“It’s barely five.” He reached for her. For a moment she held back, confusion, distress, anger twisting in her heart and her head. He smiled at her, a little questioning smile, and without volition she went into his arms. It was as if she had no will. She clung to him, quivering with longing, aware of the urgency of her need, of the little time they had together. The first birdsong of the predawn chorus came through the window as he dropped to the floor with her.
“Kneel up, sweet.” He turned her with his hands at her waist so she had her back to him. He pushed her shift to her waist, caressed her flanks, slid a flat palm between her thighs, stroking deeply in the hot wet furrow of her body. She groaned, fell forward with her hands on the floor, her back dipping as, shamelessly wanton, she pushed backward, opening herself to his caresses.
With one hand he continued to play with her as he tore open his britches, releasing the aching shaft of flesh. Then he held her hips and slid within her slick and welcoming body with the sigh of a man who has come home.
She rose with him on the tide of ecstasy, her bottom pressed into his belly, reveling in the bruising grip of his fingers on her hips. Little sobs of delight broke from her lips and he moved one hand to grasp the back of her neck, his fingers pushing up into the tumbled fall of her hair. And then her knees gave way and she slipped to the floor beneath his weight, her face pressed to the rug, as the waves broke over her. She tightened her thighs around him, holding him within her, reveling in the deep throb of his flesh, and then he withdrew and she felt the hot stickiness of his seed bathing her bottom and thighs.
Anthony rolled sideways until he was lying beside her on the rug. He reached out to stroke the curve of her cheek, lifting a lock of damp hair from her forehead. “I don’t know what you do to me, my flower. But when I’m with you I’m as uncontrolled as a virgin lad with his first whore.”
Olivia chuckled weakly. “I don’t know quite how to take that.”
“No, perhaps it didn’t come out quite right.” He propped himself on an elbow and lightly stroked her shoulder, her upper arm, feather-light brushes of his fingertips.
Olivia rolled onto her side facing him.
Surely she could manage to separate this glory, the wonder of this loving, from the wrong that he had done. Piracy, smuggling, they excited her, she embraced them as part of her lover. Why should the other thing be any different?
“Why so serious all of a sudden?” He touched her mouth.
“It’s near dawn.” She struggled to her feet, shaking her shift down.
Anthony rose, fastening his britches. “Something more than the dawn is troubling you, Olivia.”
“Why do you say that?”
He caught the long black cascade of her hair and twisted it around his hand, drawing her to him. “Do you think, after what we’ve shared, that I am not aware of every change in your mood, every shadow in your eyes? Something is troubling you. I knew it at the castle.”
Olivia regarded him without speaking for a minute, then she said, “Your little game seems to be working. They were discussing you at supper. Rufus, my father, and Channing…” She shuddered. “You really have them all fooled. They dismissed you as a nonentity.”
“Good,” Anthony said, frowning at the bitterness of her voice that seemed to have come out of nowhere.
“You’re going to try to outwit my father, and what for? I know you’re not doing it because you believe it’s the right thing to do. You’re just doing it because it’s amusing and I suppose someone’s paying you. You are a mercenary, after all.”
Anthony’s eyes hardened, and when finally he spoke, it was with a rough edge to his voice. “You don’t appear to know me as well as you thought. As it happens, no one is paying me. Indeed, it’s costing me a small fortune. I am not totally without loyalties, my dear Olivia, whatever you might think. Someone very close to me wishes me to do this. I would not disoblige her.”
Olivia looked at him. “Who? A wife?”
“I am many things, Olivia, but not a betrayer of women.” His voice was icy and Olivia understood that she had touched some deep wound.
She looked out at the faint gray light beyond the window, uncertain what to say or do next. It seemed he had an honorable motive for what he was doing for the king. Loyalty to friends or family. But what difference did that really make to her? In colluding with him, she was betraying her father. Betraying her father for a wrecker.
“What
“This. You. Now,” he replied.
She turned then to face him. “It’s not enough, Anthony. How is it that I can feel what I do for you when everything about you is so wrong!” It was an anguished cry, her great dark eyes gazed at him, desperately seeking an answer to her question.
But he gave her none. He looked at her for a moment, his eyes now distant. When finally he spoke, his voice was even, neutral almost. “I will ask only that you keep what you know of me to yourself.”
She nodded. There was nothing further to say.
“Thank you.”
And he was gone.
Olivia stood in the empty chamber, her ringers pressed to her mouth, her eyes tight shut as if she could somehow banish the pain, control the wretched confusion of her emotions. Then, shivering, she crept into bed.
“So, Lord Channing, how goes your pursuit of Lady Olivia?” The king spoke idly from his carved chair, where he leaned back at his ease, ankles crossed, one beringed hand dangling from the chair arm, the finger and thumb of his other stroking his neat pointed beard. His eyes held a slightly malicious glitter. He was bored and in search of amusement.
“I thought she looked most uncomfortable in your company last evening,” he continued. “Could it be that she’s proving a difficult conquest?”
Godfrey flushed. It was never pleasant to be the butt of the king’s wit. When the king laughed, others laughed with him. He caught a couple of surreptitious smiles, a few behind-the-hand whispers. Everyone was watching him, waiting for his response.
He gave an unconvincing laugh. “The lady was not feeling too well last evening, Sire. I believe like so many young ladies she is inclined to the megrims. Her mood will be altogether changed when next I see her, I assure you.”
His gaze fell upon Edward Caxton and once again he was troubled by the sense of familiarity. Caxton’s smooth countenance gave him no clues, however. Indeed, if anything, it seemed even more vacuous than usual, as if its owner were absent from the present proceedings.
“A changeable maid, is she?” the king mused, still with that glitter in his eye. “Have a care, Channing. A wife with the megrims can plague a man to death, isn’t that so, Hammond?”
“I’m fortunate not to know, Sire,” the governor said, drawing a laugh from the assembled company. “But Lady Olivia is as rich as she’s beautiful. Compensations, eh, Channing?”
Everyone was laughing now and Godfrey had no choice but to laugh with them. “Wives can be trained,” he said, and was disconcerted when the king threw his head back and roared with laughter as if Godfrey had made the most exquisite jest.
The others joined in and Godfrey was left wondering what on earth was so funny about such a truth.
“No, no, Channing. It’s husbands who are trained,” the king said, wiping his eyes. “You will learn, dear boy.”
Godfrey smiled awkwardly, concealing his fury. To be mocked in this fashion was insupportable.
Behind the bland exterior, Anthony was watching Channing carefully. He understood as did no one else in the king’s presence chamber that the lordling was a bad man to make a fool of. He read the chagrin, followed quickly by fury, in Godfrey’s eyes. He saw the white shade around his thin mouth, the little twitch of a muscle in his cheek, even as with an unconvincing bray he joined in the laughter at his expense.
Anthony had decided he would move against Channing in some secret fashion as soon as he could. He had to be kept away from Olivia certainly, but he was also a wrecker and he had to be stopped. An accident or an abduction would be simple to arrange. They could spirit the man away on a French smuggling vessel. Although such a fate was probably too good for him.
Anthony’s lip curled as he contained his impatience. He had no wish to be here playing the pointless game of fawning courtier. His plans were well laid; the king was ready. His Majesty knew what to do when the time came. They waited only for the new moon. But Anthony knew that if he suddenly ceased his sycophantic attendance on the king, it would be noticed. Those responsible for keeping the king’s person secure were alert to the slightest sign of anything unusual.
So far he had played his part well. He knew he’d been investigated. As part of his cover he rented lodgings from a couple called Yarrow in Newport. He had known them for many years, their son had sailed with him several times, and he knew they would have given nothing away. They certainly wouldn’t tell anyone that their so-called lodger had never yet laid his head on the pillow in the chamber abovestairs. The chamber itself would reveal nothing beyond the obvious possessions of a country squire whose conceit was fed by the illusion of being the king’s confidant. There were plenty like him, fawning upon the king in his imprisonment, ignoring the fact that if His Majesty were at liberty, holding court in his palaces, they would never be admitted within the gates.
The king refused to have the windows opened around him, and the heat in the room was growing intense. A fly droned. Anthony swallowed a yawn. He’d had no sleep the previous night. By the time he’d left Olivia, day was all but broken. He’d just managed to get over the wall before the dogs were released. They had caught his scent and followed it to the wall, where they’d jumped and barked uselessly as Anthony rode off.
He had thought to catch a nap for an hour or two in the morning, but sleep had eluded him. He understood Olivia’s difficulty with divided loyalties, but he didn’t understand the depths of the bitterness that had fueled her attack. She had been accusing him of something else, something more than simply being her father’s opponent. She had said everything about him was so
It was such a denial of what he had believed they shared. Such an abrupt turnabout from the idyllic day and night they had spent on the beach and at Portsmouth.
Once before, she’d withdrawn from him without explanation, and he still had none, although he’d pushed it to the back of his mind with the resumption of their loving. But this attack he was not going to suffer in silence. There had been no time last night, and he’d been
“I would have music, Hammond,” the king declared with a yawn. “Gentlemen, leave me. I would soothe my soul with music.”
The assembled company bowed and filed from the chamber as the musicians entered. The governor took a seat on the opposite side of the chamber from His Majesty and rubbed his eyes wearily as the three players tuned their instruments.
“Guarding your sovereign is proving somewhat tiring, I see, Hammond,” the king observed with that same slightly malicious glint.
“It is my duty to my sovereign, to the Parliament, and to the kingdom to use the utmost of my endeavors to preserve your person, Sire,” Hammond returned, sitting up straight in his chair.
“But a sadly wearisome duty it is,” the king said, and this time Hammond made no demur.
Godfrey strode down the staircase into the great hall. He wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. It had been hot as hell in the upstairs chamber, and the mockery he’d had to endure had set up a fire in his belly that raged like a furnace.
