Amanda McCabe - Christmas At The Castle - Tarnished Rose of the Court / The Laird's Captive Wife

Celia’s gaze trailed over the Countess of Lennox, a great, large woman in black who stood near another wall and studied the revels with her lips pressed tightly together. She gave Celia a quick nod before turning to her son. Lord Darnley sulked and drank by her side, though even Celia knew he would not be there long. He could not stay away from his debauched pleasures for more than an hour.

He was handsome, Celia would admit that—very tall and lean, with golden hair and fine Tudor features. But, like his mother’s, his mouth had a cruel cast that Celia recognised all too well. She didn’t trust him, and she didn’t know what game Queen Elizabeth played with him, Leicester and Mary.

She definitely did not know why she had to be involved in the messy quagmire. But beggars could not be choosers.

“Good evening to you, cousin.” She heard a deep, quiet voice, lightly touched with a Scandinavian accent, behind her.

She turned to face the very man she had once blamed for that beggaring: her cousin Anton Gustavson. They had never known each other; his mother—her father’s sister—had married a Swedish nobleman and disappeared to the frozen north before Celia was born. Then he’d appeared here at Court, with a party sent to woo the Queen on behalf of the Swedish King—and to claim a family estate Celia had hoped to have for her own. The last remnant of her family’s lost fortune.

She had blamed Anton bitterly for this final disappointment. But now, as she looked into his wary dark eyes, she could no longer blame him. He sought his own redemption here in England, and perhaps he had found it with his new estate and his Lady Rosamund.

Celia still had to find hers.

“And good evening to you, too—cousin,” she said. “Where is Lady Rosamund? Everyone says you two are quite inseparable of late.”

“Not entirely so,” Anton said. He gestured towards the dance floor, now a whirling stained-glass mosaic of brilliant jewels and silks. “She is dancing with Lord Marcus Stanville.”

Celia saw that Rosamund did indeed dance with Lord Marcus, their two golden heads close together as he whirled her up into the air.

“Lord Marcus Stanville—one of the greatest flirts at Court,” Celia said as she finished her wine and exchanged the empty goblet for a full one. “I’m surprised.”

Anton laughed. “Rosamund is immune to his blandishments.”

“But not to yours?”

He arched his dark brow at her. “Nay. Not to mine. We are soon to be married.”

Celia swallowed hard on her sip of wine and carefully studied the dancers. A cold, hard knot pressed inside her, low and aching. Once she’d had the foolish hope she could marry someone she loved too.

“My felicitations to you, cousin,” she said. “Surely you did not expect quite so much here when you left Sweden?”

“I had hoped to find family here,” Anton said. “And you and I are all that is left. Can we not cry pax and be friends?”

Celia studied him over the silver rim of her goblet. Aye, he was her family. All she had. For an instant she thought she glimpsed a resemblance to her father in his eyes, and that hard knot inside her tightened. How she missed her family sometimes. She was so alone without them.

“Pax, cousin,” she said, and slowly held out her hand to him.

Anton gave a relieved laugh and bowed over her hand. “You are most welcome at our home at any time, Celia.”

Celia shook her head. “You needn’t worry, Anton. I shall not be the dark fairy at the feast. The Queen is sending me on an errand, and I probably shan’t be back for some time.”

A frown flickered over his face. “What sort of errand?”

Celia opened her mouth to give some vague answer, but she stopped at a sudden sensation of heat on the back of her neck. She pressed her fingers over the spot, just below the tight twist of her hair, and shivered.

She glanced over her shoulder and met John Brandon’s bright blue eyes staring right at her. Burning. His head tilted slightly to one side, as if he was considering her, as if she was a puzzle, then he moved towards her.

Celia reacted entirely on instinct. She shoved her empty goblet into Anton’s hand and said, “Excuse me. I must go now.”

“Celia, what …?” Anton said, his voice startled, but Celia was gone.

She only knew she had to run, to get away, before John could catch her and strip her soul bare with those eyes as he had come so close to doing earlier.

The hall was even more crowded and noisy than before, and Celia had to elbow her way past knots of people. She was a small woman, though, and slid past the worst of the crowds and into the corridor. She could still hear the high-pitched hum of voices, but it seemed muted and blurred, as sounds heard underwater. The air pressed in on her, hot and close.

Yet she could still vow she heard the soft, inexorable fall of his boots on the floor, coming closer.

“I am going mad,” she whispered. She lifted the heavy hem of her skirts and hurried to the end of the corridor, where it turned onto another and then another. Whitehall was a great maze. It was quieter here, darker, the narrow, dim length lit at intervals by flickering torches set high in their sconces. She heard a soft giggle from behind one of the tapestries, a low male groan.

She didn’t know which way to go, and that moment’s hesitation cost her. She felt hard fingers close over her arm and spin her around.

She lost her footing and fell against a velvet-covered chest. Her hands automatically braced against that warm, solid wall and a diamond button pressed into her soft palm. It was John. She could smell him, knew his touch. The hawk had swooped down and caught its prey.

She forced herself to freeze, to go perfectly still and not panic and run again.

“Do you have an urgent appointment somewhere, Celia?” he asked quietly. “You certainly seem in a great hurry.”

Celia tried carefully to move away from him, slide out of his hold on her arms, but it seemed she was not unobtrusive enough. His other arm came around her, a steel bar at her back.

She eased her hands down his chest, and that hold tightened and kept her where she was. Her head was tucked under his chin, and she could feel the strong, steady beat of his heart under her palm.

Her own heart was racing. She couldn’t breathe too deeply because his scent was all around her. She closed her eyes and sought out the icy centre that had held her together all these years. The distance that had saved her. It was not there now. He had torn it away.

“I am tired,” she said. “I merely sought to retire. There was no need to chase me down like this.”

John gave a low, rough chuckle. “Usually when a woman runs like that she wants to be chased.”

“Like a doomed deer on the Queen’s hunt?” Celia choked out. She had been on such hunts, had seen Queen Elizabeth cut the fallen deer’s heart out. Celia had thought she herself had no heart left to be ripped out. It seemed she was wrong. There was still one small, hidden part of it, bleeding, and he was dangerously close to touching it again.

John had surely chased scores of eager women since they had last met, and held them thus. Kissed them in the darkness until they happily bled for him too.

“I am not most women,” she said, and tried once more to wrench out of his arms.

He only held her closer, until she felt her feet actually leave the floor. Lifting her in his arms, he carried her backwards until she felt the cold stone wall at her back, chilly through her brocade bodice.

Her eyes flew open to find he had carried her into a small window embrasure, where they were surrounded by darkness and silence.

“Nay,” he said. “You, Celia Sutton, are quite unlike any other woman in all England.” His voice held the strangest, most unreadable tone—bemused, angry.