared back at her.

“I had no choice,” he said.

“And neither did I,” Celia answered. She had tried to wait for him, had believed he would return. But as days and then weeks had passed, with no word at all, she had seen the truth. He had left her. She was alone.

Suddenly it felt as if a knife’s edge had passed along the old scar and it was as raw and painful as when it was fresh. She pressed her free hand against her aching, hollow stomach.

“After you left … after I had to marry …” After her brother and the destruction of her family. “I had to marry Thomas Sutton. His family had wanted an alliance for a long time, though mine was wary of them. But after what happened to my brother I had no choice in who to marry. We had to agree to the union.”

“Tell me about your marriage, Celia,” John said, and she could still hear that hoarse edge to his voice.

A tense stillness stretched between them.

It was hell. A hell she had only been released from when Sutton died. She had gone on her knees in thanksgiving at her deliverance. But she couldn’t say that to John. She was already much too vulnerable to him.

She shrugged. “It was a marriage like any other, but blessedly short.”

“Is he the reason you wanted to twist my manhood off when you had it in your hand?”

Celia gave a startled laugh. “I think you yourself would be reason enough for that, John Brandon. And that was not exactly what I wanted to do with it.”

He looked at her from the corner of his eye, that half-smile touching his lips as if he too had a few ideas about ways she could make use of him.

“Have you never married, John?” she asked. But did she really want to know the answer? She hated the thought of him uniting his life with another woman.

“You know I have not. I haven’t the temperament for it.”

“Who does, really? It is merely a state we must endure—unless we are Queen Elizabeth and can make our own choice,” Celia said wistfully.

“Yet you will let the Queen arrange a new marriage for you, despite what might have happened in your first?” John sounded almost angry. She could not fathom it—could not fathom him.

Celia shrugged again. “I have no choice. Briony Manor went to Anton, and I have little dower. I will endure.”

“Celia …” His hand shot out and he covered her hand with his, holding tight when she tried to pull away. “Tell me what happened with Sutton. The truth.”